First Pics Of My New Planted Tank!

[Christine1014]

Hi all! My planted tank has been up and running for about 3 months now. It's at least to the point where I'm willing to take a picture of it, but I'm still not happy with it.

Tank size: 10 gallon
Lighting: 3w/gallon
(I know if this were a bigger tank, 30W/G would be a pretty high-light level. But what's it considered on a 10 gallon? Low? moderate?)

Fertilization: EI
Sunday: 50% water change
M/W/F - 1/32 tsp mono potassium phosphate, and 1/8 tsp potassium nitrate
T/Th/S - 2 ml Seachem Flourish

Substrate: Seachem Flourite
CO2 - DIY mix with nutrafin ladder
Inhabitants: 1 male betta, 3 otos.
temp: 79 degrees

The plants are growing like crazy, but I'm not sure how healthy they are. The moneywort in the back right corner is "leggy" (is that a real word? It came from my gardner-mom!) - as it grows it loses its lower leaves. The brown thing in front of the wood is something my LFS gave me free. I have no idea what it is and if it's doing well. Really, besides the moneywort and java fern (whic I hate) I don't know what anything is. Locally, there's just no selection of plants and an even worse selection of people who know anything about them. I tried the online thing once, but I ordered $15 worth of plants, paid $42 to ship them, and they were dead within a few weeks.

Anyway, here's the tank:

And here's some more plants I can't identify:
1.

the edges are kind of crimped looking, and a little bit brown. Algae? dying? something else?


2.

Maybe a mini sword?


3.

4.

Thanks for looking! I'm open to any suggestions!

 

[nicklfire]

hey dude,

Well your plants are definately looking healthy i can say that's for sure. The only thing visually wrong with it is it has not scape at all really... plants are just kinda.. put here and here and here.... There's no dimension.. you can tell the forground plants from the background ones.. vis versa... Fill up the back of the tank alot more... then work your way forward... with alot littler plants... Harder to do in a 10 gallon though with compact space...

looks promising though man

 

[Christine1014]

Thanks! I guess you hit the nail on the head re: why I don't like it. It's not "organized," there's no plan... I did intentionally put the taller stuff in the back, but that's about as much of a layout as I had!

 

[nicklfire]

And those little plants in foreground look like micro amazon sword.. i cant tell exactly, mines a bit reddish... you might want to seperate those more sparsely, then they will be able to propogate alot better and .... fill it out more. I am guessing you had more of a carpety plant for a plan in the front with those right??? Mine didnt turn out any better.. they dont grow fast at all, they grow very... chunky.... i would suggest maybe dwarf hairgrass, i think that would be what your looking for more.

 

[lljdma06]

Thanks! I guess you hit the nail on the head re: why I don't like it. It's not "organized," there's no plan... I did intentionally put the taller stuff in the back, but that's about as much of a layout as I had!

Nor should you overly concern youself with scape at this point in time. The tank is new, the most stable thing it can be right now is a jungle scape with tons of fast-growing stems. You'll avoid major algae issues that way. Just get your plants growing healthy and wait for a good 3-4 months before you try anything with making a scape. You'll need that time to really sort out your fert regimen and CO2.

I had 30W over 10g a while back and did EI with it, but I only really considered it a moderately lit tank. In retrospect, I probably wouldn't have even gone with EI and just would have opted for a DIY CO2 mix with minimal fert dosing, but I got some pretty amazing, fast growth, and stuck with easy plant species.

llj

 

[Christine1014]

I do like a "grassy" looking tank. I just looked it up and saw it's a "moderate light" plant, so I could probably give it a whirl, if I can get my LFS to order it for me.

Just get your plants growing healthy and wait for a good 3-4 months before you try anything with making a scape. You'll need that time to really sort out your fert regimen and CO2.


llj

Thanks! Just to clarify: it's already been set up almost three months. You think I should give it three months MORE, or just a total of three months?