My 2 months 1.5ft tank

**samuel** · 30th May 2015, 17:25

1st serious try with Co2, fan and high light for my planted tank.

Seems alright initially for my Japanese hair grass and monte carlo but it's starting to turn brown though I changed water weekly and added Npk and flourish comprehensive. There are also 10+ tetras, 1 Chinese algae eater, 2 SAE, 1 big Yamato and 5 assassin snails. Also plenty of small snails(pest) which seems to be multiplying uncontrollably.

**samuel** · 30th May 2015, 17:34

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**skytan** · 30th May 2015, 17:55

nice central path in the scape u have there.

My pebble path had been pretty much covered with Amazonia soil by the CRS ravaging through the substrate.

**samuel** · 30th May 2015, 19:05

Ya, shrimps and bottom fish seems to destroy the path, so i simply left it to nature at the moment.

**Phillipians** · 30th May 2015, 20:20

Great start and nice growth so far. Keep it up!

**samuel** · 30th May 2015, 21:21

Thanks, still a newbie and been thru many trials and errors. BTW, any idea what's wrong with the browning part of the leaves and grass?
Does the irritating snails cause this browning as it often seen sticking onto them

**Urban Aquaria** · 30th May 2015, 21:51

Doesn't look like alot of browning... it seems to be just on a few patches, those could simply be older growth that is melting. You can manually trim and remove them, or just let the snails and shrimps consume it as part of their clean up work.

**samuel** · 31st May 2015, 07:54

Is this part and parcel of keeping planted tank? So eventually all old plants will still go thru this process for renewal?

**Urban Aquaria** · 31st May 2015, 11:30

Originally Posted by samuel

Is this part and parcel of keeping planted tank? So eventually all old plants will still go thru this process for renewal?

Yeah, plants don't last forever, their leaves and stems will eventually grow old and melt away, so its a regular process of pruning the older growth to encourage new healthy growth.

Shrimps and snails also help to do the "maintenance" work by constantly eating dead melting leaves as part of their diet, so they are usually kept as essential clean up crews in planted tanks.

**samuel** · 31st May 2015, 11:40

oh, i see, so it's great to learn that it seems pretty alright for the tank at this moment.
hence, i shall let nature take its course.
many thanks for the input.
btw, your blog was one of those I read up before starting and it is really encouraging and informative.