My First Planted Aquarium!!

Hi everyone.

Well, after 6 years of fish keeping (fish only), I have finally made the leap of faith and started my first planted aquarium!! Please let me know what you think. I need your input, advice, concerns, etc. I will take all of your information for the better, and to grow my knowledge for the love of this hobby. I will be posting a quick one minute video on Youtube later on today.

- 2.5g tank

- Small layer of Miracle Grow

- Small layer of Fluorite

- 1" layer of Eco-Complete

- Play sand

- 1 pc of Malaysian Driftwood

- Anubias (If someone can please help identify it!! They only had it labeled as "Mixed Anubias"? The store did not even know the specific name!!)

- Italian Val

- Baby Tears

Thanks!!

Albert.

2 members like this

Comment by Fry on November 6, 2013 at 4:24pm: only run lights like 5 or 6 hours a day to avoid algae out break get a timer

Comment by OceanLife69 on November 6, 2013 at 11:35pm: Fry, I truly appreciate all of your input. All has been noted. I will try to do the modifications this weekend! Thanks again!

Comment by OceanLife69 on November 6, 2013 at 11:41pm: Kenneth, thank you for your input as well!!

Comment by George Barrett on November 7, 2013 at 9:45pm: i also have a 2.5 gallon very nice size for the desk. I have been having balancing issues with ammonia it being such a small tank it seems cycling it is almost harder than my 40 gallon. sand in this situation is better but don't go messing with things that are already in place if you don't see any dirt coming up just leave it. although the baby tears has grown better for me in the sand. also from the looks of the picture you could use some more plants in the tank. try some moss, rotala indica, micro sword, and the smaller crypts like parva or lutea. all great and easy plants. also I could never find a top for mine wondering if you had any luck with that. upgrade to at least a 10 gallon a lot more fun but the next size tank would be either a 20 long or a 29 gallon both great tank to play in and not to big or expensive to do.

Comment by OceanLife69 on November 7, 2013 at 11:17pm: George, thanks so much for your valuable input!! Yes, it has almost been a week and the readings are off the charts! But I know that it is still a bit early though. Fry commented that it would provably take about a month for my small tank to cycle. I did make sure that the organic soil layer was very well tight covered with the other substrates so that I would not have any of the dirt drift upwards.

Thanks for the input on the plants, I plan to just do that this weekend and get a few more of them. Here in Florida is kind of hard to get good quality plants, or a variety of them for that matter. We're next to the ocean, so all marine stuff is easier to get.

I have not really had any luck on getting a decent top for mine, but I have been contemplating just to get a nice nano LED fixture that would fit right on top of the 2.5. I spotted one the other day at my local pet shop for about $20.00, so I may just get that.

Yeah, my next dirt/planted project will be my 20g high which I currently have it as my marine aquarium, I got pixs on my page. You can also check my Youtube channel.

Anyways, thanks again for all of your input!!

Comment by Fry on November 8, 2013 at 6:14pm: you can use play sand, it is just a finer grain so it is a mess to deal with and it normally has some random junk in it as well, so it is not as clean a look.

Comment by Tiger Barb on November 8, 2013 at 8:35pm: I also did my first planted tanks with Fluorite and on top I used swimming pool filter sand, has a nice grain size and the color is lighter and looks very nice, I have 2 in of Sand on top of 2 in of Fluorite mixed with Eco-complete and some gravel.

So far so good, I have lamps with clamps 15V 6500K 800 lumens light bulbs, 2 on each tank. Just the lighting came up to $60.00 for 4 tanks.

I just followed instructions and advise from all these really good people here, I have enjoying this hobbie since 7/1/2013 so I am pretty new as well.

Good luck with your tank.!!!

Comment by OceanLife69 on November 9, 2013 at 12:03am: Martin, thank you for your information!! I truly have yet to grasp what type of bulbs and specifications one has to follow to properly light your plants. I use to follow the "watts-per-gallon" rule of thumb, but now it has to be by lumens and Ks.

Sometimes it could be a bit intimidating, but that's why I joined this great site!! And you are correct, they have been incredible at all of the information that they always provide to novices like me. No one hesitates for one second to try to help, it's just great!

Thanks again!

Comment by OceanLife69 on November 9, 2013 at 12:12pm: Fry, thanks!

Comment by Luke Deer on November 18, 2013 at 6:47pm: Cool looking tank. One option to keep your play sand is to introduce Malaysian trumpet snails to the tank. The dig around in the substrate and aerate it. I have a ton of them and they are no problem at all. They spend a lot of time under the sand so its not like they will swarm your tank. Also, on my other tank I switched to pool filter sand. Really cheap and keeps itself aerated. I still have my snails in there though.