attempt at a planted 55gal (build thread pic heavy)

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shortdariwanda

AC Members
Apr 10, 2009
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Orlando, FL
A noob at this planted tank thing, but I've been planning it for a while and I bought the tank purely with the planted tank in mind. I finally had a week off to gather my things together and worked on this today. I don't have all the plants I want to get but I want to see how these will fare in my care before I go off and get some more.

Substrate is Caribsea eco-complete and Caribsea instant aquarium-crystal river. At the moment, I have Seachem root tabs as the only plant fert, but I do have a very low-tech C02 ready to go if I need it. The only plants are Amazon swords, anubias, very tiny java fern that's rooted to a piece of driftwood and one random wisteria that was my experiment plant. It's the Coralife FW Aqualight Single Linear Strip CF. 2 65watt cf bulbs, so a total of 130watt.

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How my tank looked before
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My fishies are inside a plastic container with a battery-operated bubbler. I use this container when I think I'm going to have to travel far to get some new fish. I actually used this when I first had to transport them from their previous home and where they are now. (bought the whole setup with fish from a lady on CL and had to lug it all over piece by piece to my house which was approx 40 mins away)
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Used the sand bank from fosterandsmith.com as a divider between eco and the sand because I didn't really have anything else to separate them and the paint from that decoration seemed to be eaten... (from my golden CAE perhaps?) Anyway, it's quite effective.
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I was going to get pool filter sand or play sand but I didn't trust myself to bleach safely and I thought the grain was too fine, so I just went ahead and bought a bag of this.
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That little dish in the aquarium definitely helped lessen the displacement of the gravel when I was filling the tank back up. BTW I love the python.
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Cleared up slightly after about an hour and my fishies are exploring their newly landscaped watery home
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Those floating fuzzy specks are defrosted spirulina brine shrimp for my fishies to eat and de-stress, along with some stress coat and cycle
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The plants on the sand side is actually fake. Hahah, I'm such a cheater
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I just hope I can maintain the plants now. :)
 
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You think my fishes will have enough O2 without it? When I first set up the tank(this was before the plants), I didn't have a bubbler, and my fishes were gasping. I had to run out at get the bubbler. I know plants give off oxygen, but I don't know if it's enough. I have a canister filter and the output hose is submerged.
 
To clear something about oxygen. There's a lot of misconception about the need for a bubbler. Speaking to a local LFS owner about it, (hes been keeping fish since he was 9, and is one of the top 3 fish breeders in Canada) he told me that gas exchange only requires the surface of the water to move. As long as the water is moving enough oxygen will be plentiful. He told me that extra aeration is only needed when a tank is overstocked, or plants are taking too much oxygen out of the water during night time. He also went to say that high temperatures causes oxygen levels to drop so you might want to check out your temps.
 
does stress coat have aloe vera? i think i read that aloe vera actually irritates the fish to get the fish to produce more slime coat... imo this is actually stressing the fish more?
 
Looks like a good start.

Your fish will be fine without the bubblers. The plants will use up all the available co2 and give off o2 as well as any surface movement. Also, any of your plants that you have currently would do quite well on the left side in the sand as well. They are all very easy to keep and basically are just drop in and watch grow.

If you wanted to see faster growth I would recommend some ferts. I use dry ferts and have great results. The next step would be to add the co2 that you mentioned you have. co2 combined with the ferts would yield great growth. Most of my tanks are jungles and have to trim the plants all the time with my co2 and ferts.

The planted tank can be as easy or hard as you want to make it. With the lights you have and addition of ferts and co2 I would say that you could grow pretty much most any plant if you wanted.
 
That's the thing. I don't really have a lot of water movement on the surface of the water because the output hose is completely submerged. My temperature is ideally about 77. Stress coat does have aloe. According to the packaging, it's supposed to help with the slime coat. I believe Melafix also says the same thing on their packaging. I've heard from several people that aloe is supposed to help with the slime coat... Stress coat hasn't killed any of my fish or stress them out so far.
 
shortdariwanda said:
That's the thing. I don't really have a lot of water movement on the surface of the water because the output hose is completely submerged. My temperature is ideally about 77. Stress coat does have aloe. According to the packaging, it's supposed to help with the slime coat. I believe Melafix also says the same thing on their packaging. I've heard from several people that aloe is supposed to help with the slime coat... Stress coat hasn't killed any of my fish or stress them out so far.
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I wouldn't worry about the oxygen levels at the temperature. Fish usually start gasping for air at around ~82 ish with no surface movement and healthy stocking. This highly depends on your tank setup, but unless you plan on cramming your tank with fish, you should be ok. The one thing to be careful of is to make sure your surface doesn't get an oily buildup from high-protein foods, as this can affect oxygen exchange.

As far as CO2 goes I wouldn't bother, considering your plant stock and your tank size. Using a low-tech setup for a 55 would mean you'd need a ~4 bottle setup to put a dent into CO2 levels, which is expensive and a pain as it is.

I personally wouldn't add stress coat, but that's just me. The more unnecessary chemicals you add, the more starting points new problems can come from. :worthy:
 
I'm planning on adding two more fish to what I have listed on my sig (hopefully the LF BN plecos from someone here) and that'll be that. I plan on getting a couple more plants later on, depending on whether or not I'll be able to maintain what I have now. I've turned off the bubbler and is going to keep on eye on my fishes, since I'm going to be home all day.
 
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