Please critique my 10-day planted aquarium

**estevald** · 30th Jun 2007, 12:27

Hi all,

I have my planted aquarium for 10 days now and all is looking good except for the malayan shrimps going extinct fast

Specs:

30L - 25x25x50cm
CO2 - about 1 BPS
Flora Nutriment liquid fert put in once a while
24W light
Small fan, water temp at 29 Deg C (any idea how to make it lower without a chiller?!)
External filter (the one that does a walterfall thing)
Better find out what the plants are called soon
4 Otos, 1 Pleco, 1 Catfish, undisclosable number of malayan shrimp (I've no idea), some snails that came out of nowhere...

Thanks a lot for your comments and how to improve!

Btw, I have some plant overgrowth ( have had to do a major trimming yesterday), any thoughts?

Pictures are as follows (sorry for amateuristic pics, yeah?):

**daveteogh** · 30th Jun 2007, 12:47

Suggestion: Maybe you should consider putting some draftwoods or blogwoods inside your tank. Tie some moss, nana, etc on it. This will make your tank looks more natural and beautiful.

**yeoyl87** · 30th Jun 2007, 22:38

whats the plant in your foreground?

**estevald** · 30th Jun 2007, 22:43

Hi, it is a moss, not very sure exactly which but think it should be java moss... it got brownish after i bought it, now it is growing on with greener shoots... think things should get better soon.

**jdlim** · 30th Jun 2007, 23:50

Introduce some tetras (cardinal or lemon) - will make it look nicer.

Seems that you have all fast growing plants. Will be very difficult to maintain.

**estevald** · 30th Jun 2007, 23:57

I want to introduce some colorful fish too but that will be when the aquarium has cycled, now it still has to mature a bit more... I'm thinking in terms of 2-3 more weeks.

All fast growing plants is to eliminate a potential initial algae outbreak, some will be phased out as time passes and the aquarium matures.

**daveteogh** · 1st Jul 2007, 08:52

I think it is better to cycle the tank with some hardy fishes in it. You might want to consider hardy spiecs like White Cloud Minnow, Zebra Diano, etc. I have those in my small setup and they are doing great! Super hardy!

**jtss2001** · 1st Jul 2007, 16:22

to make temp lower without a chiller is to try different position and angle, might lower by 1 Deg C

**Jungle-mania** · 6th Jul 2007, 09:37

You should add a puffer to clear your snail problem, don't worry about the malayan shrimps, they have a high mortality rate, just get more and add some algae food periodically. Next, use a stronger lighting, maybe 36w, your plant density is quite thick. IMO, I am not a big fan of pleco in a planted tank like yours as they can create a mess. Get a small DW branchand some nanas to tie to the wood to be placed in the midground. Note that your plants will grow very fast, so constant trimming is needed and in my experience, the hydrophilla difformis on the left are nutrient hungry plants.

**estevald** · 7th Jul 2007, 01:08

Thanks all for your valuable comments! They are helping me improve my aquarium!

**DxLin** · 7th Jul 2007, 19:57

Hi there,

I'm not very sure about the concept you're creating but i guess in my opinion, it will be great to actually add some mid-ground plants instead. You can find those that are able to give you a bushy feel and you can plant them in a bunch; grabs 5 to 7 stems and stick them into the substrate. But doing that, you actually create a leading factor so that the background and foreground doesn't look like they have a break there.

Other plants to try are java fern or nana plant.

**a_scape** · 7th Jul 2007, 23:35

Hi, nice start-up

My advise to control snail is by using 'botia sidthimunki (aka dward botia) is one of the perfect solution for your tank size
You can insert them 3 pcs ... the you'll notice that tank will clear from snail