Adding plants to my aquarium today!

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

Today’s the day! I’ve been forming ideas for my aqua scape, making sure the water was right, making sure the light was enough, and finally, everything is working out and I’m ready to get plants. I’ve had a banana plant in there for a few months now and is doing great. I have root tabs and liquid ferts as well. The light is still a fluorescent low light tube, but since the banana plant did great under it I’m hoping others will. I will upgrade the light in the near future, but I don’t have the money right now to be spending $40 or more on a light.

Anyways, here’s how my tank looks now:



My plans are to move everything a little closer to the front, leaving room for plants in the back. The tallest fake plant that’s in the left corner I’ll move to under my hob filters output is, so no live plants have to deal with that. Then, I’m hoping to get some jungle Val and eventually have a wall of jungle Val along the back.

I’m also going to get crypt usteriana and another low-light crypt species (not sure yet, prob crypt wendtii or crypt petchii) and put those in the corners , one covering the sponge filter and another taking the spot of the fake plant.

Then I’m going to get some Java fern and glue it onto the piece of spider wood, there’s a spot there that would look so good with Java fern.

I’m also going to get anubias nana (hopefully, the stores stocking list online just says “assorted anubias” so I’m hoping I can get some nana) and put it on the mopani wood.

That’s pretty much it. I’ll also be picking up some fish today. Definitely some green neon tetras (probably 4 or so) and I’ll probably also get honey gourami, depending on whether or not they have females.

Any tips and suggestions are appreciated! I’ll give you all an update later, once I buy the plants and after I finish scaping the tank.

 

[kansas]

Good luck, you can never have too many plants.

 

[Mudminnow]

...I’ve had a banana plant in there for a few months now and is doing great. ...The light is still a fluorescent low light tube, but since the banana plant did great under it I’m hoping others will. I will upgrade the light in the near future...

...I’m hoping to get some jungle Val...crypt usteriana and another low-light crypt species (not sure yet, prob crypt wendtii or crypt petchii)...Java fern...anubias nana

Any tips and suggestions are appreciated!

All the plants you plan to get (other than maybe the vals) are ok with low light. Considering your banana plant is doing well, I'd caution you against getting a brighter light unless you plan to let the vals shade the tank. You could upgrade it to an LED for efficiency, but keeping things dim or shaded will make the tank easier to balance and maintain.

I second kansas's comment. If you stuff as many plants as possible into your tank, it's more likely to work out better. The more plant mass, the easier to balance.

 

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

Quite suprised with how generous the portions from this fish store were. I ended up not getting anubius, they only had anubias in pots which I do not want. However, I did get Java fern, jungle Val, crypt usteriana, and also hornwort (not part of my original plan).

They gave me 2 decent sized Java ferns which also had 4 baby Java ferns attached to it for the price of 1 (7.99).

I got a jungle Val bunch for 5.99 which came with 5 jungle Val and a few runners.

I got 1 large crypt. usteriana which has a runner with 2 plants on it, and the guy threw in a smaller crypt. usteriana too, for the price of one, 6.99.

Hornwort came with more than enough in one bunch for 5.99.

Haven’t added the fish but the green neons have colored up more acclimating to the tank (I got 4 btw)

Also, I only got 1 honey gourami since the guy said they didn’t get any females in this week. When I was looking in the tank as well I didn’t see any that were potentially female, so I just got the one male.


I’ll give an update once everything is in the tank!

 

[Fishfur]

Nice. I wish my LFS was so generous. Just curious but why not anubias in pots? Or is just that they cost more that way?

 

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

I didn’t want the anubias in pots because it was more expensive by a few dollars and I wanted to attach it to driftwood so I thought that might make it harder.

 

[Fishfur]

I didn’t want the anubias in pots because it was more expensive by a few dollars and I wanted to attach it to driftwood so I thought that might make it harder.

I totally get not wanting the extra expense but potted or not makes zero difference when it comes to attaching them to objects.

I find their own roots will attach most quickly if I trim all the existing roots of a new plant close to the rhizome before gluing or tying.

Only the tips of new root growth can attach to wood or coarse rock so trimming them this way means all new root tips will grow & then have the best chance to attach.

Over enough time I’ve found the glue tends to come off wood. Takes awhile, but a lot of my glued mounts have eventually let go so that if no roots had attached on their own I would have had to reattach them.

I do the same thing with Java fern.

 

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

I totally get not wanting the extra expense but potted or not makes zero difference when it comes to attaching them to objects.

I find their own roots will attach most quickly if I trim all the existing roots of a new plant close to the rhizome before gluing or tying.

Only the tips of new root growth can attach to wood or coarse rock so trimming them this way means all new root tips will grow & then have the best chance to attach.

Over enough time I’ve found the glue tends to come off wood. Takes awhile, but a lot of my glued mounts have eventually let go so that if no roots had attached on their own I would have had to reattach them.

I do the same thing with Java fern.

Ok, thank you for the advice! I didn’t cut the roots of my Java fern though, I just glued them on. Wish I checked earlier and saw this.

I finally finished the scape though! It took around 2 hours and I think it looks pretty good. The fish were stressed on the ride home, but the green neons have all colored up really nicely! They’ve also all taken some bug bite flakes that I just fed and loved it.

I made a few adjustments to my original plan:

1. I kept the fake silk plant in the corner because it looked weird under the output flow.
2. Had to take out a few ornaments to make room for the baby Java ferns that came with it. I recounted and there was actually 5 babies and 2 decent sized ferns.


Can’t wait for the jungle Val to grow, it looks good right now but once it’s a wall I think it’ll look amazing!

I’ll post some more pics of the tank later, when the glare is gone.

 

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

Everything is looking great and is really active! The green neons have a lot more red on them than the ones I usually see, which is kind of cool. The red is almost as bright as a regular neon tetra but with an even longer blue stripe, which is the best part.

My honey gourami is foraging for food and looking great as well, but still not that active and is acting shy.

Guppies aren’t bothering anyone and no one is bothering the guppies.

I’ll give another update tomorrow morning.

 

[Yourlocalfishkeeper]

Good morning everyone! My previous filter was having some issues (for about a year) but it was still running so I never setup my backup filter. I decided to set up the backup because the main filter was having issues starting and I didn’t want to deal with that again. So now, my Fluval c2 is running on the tank and the output is different than my previous filter and the Java fern is in line of flow from the filter, but i read that Java fern does fine in any flow.

(Also, don’t worry about bb, there’s a sponge filter in there that’s been running for at least 6 months, and I used some of the previous filter media in the new filter)


I’m also thinking of installing my backup heater as well, my current heater seems to be malfunctioning, I have temp set at 75 and my thermometer says the tank temp is 82. Even when I lower the set temp on the heater it countinues to be in the 80s.


I love the c.usterina so much. Some of the leaves have a reddish pink underside and I can’t wait for the little ones to grow.


Besides the filter and heater, everyone’s doing great. There have been no issues between the fish. All the plants are looking good.