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First planted tank experience and lessons.

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  • First planted tank experience and lessons.

    photo (19).jpgphoto (20).jpg
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    So my first planted tank is 40 gallon with a java moss jungle, java fern bushes, anubias beds for fish to sleep on, water wisteria covered background as hiding place and red root floater on top. Dawn and Steven saw my tank in real life, the "jungle" is actually a lot thicker than in the pictures. Here's the pros and cons:

    Pros:
    I got the green look I wanted with moss covered all driftwood, rocks and thickly carpeted the tank (you can barely see the mesh.)
    Thick plant mass controls toxic. The tank never have any sign of ammonia, nitrite or nitrate.
    All the fish enjoy the plants. Most newly introduced fish will hide in the "jungle" for a day or two then start coming out.
    The moss and floaters acts as a food reserve for the goldfish and flag fish who enjoy knocking RRF flowers down to eat them.

    Cons:
    Thick javamoss jungle can get very messy at pruning time.
    It can get very difficult when trying to catch some fish out of the tank due to the thick wisteria background and the javamoss jungle. I found myself struggle to remove fish out of the tank many times.
    It seems that sometimes the fish get tangled in the thick jungle. Not sure if that bothers them but it looks kinda uncomfortable.

    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    For future reference:
    I consult some ADA layout and for my next planted tank I will create a "stadium". The parameter of the tank will be covered with mexican flat pebbles. Low maintenance plants like java fern and Anubias on two sides of the tank. The middle of the tank will be completely open with a carpet of fissiden fontanus, I'm actually starting to grow some fissiden recently, fissiden grow slow and low. This lay out will keep maintenance low, give fish hiding places, and give me the ease to work around the tank as needed. Also this will give the tank an open look leaving fish a lot of space to swim instead of the cramping feeling. I found that floating plants do a better job at controlling nutrients and toxic. They are easier to prune as all you have to do is scoop them up. They don't need CO2 or special light as they are very close to the light fixtures anyways. They provide fish with shades. I found the shadow cast by the floaters very pleasant.
    I have the patience of a goldfish....

  • #2
    Yup. Tank looks good. Not my thing but it's a good start. I like willow moss and xmas moss much better. I tied different types of mosses on each branch. All plants need CO2, it's just that you don't have to dose it for most plants. Floaters have the ability to pull unlimited amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, while submerged plants are limited to what CO2 is found in the water. Instead of looking at ADA style layouts, check out The Planted Tank forum. Very great ideas on there. Got a lot of inspiration from looking at all the different tanks, especially the ADG tanks. They do some quality scapes! There's also old competition tanks you could look at to get ideas from. I flipped through tons of pics because some ideas are too awesome!

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    • #3
      Tank looks good, but without a front view its hard to tell whats going on. For a 40 gal, I'd say hop on the co2 wagon and let your plants show a green like never before.

      I'm doing my first planted tank on a 100gal, I'm not even close to having a thick jungle after spending way too much money on plants lol. I'm about to try out pressurized co2 but I know I need to stock my tank with quite a few more plants beforehand. I would say I have about 25% of the floor covered with plants so far. My ideal finished stocking is where I can barely see the rim of the sand due to the plants and having my foreground plants hiding the top leaves behind the top trim of the tank.

      Good luck and keep up the effort!

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      • #4
        I use excel instead of co2 but have stopped using it since the carpet took over to slow the growth down a bit.
        I have the patience of a goldfish....

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