40 Gal Planted

[dannyboy402]

Hey guys! I've been gone for a while! But i'm back and I had to move to england for a while lol. Stuff here is so much different but their fish game is on point! They have all of the fish we have and some that I've never even seen before so it's pretty cool. But here's my 40 gallon I started! Enjoy!

Here's the tank when it was first started. The lighting on it sucked so I upgraded it to new bulbs and balast

Here are some of the inhabitants I've got in it:






Another thing, have you guys ever kept any dwarf baby tears? Mine were ok for the first few days but after that it started melting :/ I read that most of HC is grown emmersed and when it's submerged that it will melt because its not used to being underwater. I've dosed ferts and some root tabs also and it's the only plant that hasn't been doing well.
I changed the lighting to a T5HO yesterday so I hope my plants do better now. I'm gonna add C02 soon also.


Here's the HC the first day:


Here's the tank now:
And here it is now:

 

[carolinyens]

crypts will do the same thing. I was thinkin about gettin a few crypts and grownin them emersed til I was able to start up a new tank but I have heard that they will melt when going from emersed to submerged. Im sure there are other plants that also do this. Its just a waiting game to see if they will survive. If your seeing new growth then I think theyll do fine.

 

[bgourami320]

My HC looks just like your second picture. I don't have enough lighting. I figured I'd just give it a try.
I think Iim going to take mine out. I hear the lfs's in England are great. Have you found any
really interesting ones?

 

[dannyboy402]

My sterbai cory cat keeps nipping at the HC too but idk if he's actually eating the leaves off of it or eating the decaying stuff....

 

[bettalover77]

IDK about the HC, but I lived in england for a while when I was 3 to 7 years old, and sometimes travel back to see friends. My mom grew up in england so we go there to see friends and family, but back to point, in oxford there is an awesome aquarium store called 'The Fish Bowl' or something like that!

 

[stormywendyann]

You have some amazing looking stock in your tank. Very colorful. What are they? Hope I don't sound too stupid, but I have never seen them before.

 

[cradlefan]

I think most likely not enough light. I had a ton of light over my 10 gallon to get it to grow......They are pretty demanding of light especially.

 

[dannyboy402]

Yeah maybe. I have a t5 ho setup now so we'll see how that goes. Im gonna start up my co2 in a few days when i can get to the store.

 

[dannyboy402]

They're dwarf cichlids. Apistogramma.

 

[cradlefan]

Are you using inert tahitian moon sand? If yes, did you put any type of root fertilizer in the substrate? Also, it might make it easier to grow if you individually plant the HC, separate each and plant. When it's in a clump like that, it's hard to get the roots deep enough. Planting individually with tweezers you can push down into the sand much easier. Just grab by the root base and shove in the sand.