# planning my aquatic landscape..



## malicious1 (Jul 4, 2005)

im trying to plan a landscape for my 55 gallon, but i don't know what all i want, or what most of anything looks like.. so if you would post pics of your tanks with the name of the plants you have i there to give me a general idea of what i want and wether or not i will have to setup a cO2 system and whatnot.. Thanks


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

check this out for some ideas LOL Amano scapes


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## myles (Feb 27, 2005)

waw those tanks in the link are amazing. i wish i could ahvea atank like that hahaha.


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## Judazzz (Jan 13, 2003)

Here's a picture of my 50g (semi-)planted Amazon (not quite yet) biotope tank.

View attachment 71429


The large plants in the left back end are Echinodorus bleheri - Amazon Sword Plant (unfortunately heavily damaged by the pleco's in the tank







), the spirally, grassy plant in the center is Crinum calamistratum, and in the back on the right you see Vallisneria americana (natans) - Jungle Vallisneria and Ophiopogon japonicus (both grassy plants). In the front, the small plants are Anubias barteri var. barteri (also damaged by pleco's).

*Hardware*
Filters: 1 Eheim Classic 2215, 1 Fluval 4, 1 AquaFlow 2;
Heater: 1 200W Ebo Jaeger;
Light: 2x 30W (1 Daglicht, 1 Grolux);
CO2: none

*Water parameters*
pH: 7,5;
DH: 12 °d;
KH: 6 °d;
Ammonia: 0 mg/l;
Nitrites: 0 mg/l;
Nitrates: < 15 mg/l;
Phosphates: < 0,5 mg/l

*Fish*
1 L015 Candy Stripe Pleco;
1 L020 Polka Dot Pleco;
1 L091 Three Beacon Pleco;
1 L114 Leopard Pleco;
1 L190 Royal Pleco;
1 L239 Blue Fin Panaque;
1 South American Bumblebee Catfish;
15 Cardinal Tetra's;
8 Rummy-Nosed Tetra's;
5 Blue Emperor Tetra's;
4 Ramirezi Dwarf Cichlids;
3 Cockatoo Dwarf Cichlids;
Amano Shrimp;
Red Cherry Shrimp;
Red Nose Shrimp


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

Nice tank Judazz

Amazon swords look awesome after they acclimate to submersed type growth.. They will be huge and awesome looking! Another flourescent won't hurt it any tho. 
Eh, maybe dont put any more light over it unless things start dying.. LOL ..I have bright light over my tank, and although I can grow anything in it, it is crazy dealing with all the plant evasion, and overgrowth... my arm is always puckered from being in the water ..LOL


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## Husky_Jim (May 26, 2003)

malicious1 said:


> im trying to plan a landscape for my 55 gallon, but i don't know what all i want, or what most of anything looks like.. so if you would post pics of your tanks with the name of the plants you have i there to give me a general idea of what i want and wether or not i will have to setup a cO2 system and whatnot.. Thanks
> [snapback]1127791[/snapback]​


What are you planning to put in there?Piranha?
If so then my expirience can tell that you have to plant it completely different than the very desired







Amano Link posted by Dippy...
It depends also the number of fish you will put in there.


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## james__12345 (Mar 25, 2005)

DiPpY eGgS said:


> Nice tank Judazz
> 
> Amazon swords look awesome after they acclimate to submersed type growth.. They will be huge and awesome looking! Another flourescent won't hurt it any tho.
> Eh, maybe dont put any more light over it unless things start dying.. LOL ..I have bright light over my tank, and although I can grow anything in it, it is crazy dealing with all the plant evasion, and overgrowth... my arm is always puckered from being in the water ..LOL
> [snapback]1141420[/snapback]​


please explain what you mean by "Amazon swords look awesome after they acclimate to submersed type growth.. "


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

The leaves loose the emersed 'spoon' shape and take on a much more desirable 'spear' shape after submersed foliage grows out.


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## steveling (Jun 6, 2003)

here is a picture of mine from a while back , 55g with 4 red bellies in it , wood was found in my local forest and washed and boiled .


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## Judazzz (Jan 13, 2003)

DiPpY eGgS said:


> Nice tank Judazz
> 
> Amazon swords look awesome after they acclimate to submersed type growth.. They will be huge and awesome looking! Another flourescent won't hurt it any tho.
> Eh, maybe dont put any more light over it unless things start dying.. LOL ..I have bright light over my tank, and although I can grow anything in it, it is crazy dealing with all the plant evasion, and overgrowth... my arm is always puckered from being in the water ..LOL
> [snapback]1141420[/snapback]​


Thanks for the advice








The Swords are being systematically demolished by some of the pleco's in the tank, so they don't even stand a chance to acclimatize







(hence my own thread in this forum, where I look for pleco-safe large-leafed plants)
The other plants are doing well, I think also partly because of the good amount of light. I'm not really affraid of algae, as I have a whole squadron of algae eating critters in there (oto's, shrimp, some of the pleco's). If the plants start growing like weeds (which is not the case at the moment), I may change the amount of light on the tank - but for now, the plants need to multiply first.


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## james__12345 (Mar 25, 2005)

thanks for the explaination


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## wasabi-glow (Jun 30, 2005)

Here's my tank... I bought the plants from FLORIDA DRIFTWOOD for 58 bucks... I don't know what they are.. The only thing I know is the RICCIA FLUITANS which I attached to the bogwood...


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## killerbee (Aug 18, 2004)

steveling said:


> here is a picture of mine from a while back , 55g with 4 red bellies in it , wood was found in my local forest and washed and boiled .
> [snapback]1162107[/snapback]​


Very nice guys, steveling - excellent


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## james__12345 (Mar 25, 2005)

my sword is doing really good now. I also heard from someone else that its really important not to plant amazon swords to deeply, plant them so that the top of the roots were they come out of the plant is amost showing. I also just upgraded to a double strip light so now i have 1.3 watts per gallon instead of.66 watts per gallon. That should help a great deal too. thanks for the help.


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## Tinkerbelle (Oct 14, 2004)

my 20H when it was planted and had a very wild 'amazon' look.


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## BigChuckP (Feb 9, 2004)

Here is my planted tank. I have lots of little dwarf sag plugs, I hope to have a nice carpet sometime in the future which is why they are so spread out. There are some vals in the back that are continually trimmed, snowflake you bastard. I am getting lots more plants this coming week so I will post up a pic of my tank once the plants are in.
View attachment 75840


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## syrus410 (Jun 9, 2005)

were can I get some of that dwarf sag. Gotta get some. What is the scientific name?


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## BigChuckP (Feb 9, 2004)

syrus410 said:


> were can I get some of that dwarf sag. Gotta get some. What is the scientific name?
> [snapback]1187712[/snapback]​


Sagittaria subulata
www.aquabid.com
try ebay
or just google "dwarf sag buy" or something like that.
I got 20 for 12 bucks + 4 dollars for shipping.


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## HarassmentPanda (Sep 10, 2005)

This is my planted tank. I just put it together today. I started cycling the tank about a week ago and added decorations and plants today. The substrate is all flourite with a thin layer of large gravel on top to let nutrients sink down. The water has been iron treated and I put in an overhead floral bulb today. I hope to add my 4" rhom to the tank in about another week or 2. The plant in the middle is a "red ruffle" i believe, back right are java ferns, and I can't remember the names of the ones on the left for the life of me... but if your'e interested I can find out. This is the first planted tank I've ever done and only the second tank I've ever done in my life.


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## Bawb2u (May 27, 2004)

Here's a shot of my old planted tank. 60x18x27 Bolivian biotope.


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## Guru (Apr 20, 2004)

Heres my planted tank its only been 3 weeks. How long do you think it will take to grow in completly.
View attachment 76372

View attachment 76371


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## ginor2k (Oct 26, 2005)

Nice tanks guys


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## Mettle (Dec 29, 2003)

Here's some of my tanks, past and present...

29 gallon (when the inhabitants were dwarf puffers)
View attachment 83258


29 gallon (when the inhabitants were convict cichlids)
View attachment 83259


10 gallon (goldfish tank, water was still cloudy from set-up)
View attachment 83260


29 gallon (when the inhabitants were geos)
View attachment 83261


38 gallon community tank (redone a little from pic, but still same idea)
View attachment 83262


EDIT: Apologies. Didn't realize how OLD this thread was.


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

2 of my recent aquascapes.. more like plants just shoved in there lol.. working on the 'scaping aspect...


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## StuartDanger (Aug 7, 2003)

wow!

sweet pics, i wud love to have an aquascaped tank with a ton of cardinals


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

I got sick of my neons, sold most of 'em, and fed like 10 to my new rhom.. lol 
It looks great to have a huge school of little fish, but like i said, i am a predator fish lover at heart


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