# 28gal Bow Front Planted tank with cypress knees :)



## jennesque (May 10, 2012)

Hi.. I'm new.. decided to post pics and videos of my 28gal bow front tank.. it's low tech (hence being in the low tech section).. I've redone this tank quite a few times and I like to think I've come a pretty long way in the last year.. 

I personally think it's funny to show the leaps of bounds of progress I've made. Not I don't still have a TON to learn.. but.. well.. I'll go ahead and take you through a smidge of history, with some sarcasm.









This was one of the first days I got my new 28gal tank. Note the lovely blue lighting.. perfect for my baby amazon sword and my lucky bamboo.. lol. This was just after I rehomed my 4 tiger barbs, 3 red tailed sharks, and 2 bala sharks that Petsmart so graciously sold me.  These fish were originally in a 10 gal tank which petsmart thought perfect for them. Not at all, as everyone probably knows.









This is when I was first starting to learn that, yes, plants are very important additions to the aquarium.. I also learned about aquarium lighting; however, I did not bother to pay attention to whether things are low/high light plants so many of these plants were not suited for my tank at all.. I also took in a single angelfish (bad idea), but there are my rasboras! I still have some of them!  (also switched to sand substrate around here..)









And then I got some nifty cypress wood to put in my tank. I originally had the idea of adding about double the anubias at the bottom. I completely rescaped the tank at this time and I have no idea what specifically happened.. my plants were probably shipped from too far away so many of them just died in my tank, the cypress also had a lot of organic yummy for bacteria to feed on so I had a lovely bacteria / diatom mess and my tank just crashed. My parameters all looked fine but I had about half of my fish die.. I let the tank just stabilize for several months before touching it again. It was a pretty sad time for me. :\









And here we are today (actually a couple days ago..). Of all the anubias in the last picture, all but about 5-6 died off. The rhizomes on many just rotted away (not buried). I replaced them with some java moss rocks that have been in there about a week and are just starting to grow. My previous background vals (forget what type) were all pretty much gone or just tiny in size so I replaced them with Italian vals. I still have my pennywort floating at the top (wow, it really has grown!). 

Current stocking is 1 dwarf gourami (a new addition, so new it's not in this picture.. but it is in the video!), 7 harlequin rasboras (4 regular and 3 the black coloration), 5 rummynose tetras (will be adding 4-6 more soon, don't worry), and 5 false julii corydoras. I've also got around 10 ghost shrimp, 2 nerite snails, and god only knows how many MTS. (If you see some dots on the tank glass, that's from nerite eggs.. too lazy to clean it lol).

I'm running a sponge filter, heater (don't know the watts.. it's appropriate for the tank lol), and the regular stock lighting (18" t8, 6500k). I've got some marimo balls still hanging out in the tank waiting to be moved to a shrimp tank I have planned (just ordered the tank today!).. ignore those. 

And here's a video I just took:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMXSTrV6oK4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Any suggestions? I know the vals look sparse behind the tall pieces of driftwood.. I'm just hoping it will grow there. It's hard to plant much with the sponge back there.


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## izabella87 (Apr 21, 2012)

Hi there,
I like the evolution of ur tank.
About your plants anubias, that have died off. Do you have substrate beneath your sand? A good substrate, enough light and if you really want it to grow , co2 diffuser, are important things to have for a healthy planted tank. 
Btw Lovely video!!
Here's a video of mine.. well mine before I planted 100 more plants.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rY6dPH2i0U&list=LLAjooXTJfJJwhBcLP574Ndw&feature=mh_lolz


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## dindin (Mar 4, 2009)

Wow, I love that wood! Your tank promises to be beautiful. You've already brought it a long way.

I have to say, the workers at our PetSmart are very well trained and do not sell wrong-sized fish to unsuspecting buyers. However, all their plants seem to be non-aquatic.


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## jennesque (May 10, 2012)

Izabella, I did not put anything under the sand because when I did thr transition to sand I didn't have much planned for plantsin the substrate. At that time I planned on covering the fake bonsai trees with moss and stopping there. I have used root tabs in the past.. the anubias died within like 10 days of being in the tank so I do not think the substrate was the issue. The rhizomes were tied to rocks placed on top.of the substrate. I think it was the addition of the wood.. the wood was very old already power washed and the bark removed but it was apparently filled with plenty of something for bacteria to munch on cause the wood was covered with a fuzz for a week or so. My shrimp were eating it so I don't think it was deadly. I never figured out what it was, but the tank has been fine for the last couple months. I have just had one anubias wilting a bit since I rearranged the tank but it has since stopped and everything seems to be fine. My vals are still adjusting to the tank but they've only been there 2-3 weeks. Btw, the tank looks nice!

Dindin, yepp.. I love the cypress knees. Haven't had a problem with them except the mystery fuzz when I started out, but that probably wouldn't be an issue with new wood. This wood is like 10 years old. They do not.get water logged easily, but it's a very durable wood under water because they're usually in marshes in nature. Cypress trees are very common in South Carolina so that is why I chose to use them. I may change it to a blackwater tank at some point..but this will satisfy me for now. 

I will also say, to the Petsmart employees defense, she did tell me she was never trained about anything when it came to the fish.. we have two (3?) Petsmarts in the area and one is better than the other. The one that is closer to me is the worse one..I learned that after the fact. I should have done more research myself. They are also much better at labelling their plants than Petco is.. Petco here sells everything as an aquatic plant..even the dead ones lol


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## jennesque (May 10, 2012)

Wanted to post an update.. my vals didn't fare well in my soft/acidic water so I've been working on replacing them. 

The fish stocking is pretty much the same still.. I started getting algae and added some otos since I've been loving how cute they are..

Plants I am experimenting with a bit.. floating, I've got some red root floaters and some frog bit which I just added a couple days ago. I have one Anubias nana, some Java Moss attached to rocks which is slowly growing in, one red lotus or lily of some variety.. can anyone tell me? And in the background there is Ludwigia repens x arcuata and I'm testing out some Alternanthera reineckii "cardinalis" as well.. not sure it'll do well though.

I do plan on planting some Ludwigia red in the bare back spot in the middle right. I am also getting some crypt willisii that I will be planting in front of it by the Anubias. The bulb that I got had two lily plants growing on it and one came off during transport.. it has a number of leaves and some roots already so I'm hoping it'll be fine. I was thinking of maybe moving it to the front of the tank somewhere in that sand spot but I don't know if that'd look good or not...

Any suggestions on anything? The water looks a little cloudy cause I've been moving things around today.

This is me trying to distract your eyesight from the nerite eggs and MTS lol










Here's a serious shot with a not so serious camera lol










And a video.. cause I'm bored. This is how I spend my Saturdays..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jiA...e_gdata_player


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## Perryboat (Jul 11, 2012)

Very nice setup.Love the shark there, or whale, whatever it is.lol


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## slidewithme (May 18, 2012)

I love how natural this looks!


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## jennesque (May 10, 2012)

Thank you.  glad to hear it's not ugly.. this is my first planted tank, though I've been working on it for several months, changing things around.

Glad you like the whale shark thing, haha. By the way, dry erase markers do make excellent tools in drawing out your aquascape.. 

I'm now buying some luwigia arcuata and red to add to the background. I'm not sure of how to arrange them.. I was thinking of maybe putting the ludwigia repens x arcuata I have now on the outside edges, the arcuata inside of that with the 'Red' in the middle..? I might take one or two out depending on how well they do. 

The Alternanthera reineckii is not really doing well so I will probably remove that soon.


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## Ptyochromis (Mar 16, 2012)

That fuzz on the wood is normal. And it will go away in a few months. Also MTS are livebearers, no eggs. I would add some hygro to the tank. Micro and macro swords would look nice and fit the black water biotope, they will need root fertilizer; flourish root tabs shod fit the bill.


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## jennesque (May 10, 2012)

Yepp, I have seen one MTS multiply into several.. haha. I've just got nerite snail eggs around the tank.

The wood has been in the tank for about a year.. it did go through a fuzzy stage but it's been fine until the algae. I added some amano shrimp to the tank and they've cleaned everything up.

Microswords haven't worked well for me in that past.. I do like the look of them. I'll have to get a picture soon as an update. I ended up taking out some of the plants. I've still got the java moss. I moved the ludwigia repens x arcuata to both sides in the back, some ludwigia arcuata next to that, and ludwigia 'Red' in the middle. If these don't work out I will probably get some sort of hygro. 
I also replaced the anubias with some crypt willisii.. put in some root tabs for them to feed off.


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