First Planted Tank Attempt

ratumoko

AC Members
Aug 26, 2006
16
0
0
Western Colorado
This is my first attempt at a planted tank. All my other tanks are Cichlids, and I have a Pacu in a 180g. I picked up the tank for $50USD, so I thought it a good start.

I am very open to suggestions.

Tank is a 55g with an undergravel filter.

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Brown is Substrate, and the white is gravel.

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uh.....I think some family pictures made it on there too lol. Anyway, I think I had that same tank once and it was a 44 gallon tank. I would check the dimensions. The hood on mine had a spot for two 18" fluorescent fixtures to go, but the tank only came with one. I bought a second and so I think I was at 30 watts of light for a 44 gallon tank. I grew java fern and anubias (In the substrate, which was sand) with root tab fertilizer, no co2 and they grew absolutely awesome, but really slow. In fact when I broke the tank down and sold the plants back to the LFS, they said they had never seen java fern or anubias barteri in such good shape. They broke my anubias into two parts because it had grown to the top of the tank over a 5 year period. I got 60 bucks for the plant! The java ferns got a couple bucks a piece. I think I walked out of the LFS with 150 bucks in store credit for all the plants I had. It was a jungle of java fern and a very large anubias! It's going to be low light for sure with the stock lighting, but you could do whatever you want with a fixture hanging on the top. Of course it's a deep tank, so you will need a good type of light to penetrate if you want any glosso or the like. It depends on what you want to grow. Obviously higher light your talking more fertilizing and more money with co2 and the equipment that goes with it. In my tank, like I said, it was low tech all the way and I had beautiful discus. I had 5 discus in my tank, and cory adolfoi.
 
I would pull it. My parents use one and I tell them their dumb because ever so often they have to clean the filter because it starts to kill helpful bacteria when it gets super loaded


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I agree with cradleman. I would get rid of the undergravel filter.
 
It's a beautiful tank...... congrats!

Yes, take out the UGF. If you don't, you'll eventually have to uproot your plants and break down the tank to clean under it anyway. Much easier to get that out of the way at this point than after it gets established.

Stick with basic low light plants only as were already recommended. Aquatic mosses do well in low light conditions too. Even with those, I'd also explore your options to increase the amount of light on this eventually because it is a very tall profile and not much of the light will reach the bottom.

Keep us updated as you go!
 
nice start, + ? on removing UGF

just a side question, is that a pacu in the 55G?
 
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