My Natural Plant Aquarium

3/2/07

I have always wanted a beautiful planted tank, but my previous success has been limited to only the hardiest of plants surviving for any length of time. Most of the plants I have brought home have fallen apart within a week or so. I wanted to expand my plant keeping skills beyond Java Fern, Java Moss, Water Sprite and Wysteria.

So I began to hear about this crazy idea of putting dirt in the bottom of your tank. Dirt? Am I being punked? I even clean the gravel before I put it in, why would I put in dirt? Um, because plants like to grow in it? Yeah, I guess that makes sense...

So I dove in and did the deed with a used 40g tank I traded away a couple 20s for.

Setting up the tank

So now I just have to watch it and see what happens.

The tank gets natural light from about 2PM until the sun slips behind the house again around 5PM. Of course this will change with the seasons.
Two fluorescent tubes totaling 60w are on over the tank from 11AM to 11PM.

Daily water tests

3/16/07

3/20/07

My lights on the plant tank went out a week ago, and I ordered a new triple bulb hood for the tank. That arrived today. The plants have not been doing as well as I would like. The water sprite were looking kind of yellow, and I pulled a couple up and one just floated up, and they had no roots developed at all. Hopefully having a light over the tank again will fix that problem.

4/12/07

Here's how the plant tank is looking now that it has had a few weeks with the new triple bulb hood over it. I have been watching the amount of algae and adjusting the amount of time the hood is on. Also the sunlight coming in the window has increased, so I need to adjust for that. The plants are growing very well now, and I have had to prune a few (usually I just nip them in half and replant the part I took off to fill in more). I have been pulling out some of the water lettuce as it takes over. I love the way it looks with the roots hanging down, but it can really fill in if I let it go.

I really like the red plants in front, which I added a few weeks ago. According to Wet Spot they are Alternanthera Reineckii. I like the contrast they provide.

I still have my happy school of 10 rasboras in there, five ottos, lots of snails (trumpet and misc), and Mr Lokundji.

April 26 - After Pruning and removing some of the floating plants. Also added 6 red cherry shrimp.

Here it is during the day, lit from the window behind it. I'd like to get some nice low ground cover growing in there.

May 23

Today I gave the tank a serious pruning. The val are so long (some as long as four or five feet) that they wrap around and around the top in knots until they block out the light below. The other plants were starting to suffer, so I pulled out a few to take to the auction last night, and today I cut back some of the longer leaves. I have read that will kill the leaf, and I have also read that it will not, so I will see what happens. I tried cutting some of them above the water, some below, some on angle. I don't know if it will make any difference. I also trimmed some other plants and cleaned up a bit. It's much brighter, and the fish have room to swim again.

This tank has a few 'natives' - a young betta who's mom and dad were some of the first residents and he was apparently the only survivor of their efforts, and several baby otocinculus. I was so surprised to see the  mini ottos - I didn't know they would breed in the tank!

July 4, 07

Everything is going well. My Lukundji kicked off, and I removed the betta so there are no predators in there anymore. I moved the endlers in since their planted 10g tank wasn't getting enough light. So now this tank has ottos (who are breeding), green-eyed rasboras, and endlers. This is one of my favorite tanks to just sit and relax next to.

Also, trimming the val didn't hurt anything, nothing even turned brown. So today I trimmed a bit more since it was starting to wrap around the top again.

I added six red cherry shrimp months ago. I thought they all got eaten, but I saw one the other day, and then I saw two together. So there are at least two remaining.

September. 07

The tank was doing fine, when I decided to rob it of almost all the val in order to plant my new african tank. The val was taking over anyway. That just left a few sprigs of this and that, and a big sword plant. About a week later I moved the breeding pair of severums in there after watching the other fish in their community aquarium outwit them while they were trying to protect their latest batch of eggs. I felt bad watching those other fish gobble up their eggs! So I moved them into the relative paradise of the planted tank. Unfortunately they thanked me by eating the shrimp and the danios, but then they laid eggs, which makes it all worthwhile.

They do seem very happy in there with all the plants.

I'm enjoying this tank so much I have added a second plant tank - Plant tank 2

stefrobrts@stephanies-mustang.com