From reef to planted: musings and build thread

[Anonymous]

As I’ve mentioned briefly elsewhere I’ve taken down my reef tank because, after 12 years of reefkeeping and over two decades of keeping saltwater aquariums my conscience has finally said “enough”. I’m not here to preach to anyone else, just because I’ve decided I can no longer support the marine ornamental industry doesn’t mean I plan to lecture you on why you shouldn’t. It’s an individual judgement, and I leave it up to you to make your own choices.

But having taken down my reef I’ve decided to start up a freshwater planted tank. This will be that tank’s build thread. I haven’t kept a freshwater tank since the early 80’s, and quite a bit has changed since then.

Here’s the equipment I’ve assembled. Quite a bit of it is from Aqua Design Amano (ADA), purchased through the Senske brothers at ADG:
15 gallon All-Glass aquarium
Two Nova Extreme HO T-5 2 x 24w fixtures
Eheim canister filter
Hydor in-line heater
ADA Advanced 74g CO2 System
ADA EL (Solenoid) valve for the CO2
ADA bubble counter, beetle pollen glass and drop checker

Substrate:
ADA Tourmaline powder
ADA Power Sand Special
ADA Amazona II Aqua Soil (mostly regular sized, but with one bag of powder sized for the surface layer)

Fertilizers:
ADA Brighty K
ADA Green Brighty Step series
ADA Green Brighty Special Lights
ADA ECA
Seachem’s Flourish Excel

I’ll get photos of the equipment and hardscape up within a day or so. I won’t be filling the tank til I have my plants delivered, which won’t likely be for another week. And, due to the way ADA substrates are reputed to leach pollutants for a few weeks when first used, it will likely be a month or so before I add any fish.

Plants will be: a carpet of HC (Hemianthus callitrichoides) covering approximately 2/3rds of the substrate; blyxa japonica; and something else, still undecided, possibly Ludwigia repens.

Fish will consist of two small schools of about seven each…. Iriatherina werneri and pseudomugil gertrudae. Since this is a reef board and since neither of these is exactly common in freshwater tanks, here’s a pic of each so you know what I’m talking about…

Psuedomugil gertrudae....

Iriatherina werneri...

 

[Anonymous]

One of the things I also intend to use this thread for is musings on the entire transition of having been a saltwater reef-only hobbyist for so many years, leaving that behind and moving to keeping freshwater planted tanks instead. I’d like to start out with a quote that I found very interesting.

A few weeks ago on one of the planted boards someone started a ‘Reef vs Planted’ thread, asking people to weigh in with their experiences with both. Robert Hudson, FAMA author and owner of Aquabotanic, wrote the following:

I can tell you my perspective as a plant vendor. For as long as I have been doing this, for the last eight years, I have had a steady flow of customers calling me who are converting FROM reef TO freshwater plants. It became so common that I was considering an advertising campaign to appeal to that segment. They are not frustrated reef newbies, but many are long time reefers. All have told me for various reasons they have gotten tired or frustrated with the hobby.

For the most part these people love high tech and are not looking to skimp on quality or price. These are not DIY people . They pretty much know what they want, have a goal for the project, and will do whatever it takes to meet the goal…

I love ex reefers. They are my favorite customers.

I found that fascinating. On the one hand it makes perfect sense; after coming from keeping reefs, there are relatively few segments of the aquarium hobby likely to hold any new appeal, and freshwater planted tanks are probably at the top of that small list. Yet it's still somewhat surprising to hear about, especially in the numbers Robert seems to indicate.

 

[Anonymous]

A couple photos of equipment. First, the obligatory "Here's all my ADA crap in it's featureless boxes!" shot. For some reason in every planted tank build thread I've read, anyone who has bought anything from ADA feels compelled to take one of these photos. So I did too :lol:

Well... not quite featureless boxes. Every box, regardless of the product inside it, has the following written on it:

Over verdant pastures and through forests of Jade, they glide in majesty. In schools of brilliance, they dance to the rythms of life, bringing peace and wonder to all who behold. Within this theatre of water, there exists a world.

I thought this was rather prosaic as a way to label a solenoid valve.

 

[Anonymous]

Okay, now this is pretty nifty. ADA's CO2 Advanced System 74, pressurized CO2 for small tanks using tiny disposable CO2 cans that only hold 74g of CO2. The cans cost about $10 a pop, so it isn't very economical really. But it's convenient and SMALL. No 5 lb CO2 tank in the living room! Also, the CO2 is perfumed so it will smell "like a rainforest". We'll see.

On the 15g I'm setting up, I'm anticipating getting around a month per can.

 

[Anonymous]

What type of aquascape are you considering? Or are you going to do more of a habitat-specific display?

 

[Anonymous]

A bit of a slope with the low point in the right front to the higher point in the left rear. A 12" piece of curved driftwood laid down in the soil to act as a retaining wall sectioning the highest part, a triangular-ish plateau in the left rear. Very simply hardscape, sort of an iwagumi style but with one piece of driftwood instead of the rocks used in an iwagumi.

Everything to the right and in front of the driftwood (about 2/3rds of the tank footprint) will be a solid carpet of HC. On the rise behind the driftwood, heavy planting of bunches of blyxa japonica. Behind the blyxa, very likely a third, taller growing species. Possibly ludwigia repens, but I haven't really made up my mind yet.

The original visual inspiration was a tank by a fellow named Roy Deki, a photo of which is attached here. That's a traditional iwagumi rockscape, with an HC carpet and blyxa behind the rocks. I want to try something similar, but without the symmetry between the left and right and using driftwood rather than rocks as the demarcation between the zones.

 

[Anonymous]

I like it. If you need a source for unique driftwood pieces, there are several good WYSIWUG venders on http://www.aquabid.com/ and the auction format makes for decent prices. Personally, the more formalized tanks are too "perfect" for my taste, but I do admire the effect.

 

[Anonymous]

Thankee. I kind of fell absolutely in love with the carpet look, so that kind of became the main consideration to plan the rest of the set up around. I plan to lay down the substrate and the one halfway decent piece of wood I managed to acquire (I ordered a number of pieces sight-unseen and unfortunately only one was anywhere close to what I was hoping for) sometime over the weekend, so have pics of the scape in the next couple of days.

One of the nice things is if I decide down the road that I want to totally re-do things, it won't take a lot of effort or cash

 

[Anonymous]

I've had the itch to start one up, you're not helping! I really enjoyed the planted tanks, though the CO2 admin was scary until I got the hang of it. I also had a lot of fun with simple hardy plants that I let go wild in a jungle like tank. The last tank I had was low tech to the extreme, laterite substrate, HOB filter, second hand driftwood, etc. that I stocked with a trio of Apistogramma cacatuoides and some rummynose tetras as dither fish. I loved it.

Besides the other reasons being discussed in that other thread, my work schedule means I am not home for 36hrs several times a week so setting up a saltwater tank is problematic. A nice planted tank though...(Dawg drifts off into planning daydreams)

 

[Anonymous]

G'wan, do it. I've got a spare ADA pollen glass CO2 diffusor I can send you

I do hear you about the CO2, though. Believe me. I never did run a calcium reactor on my reefs, for no other reason then the big CO2 tanks scared the hell out of me. That's one reason I really like the 74gram cans, they're so damn small and unintimidating.

 

[Anonymous]

If I do it again it will prolly be on the lowtech end, but hang on that diffuser (you know I'm surfing aquabid for plants as we speak) :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

the gertrudes and werneri rainbows are awesome fish-you'll really enjoy the displays they put on

 

[Anonymous]

Okay, some pics of setting up the substrate. First off is ADA's Tourmaline BC. I frankly have little idea what this stuff is supposed to do, but looking at it it certainly seems to be high in iron content. A few spoonfuls were all that the instructions said to use.

 

[Anonymous]

Next up came the Powersand Special. The Tourmaline left me shrugging, but as soon as I opened the Powersand bag I started to see why this stuff is so recommended. As far as I could tell it's a mixture of volcanic pebbles, peat, twigs and gods know what else. The contents of a 2 liter bag was enough to make a thin, even level on the bottom of the tank.

 

[Anonymous]

Over the Powersand went a 9 liter bag of ADA AquaSoil Amazonia II followed by a 3 liter bag of AquaSoil Amazonia II Powder. I sloped it a bit, put in my one piece of driftwood and I'm pretty pleased with the general look. I'm sure I'll fine tune it a bit yet though.

Full tank shot, and a close up that let's you see the AquaSoil in a bit of detail.

 

[Anonymous]

PRogressing nicely! I do like the dark color of the substrate.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks. Things are probably pretty much stalled at this point for a week, though - don't think I can get the plants delivered til then. There are a few other bits that gives me time to get done in between now and then, though, like the background for the tank.

Planning to do something a little unusual as regards the background. I'm going to get a sheet of some white fabric and cut it to size, then attach it to the back of the tank's frame with adhesive velcro tabs. Then I'm going to mount a low wattage light fixture to the wall behind the tank, something like one of those undercabinet flourescent fixtures they make for kitchens. My hope is that it will end up giving a diffuse glow through the white fabric and look pretty spiffy. It not, well, I can always buy some black fabric, cut it to size, replace the white fabric and just have the typical black tank background.

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting idea on the background, it will be great to see of that works!

 

[Anonymous]

Running into a small difficulty with the silicon tubing between the CO2 diffusor and the exterior-mounted bubble counter - the tube keeps popping off the top of the bubble counter. It's just because the tubing has to make a sharp 180 degree bend over the rim of the tank, so I'll have to pick up an elbow of some sort. ADA makes a nice small glass one for all of about $5, but it'd take a week to get here and considering it's positioning I'd probably end up smashing it accidentally sooner or later.

So I'm thinking I'll just buy a pair of regular plastic airline tubing elbows and use them. Unless anyone knows of any problems using standard plastic parts with CO2 in the tube?

 

[Anonymous]

I do believe that there are issues with plastic and CO2...better research it dear.