I have gotten a tank started which will have plants. I hesitate to say a planted tank, because that means to many people a scaped tank. I just toss plants in and stick them in the soil hoping they will grow.

I personally, while enjoying the art of sclulpted tanks, think so far I enjoy the artless wild look.

So here are some pics of fish, especially Corys where there are plants.

This tank has orange stripe, undulatus, 2 juvie common Plecs for the African Rift tank, and the Blacks.

Only the blacks showed up for the shoot this time.

Look in the floating plastic plant on the left side of the pic


Silly fish: like my albino peppers, the Blacks like to rest off the ground in the trees.



Everything is a little dusty from the Flourite substrate. The gray stuff is actually very green in real life, it is moss.



As you can see the Blacks are busy creatures and do not hide from the camera.

This is a new plant I found in PetSmart


This post has been edited by jollysue: Jun 22 2008, 06:14 PM

Do you find the fish become confused and swim against the tank where there are reflections of the plants on the side of the tank?

I find that some fish get confused by relections, whether of plants or fish or whatever.

The 100 usg Community tank is busy/ It has a pepper Cory clan with 2 runaways who joined through the Python tube. They are a young Wietzamani and a Pulcher variant. There are also 2 starlight Plecs, a clan of loaches: straita and dario, an appisto pair and a clan or ADFs and another of shrimp. The upper folk are Tetras.

Here a few shots from that tank:

The Odd Couple: the juvie Don Juan of the tank: C. wietzmanni and a young pepper lass




Just for fun: One of the starlight Plecs

And the appisto boy


This post has been edited by jollysue: Jun 5 2008, 06:05 AM

JollySue

Great pics....very scenic looking...infact when I looked again....it looks like a little underwater forest....! And love the pic of the cory popping outta the floating plant....looks like it was posing for you!

I think the tank looks bloody great.....!

Debbie

This post has been edited by debbie888: Jun 4 2008, 02:13 PM

Looks better than any of my tanks...

Thanks.

So far the first tank is called the Sierra Nevada tank, because it reminds me of the colors and such in the Sierra Nevadas.

The second tank is just called the 100 usg Community.

ICEEGRL is sending me some ground cover plants that should do well in the Sierra Nevada tank and stop some of the dust from the Flourite.

I need some real floating plants other than the moss, so the little guys can rest in something besides plastic. All the blacks rest in the floating plastic. So do my peppers. Maybe it keeps them from getting blown around from the filter

Sorry for all the typos in the original post. I will correct them now. So if something was unclear, check again.

This post has been edited by jollysue: Jun 5 2008, 05:55 AM

No need to apologize for the typos, I'm use to them

What were you thinking of for ground cover?

I would have thought you'd want stem plants rather than floating plants for the blacks, it would be more stable, no?

Putting a tank together is way more fun than maintaining it. I think that's one reason why we all keep adding tanks.

Amanda is sending me pygmy val.

Actually I have found that moss works very well as breeding mops and matresses. Fish also seem to like green hair algae for fry cover and as matresses.

The plants should get there today since they didn't come yesterday. I hope they are all still in good shape.
plant all of them... even if they are not looking their best. They may very well come back and do fine.

The plants finally got there, but then she got called to work. She got them all shoved in here and there, but no time to do it right.

I can't wait to see it all filled out.

I hope the blacks like the addition of more live plants... Maybe it will help convince them to make with the egg laying. I WANT BABIES!!!!

Hope to see pics of the finished product soon...

What exactly is that substrate again? Is that the red flourite or the regular? Is it mixed with something else?

Regular--The top group of pics not the 2nd.

This post has been edited by jollysue: Jun 9 2008, 12:42 PM

Now I don't remember which Flourite it is. The photobucket caption says red.

Here are some new pics of the tank with ICEEGRL's plants. Very stragglely looking, but it will fill out. The plants are not properly distributed. I just wanted to get them in the ground. This is not rinsed substrate either so everything is dusty.

First a properly posing Peru orange stripe youth. He seemed quite sure he needed his pic taken and that you willl love him.




The stone is holding down the plants. They are being very annoying. They come lose and float straight to the top. When I try to replant them, 5 more come lose and float to the top.





The Corys there are blacks, undulatus, and Peru orange stripe. There is one green stripe visiting. I would love to put his whole tribe in, but I am afraid they will mix up the breeding.

Looking good. Im sure it was said already, but what kind of plants are those? I could use some easy, tall growing plants that dont require a lot of maintence and CO2.

I asked ICEEGRL to come dialogue with you on the plants.

I am a noob on plant names. I do run around 2 wpg of T-5 on most of my tanks that have or will have plants. But I would buy a chiller before I invested in a CO2.

Ohhhhhh, that orange stripe is so beautiful!

Instead of adding CO2 you could try adding Flourish along with Flourish Excel. I'm adding that to my 4 tanks now as an experiment (and also to get rid of of black hair algae in my 20).

Seems to help quite a bit.

The tabs are convenient ferts also.

The orange are very nice, but the green stripe is still more striking.

My simulatus spawned happily again, and I collected a nice group of eggs. They are so tiny! I have read now that the simulatus male can get aggressive at spawning time. Nevertheless, these are a hardy troup, and my tribe has doubled, mostly from eggs surviving to hatch and fry hiding in the moss with no assistance from me.

This post has been edited by jollysue: Jun 19 2008, 03:20 PM

Hey. Sorry it has taken me so long to get here. I think tff has been mad at me. It wouldn't let me on here. I have been getting an error message for a good while every time I tried...

Don't ever use excel in your tanks that have the egeria densa in it. It will melt it quickly. You won't have any left alive. It will all be brown slime. I forgot and put some in a tank that had some in it... The next day... no green egeria... it had all started turning brown. I tried to save it, but it was too late.
Flourish is good. The plants would like that. Just don't use a full dose unless you want a ton of algae. Without co2 for faster growth you don't want to add much ferts. I would only do maybe 1/4 of recommended dose. The flourite substrate and fish should handle most of what they need.

The plants that she has in there that are easy that grow tall are rotalla rotundifolia, giant hygro, egeria densa, alternanthera reineckii, bolbitus, crinum t., and ludwigia repense which is supposed to be easy. It grows great for some and others it doesn't. It likes her, but me... not so much...
Oh... also the little one is pygmy val. It is very easy and stays small. Pretty much all vals are easy.
The skimpy looking stems are rotalla that stayed in a bucket for too long before shipping. The leaves will come back soon. They will be nice when they fill out.

Did that cover everything?

The tank is looking nice. Can't wait to see it all filled out.