Planted Noob Saying Thanks

[MrWaxhead]

First post here, but I have been reading and following other users inputs and suggestions for quite some time. I just wanted to say thanks to so many people for good advice on so many things CO2, lighting ferts etc. So many of you have unbelievable tanks it made me want to plant mine up. I have had fish for many many years but never got into the planted end of things until I saw this site.

I unfortunatly don't have access to a dig cam atm, but I found some pics of my tank about 2 months into its planted stage (its a pos 29 gallon tank with DIY CO2, seachum ferts, my substrate is lacking some though, its mostly plain gravel with peat and fert tabs, I am soon to be upgrading that to a better substrate in the near future, as I want to better plan out my layout, now that I have a better clue as to the nature and growth of some of my plants. There is only a few fish in this tank, most of its inhabitants are now cherry red and ghost shrimp and a lonely SAE on algae duty. So far I have not had any major algae outbreaks and its been planted now for about 6 months. I did have a bit of algae on some of the larger leaved plants in these photos, I have since removed those leaves and they were replaced with nice clean algae free fresh chutes

I currently have 3 20w 6500k T6 bulbs, 1 20W 3000k t6 bulb, and 2 23W 4400k compact flouresants on my tank, I have been running the 4 T6 bulbs for 5 on, then nothing for 2 hours, then I run all on for 3 hours then just the 4 T6 bulbs for 2 to 3 hours. I found I had to run 2 DIY bottles with my lighting as I was getting minor algae problems with that much lighting on 29 gallons, but as soon as I added the second bottle the algae stopped and the plants went nuts, and the fish seem to be healty. The only reason I am running the extra 2 4400K 23w lights is everything seemed to go nuts pearling wise as soon as I added them, so I could not give them up hehe.

I will hopefully be getting a new cam soon to take some updated photos of its progression, and to take some shots of everything in full pearl. Again thanks so much to everyone that posts here and gives advice, and help on how to work with plants and there needs etc. The riccia sticky was exellent, I am loving the pearling goodness of the riccia, I only went with a small section of it and went with a glosso carpet for less work, but I love the small area of riccia I keep up on.

 

[Genesis]

that looks great, you must be really chuffed

 

[RadaR]

Wicked! Looks positively awesome! Good job.

 

[Themuleous]

Looking good

 

[MrWaxhead]

Still don't have any new pics but I got some pics that were taken two days after those other ones but at the end of the days lighting and with a better cam. With lots of pearling trapped on the water surface, I absolutly love that look. I can't believe I went so long with plastic plants and a oxygen stone in my tank hehe.

Side shot

And some shots I liked with the cam unfocused over the riccia clump in that side shot.

Some random pearling hehe

And some of my critters hehe

I am also in the middle of a delema atm, I just found out my wife is giving me the choice of a dig cam or a pressurized co2 system for my bday, I am leaning towards the co2 as I am sick of making bottles hehe, but having a cam sure would be nice. I hate having to borrow cams for any pics of my tank, as I miss out on so many pics I would have loved to take. I am thinking of getting the red sea system with solenoid, so I can hook it up to a pH controller or timer, and the paintball connection as I can get a pair of 20oz tanks prefilled for 30 canadian. Or am I better of bitting spending the extra and going with like a 5 pound standard tank?

Also, my tank is still very similar in layout, just alittle more filled out with more riccia on the left hand side of the tank, that rock in the pic is basically a riccia clump now. As I stated earlier, I am thinking on resetting up with a better substrate at some point in the future. And coments onto layout would be great. IE differnent plants to try and general layout etc.

Again thanks so much to all the people here, I used to love watching my fish grow and just swim etc, but now I am even more exited about my plants hehe, I just love watching them grow and change and evolve in my tank. And it has improved my joy of watching the tank, the fish just seem more natural now, and seem to enjoy there envrioment so much more. Some of them are so calm now, my gourami used to be skiddish and agressive to other fish in my tank at times , but now when I go to work in my tank, he actually swims up to my hand to see what I am doing

 

[RadaR]

Looking great. Are all those bubbles from pearling plants? Nice fish and shrimp.

 

[MrWaxhead]

Looking great. Are all those bubbles from pearling plants? Nice fish and shrimp.

Ya all the bubbling on the surface is 100% pearling, they go like mad As soon as I got my lighting up to that level the pearling exploded. But I also had a bit of a algae growth when I first got the lighting that high, I added a second co2 DIY bottle, and I change one a week. And as soon as I did that the algae was killed of very fast. And the growth and pearling kept on going, I was so happy once it started, I was very bummed at first when I first planted as not much happened, I upped my lighting over a few stages and once I hit the 126w on 29 gallon mark, everything exploded.

 

[RadaR]

Haha, cool. Well hope everything keeps going well.

 

[Themuleous]

Nice tank and the plants look in great health, its always good to see another devotee of the planted tank is that a giant honey gourami BTW?

Sam

 

[MrWaxhead]

Its a dwarf flame gourami, so just a little guy.

 

[Themuleous]

Oh right, nice looking fish, he's as big as my head in that photo!

 

[Chris_Wood]

....... he's as big as my head in that photo!

No comment Themuleous.... ....only joking!

Seriously, great looking tank Mr WaxHead... ...love it ! Fantastic macro photography as well!

CW

 

[George Farmer]

What a breath of fresh air! A new member that has done lots of reading, research etc. prior to posting. It has obviously paid off and you have your reward Mr. Waxhead, healthy plants and happy fish. Keep it up.

Well done and thank you.

 

[Themuleous]

Good point George, it does make a change

 

[MrWaxhead]

Hello again thanks for the kind words, and yes I found this site after xmas and must have read through it a few times before even joining the board hehe. I still found I made many mistakes IE substrate and not really fully knowing the growth potential and rate of certain plants. But on the later I really loved the changes and occasional moving of plants to better suit there size.

On a side note and this is probably not the best board for it, I should be posting it in hardware but any advice on pressurized co2 would be great, my bday is fastly approaching and I will be going that route for my gift and would like to know if any should be avoided etc. I am leaning towards the red sea unit with solenoid with the paintball style connection as I can get two filled 20oz bottles from a friend and thought that would be a good option as I could keep a bottle on hand for the day one dies and just swap over. Is this a good option or is a full sized bottle stytle unit a better option. IE what kind of life should I expect on a 20oz bottle on a 29g tank, IE a guess worse case best case kinda guess hehe. As I at the moment I am running two DIY bottles and change one out once a week, so its working well, but kind of a pain. I have made it part of my weekly tank maintence, I do it on my water change day, but it sure would be nice to lessen the work load on that day etc.