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First Ever Planted Tank

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Ron:
I've been growing bored of my living room display tank. It's the only upstairs tank I have and isn't nearly as easy to do water changes on as my fishroom setup or my big display tank downstairs. I had some tangs, cyps and sand sifters, but being next to the hallway, I'd occasionally freak out a fish in the tank on accident and I swear they'd have a heart attack or something.

So I switched it back to malawian haps, but as a grow out:


A few months later, I found it not as interesting as I'd hoped and with the MCA auction coming, up, I found space for those fish in the fishroom and wanted to do something different. Anything *new*, just to do something different.

Come the day of the auction, it seemed like there might be enough plants there to make something happen. I'd considered doing a reef tank, but didn't want the high prices and more strict management potentially associated with it. A freshwater planted tank was similar perhaps, but more forgiving perhaps. But it's still unknown territory, as my previous attempts with a few anubias here or there typically failed. Plants didn't really grow and eventually algae took over.

So, I came home with a handful of anubias, but didn't really have a full plan in action just yet. I just attached them each to small rocks, recorded which were which types, and treated the tank for algae with H2O2. As a result, all fish were pulled. I'd had bad BB algae prior on the rockwork in the tank and on the filter, so I figured this was best to insure a good start. I'm also not sharing any nets, buckets, etc, with any fishroom tanks that have algae in a hope to limit any spreading to this tank.



So then I gave it a couple weeks to make sure the plants would make it before I went full scale into setting up a nice tank. Overall, they did alright. Some started to yellow. Doing more research, I hadn't ever previously realized that iron is necessary for plants - adding a liquid fert helped the plants shape up.

So I picked up a few more plants a couple weeks later and a pile of driftwood.





I was originally going to use rock instead of driftwood, but lacerock looks best IMO, covered with algae. Otherwise it looks a bit too much like concrete. I went with malaysian driftwood specifically, because in the past it's the only wood i've never had a problem getting to sink.



After hours of aquascaping I ended up with this:

Ron:
Having not presoaked the driftwood for a period of weeks, lots of tannins leached into the water. The next morning it looked like this:


After a week, the tank was really, really dark. I brought in the big guns for water changing. Doing a 70-80% water change on a 6' tank, I'm not using buckets...



Refilling


I've done this once per week for a couple weeks now.

So next, I decided to increase my lighting a bit. I'm trying to keep it a low-tech tank (no extreme lighting, no soil or extensive fertilizers, and no CO2 generation), so I decided to just double-up on the 48" fluorescent fixtures instead of just a single. (Shown is a mix of T12 and T8 ... intentions are to replace all T12s with T8s shortly.)



The photo doesn't show it well, but the difference was notable. I just did this last night, so the verdict is out on how significant of an impact it will have on the plants.

Ron:
Goals for the tank include reduced need for water changes and reducing noise, while providing an natural appearing environment. HOB filters have pros and cons, and I love my Emp 400s overall, but I decided it was time to do what I've wanted to do for years ....

I picked up a 18" long, 1/2" drill bit  the other day to run airlines from my fishroom to the tank upstairs through the finished ceiling/walls. I'd tried briefly to measure and drill on 2 sides to achieve this, but what a PITA. Getting a big bit, it was so simple. So now I've got 3 lines,with room perhaps for a 4th, carrying air up through the floor, into the tank stand, and up behind the tank. 2-3 weeks from now, the HOBs will be turned off permanently.

For the air-driven filtration I was originally planning on sponge filters. Then I considered doing some DIY sponge filters larger than Hydro V-sized sponge filters. And then I remembered that I had a full sheet of black Poret foam I'd ordered some time back,which I hadn't used. Subsequently I'd posted it for sale - glad no one bought it because it was just the ticket!

In the end, I added a Hamburger Mattenfilter. They've worked great on my fry tanks - why not on this tank?!

Installed


I added 2 uplift tubes to get more flow. The filtration volume is large enough that this should actually work out better than just the typically single uplift tube. I also put it at an angle so I could fit the heater behind it too.


And running ... the tank was still filling up.

Ogre44:
I've wanted to try a mattenfilter as well, the tank's looking nice.

Ron:

--- Quote from: Ogre44 on October 31, 2015, 04:42:40 PM ---I've wanted to try a mattenfilter as well, the tank's looking nice.

--- End quote ---
Thanks.

I tried looking up my past thread on my mattenfilters to share a link, but couldn't find it. Maybe it was on the older forum that crashed. I've been running 6 10 gallon fry tanks for years and on those, it works great. The only time I think something else is better, is when you have larger fish, with larger waste, that requires a higher flowrate and removal from the tank before it all breaks down.

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