Aquascaping. It's so fetch.
Okay, so when I was twelve I wanted an Aquarium. So my dad being the good dad that he is, got me a 29 gallon tank. I was in love.
When I moved out, my Sweet mom took the tank with her. She has had this tank for a while now, it's been at least 6 years I'd say. Anyway, my husband and me live in a little basement apartment, and even though we foster dogs and puppies sometimes, we aren't supposed to have pets.
Since both of us are big animal lovers, we got a 2.5 gallon fish tank and we have a beta fish named Mr. Fish, and a recently a little Otocinclus that is cleaning the algae out of his tank.
and this is what an Otocinclus looks like, these little guys only get to be about 2" at most, and they eat algae for a living. They are pros, and will clean your plants really good.
We also put a few live plants in there. The beta is fun, but we really were wanting a bigger tank.
After talking about it, we decided to see if my mom would let us have my old tank back. When she said yes, we were both really excited and geeking out.
And now we have a new hobby. Aquascaping this tank! it could take a while to get it perfect, and since we are doing a low light tank with no CO2 injections, we are going to have to get creative with it, since there aren't as many plants that can live happily in a tank like this. There are enough though that it will be really pretty when it's done.
So here is the before of the tank
When we got the tank it had the same rocks in it that it's had in it since I was 12. It also had the same hood on it. We had to replace the filter, because it got cracked in the moving process.
The fish, that you can't see well in this picture because my camera sucks, are as follows.
2 black skirt tetras
2 neon tetras
1 black and white Angelfish
1 black and red striped coolie loach
2 Rosy Barbs
1 Bristle nose Pleco
We added 3 more Neon Tetras
Here is what we've done now, which isn't a lot yet.
We added three bags of Eco Complete Planted Aquarium Substrate 20 lbs, CaribSea, we got it for $22 dollars a bag at Pet Co which was the best deal I could find around here.
We did a lot of research on the type of substrate to use for our planted tank, we considered doing a layer of soil, then adding fluorite or laterite on top of it, so that the plants could get the nutrients they needed. We also considered doing the soil and just layering our gravel over it.
After reading many reviews online, the Eco Complete was mentioned and suggested multiple times. When I read reviews for it specifically, there was nothing but good reviews I found. Even though it ended up being a little more expensive, Mark and me decided it would be the easiest way to go.
Some things to know about the Eco Complete is that it has liquid In the bag that acts as a water conditioner. You dump it directly into the tank, and just add water. Also, you need 2lbs of substrate per gallon of water. The Eco complete comes in 20 lb bags. It has all the nutrients that your plants will need, and is great for starters like Mark and me.
Mark also really like the black substrate. It does look really sharp.
The second thing we needed was a light bulb that would encourage plant growth. We didn't intend to buy a new light fixture, but the one we got ended up burning out.
We didn't intend to go with an LED light either, but after talking with a very knowledgeable employee at the Animal Ark in Orem, we ended up going with a Finnex FugeRay Aquarium LED Light Plus Moonlights, 10-Inch, except ours is a 30 inch light.
There is also a Finnex FudgeRay LED light that is specific for plant growth, but the guy told us that the plants would grow just fine with this model, and it saved us a little bit of money.
The light was spendy too, but given the fact that you won't be spending money to replace the light bulb every year, and the fact that LED has a higher par than the fluorescent lights do, we could use less watts to grow our plants, and if we do need extra watts we can get another one and just place it on top of our tank instead of getting a double bulb hood and light fixture. In the long run it saves money.
A few things we love about this light, is that it's very small and you just place it on top of your tank. You can also turn it to blue light at night time and it looks like moon light. It makes our fish look really vibrant. The tetras are so blue in the tank with this light. I love it.
We also bought some willow moss, and a plant to put in there. The willow moss will be going onto one of our pieces of drift wood when they are done curing.
This project is going to look so good when we are done with it, especially since Mark is a plant genius.
Anyhow, I'll update this the tank progresses.
Obviously, since I love most things to do with animals, even if it's just fish.
When I moved out, my Sweet mom took the tank with her. She has had this tank for a while now, it's been at least 6 years I'd say. Anyway, my husband and me live in a little basement apartment, and even though we foster dogs and puppies sometimes, we aren't supposed to have pets.
Since both of us are big animal lovers, we got a 2.5 gallon fish tank and we have a beta fish named Mr. Fish, and a recently a little Otocinclus that is cleaning the algae out of his tank.
 |
| This is Mr. Fish, and part of an Anubis plant. |
and this is what an Otocinclus looks like, these little guys only get to be about 2" at most, and they eat algae for a living. They are pros, and will clean your plants really good.
We also put a few live plants in there. The beta is fun, but we really were wanting a bigger tank.
After talking about it, we decided to see if my mom would let us have my old tank back. When she said yes, we were both really excited and geeking out.
And now we have a new hobby. Aquascaping this tank! it could take a while to get it perfect, and since we are doing a low light tank with no CO2 injections, we are going to have to get creative with it, since there aren't as many plants that can live happily in a tank like this. There are enough though that it will be really pretty when it's done.
So here is the before of the tank
When we got the tank it had the same rocks in it that it's had in it since I was 12. It also had the same hood on it. We had to replace the filter, because it got cracked in the moving process.
The fish, that you can't see well in this picture because my camera sucks, are as follows.
2 black skirt tetras
2 neon tetras
1 black and white Angelfish
1 black and red striped coolie loach
2 Rosy Barbs
1 Bristle nose Pleco
We added 3 more Neon Tetras
Here is what we've done now, which isn't a lot yet.
We added three bags of Eco Complete Planted Aquarium Substrate 20 lbs, CaribSea, we got it for $22 dollars a bag at Pet Co which was the best deal I could find around here.
We did a lot of research on the type of substrate to use for our planted tank, we considered doing a layer of soil, then adding fluorite or laterite on top of it, so that the plants could get the nutrients they needed. We also considered doing the soil and just layering our gravel over it.
After reading many reviews online, the Eco Complete was mentioned and suggested multiple times. When I read reviews for it specifically, there was nothing but good reviews I found. Even though it ended up being a little more expensive, Mark and me decided it would be the easiest way to go.
Some things to know about the Eco Complete is that it has liquid In the bag that acts as a water conditioner. You dump it directly into the tank, and just add water. Also, you need 2lbs of substrate per gallon of water. The Eco complete comes in 20 lb bags. It has all the nutrients that your plants will need, and is great for starters like Mark and me.
Mark also really like the black substrate. It does look really sharp.
The second thing we needed was a light bulb that would encourage plant growth. We didn't intend to buy a new light fixture, but the one we got ended up burning out.
We didn't intend to go with an LED light either, but after talking with a very knowledgeable employee at the Animal Ark in Orem, we ended up going with a Finnex FugeRay Aquarium LED Light Plus Moonlights, 10-Inch, except ours is a 30 inch light.
There is also a Finnex FudgeRay LED light that is specific for plant growth, but the guy told us that the plants would grow just fine with this model, and it saved us a little bit of money.
The light was spendy too, but given the fact that you won't be spending money to replace the light bulb every year, and the fact that LED has a higher par than the fluorescent lights do, we could use less watts to grow our plants, and if we do need extra watts we can get another one and just place it on top of our tank instead of getting a double bulb hood and light fixture. In the long run it saves money.
A few things we love about this light, is that it's very small and you just place it on top of your tank. You can also turn it to blue light at night time and it looks like moon light. It makes our fish look really vibrant. The tetras are so blue in the tank with this light. I love it.
We also bought some willow moss, and a plant to put in there. The willow moss will be going onto one of our pieces of drift wood when they are done curing.
This project is going to look so good when we are done with it, especially since Mark is a plant genius.
Anyhow, I'll update this the tank progresses.
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