Progression of a Planted Tank

Tank Growth and Development: Stage One

By Jonathan Farrand

Over the two years my planted tanks have changed for me many times

most of those times the change occurred when I let Mother Nature do the work.

As you can see here a lot can change when you decide keep aquarium plants and

find the New Hampshire and Boston aquarium clubs. The tank shown above is

part of the progression of my previous forty gallon tank half way through its

maturation. As long as you follow the techniques and methods shown in every

aquarium magazine every month you too can be successful at keeping planted

tanks with your suitable fish species. Once again this is where our Mother Nature

comes in. Supply plants what they need and they will prosper. In this article I will

show you what I used and how easy it can be.

The equipment I used was a small HOB filter (Hang on the Back), air pump and

airline, flexible air diffuser, and magnet clips. Also used but not show here was

the DIY carbon dioxide system previously shown in another article. The area I

chose to install this planted tank was wasted space under my stairs. Wasted space

is perfect for my current non-fish room living situation. I am sure many of you

readers can relate! Moving on you can see that I used a level to make sure the

tank was sitting properly. I was satisfied with the levelness of this area so shims

were not needed. Not shown but now always incorporated into setting up any of

my tanks currently is an underlayment of material for the tank to rest on. I am

currently using a yoga mat that cost me $5.00 from Five Below. Now also keep in

mind when using underlayment it is only really necessary to run the material

under the bottom trim of your aquarium. You can cut one inch strips from the

yoga mat. This way one yoga mat will last you many tank installations. Once I

know the tank is level and true I can start to add my nutritive based aquarium soil.

When doing things on a low budget this material will be your one of the more

costly items to purchase ranging from $20-30 per bag. One bag of aquarium soil is

suitable for a ten gallon tank. There are certain areas of the planted tank that can

be skipped. If you want to be a successful aqua-gardener I would not skip this

step. Buy the soil; there are many varieties, forms and color types. Each

manufacturer’s aquarium soil is slightly different from each other and this is

where personal preference will come into play. I am partial to black soil

substrates for its contrast to green and red hues of aquarium plants.

This soil previously contained pest species of snails. Rams horn and MTS.

Although when installing not seen and thought to previously be dead from this

bucket resting in my attic for three months. The snails were not dead and this soil

would later infest this set-up. In my favor I did not use a heater for this tank

making the temperature between sixty and sixty-five degrees at its warmest. This

slowed the snail’s population greatly. I previously didn’t mind snails, keeping in

the Mother Nature theme but have come to realize certain snails are good for

planted tanks and some snails are not good for them at all. MTS and Rams horn

snails, I could clearly see, when I broke this ten gallon down was that those types

of snails constantly produce waste. Seemingly much more than what your fish

would excrete. When dealing with a small water volume of a ten gallon. Excess

amounts of waste are not helpful to your success by any means. What I previously

thought the snails were doing can be taken care of by vacuuming and water

changing.

You can see here I added a large rock and medium size piece of drift wood. I also

added enough water to just start to cover the substrate. This is in preparation to

planting. You can also see the DIY CO2 system diffuser. The rock and drift wood

was later taken out to increase growing space for the plants. Don’t forget to

presoak your drift wood. You can see the nice dry looking color of my drift wood

above. I forgot to soak my drift wood and we know what that means.

The plant species I harvested from my forty gallon to start this planted tank were

Marbled Sword, Micro Sword, and Red Ludwigia. Later I added a rock with baby

tears. You can clearly see here the damage snails do to your plants if not

constantly maintained. Before planting these I trimmed all unsightly leaves and

tried to make them snail free. Trying and doing don’t always go hand in hand but I

do value the path needed to get to a snail free planted tank. This evolution of

snail free planted tank will be exhibited in the next article PG&D Stage 2.

Looking closely you can see five to eight Micro Chain Sword plants, three or four

Marbled Sword plants, and three to five Red Ludwigia stems. This was the total

plants used in this tank. Everything else you are about to see was produced in the

tank and not added later on.

. And yes dry wood does float!!

These four pictures, two above and two below show the growth progress after

two months. You can see that I took out the DIY carbon dioxide system and added

a power head. I was having issues with water quality and I was also fighting algae

adding the current not only made the Danios and White Clouds happy to swim in

the current it also seemed to help the plants stay debris free and further limit

algae growth.

Here are some other close ups and you can see how much new growth the plants

have produced in two months. The light, a twenty-seven watt desk lamp

purchased at Home Depot, stayed on for ten hours per day. I set the air pump

with a timer to come on around the time the lights would be going out. This will

keep fish healthily aerated throughout the night. This nightly aeration will also

prevent excess amounts of carbon dioxide to build up through respiration in the

night. In short respiration helps to break down food sources and release energy in

to the plant cells. During this process oxygen is used up and carbon dioxide is

released as a byproduct (Peter Hiscock, 2003). Decreased oxygen levels and

increased carbon dioxide levels can be fatal to fish.

This is after four months from the beginning with an average water temperature

of sixty degrees. This shows that tropical plants still grow in imperfect situations.

You can also see I removed all rock to increase growing space potential. You can

also see clippings of Red Ludwigia I planted in the back left of the tank. In colder

water conditions growth is much slower. Slower growth I did notice with Red

Ludwigia made the segmentation much closer together making for a much

bushier plant, which was fine by

me.

After the plants established I did very little maintenance to the plants or to the

water quality. Keep in mind I was using very hardy fish species. I wanted to see

how low maintenance a planted tank could really be. In the end nitrates were

slightly more than I usually keep but with a lack of water changes this was to be

expected. All in all in this entire tank was a success and I was sad to break it down.

The break down was short lived in consideration of what space I had available for

tanks. The stage 2 article of this tank will show you how to get rid of snails one

hundred percent, review of basic set-up, plant preparation, trimming, planting

and what progress has come so far. Until next time my friends!!