20 Gallon Tank Jungle Tank - Plants everywhere!

[outlaw]

Seems it has been a few years since I last visited. I need to do a better job of hanging around.

I was cleaning up the 29 gallon (only has about 20gallon in it) and thought I would post some updates. I had to look back on my old post to see what plants I have in the tank. Old post - Plant tanks in progress - 20 / 29 | Freshwater Aquarium Journals Forum

29Gal (only half water due to weight. I don't fully trust the cabinet it's on)
Fish/Equipment
-1x SAE, 4x Nerite snails
-1x Finnex Planted+ light on split shifts of 4hrs on, 2hrs off, 4hrs on, off until morning
-Seachem root tabs with LFS sand substrate
-ADA Green Brighty Mineral (Just started)
-1x Oase corner filter
-1x 100w heater

Plants
- Guppy Grass
- Crypt Wendtii brown
- Jungle Val
- Anubias of some variety
- African water fern
- Borneo fern (only semi-aquatic, I think it's still in there somewhere. I need to find out and pull it if it is)
- Taiwan Lily
- Cardinal
- Repens
- Purple Waffle (Liked it, bought it, forgot to ask if aquatic. It's not, doh!. We'll see how it does with the makeshift shelf using a fish separator, zip-ties and two plumbing J hooks.

Old picture from 2022


Old picture from 2023



And a couple of days ago after pulling out too much Christmas moss. Pretty sure I have to pull a bunch of the jungle Vals as well, to get the others to start growing again. I had neglected the tank but thankfully Sammy (SAE) doesn't.





This is the 20gal
-2x Cardinal
-1x Neon
-Ton of Ramshorn snails
-3x Aqueon Planted clip on lights - various use times, sometimes one, sometimes all three for some chaos.
-Seachem root tabs (sparingly) with generic black gravel
-1x Oase corner filter
-1x 100w heater
-There are several plants in this tank now but the guppy grass is by far, the most successful. The vals have stayed stunted and are carpeting the tank. I'm pretty sure they pushed out most/all of the crypt wendtii.
- Guppy Grass
- Crypt Wendtii brown
- Jungle Val
- Repens
- Christmas moss (small amount hangs on to the drift wood
- Duckweed (comes and goes. I used to have to remove hand fulls of it)



Jan 2023


March 2026


Today 2026

 

[Noroomforshoe]

Beautiful!

 

[outlaw]

Thank you. I should find some time to spend maintaining them. MTS is still real here. I have two more 10gal tanks not mentioned. lol

 

[outlaw]

Small update. I added some root tabs (not to the waffle) and water top up. The purple waffle and lilies seem to like it.

Top - shortly after adding.
Bottom - Oct 7. I did press the right side into the base a little, but it looks like a few new leaves. It looks much happier overall.



Better full view. A lot of lilies in view now and it looks like the waffle has perked up quite a bit.

Tried to get a better comparison. not the same distance but obvious changes.

 

[outlaw]

Small update. Got the bulk guppy grass from the 20g sent to the LFS. Got more than expected since they pulled it out into the bundles they sell. Happy surprise. Got another SAE to help with the hair algae and an assassin snail to finally rid the tank of the ramshorns. Using algae wafers to collect them as well.

Also got a couple of new plants. Daughter picked the red/pink one out. Have to dose excel once a week-ish to "boost" it but it's actually grown in the ~2gal with limited light, some liquid ferts and excel. Put in a quarantine tank to make sure there's no hitchhikers since the LFS doesn't guarantee it.

Red/pink plant = Alternanthera Rosanervig
Some green larger duckweed looking stuff from my other daughters tank that had extra.




Here's the other two tanks.

 

[outlaw]

LFS had a sale after the packer game (discount of the their score)- 45% off livestock and plants. Picked up some new inhabitants for the 20gal, daughters tank and of course a couple of plants! I'm also very tempted to pickup a 40g breeder from another LFS. It does have a drilled back near the top but they are pretty cheap and I could consolidate three of the tanks into one - 29g, 10g, 10g > 40g. Aside from the volume, it has a better footprint for the plants. I could maybe do some sort of dividers at the substrate level to try keeping similar plants together. Based on how it is now, I don't see that working for very long

For the 20g
3x black neon
3x other tetras, already forgot the name We thought they would "pop" with all the green in the tank. Image search comes up possible golden blue emperor tetra.





For the 29g
1x rotala (Rotala rotundifolia "Green")
1x water milfoil (Myriophyllum elatinoides). They also have a lot of "Red Myro" which I may still give a go with the excel to see what the color does.
1x ADA Green Brighty Mineral
1x ADA Green Brighty Iron

Observation. From what I've read, you need CO2 to get/keep the vibrant reds. Flourish Excel appears to be doing OK so far, only time will tell how well it keeps up in comparison. While they don't have the bright read of the LFS with CO2 injection, this does look pretty good and has a nice contrast anyways without the complexity of an injection system.

Daughter's tank (5g Fluval Spec, I think)
2x nerites for algae control
1x aquarium scissors
She already has a Betta (Harrison), and a giant mystery snail (Gary) about the size of a golf ball, plus several plants including, Duckweed, Christmas moss, Anubius, and Vals. Sorry, no picture.

 

[outlaw]

Unfortunately, I can't embed flickr videos. I did attach it to fishlore so you don't have to leave the site. It's 30 second video of the 20g with the new fishy friends.
20261110_110348 Photo | 256102

 

[Lucy]

The tank looks great, so lush & clear