Taking the plunge into plants

Hey all—

After salivating over some breathtakingly gorgeous planted tanks at my LFS yesterday, I decided it was time to give it a shot.

I currently have a 55 gallon tank with the following dimensions: 48" long by 20" high by 12" deep. It has all artificial decorations (some fake driftwood, plastic plants, and about 2.5 inches of regular black aquarium gravel).

I have the following fish:
-1 male Betta
-9 Neon Tetras
-9 Harlequin Rasboras
-6 Otocinclus
-Will soon buy 9 Gold Tetras

I've been reading and soaking up everything I can find on this great forum so I don't go into this totally blind and just ask for someone to spoon feed me information. But I do have a few questions that I'm having trouble finding answers for.

First off, I have this light fixture over my tank, in the 36-48" size:

I want to aI'm for just over 1.5 watts/gallon, but despite the apparent brightness of this particular light, which I'm quite satisfied with visually, the manufacturer specs say it's only 15 watts? I have my fingers crossed that this is due to some difference in the way watts are calculated using LED lights instead of CFLs? I figured I'd double what I currently have and see where that puts me, but if I go at face value on these specs that lands me at barely over 0.5 wpg. Am I missing something here? While we're at it, is there any convincing reason not to go with LEDs?

I have a lot more questions, but for the sake of keeping this post to sub-novel length, I'll just ask one more. From what I'm reading, if I want to do a really nice carpet of some sort over much of the aquarium floor, I need to do something about my substrate. I'd like to avoid replacing it entirely, and it seems like people have success with adding fluorite into existing gravel. Is this a good solution for me?

Thanks in advance. I'll definitely want to pick the brains of you experts as I continue my research, but this is a great place for me to get started so I can start budgeting what all I need to buy.

 

Bumping this up for you

 

What are you asking?

 

First off, don't go by watts/gallon. It may have worked at one time with incandescent lights but as lighting efficiency improves you get more light for fewer watts so what would have grown low light plants in the old days will probably x-ray your fish these days LOL!

For a carpeting plant you're going to need a high tech setup with high light, ferts and CO2 so for your first planted tank attempt I would recommend not doing carpeting plants. There are alternatives though that look pretty good even if they aren't perfect little lawns

And yes, you can mix planted substrates with gravel, some of them anyway. I think Eco-complete is one that you can do that with.

 

Okay, thanks all!

I have done several more hours of research and planning and put together an action plan as well as tentatively deciding on plants.

I've figured out my lighting using PARs instead of WPG, so we should be good there. This will be a low-medium light aquarium with around 20ish PAR hitting the bottom.

I am currently soaking some driftwood to leach out tannins before I introduce it to the aquarium in place of the fake driftwood currently in there. I have one piece of mopanI and one piece of malaysian. Since this is going to lower my pH anyway, I also ordered some peat granules to put in my filter if I want to lower it a bit further, and because peat is easier to change out if/when the driftwood gets depleted and I want my pH to stay where it's at. I also removed my carbon from the filter since I don't want it sucking up my fertilizers when I add the plants.

I'm going to find some non-carbonate rocks - one or two reasonably large ones to compliment the driftwood in the hardscape.

I will be replacing about half of my substrate (small black gravel) with black sand fluorite, so that should be a good mix.

Here are the plants I have in mind:

-Amazon Sword for the background. My tank is 20" high so I think I'll be okay here even if I eventually have to prune. Figured I'd use root tabs since these plants apparently do better on tabs than water column ferts alone. Anyone recommend a good root tab for that plant?
-Amazon Dwarf Sword. My LFS has some and it looks the same only shorter. So kind of a mid/background plant.
-Anubias for midground. Haven't decided on a species. Any recommendations? I'm also thinking liquid ferts will be enough for these.
-Java Fern and/or Java Moss to put on driftwood and rocks.
-Haven't decided between Marsilea Minuta and Monte Carlo for my carpet. I'm leaning towards Monte Carlo. Don't really care if it grows slow without CO2. I won't be buying or DIYing any injection right now, but if necessary I could see myself using Excel.

So can anyone recommend a good liquid fert? I'm leaning towards the macro and micro ones from RootMedic after reading around although I'm having trouble finding a good supplier.

Any feedback regarding plants, ferts, etc. etc. is greatly appreciated! I'd love for someone more experienced to poke holes in my plan where they need to be poked.

I think my ottos will appreciate a bit of increased algae growth, and I'm trying to decide between adding 9 gold tetras or adding 9 more neons for a total large school of 18.

Excited to see where this goes! Already I don't like looking at all the fake plants I have in there... haha.

 

Haven't used Monte Carlo but it looks very nice! I have grown Marsilea before but with some difficulty in my low-tech setup. It does like high light.

Post pictures as you go!

 

I'll definitely document things. Monte Carlo it is then.

Thanks for the feedback, do you see any issues with my plan, or have recommendations on liquid ferts or root tabs?

I'm also wondering how long I need to soak my driftwood if anyone knows. It's too big to boil, but my tub puts out steaming hot water. I've probably been going close to 24 hours now. Some sites I read were saying like 2 weeks of soaking prior to introducing to the tank? I'm not too worried about tea coloration as long as it's not too dramatic. Part of the reason I'm getting driftwood is to lower my pH anyway. Am I okay to introduce the driftwood to the tank in the next day or two?

 

You can introduce it anytime, but every piece of wood is different. Some pieces sink immediately without any soaking and others take forever!

 

Sounds good, I won't wait an arbitrary amount of time to put it in. Now that it's been 48+ hours in the water, the tinting is pretty minimal and it is waterlogged enough to stop floating and hold still. I can only assume it will get even heavier over time in the tank. I don't mind a bit of tannin coloring, so I took my charcoal out of the filter. Driftwood should probably go in this weekend if not sooner.

I'm going to be replacing about 1/2 of my substrate today with black sand fluorite now that it arrived from Amazon. Depending on how long it takes the inevitable cloudiness to cool down, I may also put in the driftwood tonight. More likely tomorrow.

Now that I'm just about on the threshold of putting plants in, I was hoping for some planting advice. With the Java Fern and Anubias, I think I'll anchor them to the hardscape elements with fishing line until they can hold themselves in place. Amazon swords will be planted.

Since I'm planning on doing a Monte Carlo carpet, I need some advice on planting. What's the best way to plant it in a half fluorite/half gravel substrate? In order to carpet effectively (not necessarily quickly), do I need to use some kind of lattice to hold it down and provide suitable anchors, or can I just plant small clumps directly into the substrate, spaced out around the floor of the aquarium with root tabs nearby, and trim when it gets above my desired carpet height to stimulate horizontal growth? Is there more to it than that?

Pictures to come tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks again for everyone's help; I'm sure I'll have more questions as I keep going through this conversion.

 

Depending on how your Monte Carlo was grown before you bought it, you may be able to divide or cut it into tiny pieces, then use tweezers to plant the minI plants. Space them all over the area you want covered, about 1-2 inches apart. You shouldn't need to use any lattice unless you've got fish that might root around and disturb them.

Post pictures!

 

Thanks for the planting tips! I'll see if I can get info on whether they grew it totally immersed in the aquarium or poking out (I'm assuming that's what you're referring to)?

Here's the aquarium established without any changes made; how it looked this morning:




Today was a good step forward. I pulled out a good portion of the black gravel, rinsed the out of the fluorite sand (I'm guessing it never really comes totally "clean"), and dumped it all in. It got so cloudy that I semi-panicked and immediately proceeded to fill up the aquarium from about 20% to 100% in order to dilute things. Don't want to lose any fish in this transition.

The water is cloudy but not terribly so, and the fluorite is still mostly in a big mound in the center... haha. I'll wait for the water to get clear again and the fish to de-stress for a couple of days or so before I spread it out again, hopefully causing a minimum of cloudiness.

I also added in the two pieces of driftwood and a couple of well-washed, boiled river rocks. I found 3 rocks I liked and tested them for carbonate/bicarbonate. Don't want any rocks that will make my pH go up; it's plenty high enough as it is. Two of the rocks passed the test, one got fizzy on me so he went in the garbage.

There's plenty of room for more driftwood and more rocks I think, so I'll probably add it later. Meanwhile I'm going to give the fish a few days rest before I mess with things again, and keep a close eye on the water parameters to see if the pH drops at all. With the GH/KH kit I received in the mail yesterday, I've found my water is extremely hard. GH and KH in the aquarium are both 200+ppm. I'm hoping the driftwood will lower that a bit as well as the pH. If not, I have peat granules to add to my filter gradually so I can maintain a lower pH for the fish and plants. I also may look into RO water if I think it's necessary.

I also received my second LED light. I have both lights installed, but until I actually get plants, I'll just be using one of them.

Here's the tank shortly after I finished today's work. Cloudy, but the wood and rooks look nicer than the fake stuff I took out, and hopefully the particulate settles down overnight.

 

Sorry for the double post, but the water was much clearer this morning, and after I got home from work about 30 minutes ago, it now looks great. After a quick head count, I lost no fish, and none of them are looking or acting stressed. That could have been much worse!

The driftwood and rocks look good, I'm quite happy with them! I want more driftwood and will probably get at least one more good sized rock today.

 

nice start.
to be honest with that tall a tank with no co2 your monte carlo will probably just melt away but you can give it a go and see what happens.
I like the flourish line for liquid ferts. flourish potassium and flourish iron I use most. check out my tank and let me know if I can help with any questions.

 

Thanks for the tips. Since from my research it seems like carpet is difficult to pull off without high tech. I figured I would give it a shot using the Monte Carlo. I have low-med light (around 20 PAR at the bottom of the 20" tank), and I plan on using Flourish Excel for carbon since I'm not ready to invest in a CO2 system. Or I guess more accurately, my wife isn't ready for me to invest in a CO2 system

Another picture from this morning. I spread the fluorite out some more, and it made very little mess clouding the water. I also rearranged a bit with the hardscape elements. Still want to put some more in for some vertical elements, so this will probably change again at some point.

Parameters are still looking good, so I'm anticipating putting in plants and probably more fish next week.




Thanks again for everyone's help!

 

Okay I think I'll be starting off planting this week with Excel and root tabs for the carpet and swords. My water is hard enough that I want to try without dosing extra micros before I spend money on them; I may not need them. I also want to see how close my fish bioload comes to providing necessary macros. If I start seeing deficiencies, I'll buy ferts as needed.

Anyone know what the optimal amount of lighting hours per day is?

 

Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium (N-P-K) are what plants crave (not Mondo ). Fish will provide the N, but you will have to provide some form of P and K.

.
Anyone know what the optimal amount of lighting hours per day is?

Start around 8-10 hours. If you start getting "green water" then reduce the duration to around 6-8 hours.

 

I would start low. Number of hours will also depend on the type of light you have. I find that 6-8 is perfect for my low-light plants with relatively weak LED's. The same number of hours on the tank with a T5HO gives me epic plant growth as well as algae. Choose your battles

 

Thanks for the pointers. Does fish waste not supply enough potassium to grow plants without adding ferts? Same question for magnesium.

Also, is there any harm in splitting up the lighting during the day? (i.e. 3 hours on in the morning, off all afternoon, then 3 hours on again in the evening, or something like that?) I'm trying to find a solution that is good for the plants and fish, an also allows me to have the lights on when people might actually be around to see the fish. The aquarium looks WAY better with the lights on.

I have two lighting ballasts, with both of them on I'm at about 20 PAR; without the larger of the two, I'm at close to 8 PAR most likely. Is there any harm in leaving the less powerful one on for 10-12 hours/day and then just turning on the second, brighter one for 6-8 of those hours? Sort of a "morning light, afternoon light, evening light" setup?

 

It's a great idea! It's also a trick used to stop algae growth because it prefers to grow in sustained light not short bursts of it. I wouldn't bother leaving the weaker light on all day, just put the whole thing on a timer

 

Great, thanks for the tip - the purpose of leaving the weaker light on is for aesthetics. If I'm home and watching the aquarium, I'd like to have light. The weaker light is what I currently use since it's not planted and it's plenty enough light to see by, just not enough to grow anything beyond maybe Java Moss.

Would it hurt something if I used the weaker light as a "baseline" just so we can see the fish most of the day, and timed the second, stronger light just for the benefit of the plants?

 

Oh I see! I thought you meant leave it on all day even if you aren't there. Sure, go for it, you can always change the lighting schedule if it doesn't work for you!

 

Okay, we're up and running!

I'm going to post a buttload of pictures. All fake plants and decorations are gone (with the exception of my ceramic castle which belongs to my betta, Neptune).

I have two pieces of driftwood, a couple of rocks, and PLANTS.

1x Amazon Sword, which I'm hoping will propagate
1x Dwarf Amazon Sword, which I'm hoping with propagate as well
1x Anubias Nana, tied by the roots to a rock with fishing line until it anchors itself
2x Java Ferns, tied by the rhizomes to the two pieces of driftwood
A few patches of Monte Carlo planted directly into the substrate. If these take off or seem to do well, I'll replant them more carefully spaced out so I can get a good carpet going. If they melt immediately and don't come back I'll be glad I saved myself two hours

The fish already seem to like the plants and they look great. The Java Ferns came from the store with some black spots, so I'm hoping I can identify what's causing them and fix them up soon.

Tons of pics:

The aquarium right now:



A couple of glamor shots of Neptune:





My shy school of 9 Neons hiding in their corner (all fish are still a bit freaked out by the massive overhaul a couple of hours ago I think):



Anubias Nana:



Monte Carlo:



Amazon Sword and Java Fern (not sure why this guy came out sideways):



I also bought another large, upright-ish chunk of driftwood for a bit of vertical hardscaping; I'll probably put him over on the left part of the aquarium when it's done soaking.

So far dosed with Flourish Trace and Flourish Excel. I'll probably buy Potassium and Magnesium in the coming weeks, but I'm hoping that (especially with the upcoming addition of either 9 gold tetras or ~16 ruby tetras) the fish bioload will provide enough nitrate that I don't have to dose it.

More pics to come as I see where this goes.

A quick question for anyone who knows: I have always gotten on a water change schedule based off my climbing nitrates. Basically I would change the water roughly once a week to keep the nitrates down around 5ppm.

Now that I'm wanting to keep my nitrates around more like 15ppm for the benefit of the plants, what's the best way to determine how often to change my water, and what percentage to change?

 

In my case, I often can't use the nitrates to accurately guage when a water change is needed because the plants eat all the available nutrients! If I were you I would stick to a regular water change routine regardless of your readings but you may find you need to supplement for the plants' sakes.

 

Okay, I've been doing lots of research on fertilizer, as straight from the pet store a couple of my plants are already showing signs of potassium deficiency (most notably the Java Fern).

Ended up ordering the PPS Pro package from GreenLeafAquariums; that should about cover it. I think I'll just start with the standard dose of macros and micros daily, keep adding Excel daily, do weekly 50% water changes, and see where that takes me.

I'm next to a window, so the tank can get some natural light in addition to the ~20par for 8 hours I'm giving it. No good way to measure window light, but I imagine it can't hurt anything.

I'm also seriously tempted to go to a high tech tank and invest in a CO2 system and another light or two. But that is an idea for another day when my budget looks different and my wife has FULLY realized how awesome planted aquariums are

 

Nice choice, I have the same package. If you have some pint canning jars, the contents of the bags fit perfectly there and the stickers fit on the lids.

 

Thanks for the tip! Does that offer significant advantage to just keeping them in the bags? Also, should I be worried about sunlight affecting the powders?

 

I don't know if anyone addressed this but the betta is not temperature with the neon tetras. It would also benefit from having maybe a 10 or 20 gallon to itself. The new plants and wood look fantastic, though.

 

Thanks for the tip! Does that offer significant advantage to just keeping them in the bags? Also, should I be worried about sunlight affecting the powders?

I doubt there would be an advantage, just easier to store and measure since its glass jars instead of plastic bags. I think the dry would be fine in sunlight, but I would keep the prepared liquid in a cool dark place.

 

I may be re-homing the betta to a 10-gallon setup with a handful of other warmer water fish this summer. For now, he has been just fine at 79 degrees F and so have the tetras for more than 6 months, so I'm not too worried about it. Normal behavior and activity, great colors, no diseases, etc. etc.

 

Sounds great, thanks!

 

I may be re-homing the betta to a 10-gallon setup with a handful of other warmer water fish this summer. For now, he has been just fine at 79 degrees F and so have the tetras for more than 6 months, so I'm not too worried about it. Normal behavior and activity, great colors, no diseases, etc. etc.

A 10 gallon wouldn't really be big enough to put other fish in there with him, but we would really appreciate the space. You could bump him up to 80 to 82F.
Then with the 55 you could take the temperature down to 75 or so.

 

Update 5/20/2016:

I bought the eBook version of the Walstad planted aquarium book and devoured it in a couple of day. It's blowing my mind.

So I'm trying some changes. Because I don't have soil substrate, or really substrate with any nutrients (it's mixed gravel and fluorite), I'll still plan on using the root tabs I ordered for the rooted plants, and the dry ferts I got for PPS Pro. But it sounds like my nitrifying bacteria compete with the plants for ammonia, so I turned off my filter today, and just added an airstone for mild oxygenation and a little bit of surface agitation and water movement. Because I have fairly large fish load, I'll probably start with half doses of macros and see if that's enough, or if the plants show deficiencies. I'll also be carefully monitoring my parameters for at least a week to see if the plants are keeping up with the ammonia and nitrites/nitrates produced by the fish. If everything seems stable for a couple of weeks without the filter, I'll probably just sell it. The filter was noisy despite my DIY vaseline lubrication, and causing enough water movement that my schooling fish mostly stayed away from that half of the aquarium. They seem happier and more peaceful now that it's off, and my wife certainly appreciates the whole setup being quieter

My water is so hard that I suspect I don't need to add micros, but I'll start them at half of the recommended PPS Pro dose and see if I need to go down or up from there.

So far plant growth has been great for everything except my Java ferns. I haven't added any fertilizer other than Seachem Trace, which I added a few times and then stopped completely after realizing that my hard water probably has all the micros the plants need. The Java ferns are a bit spotty. I have some pictures that I'll post when I get to it later today. When I was adding the air stone today, I also pulled out a few completely detached, dead brown Java Fern leaves. But the Amazon Swords and Dwarf Swords seem to be doing well. They are rooted firmly now and sending out new shoots. No signs of deficiencies and I'm hoping I can propogate them soon to take another step towards "Jungle" status.

The Anubias Nana is growing slowly, but it is growing. I also don't really see anything bad happening to it. I may replace the rocks in there with some dark slate in the next few days, so hopefully re-anchoring it to something else won't hurt anything.

Perhaps best of all, my Monte Carlo is doing really well! A lot of people said it needs CO2 injection, but it's staying green and even growing outwards pretty well with just my 1/2 dose of Excel every day! I have some long-handled aquascaping tools that should arrive in the mail today, so I'm going to actually take apart the big clumps into much smaller clumps and spread them out more around the substrate so the carpet can establish a bit more quickly.

Any ideas on why the Java Ferns may not be doing as well? I thought they would be the easiest plants to keep happy out of all the ones I bought... haha.

Aaaand now that my wife has officially vetoed my starting up a second aquarium in the office (I wanted to try a Walstad tank so bad... haha), I'm going to take a look back after several months and see how my current setup is doing. I think I'll be happy with it how it is. But I may at some point take the fish out, tear the tank down, and replace all of the substrate with a potting soil layer and a sand layer before putting all the plants, hardscape, and fish back in. Walstad just sounds so awesome... not least of which because of the water changes every few months, and little to no need for external ferts on a low-tech tank like mine. We'll see.

 

Okay, as promised, some pictures.

A few questions for those who may know:

1. All plants except my Java Fern seem to be doing quite well. Can anyone identify what's up with the Java Ferns? Is it a specific deficiency?
2. I bought this aquarium used; the previous owner said he used it as a live planted Discus tank. I washed it out with vinegar and water to get as much crusted calcium and off as I could (apparently he had hard water). However, there is something spotty and crusty on the inside of the glass that never came off. I stopped short of scraping with a razor blade or something. I got some really close photos of it today, and it almost looks like some kind of algae, although it's very, very hard and doesn't come off with any amount of scrubbing with acidic water, using a sponge or rag. It doesn't seem to be affecting the aquarium at all, but it's a bit of an eyesore when I notice it, and I would love to get it off if anyone has knowledge on how I could do so.

Here are pictures:

An overview of the aquarium. Pictured is my Amazon Sword, both Java Ferns, a patch of Monte Carlo, and my Anubias Nana on the rock.



A bit closer in on my Amazon Sword, with Java Fern to the right. As you can see, the fern isn't doing very well compared to the Sword. Any ideas why?



Closer to the fern, the brown spotting is very evident. Just before I took these I removed probably 2-3 dead, brown leaves from each fern. As far as I can tell, the fern is not propagating, and it also doesn't seem to be latching onto the driftwood very well on its own.



Monte Carlo however is doing well and spreading slowly. As soon as my long-handled tweezers get here I'll be replanting this patch (and the other patches) in much smaller pieces around the aquarium.



Neons (and all other fish) are colorful, active, and happy with the plants and driftwood.



Unsightly residue of some sort on the inside of the glass. Again, it's been there since I got the aquarium, and hard scrubbing with a cloth and vinegar water didn't make a dent.



Closer up. Notice in the bottom-right corner the stuff looks oddly... cellular? Petrified algae? Haha



As close as I can get cropping on my camera's maximum resolution. I'd love to get rid of this stuff



Any input on anything would be great!

 

Are you sure the patches are on the surface of the glass and not pits in the glass?

As for the Java fern, it's just possible that they were grown under much lower light and are struggling to adjust.

 

Are you sure the patches are on the surface of the glass and not pits in the glass?

As for the Java fern, it's just possible that they were grown under much lower light and are struggling to adjust.

I agree with the lighting causing the dying leaves, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the little black spots the beginning of the baby fern process? I know my Java fern had them and now just a couple weeks later has little minis sprouting all over it.

Your tank is looking great by the way! Can't wait to get a second bigger one and really dive into the live plant aquascaping!

 

I may try a split photoperiod of the Java Ferns don't start doing better in a week or so.

Unfortunately, after about 24 hours of filter being off when I woke up this morning, the water looked cloudy. Without that filter I have zero mechanical filtration, and while I can't really think of where particulate that would make cloudy water might be coming from, I figured it was best if I turned on the filter again. I tested the water as well and found that the ammonia and nitrites had just barely started to climb back up (0.2ppm and 0.1ppm respectively). So I guess I don't have enough plants yet to completely stop with the filter.

I did set up my macro and micro bottles of PPS Pro and start dosing today. I'm excited to see if this helps my plants grow faster. To be on the safe side, I'm using a daily dose of half the recommended amount for Macros, Micros, and Excel. If I notice deficiencies or extra slow plant growth, I'll up the dosages accordingly.

And if I get some time today, I'm hoping to get down with the tweezers and replant a bunch of the Monte Carlo to encourage faster carpeting.

 

Not sure I understand your logic for turning off your filter and then wanting to get rid of it completely. Your beneficial bacteria resides mostly in that filter and without it, you're losing your cycle and potentially killing your fish.

 

Ammonia is a better source of nitrogen than nitrates for my plants. They will take in virtually 100% of the ammonia in the water column before they take in any nitrates, if both are present. So the nitrifying bacteria that come around as the result of a cycled tank will compete with them for ammonia.

Theoretically, if you have enough plants, there is no need for nitrifying bacteria in the tank anymore, as the plants will absorb all ammonia, performing the same function in the biological filtration as the bacteria did before.

Turns out I don't have enough plants to completely replace my bacteria. Hopefully that changes at some point, but for now the filter is up and running again. Don't worry, once I've about doubled my plant mass and want to give this another shot, I will continue to very carefully monitor my ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates to make sure I'm not making the water dangerous for my fish. Indeed, it was careful monitoring of my water parameters that led me to the decision to start the filter back up within 24 hours of turning it off.

 

Okay, other than the patch of Monte Carlo that was doing the best (don't want to mess with a good thing), I separated out all the other patches into much smaller ones and planted around the substrate. Amazing how much simpler that is with a good set of long handled tweezers. Filter is back on and I'm locked into my dosing schedule until I see a need for change.

Here's hoping those patches catch on, green up, and start spreading at a steady pace!

 

Well, unsurprisingly, the CO2 bug has bitten. I don't have the deep pockets to get a nice pressurized system, but I've pieced out everything I need for a DIY Citric Acid/Baking Soda system. Seems like that is a step up from yeast, which I want to avoid. This whole thing should run me about $100 including enough citric acid and baking soda to go for several months.

I'm thinking with the added CO2 my limiting factor at that point will be light. I'm still in the preliminary stages, but I think I can DIY a very good, bright addition to the lighting situation for about $40 or so. I'll make sure to document what happens.

Also got my root tabs. Plants have been fine without them so far, but I think it will help my Amazon Swords and Monte Carlo really take off.

Guess it shouldn't surprise me that I got into this planted tank thing, and two weeks later I was making plans to go to a full blown high-tech tank.