My Small Tank And 1St Try At Real Plants

[superman1]

here is my planted tank. its a aqua 380 with 1 betta, 3 hillstream loaches and 4 minnows.
i am experementing with plants in order to see if i can successfully keep them. hopefully if i can i will then begin to plant my 5ft tank.

the tank contains black sand, driftwood and anubas and vallis. not sure on what the plants at the front or the bushy one is.
please comment and tell me what you think. i would like to plant this heavily.

.

 

[BackToTheFishes]

I think the bushy one is water wisteria and the small ones are pygmy chain swords
Nice tank

 

[superman1]

Thanks. it makes a change from having tacky plastic plants

 

[onebto]

nice tank

Regards onebto

 

[BackToTheFishes]

Thanks. it makes a change from having tacky plastic plants

Yeah I'd never go back to plastic,the real thing may be a little bit of effort,but SOOOOO much better for the fish and to look at

 

[RadaR]

Nice job.
The foregground plant looks like crypt willisii too me rather than emersed pgygmy chain sword (Echinodorus tenellus).
What is your plan for dosing nutrients/CO2 (if any)?
I'd take out the marimo ball as it seems past it and will only leach ammonia resulting in triggering algae spores.

Oh, the bushy plant is Indian Fern (Ceratopteris thalictroides)

 

[kaivalagi]

Very nice, what's the name of that pleco/sucker fish...I saw a very very small one once in the LFS I didn't give it a second thought, by that is very nice!

 

[lilfishie]

tank looks great.

love the hillstream loaches been after some for ages now

 

[superman1]

Their called hillstream loaches or their also known as butterfly loaches. unfortunately i would have loved to have had these in my tropical tank but they dont like warm waters and as their the next best thing to stingrays i had to have a tank just for them... lol
Ive only ever come across one place that sold these loaches. i brought them from MA in Oxford.

I plan to dose the tank with an API product called Leaf zone which i will dose once a week. im hoping that it would be sufficent enough. the lights on in the tank for about 7 hours a day

That moss ball was in my big tank but as i am dosing in this tank with ferts i thought i could probaly bring it back to life as there are small patches of green on it. is it worth me keeping it or should i just throw it out???

 

[kaivalagi]

27C, not quite suitable forr hillstream loaches

Really nice looking fish, when I first saw the pics I thought, what a ray in there?

 

[superman1]

lol thats the only reason i had to have them. because of their looks. really cool fish. very active. although they dont spend much time on the substrate... some species can grow to 3-4" which would look pretty impressive

 

[ian]

i used to keep a couple of Hillstreams in my cold water, they are good to watch. I did move one over to my tropical, i had to move him out after a month. Nice tank! also love WCM's.

 

[kaivalagi]

Definitely get more WCM's if you can, I really like those fish too

Tempted to go cold water now too

 

[superman1]

yeh think i may add more WCM.. very active fish. think i may move the Betta. Have never really been fans of them. Hes pretty aggressive too.

 

[kaivalagi]

yeh think i may add more WCM.. very active fish. think i may move the Betta. Have never really been fans of them. Hes pretty aggressive too.

Betta's are not for me either....I don't like Betta, Guppy, Gourami...too fancy and not a "real enough for me" fish if you know what I mean