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

bleublaze55 said:

Hey,

Great start! Hope things turn out well.

Just an FYI, you will never get the amount of CO2 necessary to sustain plant life out of those air stones. I would suggest a CO2 infusion of some sorts. Just my two cents.

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Well thank you very much for your 2 cents, I really appreciate any help and advice I can get from anyone with this!!!

I hope you are wrong about that but you are not the first person to tell me that, I just really really don't want to put co2 on this tank...

Good news is I have a little update on the project... I took all the purple waffle and aluminum plants out of the tank and took them back to the store to get my money back. I then went to Petco to see what kind of plants they had, here is a list of what I picked up:

Malaysian Red. ( Microsorium pteropus )
Anubias sp.
Java fern " Narrow leaf". x 3
Compacta ( Hygrophila Corymbosa Stricta )
Crested Java Fern.
Wisteria ( hygrophila Difformis )

So did I do better with these ones? I looked them all up real fast on my phone at the store and didn't find anything bad about them but I'm sure you guys would know more then I ...

I will get some new pictures as soon as I get them in the tank!!! Thanks again everyone for all the kind words and great advice...

Well here is the latest update on the tank, these are all the new plants I just put in yesterday... So what do you guys think? I know they are small but Im hoping it will look good once they grow out!!

Can anyone tell me if this is the right type of Anubias to have on the driftwood like this? the roots are not in the substrate at all I just have it tied on the wood..

xxUnRaTeDxxRkOxx said:

Hey just some advice, I would attach the java fern plants to the driftwood just like the anubias they are water column feeders, and will die if buried in the substrate. The rest of the plants are good where they are!!! So far looking good!!!

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O well that is awesome.. I wanted to put them on the wood too but didn't know I could. I will move them around tonight and put them on the wood somewhere!!

Thanks again Mike, I really really appreciate all of your help and advice with this whole project!!! I will keep everyone updated on it..

HybridHerp said:

Actually, bubblers are fine if you aren't injecting co2. The natural co2 in the water is balanced based off of the diffusion of co2 from the air into the water and vice versa. Since you aren't injecting more co2 into the water, disturbing the water surface with bubbles isn't going gas off more co2 than is going to be coming back into the tank.

Although personally I just think they look silly and I prefer surface agitation and flow, but it serves the same purpose lol

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Yeah I have read the same thing that if you use co2 you should not use any kind of air stones or bubblers because the more you break the surface of the water the more your co2 will escape out of the tank, but if you don't use co2 the air stones will help aerate the water better to help the plants!!!

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this who have experience with this? I know you can't believe everything you read on the internet so I surely believe the great advice I get on here over the things I read on the internet...

I really want to keep this a low tech tank and don't want to put co2 on it... I have so many tanks and fish now that it cost me about a $1,000 a month to care for them already I really don't want to add more of a monthly or weekly cost for this... Don't get me wrong I will add it if I really have to but to be honest with you I would rather have plain cheap plants that don't require co2 then big fancy plants that do need it!!!

Thanks again for all the help everyone, and I would really appreciate any input any has on this...

Well here is some new update pictures of the tank after I moved the Java Ferns onto the driftwood.. I have not added any new plants yet as I don't want to do too much at once, and I still am not 100% sure the other kinds I want to ad to it yet..

I do have a question for anyone who can help... I am getting a ugly brown algae growing in the tank, it almost looks like long fur growing off the driftwood and the leaf's look like they are getting a brown cover over them..

I tried to get good pictures of it but it will not show in pictures... I just did a water change on the tank before I took these pictures and I sucked most of it off the wood with the hose not thinking to take pictures first.

Does anyone know what this is or what I need to do to fix it?? Thanks again guys for any help you can give me with this....

So does anybody have any thoughts on this algea? it is getting much worse now and I want to stop it before it is out of control!!! Whenever I get algea in any of my tanks I just turn the lights off for a week or so until it goes away.. But with all the live plants I can not turn the lights off so I'm not sure what to do..

I would really appreciate any help anyone could give me with this!!! Thanks everyone..