Newbie 2ft Planted Tank

[renrabbit]

Hello everyone!

I'm very new here. I am starting a planted tank at my girlfriend's house. We bought some equipment today:

• Tank (60 x 30 x 45cm)
• ADA Aqua Soil New Amazonia (9L)
• T5 light (2 x 24W)
• Eheim 2213
• CO2 cylinder (2L) with solenoid
• Fan

We made quite a mess with the pasting of the black background sticker on the tank, so I guess we just have to buy a new sticker and try again

I have not bought any plants yet because I am not familiar with plant names and I'm also not sure what plants are best suited for my setup. I plan to have a nice carpet of foreground runners, a huge piece of wood with various other plants surrounding it.

Any recommendations for plants that are suitable for my setup? Also, where can I get them?

I have seen tanks with this fine hair grass-looking plant in the foreground and I think they are very nice! What is that plant called? Are they difficult to maintain?

Sorry for asking so many questions. Hope you all don't mind.

[Shadow]

We made quite a mess with the pasting of the black background sticker on the tank, so I guess we just have to buy a new sticker and try again

Did you spray soap water on the glass before you paste the sticker? you need to do that.

AS for the plant, you can try japanese hairgrass. It is like normal hairgrass but the leaf curl down, look shorter than normal hairgrass. You can get it from C328

[beetlejuice403]

Did you spray soap water on the glass before you paste the sticker? you need to do that.

AS for the plant, you can try japanese hairgrass. It is like normal hairgrass but the leaf curl down, look shorter than normal hairgrass. You can get it from C328

Agree with bro Shadow, Japanese HG is super nice once it's matured in your tank as a foreground plant... love its curls... Have fun in this fantastic hobby renrabbit!

[renrabbit]

Did you spray soap water on the glass before you paste the sticker? you need to do that.

AS for the plant, you can try japanese hairgrass. It is like normal hairgrass but the leaf curl down, look shorter than normal hairgrass. You can get it from C328

No, I pasted the sticker directly. Thanks for the tip! Shall try again.

Is the japanese hairgrass difficult to grow? What do I need to take note of? I'm super scared of algae outbreak.

[renrabbit]

Here's an update on my tank. I bought the normal hairgrass instead because the store did not have japanese hairgrass in stock. After 3 weeks, this is how my tank look like now. I would like to know your honest opinion and advice. Thanks!

[Sharkfin]

Bro, excellent effort for your tank. However, for me i prefer to stick all the taller plants at the very back, with hairgrass and other carpet plants in the front. That way, the background and foreground will have a significant contrast in heights and spacing, and is more natural. Of course, taller plants at the very back also help to hide the intake piping. Also, how about some moss on your driftwood? Lastly, you may want to consider putting a black/blue Oyama paper at the back of your tank. It will bring out the colours of your plants a lot. Just my 2 cents worth.

Egs:

[Skywalker]

Thats a nice setup...

[renrabbit]

I am not quite sure of the plants in my tank. I thought that the fern is a tall plant, but seems like it is not going to be very tall. The plant on the left is growing very big, not sure if it would crowd out the rest. Is the plant in the middle considered a tall plant? What other tall plants would you recommend? I'm not very knowledgeable in this. I think moss on the driftwood would look great! But I don't know how to tie the moss to the driftwood. Is there a special technique?

[Sharkfin]

I am not quite sure of the plants in my tank. I thought that the fern is a tall plant, but seems like it is not going to be very tall. The plant on the left is growing very big, not sure if it would crowd out the rest. Is the plant in the middle considered a tall plant? What other tall plants would you recommend? I'm not very knowledgeable in this. I think moss on the driftwood would look great! But I don't know how to tie the moss to the driftwood. Is there a special technique?

Bro, drop by Nanyang to check out the plants. I selected quite a few tall ones from there, ie those tall stem plants with leaves. As for tying moss to driftwood, can use fishing line, transparent and less obvious.

[renrabbit]

Thanks for all the help! I will post updates here once I make the changes.

[renrabbit]

Hi guys, following some of the advice given here, I made some changes to my tank. Nothing major, but the plants have grown really big! I bought some moss to tie on the driftwood, but I didn't buy enough moss, so only one part of the wood has moss. Hopefully it will grow to cover the entire wood, but doesn't seem like it's spreading.

[|squee|]

Hairgrass looks swell! The echinodorus plant at the left will grow freaking huge by the way, by then its roots would have spread all over the entire tank and when you pull it up there will be a gigantic mess.

The moss will take some time to settle down.

[renrabbit]

Hairgrass looks swell! The echinodorus plant at the left will grow freaking huge by the way, by then its roots would have spread all over the entire tank and when you pull it up there will be a gigantic mess.

The moss will take some time to settle down.

Oh no. So you think I should remove the echinodorus? I'm having a hard time trimming the plants. They are growing so fast! My CO2 is running at 2bps, is that ok for a 60 x 30 x 45cm tank?

[|squee|]

As long as your plants are growing well, don't reduce the CO2. Messing with CO2 can lead to algae problems galore. You could try reducing it if you want to save CO2, but monitor plant health closely.

Well I think you can leave it in to appreciate how gigantic it grows, as you will probably itch to do a rescape sooner or later :P If you're lucky it might pop an emersed flower too!

BTW your pic can only be viewed if I open it in a new browser tab.

[renrabbit]

I don't really know how to post photos here. What's the proper method to do it?

[|squee|]

Upload them to a picture host like imgur or imageshack or postimage, or AQ's own gallery.

http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...-Picture-Guide