Aqua 980 Planted Tank Start

[Dolton]

The tank is a aquaone 980 very nicely designed tank in my opinion, the stocking of the tank at the minute is 5 scissortail rasboras, 1 bolivian ram, 2 amano shrimp, 6 cherry red shrimp, 2 siamese algae eaters and 1 plec cant remember the name of it. 
 
Plants are: java fern and cabomba
 
Just to start of in the past couple of weeks ive made a few changes from gravel to tetra cpmplete plant substrate with cat litter on top then sand on top of that seems to be working okay for now. Fingers crossed the plants grow well in it. Started dosing them with tetra plantamin yesterday and also gotta make a co2 aswell to go into the tank.
New plants should be here either tomorrow or friday so hopefully i will be updating this on them days once ive planted it some. 
Dont know what else to stock the tank with fish wise as there is still loads of room for more fish. 
 
 day after i changed the substrate to sand, cat litter and soil bit cloudy 

 
 
day later its cleared up abit 

 
 
Shrimp cherry shrimp and amano shrimp 

 
 
 
 
 
and my bolivian ram and amano shrimp 

 
 
 
will upload more pictures when my other plants come, if you think of anything to make the tank look better just post a comment and let me know thanks. There is more plants to come: riccia fluitins,Ludwigia repens, Rotala rotundifolia, Sagittaria subulata, Hygrophila polysperma, dwarf baby tears
 
 

 

[RCA]

Hi Dalton, this will be interesting as I have the same tank, which you will see in the link at the bottom of my current signature, as well as in the signature main image.  In that link I have written about some recent modifications I have made to it, which you may find useful e.g. how I have covered the powerhead so that it is not so obvious.
 
I love your piece of wood, do you have any plans on what you are going to attach to it?
 
My current project, the Juwel Vision 180L (again linked below), will show you how I have separated my substrates.  Interesting you have used cat litter, where did that idea come from?  Is it a particular type of cat litter?
 
Look forward to further updates.
 
TIP: can you put your location into your profile as it assists with different countries products etc., when advising.

 

[Dolton]

The piece of wood im hopefully going to attach some riccia fluitins to it and see if they grow then later on might put some flame moss on there aswell.
Yeah the cat litter, i read ona few forums that its good for plants as its clay and absorbs some of the nutrients in the water and slowly releases them and its cheap, i used the tesco home brand cat litter and washed, and kept washing it till i was happy
 I like the look of you tank it looks great gonna get some mesh to put around my powerhead and attach moss to it so it cant be seen, bit later on that is though. 
Do you put fertiliser in your tank for the plants. Im hopefully going to have a wall of ludwigia across the back as to cover the plain background at the minute which should look good i hope. 
 
What stocking do you have in you aqua one ? 

 

[mike455555]

iv got a tone of riccia if your after some, im going to get rid of it soon, some bits are a little leggy, but it will bounce back quickly, i cant wait to see this tank evolve =]

 

[Dolton]

If only i knew earlier i would of had some off you but unfortunately i ordered some last night end of this week it shall be planted and hopefully have my DIY co2 system running 

 

[RCA]

The piece of wood im hopefully going to attach some riccia fluitins to it and see if they grow then later on might put some flame moss on there aswell.
Yeah the cat litter, i read ona few forums that its good for plants as its clay and absorbs some of the nutrients in the water and slowly releases them and its cheap, i used the tesco home brand cat litter and washed, and kept washing it till i was happy
 I like the look of you tank it looks great gonna get some mesh to put around my powerhead and attach moss to it so it cant be seen, bit later on that is though. 
Do you put fertiliser in your tank for the plants. Im hopefully going to have a wall of ludwigia across the back as to cover the plain background at the minute which should look good i hope. 
 
What stocking do you have in you aqua one ? 

 
Interesting re: the cat litter as to how you get on with it in the longer term, hopefully the sand will remain above it.  I have tried Hessian in my project.
 
Thanks re: my tank.  The Java Moss is just starting to come through the mesh, so hopefully I will achieve my objective.  Let me know if you need any images of how I did mine.
 
I have the JBL Aquabasis Plus under the substrate for the plants to get nutrients, and then I also add JBL Ferropol about 48 hours after a Water Change.  In addition I put in JBL Ferropol 24 when feeding, but not around the same time as the former is added.  I do not do any of this religiously though, just when I remember really.
 
I am not sure your plans for the Ludwigia along the back.  This plant requires moderate to high lighting and because of the filter at the back it will not get the lighting it needs.  Whatever plant you choose for the back you will find it will work its way forward towards the lighting, however, it needs to be able to cope without direct light underneath the filter housing initially.
 
I mainly have female Bettas in the aquarium, along with various Corys, Kuhli/Java Loaches.  In addition, there is a school of Pencil Fish which have coloured up with rich red and black plus some Splash Tetras.

 

[Dolton]

Just a quick update got my plants through... RCA that would be great if you can email me them. 
 
Heres a full view of it now, Let me know what you think

 
baby tears, thats what they told me it was, im unsure...

 
Riccia fluitin attached to rock

 
My ludwigia and Rotala rotundifolia

 
cobomba and Hygrophila polysperma

 
Let me know what you think, and what i could improve on.

 

[CoryLover95]

Looking great!!  Frankly I don't see how you could improve it a lot, except if you added a background.  Black works great; lots of people here temporarily use black bin trash bags and I used an old piece of roofing that the construction people left
Good job!

 

[Dolton]

Hopefully will upload a few more photos soon with my new fish in, also looking at getting a shoal of corys if anyone has a recommendations, was thinking pygmy corys what do you think? 
 
Also got another experiment tank in the process of being set up a 120-150 litre tank, hopefully gonna get a pair of fish and breed also make a nice auqa scaped tank  so hopefully will be uploading my process