75G Planted 'jungle'

[squidneh]

I've been a member here for quite a while, and I've had the inhabitants of this tank for quite a while, but I'm finally going to attempt a planted tank, for real. I have done so in the past but with all the wrong equipment, not enough time, and not enough knowledge. 
 
Current inhabitants of this tank are:
1 Rainbow Shark
1 CAE
1 Opaline Gourami
3 tiger barbs
3 Black skirt tetras
7 neon tetras
8 bronze/albino cories
?? number of ghost shrimp
 
My tiger barbs are older now and I'm not interested in continuing on with them so I'm not replacing them as they die off. The black skirt tetra's are rescues from a negligent situation and also not something I'm looking to keep up with. So neither of those schools will be getting upped. I'm unsure of whether or not I want to eventually add a mess of neons or if I want to wait for those to go, too, and try a different schooling species. 
 
I'm running an internal filter (forget which one, tbh, but I know it's a little over kill for my tank, I've had to baffle it a bit) and currently doing 30% water changes every week with a 50% once a month. Water stats are stable, I could probably get away with less frequent changes but not going to risk it. I just purchased a coralife aqualight (for 50% off, brand new!) which runs 2 T5s. 
 
I have a large tree stump decoration, a fake log/driftwood, and a rock cave thing, and a few moss covered PVC hidey holes for the shrimp. 
 
I am going to be harvesting wild plants from a local pond for this tank. I'll identify them as I go and basically just see what I need to do to keep them alive. Since they're free I don't mind some trial and error. I'll be ding a bleach dip/rinse before adding to the tank.
 
First step of this entire thing is to get a better layer of substrate going, which will be happening on Thursday. I'm going with pool filter sand, which is what I have at the moment, I just want to add another inch or so and get some root tabs in there. The light is due to arrive on Friday, so hopefully this weekend I'll be able to get some plants in. 
 
Before pics to come. 

 

[Munroco]

It will be interesting to see how your native plants fare. The first three fish on your list as you probably know, are not really recommended for community tanks but you've had them for a while so maybe they'll be fine. Looking forward to seeing pics.

 

[squidneh]

It will be interesting to see how your native plants fare. The first three fish on your list as you probably know, are not really recommended for community tanks but you've had them for a while so maybe they'll be fine. Looking forward to seeing pics.

Yeah, I do know they aren't best suited for a community tank, but they get along perfectly fine.  Perhaps because they were all juveniles when they were put in together and it's been 3 years now so they've grown together. I really had no clue what I was doing when I started this hobby, like most people lol. 
 
I'm interested to see how the plants do, too. It might turn out to be a total flop, but I'm going to give it my best shot. 

 

[squidneh]

Everything is on hold because I just found out I'm moving at the end of the month. I'm disappointed because my light came and it would be really easy to get everything done now, but it doesn't make sense to add 50ish pounds of substrate just so I can tear it all down in a few weeks. 
 
The bright side is that I now have more time to plan which is probably good. Since I have to do a total tear down to transport the tank, I'm going to go for a layer of soil and then a cap of pool filter sand.  I was going to be lazy and not do what I really wanted (add the soil layer) just to avoid the total tear down and possible issues afterwards, but now I have a lot of work to do regardless so might as well.