44g Planted Tropical Sorted....at Last!

[millym]

hi
had our tank over 4 years have gone through many plants in this time, think ive finally got it looking how we want it!!!!!!!!
any comments/suggestions most welcome.........for fish see my signature.
now for my next project..........

 

[Chri$]

I think that looks great

Beautiful Aquarium!

 

[iroc]

tank looks really good, I love the way the plants are they all look very healthy

 

[lizroberts]

That looks really good!

Liz 8)

 

[millym]

thanks........lighting looks a bit harsh in the pic doesnt actually look that bright when you look at the tank face on...must have been the angle i took the photo, need to improve my photography skills i think

 

[mikster]

Lovely tank you have there.

 

[lljdma06]

Very nice tank. What are your specs (lighting, substrate, nutrients, etc)?

llj

 

[Miss Wiggle]

very nice tank

as if it's finished though, i don't think any tank ever has been finished, i'd happily bet that within a few months you've tinkered and changed things around

 

[dasmall1]

Job well done! And, yea, hou will probably get bored and want to tinker with it in a month or so

 

[Silverlady]

Looking good

 

[geezer]

i love the way you've laid out the rocks on the right hand side, with the big plant growing over the top! Great stuff

I think I have that same plant too, it's a great grower!

Is that a gold sailfin at the molly at the front? They're me favourite fish

I like cambomba (i think you have it on the left) but i find it a pain in the arse. my clown loaches like me to replant it everyday

 

[millym]

hi & thanks

geezer the big girl at the front is actually our female swordtail, shes huge compared to the male right near her, but he seems to love her & always is following close behind, he doesnt harrass her though tends to follow just like a faithful dog until she gets p***d off & gives him a nip. the plant is cambomba its looking good at the mo but we never seem to have much luck with it it goes mad for a month or two & then turns it toes up & starts to rot for some reason.........maybe cos our loaches also are partial to a spot of moonlight gardening too we did have a black sailfin mollie (ollie) until recently when i found him dead last week ??? dont really know what happened no sign of any problem. he was gorgeous had a bright yellow stripe along the edge of his sailfin & i loved the way he used to swim up to the female slap on his brakes & stick his fin up like a little peacock! i know mollies dont do too well in fw (it was my other half who appeared with them one day!!) so sadly unless we get yet another tank probably wont replace him.


lljdma06 substrate is nothing fancy just pea sort of gravel, we didnt know about all the good substrates that you can put in a layer of when we started out (unfortunately) our lighting is just one arcadia tropical at the moment as the other has gone 'ping' & need to get a replacement, we did have a so called arcadia 'tropical plant light', id like to look into more fancy lights though but calculating wattage etc just sends me cold! i dont have a clue.

we dont have co2 i did have a nutrafin ladder thingy but after a cardinal & a rummy got trapped one night behind it & the cardinal died i binned it. thinking about getting cannister style soon. i use flourish excel carbon fertilizer around 2nd/3rd daily & once a week flourish comprehensive supplement.

 

[geezer]

hi & thanks

geezer the big girl at the front is actually our female swordtail, shes huge compared to the male right near her, but he seems to love her & always is following close behind, he doesnt harrass her though tends to follow just like a faithful dog until she gets p***d off & gives him a nip. the plant is cambomba its looking good at the mo but we never seem to have much luck with it it goes mad for a month or two & then turns it toes up & starts to rot for some reason.........maybe cos our loaches also are partial to a spot of moonlight gardening too we did have a black sailfin mollie (ollie) until recently when i found him dead last week ??? dont really know what happened no sign of any problem. he was gorgeous had a bright yellow stripe along the edge of his sailfin & i loved the way he used to swim up to the female slap on his brakes & stick his fin up like a little peacock! i know mollies dont do too well in fw (it was my other half who appeared with them one day!!) so sadly unless we get yet another tank probably wont replace him.


lljdma06 substrate is nothing fancy just pea sort of gravel, we didnt know about all the good substrates that you can put in a layer of when we started out (unfortunately) our lighting is just one arcadia tropical at the moment as the other has gone 'ping' & need to get a replacement, we did have a so called arcadia 'tropical plant light', id like to look into more fancy lights though but calculating wattage etc just sends me cold! i dont have a clue.

we dont have co2 i did have a nutrafin ladder thingy but after a cardinal & a rummy got trapped one night behind it & the cardinal died i binned it. thinking about getting cannister style soon. i use flourish excel carbon fertilizer around 2nd/3rd daily & once a week flourish comprehensive supplement.

Wow that's a big swordtail! It's great you have her that big and the males gets on with her

It's really amazing you should mention about your black sailfin molly with the yellow on his dorsal fin, I have one exactly the same! I bought him about two weeks ago. There is a video of him here http/youtube.com/watch?v=OY2S13nXYKg (not very clear) . I've found that putting plenty of aquarium salt in the tank keeps mollies healthy! I've had a few deaths in the past with the but sort of getting it right now!

I think with your 44 gallon. If you had a wattage over 88 watts, then that would be 2 WPG (watts per gallon) . I had a 55 gallon and was using 30 watts for a long time which was pretty easy to maintain, except it didn't grow that fast for me, then I got some corallife (freshwater and coral) lighting. It gets a little bit tougher when the lights are upgraded but you'll see on the plant section people have great success!

I also used the flourish excel for a long time. It's great stuff! I use pressurised co2 here now , the stuff grows quicker , i sometimes get a bit lazy trimming though.

I changed my substrate from white pebbles to flourite. It's a bit pricey $30 a bag , but it's meant to be good for plants.

to be honest though, the way your plants look and how the tank it's set up. I'd keep it all the same at the moment!! (lighting and excel same too) unless you're finding the excel starting to get pricey or wanna try different plants

 

[xygtfalcon]

Love the Tank.

The plant look great.

I can see how it would be hard to cover a big tank like that but yours isn't plain a all!

 

[fishfishfish]

very nice.like the jungle look