jeez I just wanted a planted tank

[jclyde13]

Never seen that here

I bought mine either on Amazon or eBay.

Nor is any plant a carpet, if you get my drift.

Well, "stem plant" and "carpet" are terms that we use in the planted tank hobby to refer to specific things. Stem plants are plants like Ludwigia, Hygrophila, Rotala, etc. that can be propagated by cutting the tops off and replanting them. Then there are rosette plants like Cryptocoryne and amazon swords, which usually propagate via runners. And then there's the rhizomatous plants like Bolbitis, Java fern, and Anubias that propagate by splitting the rhizome. It's just useful to know which category your plants fall into.

Edit: I also left out bulbs, mosses, and floating plants, but you get the idea.

 

[badassissimo]

For algae problems, use an algae scrubber, right? Or does that kind of defeat the purpose and starve plants?

 

[Gutter]

View attachment 1252179 View attachment 1252180

Hello; These are two photos of my 55 gallon tank taken last January 2017. I use a small quartz gravel ranging in size from around bb size to small pea size. I like the gravel to be around four inches deep. In this particular tank I have air operated UGF's running that cover maybe 50% of the bottom.
The lights were pretty basic. I modified the hoods from 18 inch fluorescent tubes which were working well enough to screw in LED bulbs. I cobbled screw in sockets into the hoods. I was running four LED daylight bulbs ( sometimes called natural) at as close to 6500 K wavelength. I do not like the soft white bulbs.
One more note on the lights, I run them only about 12 hours a day. This helps keep down the algae. I will check but think the LED bulbs were the 13 watt replacement for 60 watt incandescent types.

I will try to get more recent photos of the other two planted tanks and more current pictures of the 55 soon.

Nice tank!

 

[Sarlindescent]

IMO, low light setups are easier than most people think as long as you don't have too much light. Dwarf sag is the best carpet plant you can use for easy care. If you start getting algae, reduce the lighting period. My favorite method is via a siesta. I set my lights to run for 3 hours in the morning from when I wake up to a little after I am gone, then they turn off while at work. I have the timer turn the lights on at my earliest time getting home and run 4-5 hours so I can enjoy it at night. This allows co2 to build back up in the water column while the lights are out preventing algae.

With that said, all tanks, even fresh have a settling period of about 6 months just like SW. Most planted tanks will have some algae for that period, then excess nutrients tend to level out and it reduces (assuming you adjust the lights properly and do water changes). I recommend 25-50% / week. Much like fish, you should research the plants before purchasing. With that said, there are several easy plants (most listed above) and they add a lot to a FW setup.

 

[Sarlindescent]

Forgot to mention, for planted tanks, I almost always use black diamond blasting sand or pool filter sand. I add diy root tabs to the soil as needed. This allows me to control the nutrients better and has allowed great success.

 

[Fat Homer]

Honestly as most have mentioned, start off with a basic low light setup and get the hang of things and see where your interest lies...

There is a ton of info on different methods and honestly there is no one size fits all for planted tanks, its a lot of experimenting and balancing things to work for your setup...

Most important is take your time and dont rush it... planning things now help a lot down the line...

 

[magpie]

Part of it too is your water, so it just takes time to figure out what works for your water, your maintenance schedule, your light. So I recommend starting with easy low light plants (many mentioned above), a basic fertilizer like Flourish which you just dump in each water change, and maybe some Root Tabs for your substrate plants which you can do every 3-4 months. If you go gravel, use smaller gravel.

Carpets are more challenging without CO2. Here's my 65 gallon, low tech. (sorry, window glare on the right)


Here's my 20 long, low tech. It's filled in a little since this pic, since I got a light that fits the tank (transitioned it from a 10 to a 20 long.)

 

[geoffish]

OK. My confession. I HAVE A DREAM. A dream that I can have a large tank with dirty dirty fish, and yet not have to vacuum constantly. I'm talking Wisconsin natives. Bluegill pumpkinseed crappie perch pickerel rockbass (all DIRTY) I'm OK with frequent water changes. But can I have enough plants or dirt that ALL the waste is consumed by plant or bacteria? Won't waste turn to dirt eventually anyway? Has ANYBODY OUT THERE pulled this off? (Not vacuuming with dirty fish) when these things take a dump it's no guppy turd lol. Thanks for all the responses so far you guys/gals are helpful.

 

[Fat Homer]

Although i havent done it personally, i believe it can be done... i've seen a lot of large (250g - 400G) planted display tanks at stores from low light to high light setups with a fair amount of fish...

These tanks all tend to be placed quite high up so not likely they vaccum the bottom often if at all...

I guess again it will be a balancing act and maybe have the help of an UGF it could work out even better???

Although again, this is just my train of thought as my planted tanks have all hd shrimp or small waste producers...

 

[skjl47]

But can I have enough plants or dirt that ALL the waste is consumed by plant or bacteria? Won't waste turn to dirt eventually anyway? Has ANYBODY OUT THERE pulled this off? (Not vacuuming with dirty fish)

Hello; Here is my take on the possibility to avoid using a siphon vacuum. I think it can be done for a time, maybe a long time, but not forever.
A little history. My first tanks had only UGF's back in the late 1950's. I had not learned of regular water changes yet. I did nearly always have live plants, snails, was overstocked, overfed and only topped off the tank with water. I was breaking down a tank for a good cleaning after about a year and boy were they nasty.

Skip ahead a few decades and I have learned the advantage of water changes and the siphon vacuum. I also migrated thru several stages of power filter development so I moved from air bubble operated HOB's to the impeller type. I also learned the value of light stocking and light feeding, including fasting days. I can now run tanks for years. Maybe to never have to break down a tank. The last tanks I broke down was because they had to be moved so I could replace carpet with a tile flooring. Even then the gravel was loaded with mulm and detritus and needed a fair bit of rinsing.

To the possibility of all waste being converted by bacteria or plants to the point of no build up being left, I don't think so. My thinking being that in the foods used by the animals and the nutrients taken up by the plants there are bits that are not exactly organic. By that I mean if animals had a 100% effective digestive system and the plants had a 100% effective process of extracting nutrients from the substrate and water column ( some plants take minerals directly from the water I believe), there are still bits left that simply cannot be used. These bits become part of the detritus/mulm in a tank. Add to these things the dust that drifts in from the air and other stuff that finds it's way into a tank. In other words some amount of stuff will be left to accumulate in a closed system of a tank.

There may be more but this is enough.