FINISHED TANK - some initial pictures included :o)

Hello everyone who's interested in this thread

I have finally received my plants today from AquariumGarden.com ( here is more on their service quality: ). I ordered them yesterday and received them today. I am satisfied with the plants' condition and with the service.

Here are some pictures of the tank before and after the setup. The plants are all young right now and short. All the plants in the back will grow very tall with time (should reach the top of the tank), so the way the tank looks right now is not the final look. It actually doesn't look that good to me right now, but growing out a tank is a gradual process, so I am expecting better results as time goes on. I may remove some of the plants (like Wisteria, Water Sprite, and Hornwort) when the tank has settled in. These plants are supposed to help the tank settle in. After it has done so, I will probably remove them and replace them with some nicer-looking plants.

The foreground looks bare right now but I want it to be completely covered in the grass-like plants (Sagittaria Subulata) as time goes on. The tall plants in the background of the right corner of the tank are actually Sagittarias Chilensis - they look like Giant Vallisneria! I didn't order them but I ordered Sag. Platyphylla so my guess is they substituted the plants.

OK, so here is the tank. Once again, this is now how I want it to look so I'm waiting for the plants to settle and grow out in the tank.

 

Here is the tank with Eco-Complete, and pictures of 2 larger pieces of driftwood that I'm using in my setup.

 

Nice, I see you tooked the driftwood pictures earlier, bare bottom tank. The llight fixture looks nice too.

 

HI Atm, I'm not done with pictures yet, lol ;D

Here are the pictures of the already planted tank. It's cloudy right now and there are tons of air bubbles inside as I just finished setting it up. Everything should clear up in a few days or so (I hope!).

 

Isabella,
You got such a beautiful tank. Nice work!

 

Thank you Inuyasha. It was a lot of work though! And there is still a lot of work to be done in the future. Someone on plant geek told me that a planted tank is more of an evolutionary work. It evolves and changes its look with time. How true. This person has put it into words perfectly.

 

Well look at it this way. All your hard work and dedication paid off in the end.

 

Looks fantastic!

 

Thank you Mike for the nice description, but like I've said above ... I am hoping this tank will begin to look better with time (it's not "that fantastic" now ... lol, but thank you ). The plants need to grow in the back and spread around the floor in the front. That will take a while without CO2 injections (but I am patient so that's OK). Also, I have some plants in there that were not in my original plan - they're there to help start up the tank. Once the plants have settled in, I will most likely replace them with some nicer and somewhat more demanding plants. Plants acclimatize better when you plant them in an already established tank, or so I have heard.

 

has the water cleared up?

 

Lol, those plants sure will grow a bit slower without any co2, though co2 makes them grow at amazingly fast rate it's amazing. How's it going?

 

I absolutly LOVE the driftwood... did you buy it or dry it yourself?

 

Lolagurl, yes, it's cleared up now There is a new thread with some new pictures on my blog.

Atm ... yeah, I know ... but that's OK. I can wait And, I don't want to risk killing all of my fish in case of a CO2 reactor malfunction, you know.

Jim, I bought the driftwood at a fish store (at Aquarium Adventure, the one in LI). The label said it is an aquarium-safe driftwood from Malaysia. Even so, I boiled and soaked it for about 3 weeks before I put it in my tank. I also gave it a good scrubbing. All this in order to remove all the tannins from the driftwood, which would have otherwise stained my water yellow (or even orange) and lowered my pH a lot.