My first aquascaping escapade

redpanda · Aug 27, 2020

Hi all,
I have officially picked my next obsession and it is going to be a beautifully planted tank with above water plants aswell as aquatic plants under water.....
I've seen AWESOME videos on YouTube but I thought I'd come here for some tips.
I have a bare 90L tank with a (whats it called..?) bridge type light across the top but no lid.
That is it so far haha.
I have two filters in my Amazon basket lol, I'm deciding between the two atm (tips on good filters that don't take up much space will be appreciated please)
I have a few moss plants ready to plant in there and in my other tanks I have some plants that I can take cuttings from.
My idea is to have orchids rooted in a bog wood or something, and a few trailing plants above the water, then below water have it like an underwater wonderland for shrimp and snails and possibly my pygmy Cory's.... but I want it to all be as natural looking as possible, like a section of a river or stream lol, you know, roots growing into the water and a natural substrate etc
So!!

Are some plants poisonous for fish, snails and shrimp? Would having roots going into the tank from above hurt them if they ate them for instance?

Any tips on plants and how to do this all as cheaply as possible much appreciated!!!! Haha.
Seriously, why is wood for your tank so expensive

Also, please share pictures of your planted tanks looking forward to seeing all your hard work xx

PheonixKingZ · Aug 27, 2020

It all depends on what species of the plants. I assume you are speaking of terrestrial plants with the roots going into the water? I know you can grow sweet potatoes like that.

HOB filter take up little to no space, as it’s just the intake in the water. The actual filtration happens outside the tank. Sponge filter are also a good choice.

redpanda said:
Any tips on plants and how to do this all as cheaply as possible much appreciated!!!! Haha.
Seriously, why is wood for your tank so expensive

Anacharis, java fern, Anubias, java moss, Salvinia, etc. are all cheap but great plants. I think I spent around $40 on all those plants for my 29g tank. (Will include pictures later)

Im honestly not sure why wood is so expensive. If you are at an LFS, try to strike a deal with the owner. For example: if the wood is $40 to begin with, as if he will sell it to you for $30. (Worst thing that could happen is he could say no!)

Most small fish stores like that need to price their products higher, because they need to make money. You may be able to find driftwood outside where you live, depending on what species it is and where you found it.

This is my 29g tank, which has all of the plants I mentioned above in it, along with driftwood:

You can do a lot with a limited budget! Try to get the picture of what you want the tank to look like, draw some sketches, look online, etc.

It can be a big step trying to create a great looking tank. Good luck, but most importantly have fun!

mbsqw1d · Aug 27, 2020

I've never looked into plants above the surface; is that hydroponics?
Plants basically require three things, light (ideally at 6300K), co2 (this can just come from the fish, or there are cheap DIY injection setups available), and food; fish and food waste (nitrogen and phosphate) does a good job however its worth buying a dedicated fertilizer if you want good lush growth, such as seachem flourish. These three just need balancing to avoid algae.

You can find hardscaping bits (wood, pebbles, rocks) for free on the beach, woods, riverside. You're best reading up on how best to do this.

I quite like this site https://tropica.com/en/inspiration/
for finding inspiration on aquascape design.

I'm not aware of plants as such that are unsafe to live-stock. There are however some companies who sell plants that have been treated with pesticides that are dangerous particularly to shrimp. If you are looking at keeping shrimp, you're best buying plants from somewhere like proshrimp (if youre in the UK, someone from US could advise an alternative).

Pic of my current setup that has mainly cheap easy to look after plants such as java fern, vallis, anubias, amazon swords, crypts, frog bit..

Look forward to seeing how you get on

CassCats · Aug 27, 2020

Buy organic strawberry seeds! Grow those yourself and use them for hydroponics!

Essjay · Aug 27, 2020

As @mbsqw1d pointed out, be careful with plants if you intend shrimps. Plants grown outside the EU must be treated with a snail killer under EU legislation. And as another member has discovered, some non-EU countries also routinely treat plants with insecticide. Both of these will kill shrimps.

I know you asked mainly about terrestrial plants for hydroponics, but make sure that any aquatic plants are guaranteed shrimp safe or are grown in vitro.

redpanda · Aug 28, 2020

NCaquatics said:
Buy organic strawberry seeds! Grow those yourself and use them for hydroponics!

Good idea!

redpanda · Aug 28, 2020

essjay said:
As @mbsqw1d pointed out, be careful with plants if you intend shrimps. Plants grown outside the EU must be treated with a snail killer under EU legislation. And as another member has discovered, some non-EU countries also routinely treat plants with insecticide. Both of these will kill shrimps.

I know you asked mainly about terrestrial plants for hydroponics, but make sure that any aquatic plants are guaranteed shrimp safe or are grown in vitro.

Thanks! I will be vigilant

AdoraBelle Dearheart · Aug 28, 2020

essjay said:
As @mbsqw1d pointed out, be careful with plants if you intend shrimps. Plants grown outside the EU must be treated with a snail killer under EU legislation. And as another member has discovered, some non-EU countries also routinely treat plants with insecticide. Both of these will kill shrimps.

I know you asked mainly about terrestrial plants for hydroponics, but make sure that any aquatic plants are guaranteed shrimp safe or are grown in vitro.

Hi OP, sounds like an awesome project! Can't wait to see what you do with it, hope you start a journal thread to show the progress

I'm the member who recently found out about buying plants that had been treated with pesticides, the hard way. I love densely planted, jungle type tanks, but I'm also on a tight budget. I'd used a cheap source on Amazon twice before to get cuttings of stem plants and not had a problem, but the third time I ordered, the leaflet enclosed when plants arrived mentioned a pesticide the plants had been treated with. I made a thread here because I was worried for my shrimp, something like "contaminated plants", and @essjay kindly informed me about this legal thing where plants coming from outside the EU have to be treated. These pesticides are nasty, not easy to remove, and there's no guarantee about how it might contaminated the rest of the tank, or remain in substrate or the water. No problem, right? Pesticides weren't a concern for fish, only inverts, so I stuck what survived cleaning into my fish only tank...

Forgetting that I'd also added four more plants to my shrimp tank that I picked up from my LFS three weeks earlier...

I'd bought plants from there before too without problem, but when I started to gradually lose shrimp, I called the store and asked where he got his plants from. He used to get them from Holland, but had had supply problems recently and had to start buying them in from Indonesia, so they must have been treated with a pesticide. Even removing those plants didn't stop the deaths, I had to set up an uncontaminated tank to move the rest of my shrimp colony to, and buy in-vitro grown plants for them. But *touch wood* I haven't lost a shrimp since moving them, so far.

So please check your plant sources carefully! It's horrible to keep finding dead shrimp and discover it's the plants, and potentially have to start the tank over. In vitro grown plants and those from the EU are safe. I'm also setting up a trade with another hobbyist who also has in-vitro grown plants, but we have different species, so we can swap cuttings once my new plants have grown in a little. There's a good page for buying, selling and trading aquatic plants on reddit, but it's mostly US based there, so if anyone knows of a similar set up but for UK folks, please let us know!

PheonixKingZ · Aug 28, 2020

Holly cow... talk about rude for not letting his customers know that plants were previously treated with pesticides! :oh:

Essjay · Aug 28, 2020

Most shops (real or on-line) wouldn't have a clue their products are not shrimp safe. "They're just plants aren't they?"

The the seller of AdoraBelle's third plants did know they were treated with insecticide, though they were probably a snail killer as well as they came from outside the EU which they did not mention.

redpanda · Sep 25, 2020

AdoraBelle Dearheart said:
Hi OP, sounds like an awesome project! Can't wait to see what you do with it, hope you start a journal thread to show the progress

I'm the member who recently found out about buying plants that had been treated with pesticides, the hard way. I love densely planted, jungle type tanks, but I'm also on a tight budget. I'd used a cheap source on Amazon twice before to get cuttings of stem plants and not had a problem, but the third time I ordered, the leaflet enclosed when plants arrived mentioned a pesticide the plants had been treated with. I made a thread here because I was worried for my shrimp, something like "contaminated plants", and @essjay kindly informed me about this legal thing where plants coming from outside the EU have to be treated. These pesticides are nasty, not easy to remove, and there's no guarantee about how it might contaminated the rest of the tank, or remain in substrate or the water. No problem, right? Pesticides weren't a concern for fish, only inverts, so I stuck what survived cleaning into my fish only tank...

Forgetting that I'd also added four more plants to my shrimp tank that I picked up from my LFS three weeks earlier...

I'd bought plants from there before too without problem, but when I started to gradually lose shrimp, I called the store and asked where he got his plants from. He used to get them from Holland, but had had supply problems recently and had to start buying them in from Indonesia, so they must have been treated with a pesticide. Even removing those plants didn't stop the deaths, I had to set up an uncontaminated tank to move the rest of my shrimp colony to, and buy in-vitro grown plants for them. But *touch wood* I haven't lost a shrimp since moving them, so far.

So please check your plant sources carefully! It's horrible to keep finding dead shrimp and discover it's the plants, and potentially have to start the tank over. In vitro grown plants and those from the EU are safe. I'm also setting up a trade with another hobbyist who also has in-vitro grown plants, but we have different species, so we can swap cuttings once my new plants have grown in a little. There's a good page for buying, selling and trading aquatic plants on reddit, but it's mostly US based there, so if anyone knows of a similar set up but for UK folks, please let us know!

oh man! I'm so sorry about your experience, but thanku for sharing! I am in the uk and have brought plants off Ebay and Amazon without thinking in the past but i will definitely be on my guard in the future.

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My first aquascaping escapade

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