some old pics i found

I found some old pictures of my cherry shrimp tank and one of my 55g community tank.







discus





butterfly


cherry shrimp


cherry shrimp tank

Very nice. Im working on my planted 55gallon. It will be my 1st planted tank

KMX wrote:

Very nice. Im working on my planted 55gallon. It will be my 1st planted tank

yeah if you have any questions please ask me and i can give you some tips out of experience. i know a bit about plants and learned the hard way :(

What substrate do you have?

for the bottom i recommend:
2 bags of flourite by seachem and one of the small river gravel (walmart has some),

for the top i recommend:
The eco-complete planted aquarium substrate.

a good 2-3 inches of substrate is good for plants and 2-3 watts of light per gallon.

Hmmm good info . Thanks. Spoonge filter good ?

KMX wrote:

Very nice. Im working on my planted 55gallon. It will be my 1st planted tank

There is a person here in AZ that sells on aquabid and has great plants. Her screen name is chambers3530. She is from Texas and has some stuff out there. Check out our local planted forum at: www.azaquaticplants.com. There is really great people with great info.

very nice. One of these days I plan to try a planted tank.
But for now I will stay with cichlids and BEER!

KMX wrote:

Hmmm good info . Thanks. Spoonge filter good ?

sponge filter is great for cherry shrimp. For the planted tank i have two magnum 350. one with carbon/amonia media and the other with the micron filter.

dhawk52 wrote:

very nice. One of these days I plan to try a planted tank.
But for now I will stay with cichlids and BEER!

Thank you. Its not as hard. Right now i am starting an african cichlid tank and it seems a bit harder for me because they are always fighting and killing each other. :(

Do you need that much filtration with all the plants?

KMX wrote:

Do you need that much filtration with all the plants?

no actually the plants even help filtrate and get rid of nitrates, nitrides, and amonia. The reason i have so much filtration is because of all the fish i have in there (35 fish) . And i also do water changes about every 2 weeks. (lazy). i think the water stays cleaner with all the plants.

Plants do let you be a little more lax with the water changes. I plant and over filter and I do a water change ever 3 weeksish or when I feel like it or when it looks like it needs it.

The filters I have on my planted 75 are 2 emporor 400's
my planted 20 has a whisper 30-60

I've found the trick with plants is you pay close attention to waterflow when your planting them. Put stem plants in calm spots vals in current. Looking up the plants natural habitat helps too.
In my 75 I have the bottom layer as boiled un fertalized top soil mixed with laterite topped with silica sand/ pool filter sand. I've added root tabs and thats it and everything is growing nicely. Yes I've lost a few plants but I always replace them with a diffrent kind. If one kind died before it probably will again is my theory.

Fern wrote:

Plants do let you be a little more lax with the water changes. I plant and over filter and I do a water change ever 3 weeksish or when I feel like it or when it looks like it needs it.

The filters I have on my planted 75 are 2 emporor 400's
my planted 20 has a whisper 30-60

I've found the trick with plants is you pay close attention to waterflow when your planting them. Put stem plants in calm spots vals in current. Looking up the plants natural habitat helps too.
In my 75 I have the bottom layer as boiled un fertalized top soil mixed with laterite topped with silica sand/ pool filter sand. I've added root tabs and thats it and everything is growing nicely. Yes I've lost a few plants but I always replace them with a diffrent kind. If one kind died before it probably will again is my theory.

I have also had a lot of plants die on me. I guess with plants what is more important to know is how much light they need and if they can tolerate hard water. In texas most of the water is very hard and that is why almost all amazon sword plants will die. A good and easy plant is java fern, marinbo balls, and any type of anubia. I strongly recommend those to start. If you want amazons and other stuff like that just make sure you have good light and soften the water either with DI water (too expensive) or get a reverse osmosis system and use the water from there. I hope the info helps you out and you can try plants that have died on you again.

Very nice. We need to get some!

wow that looks great!

Sweet planted tank!!!!