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Thread: My first planted tank

  1. #1
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    My first planted tank

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    Advise, comment and critics welcome. I hope to accelerate my learning path with all your inputs

    After weeks and weeks of dosing my myself with reading articles, forum, watching videos and shopping for equipments, I finally took my first step yesterday night.

    Spec and Detail:
    - Tank: 60x45x45 (120litres)
    - Lights: Custom dimmable LED light (made by Chong99 from Arofanatics Forum) - likely will go for 2 period of 4hrs light per day.
    - Substrate: ADA Aqua Soil
    - Rocks from OTF

    Equipments yet to setup:
    - Eheim pro 3 600 canister filter
    - ANS CO2 system with up aqua online diffuser

    Fert EI Dosing Method:
    - KNO3 Liquid (I have question about this in another topic: http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...k-NO3-Solution)
    - K2HPO4 powder
    - CSM+B Trace powder


    ImageUploadedByTapatalk1446181218.606035.jpg
    Does anyone knows what rock is this? Is it inert?

    Attachment 51017
    Attachment 51018
    Attachment 51019
    Attachment 51020

    Is my scaping and arrangement ok? Anyway to make it better?

    Plants
    - I am totally noob when comes to plants and their names. At the moment I only know I want Monte Carlo as carpet for the front portion. Any suggestions?

    Looking forward for the replies


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  2. #2
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    Re: My first planted tank

    Looks good.. maybe you can try re-positioning the main focus rock structure behind abit more to the left or right, like slightly off center.

    See if you can use the golden ratio concept: http://www.thegreenmachineonline.com...ng-perspectiv/

    Ultimately it all still depends on the layout you personally like, so just have to try different layouts and see which appeal to you.

    As for those rocks you are using, they are commonly refered to as "seiryu" rocks, very popular for aquascapes. They will naturally release minerals into the water column over time, so do expect pH and GH to increase gradually, though how much and how fast it will occur will depend on the soil buffer lifespan and the ratio of rock volume.

    Micranthemum 'Monte Carlo' (aka MC) is a good choice for a planted tank carpet, although its leaves are larger than HC, MC is less demanding and easier to grow.
    :: Urban Aquaria ::
    www.urbanaquaria.com

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    Re: My first planted tank

    Oh, let me try rearranging a bit.

    By the way, I heard ADA soil are quite milky after adding water. Do u wash the sponge in the canister filter?


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    Re: My first planted tank

    Quote Originally Posted by kaen130 View Post
    Oh, let me try rearranging a bit.

    By the way, I heard ADA soil are quite milky after adding water. Do u wash the sponge in the canister filter?


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    It should be pretty clear if you pour water very very very slowly onto your rocks to allow it to flow down very very very very slowly to the substrate

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    Re: My first planted tank

    Quote Originally Posted by Ingen View Post
    It should be pretty clear if you pour water very very very slowly onto your rocks to allow it to flow down very very very very slowly to the substrate
    Ok will try. Thanks


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    Re: My first planted tank

    Quote Originally Posted by kaen130 View Post
    By the way, I heard ADA soil are quite milky after adding water. Do u wash the sponge in the canister filter?
    It depends on how you add water into the tank... most people pour water into the tank while the soil is still dry, that kicks up a lot of the soil dust and particles, even if the water is spread out with a plastic sheet or cover.

    The method i've found that works to get crystal clear water from the start is to simply mist the soil first, then add the plants. After that, trickle in an initial bucket of water using a silicon air line hose and flow control valve (same way as doing drip acclimation for livestock). Once around one-third of the tank is filled up, then proceed to use a cup and resume pouring water slowly into the tank. It takes abit more time but in this way there is minimal disturbance to the soil and you will get clear water from the start.

    You can have a look at how i trickle fill my tanks during initial setup: http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...607#post743607

    As for the sponges in the canister filter, the coarse blue pre-filter sponge ring should be rinsed and washed with old tank water or dechlorinated water during filter maintenance. The white fine filter wool pad should be thrown away once it turns brown, and then replaced with a brand new white filter wool pad (it will be too clogged up to wash effectively, the fine particles will stay stuck inside).
    :: Urban Aquaria ::
    www.urbanaquaria.com

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    Re: My first planted tank

    Quote Originally Posted by Urban Aquaria View Post
    It depends on how you add water into the tank... most people pour water into the tank while the soil is still dry, that kicks up a lot of the soil dust and particles, even if the water is spread out with a plastic sheet or cover.

    The method i've found that works to get crystal clear water from the start is to simply mist the soil first, then add the plants. After that, trickle in an initial bucket of water using a silicon air line hose and flow control valve (same way as doing drip acclimation for livestock). Once around one-third of the tank is filled up, then proceed to use a cup and resume pouring water slowly into the tank. It takes abit more time but in this way there is minimal disturbance to the soil and you will get clear water from the start.

    You can have a look at how i trickle fill my tanks during initial setup: http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...607#post743607

    As for the sponges in the canister filter, the coarse blue pre-filter sponge ring should be rinsed and washed with old tank water or dechlorinated water during filter maintenance. The white fine filter wool pad should be thrown away once it turns brown, and then replaced with a brand new white filter wool pad (it will be too clogged up to wash effectively, the fine particles will stay stuck inside).
    Thanks UA, will have a look at the link provided


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    Re: My first planted tank

    Quote Originally Posted by kaen130 View Post

    Plants
    - I am totally noob when comes to plants and their names. At the moment I only know I want Monte Carlo as carpet for the front portion. Any suggestions?

    Looking forward for the replies
    Monte Carlo is a good choice...it carpets really nicely and is a fresh green colour. It is the foreground plant of choice for most of my tanks. The leaves remain quite small with regular trimming. I have tried HC : too difficult as the tank does not have chiller. It just melts away. Also love glosso: but i don't have success with them as my lights are not strong enough and they grow upwards instead of carpeting as a result. Christmas moss as foreground carpet is nice, but the colour is too dark and not too my taste

    monte carlo tank.jpg

    I have tried planting them in clumps, as well as individual strands. Although tedious, planting individual strands seem to give a more balance carpet effect. A few will float up daily, but be patient and replant them till they all take root. This tank has CO2 supplementation but is grown at room temperature.

    But quarantine them well or you might end up having the problem of Utricularia gibba, a long stringy growth this tank suffers from. Or just invest more in buying the culture grown ones from Dennerle or Tropica. See this thread:

    http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...stringy-growth

    Monte Carlo on another tank. This is about two months old

    mc2.jpg
    (front view)

    MC1.jpg
    (top view)

    I straight away planted it emersed, as I am not a fan of the DSM method. This example of monte carlo grown from trimmings taken from the first tank. What I have realised about growing monte carlo is that at first it does not seem to grow or carpet. But be patient and it will suddenly grow and carpet at a very fast rate once it gets used to the water in the tank, I suppose.

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    Re: My first planted tank

    Thanks Azman Haron.

    Any place locally to get plants cultured by Tropica or Dennerle?


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    Re: My first planted tank

    I find that your rocks are a little small..
    do you have anything that prevent the slope from moving down? if not, when you add water, the slope might be flattened.

    as for MC, you can get from C328 or East Ocean they do sell them.

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    Re: My first planted tank

    Quote Originally Posted by kaen130 View Post
    Thanks Azman Haron.

    Any place locally to get plants cultured by Tropica or Dennerle?

    I have bought some cultured plants from Fishy Business.... they don't always have the plant you want in stock though. Call them first

  12. #12
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    My first planted tank

    Quote Originally Posted by Urban Aquaria View Post
    Looks good.. maybe you can try re-positioning the main focus rock structure behind abit more to the left or right, like slightly off center.

    See if you can use the golden ratio concept: http://www.thegreenmachineonline.com...ng-perspectiv/
    Is this better? Do u think I need more soil at the side?


    Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkImageUploadedByTapatalk1446218249.681776.jpg
    Last edited by kaen130; 30th Oct 2015 at 23:17. Reason: Forgot to attach photo

  13. #13
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    Re: My first planted tank

    Quote Originally Posted by kaen130 View Post
    Is this better? Do u think I need more soil at the side?


    Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkImageUploadedByTapatalk1446218249.681776.jpg
    Looks good!

    Soil height seems to be okay, i guess you are going for a mountain peak look?

    Btw, those small low lying rocks around the larger rocks will probably end up being covered by the carpet plants, maybe can look at propping them up so that they can sit up taller... so that when the carpet plants grow in more parts of the small rocks can still be visible.

  14. #14
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    Re: My first planted tank

    Yes a mountain peak look. I was trying to do a slope from both corner to center, but I can't get a good scape out of it.

    Let me try to see what I can do with the small rocks.

    Thanks!

    As for planting:
    Attachment 51027

    I had done a draft sketch of the concept how I'm planning to plant.

    - Any comment on plant placing? Hope to get some suggestion on this part=)

    - What are the recommended red plant and background green plant which is not that difficult for beginner to maintain?


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    Re: My first planted tank

    Quote Originally Posted by kaen130 View Post

    As for planting:
    - Any comment on plant placing? Hope to get some suggestion on this part=)

    - What are the recommended red plant and background green plant which is not that difficult for beginner to maintain?
    I think this scape has the potential to be a really beautiful tank. If you really like the rocks and want that to be the main attraction, finding short, slow growing red plants would be a good choice. I now refer to 2 sites for description of plants and degree of difficulty before deciding:

    1 http://tropica.com/en/plants/

    What I like about this site is that they rate the degree of difficulty in a very clear manner, as well as how large the plant can grow to, which is not easy to guess when looking at the plants in plastic bags at LFS. I have learnt (the hard way, as usual) to stay away from plants in the "Advance" category!! Almost all of the "Easy" plants are found at SeaView, although not always labelled so it will take a lot of comparing between picture and sample to decide.

    2 http://www.extraplant.com/aquariumplants.html

    They have a great search tool where you can filter by criteria you choose.

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    Re: My first planted tank

    Quote Originally Posted by azman_haron View Post
    I think this scape has the potential to be a really beautiful tank. If you really like the rocks and want that to be the main attraction, finding short, slow growing red plants would be a good choice. I now refer to 2 sites for description of plants and degree of difficulty before deciding:

    1 http://tropica.com/en/plants/

    What I like about this site is that they rate the degree of difficulty in a very clear manner, as well as how large the plant can grow to, which is not easy to guess when looking at the plants in plastic bags at LFS. I have learnt (the hard way, as usual) to stay away from plants in the "Advance" category!! Almost all of the "Easy" plants are found at SeaView, although not always labelled so it will take a lot of comparing between picture and sample to decide.

    2 http://www.extraplant.com/aquariumplants.html

    They have a great search tool where you can filter by criteria you choose.
    Oh great! Thx for the 2 sites


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    Re: My first planted tank

    On 2nd thought, I'm wondering if the tall plants will blend into the mountain theme scape.

    So came up with another plan to consider
    Attachment 51029

    But I'm worry if these plants are sufficient for the initial tank cycling period to combat algae?

    Probably looking at MC and Anubias mini. Open to recommendation and comments


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  18. #18
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    Re: My first planted tank

    Yeah... if you want to preserve the sense of scale in a mountain scape, its best to just stick to low lying small leaved plants. Once you add in any taller or larger leaved plant into the tank, it will tend to break the perception/illusion of scale and make the scape look smaller.

    Check the similar scape layouts online and you'll notice they only use at most 2-3 types of the smallest leaved plants and mosses... many of them even just use only 1 type of plant.

    Anubias mini or petite still have much larger leaves than MC, so it would be better to just stick with MC on its own. If you want some variety, you could also add small bunches of Eleocharis sp. mini (from Tropica, this hairgrass variety naturally stays short at approx. 3-5cm height) around the rocks to create a natural mix of vegetation.

    Here are links to the 2 plants:

    http://tropica.com/en/plants/plantdetails/Micranthemum'MonteCarlo'%28025TC%29/4442

    http://tropica.com/en/plants/plantdetails/Eleocharisacicularis'Mini'%28132BTC%29/4571

    To add more subtle accents in the scape, you can also tie small mosses like riccia fluitans or mini fissidens onto pebbles/rocks and lay them in the scape too.

    As for not having enough plant density to combat algae during the initial cycling periods, its best to try and fill as much of the tank as possible with plants (to the limits of your budget). Bump up your Co2 injection higher so that it is non-limiting and helps to boost plant growth (since there are no livestock in the tank during cycling period anyways), dose additional potassium and trace/micro nutrients to support initial plant growth (helps prevent early grow-out stage nutrient deficiencies), control lighting (start with 6 hours photo-period, then gradually increase in stages) and if necessary do additional water changes to remove any excess ammonia that the initial density of plants can't use up yet.
    Last edited by Urban Aquaria; 31st Oct 2015 at 13:28.
    :: Urban Aquaria ::
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    Re: My first planted tank

    Monte carlo is still the best choice to go with.

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    Re: My first planted tank

    Quote Originally Posted by Urban Aquaria View Post
    Yeah... if you want to preserve the sense of scale in a mountain scape, its best to just stick to low lying small leaved plants. Once you add in any taller or larger leaved plant into the tank, it will tend to break the perception/illusion of scale and make the scape look smaller.

    Check the similar scape layouts online and you'll notice they only use at most 2-3 types of the smallest leaved plants and mosses... many of them even just use only 1 type of plant.

    Anubias mini or petite still have much larger leaves than MC, so it would be better to just stick with MC on its own. If you want some variety, you could also add small bunches of Eleocharis sp. mini (from Tropica, this hairgrass variety naturally stays short at approx. 3-5cm height) around the rocks to create a natural mix of vegetation.

    Here are links to the 2 plants:

    http://tropica.com/en/plants/plantdetails/Micranthemum'MonteCarlo'%28025TC%29/4442

    http://tropica.com/en/plants/plantdetails/Eleocharisacicularis'Mini'%28132BTC%29/4571

    To add more subtle accents in the scape, you can also tie small mosses like riccia fluitans or mini fissidens onto pebbles/rocks and lay them in the scape too.

    As for not having enough plant density to combat algae during the initial cycling periods, its best to try and fill as much of the tank as possible with plants (to the limits of your budget). Bump up your Co2 injection higher so that it is non-limiting and helps to boost plant growth (since there are no livestock in the tank during cycling period anyways), dose additional potassium and trace/micro nutrients to support initial plant growth (helps prevent early grow-out stage nutrient deficiencies), control lighting (start with 6 hours photo-period, then gradually increase in stages) and if necessary do additional water changes to remove any excess ammonia that the initial density of plants can't use up yet.
    Thanks. Will look at the hair grass.

    Between riccia and fissiden, I like fissiden a lot, but didn't list is in my list as it is classified as an advance level plant. Maybe I can consider fixing it to pebbles as u suggest. Can I glue it instead of tying?

    As for plant density, I'm planning to plant densely. Is it enough by just planting the hair grass and MC densely? Some articles suggest some fast growing plants, is it safe to start without those fast growing plants?

    CO2 30bpm is enough?


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