My first real serious attempt at a live planted tank!!

So I wanted to make a Thread for this because it is my first attempt at a real live planted tank, In the past I have tried putting live plants and all my tanks put they always die off after a while.. So this time I am doing it different, I am starting off with the plants first then adding fish once the plants are doing good..

I am starting with a old 90 gal. saltwater tank I had sitting empty for the last 3 months and got tired of looking at it, I to all the live rock and sand out and put it on Craigslist for sale, I cleaned the whole tank out super good and let it sit with fresh clean water in it for 2 days just to make sure I got all the saltwater funk out of it. I then empty and cleaned the tank out real good again....

My new best internet friend Mike (xxUnRaTeDxxRkOxx ) has a Thread on here about his 45 gal. live planted tank and it made me fall in love with it so I wanted my own.. So I asked him a million questions about everything and did some research myself and feel I am ready to give it a try now!!!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH MIKE FOR PUTTING UP WITH ME AND ALL MY SILLY QUESTIONS, AND FOR ALL YOUR HELP AND GREAT ADVICE YOU GAVE ME!!!!!!

I bought 2 bags of FloraMax and 2 bags of Flourite plant substrate for my substrate and them covered that with about 2 or 3" of black sand..

I put a layer of Fluorite then a layer of FloraMax and then another layer of the 2 mixed together, Then I put the sand over that... I took pictures of it like this so everyone can see how thick each layer is, I then took a thin piece of plastic to push the sand down on the sides to hide the substrate and give it a better look...

Burbotman said:

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Thank you Sir...

HybridHerp said:

How are you lighting this tank and what plants are you thinking of using? You are going to maybe want some form of fertilization around...maybe just osmocote + root tabs that you can buy from certain hobbyists around the internet and such (or aqua bid probably has some sellers).

Planted tanks are a ton of fun, and there is a lot of cool stuff you can do in a 90 gallon.

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I'm not for sure on the lighting yet, I have some beamworks LED lights and a old Coralife CFL light with some 10,000k bulbs in it now so I just ordered some new 6500k bulbs for it... I need to see what one works better, Any input on what you think would work better??

And yes I was planning on getting some root tabs for them just not sure what ones are the best to use yet.. As far as the plants I will use I know I will start off with the easiest ones first Java fern, Java Moss, maybe some Amazon swords.. I would appreciate any input on that as well!!! Remember this is my first attempt at this!! LOL..

Thanks for the reply and input..

I just ordered 5 large pieces of Malaysian Driftwood for the tank, I got them all boiled and soaked for 3 days so they are in the tank now and ready to go.. I wanted to do it different, in all my other tanks I have the décor on the ends and the middle open so on this one I put the wood in the middle and will put the plants on the outside around the wood and of course I want to tie some plants on to the wood...

if anyone has any input on what kind of plants are good to put on the wood and don't need to be in the substrate I would appreciate that as well!!!

All the wood is in the tank now and it is filled up with water... I am going to let it run like this for 2 or 3 days then put the filter and other heater in it, I have a well seeded Fluval 404 I will put on it with a big HOB filter on the other end..

I know some may think 2 filters and 2 heaters is over-kill but I don't think you can have too much filtration on your tank and I like to have 2 of everything on my tanks so if 1 fails they still have the other 1 to keep them alive...

Stay tuned for more updates!!!