60 gallon planted community setup

[Muni]

After a long hiatus from this beautiful hobby I finally have time and means to get back into it.

With the purchase of our 2nd home and quite a bit more space I picked up a 60 gallon marineland setup from one of the local box stores, black stand, black rimmed tank, glass tops, and led strip light. On sale for a pretty good deal.

The goal is just a basic community tank to teach my kids about fish and a little bit of a show piece since this is in my living room. I started with basic white sand from the LFS before I decided I wanted to do a bit of a planted setup. Nothing super crazy but enough for some color contrast.

This was my insperation. It'll take a year or more to get that kind of growth but I really liked the color contrast of the white sand with the plants and darker plant substrate.

So after a few days of just sand and water running, I added a bag of plant substrate in the center to make the little island buildup. I've never used this stuff before and it says on the bag "won't cloud tank". HA. It seems we have a difference of opinion on what cloud means.

I drained the tank to about 10 inches of water to make placing the plant substrate easier and prevent and overflow. It clouded the **** outta the tank. I added water back up to fill level hoping to dilute the sediment in the water a bit. This is what that looked like.

As you can see on the left side there the sediment started to settle on the white sand. I was very concerned this was going to be permanent but luckily it was just dust and I was able to waft it away as I moved the sand back into place to level things out.

 

[Muni]

After getting the dust cleared up I placed the plants I had purchased and let the filters run overnight.

Cleared up pretty nicely.

The foreground is a few sprigs of Staurogyne Repens and the one in the back is an Amazon compacta (Echinodorus bleheri)

 

[duanes]

One of the problems I have had with planted tanks, is that at the start, there need to be a lot of higher plants to outcompete with algae. I realize your intention is to mimic the set up in the photo you posted.
But Algae is/are very adept at scrounging up all nutrients before higher plants can make use them, and I believe the few plants you have will soon be overcome by the ability of algae to do. Especially if you have chosen bulbs with enough intensity to properly grow plants, or are better for algae farms.
My suggestion would be to add many more higher plants even if some are later cast aside to compete with the impending algae, and make sure your bulbs are better for higher plants than for growing algae.

 

[duanes]

Adding a few stems of Pothos to the surface can sometimes help compete, if you don't want to purchase extra aquatic plants.

 

[Muni]

I'll keep that in mind. On the search for more plants right now. I'm about 90% certain the led strip light that came with this isn't addiquite for plants. It's bright but not sure. The tank also gets some indirect sunlight if i have the curtains on the bay window open.

 

[Dis]

Looks like a good start
Put a background on it or paint the back of the tank. It will hide all the cords

 

[duanes]

A little indicts sun has always been good for my planted tanks.

And putting a black background to hide cords is a good suggestion, I usually paint a panel of styrofoam black and and use Gorilla tape to afix it.
I've always really admired the sculptured concept you are going for (Amano style) but mine usually just end up jungles.

 

[Wiggie]

Adding a few stems of Pothos to the surface can sometimes help compete, if you don't want to purchase extra aquatic plants.

Duanes--can you expand on this? I have Pothos all over the house and love them--so easy to grow from cuttings. Ive seen others do this but...why is it good to do this again? Ive got plenty I could put in there if it would be helpful to my tank...

 

[Muni]

Looks like a good start
Put a background on it or paint the back of the tank. It will hide all the cords

Thats the plan for today.

Spent 4 hours in the emergency room last night with my 7 year old who broke her arm. She was going to help me paint the back.

We found our acrylic paint set and did 4 little test spots to choose a color. Dark green, black, white, blue.

I like the black but my wife seems to like the blue. So for now I may grab one of the double sided films to put up there until we agree on a color since it is in OUR living room.

 

[duanes]

Pothos helps remove nitrate, and some other nutrients.
I always try to keep my nitrate level at between 2 and 5ppm.
Water changes do it best, but any help I can get is worth it to me,
and in some of my tanks where my cichlids consider aquatic plants a salad bar, pothos is sometimes not eaten. The roots also provide shelter for fish, that are eaten by bird in nature, and I like the natural look.
.
They do tend to collect detritus, and need to be occasionally