# 55g Planted



## Schnupper (Jul 28, 2014)

Hello everyone!!! This is my first post and have been planning to start up my 55g tank again (haven't had any aquarium setup in 4 years). I want a semi low-tech planted tank and something that would look nice. I made a rough sketch of what I want to accomplish with this tank.

Setup so far
-55g tank
-Emperor 400 filter (may change to canister filter)
-Dual 48inch T5 HO lighting fixture 6700k and 10k bulbs
-Subrate is going to be Eco Complete and PFS
-Fish (?)
-Plants (??)


Here is the design i came up with

-The black is going to be "Eco complete substrate"
-Green will be plants (to be determined what plants)
-Log looking thing will be driftwood
-The line is going to be a retaining wall i will try making out of plexiglass with some nice stones/pebbles siliconed together with (trying to find a DIY)
-Middle is going to be some whiteish sand possibly PFS



Any suggestions or anything i should look into while putting this together? I will be taking pictures/logging it as i put it together.


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## SupaTanks (Apr 11, 2013)

Eco complete is probably not the best substrate to go with because it can cause algae and if you're planning on having plants, they probably will need more nutrients than it can provide. I say look into dirt or ADA (if money isnt a factor heh). Good luck, it looks like it will be a nice setup :]


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

I would make the white smaller. White tends to come toward the viewer, and looks larger. Black tends to retreat and look smaller. So make the white smaller, and it will be in better balance with the black. 

The 2 sides of black do not have to be the same size. The area with the driftwood should be a bit larger, IMO. Or were you going to try to find more driftwood so both sides has some? Make them different sizes, if you do that. 

Black and white is a strong contrast. 
Look for what are sold around here as 'Mexican Beach Pebbles' as a divider. They are available in almost pure black with some silvery spots, or a sort of subtle purple. The black ones would work really well. Whole tank could be a study in black and white. 

EC is a good substrate for plants. Add some slow release tablets under it.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Too much white - make a very narrow path if you are going for that. Personally I don't like paths because they demand attention whereas your plants should instead.

There really isn't anything wrong with eco complete - just personal preference. Saying that it 'causes algae' is a dumb comment because algae can grow with any substrate given the right conditions. I use eco complete in 3 tanks and it's fine.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

yeah I would greatly decrease the white


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

+1 for Klibs..


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## Schnupper (Jul 28, 2014)

Alright update time! Last night i went out and got some rocks and plastic landscaping edging to glue my rocks to. This is how she turned out. And i did make the sand part smaller!!! I used 100% silicone (aquarium safe) and hot glue. I will take more pictures as the build goes along and try to figure out what plants/fish i want to go with. Any recommendations? I want to go for a community tank and not huge maintenance.


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## Thumper828 (Feb 13, 2014)

don't forget to really ramp it up good towards the back and sides..when you fill it with water it will help make your take look like its got more depth..


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## Schnupper (Jul 28, 2014)

Thumper828 said:


> don't forget to really ramp it up good towards the back and sides..when you fill it with water it will help make your take look like its got more depth..


Thats the plan!!! The walls are 3inches, I plan on atleast 5 inches twords the back


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## Schnupper (Jul 28, 2014)

Update for today!!!!!! :bounce:
I picked up sand and had to pick up another bag of eco complete today. I put the substrate and the driftwood in and filled her up with water. Now I will let it run overnight and verify everything is in good working order then go to the LFS and try to find plants/fish I want. Does anyone recommend any fish/pant combos?

Here are today's pictures.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Those walls came out really good! I still think it would be way better if you limited the amount of white. Maybe put darker rocks on it to make a cobblestone effect? Again it will detract a lot of attention from plants/fish


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## Schnupper (Jul 28, 2014)

Thanks!! Took me a while to put the walls together, I ended up using some plastic landscaping edging and found rocks that i thought would look nice. I used 100% silicone and hotglue to glue them to the edging. IMHO the edging is perfect for the application because it is very stiff but when warmed up with a heat gun i could bend it with ease and had a nice thick base to silicone to the bottom of the tank. 
As far as the too much white goes I think I will be throwing in some black slate rocks and hopefully getting some type of plant that can cover the "transition area" between the black and white part.


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## Schnupper (Jul 28, 2014)

Got some plants/fish today to start her up! I am excited and still have lots of work to do. I ordered some baby tears plants and will be here tomorrow night! 
This is what it looks like so far. Lots of progress the past few days here and more to come.


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## Schnupper (Jul 28, 2014)

Here is an update. I'm still working on it and still have to figure out how i want to have the plants.


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## Xzavier247 (Aug 9, 2014)

I love the concept. But something does not flow right.


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## HUNTER (Sep 4, 2012)

Yeah I'm looking at it and can't seem to find any, I don't know, just can't make somethng out of it. If you like, who cares, right?


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## Aqua nut (Jul 5, 2014)

I was thinking about doing the same set up like yours in a 40b because it has more room to work with, 55 is only 12" 40b is 18" deep.(roughly) I'm definitely going to make my river a lot smaller and put a diy 18" h x7"w x 8"l sand fall at the focal point over to the left. 
So however as the sand falls is going to be the size of the white river.
From just the pictures ,you have really good depth and the and the rock barrier, well that's just awesome!! Great job. 
Can't wait to see more Pic's.


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## Steve002 (Feb 7, 2014)

The scape dosen't look natural enough for my liking (a personal preference of mine). Everything looks placed. The rocks are different types and the path dosen't look like a path. Some of the plants are in rows. It looks more like someone's garden. Sorry to be negative because if you like it that is all that counts.


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## Schnupper (Jul 28, 2014)

Thanks for the comments everyone!! I like the idea i had but I can not arrange things to my liking  I think maybe i need some different/more plants or a different layout of the plants I have. Any suggestions of layout or plants to add or what not would be appreciated. Right now I am just going to let the plants grow while i try to get a good layout planned. I realized that I didn't really plan the whole layout properly ahead of time and turned into this. Oh well!!! Can always change it. 

Here are a couple more pictures. 
These plants are growing soooo fast compared to my past setup. I do about 25% water change every monday and dose Flourish and change out one of my DIY co2 bottles(have 3). The co2 is ran to the intake of my Rio+ 600 pump. I am still researching/learning and figuring out my goal for the tank and will 100% go with pressurized co2 in the near future and if budget allows change to a canister filter. 








2 of my SAE's laying on the plant together


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## Schnupper (Jul 28, 2014)

Little update Ive had some GDA i'm letting run its course and now have some pond snails running around that i'm trying to get rid of. I trimmed some of the plants. I am still learning and trying to figure out what direction i want to go with the scaping.


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## Schnupper (Jul 28, 2014)

Update


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## treyLcham (Sep 9, 2014)

Schnupper said:


> Update


I think u made the focal point the sand when in most scapes u want the main focal point to be the plants and hard scape. In my opinion i would have made s thin mabe 6in semi strait sand path. =) looks good but for some reason it doesnt seem to flow but as long as u love it thats all that matters =)


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## HybridHerp (May 24, 2012)

what if you removed some sand in the front, so that the white path is actually a branching path, and maybe had something like hair grass or just a patch of some small carpeting plant on the front part that you'd change to be planted


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## Schnupper (Jul 28, 2014)

The whole white sand area just got planted with DHG belem two weeks ago. Its finally growing after being 100% brown from shipping in the mail!


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## Squrl888 (Oct 3, 2014)

Wow, that grew in really well!


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## Schnupper (Jul 28, 2014)

Ya the plants are growing pretty fast, I already trimmed a few multiple times


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## megatrev62 (Sep 26, 2014)

Fabulous job !!


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## mot (Sep 17, 2011)

I had one of these 55 gallon tanks about 5 years ago. This is a very difficult tank to scape and I think you did a good job of it. Certainly better than anything I ever able was to do.


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## Fishly (Jan 8, 2010)

You have a good start here. Your plants look healthy and your scape is headed in the right direction. There are a few areas that could be improved, however. 

In order to look like it's receding the path needs to narrow more towards the back and the sand needs to be higher. If you look at a landscape picture, you'll notice that the farther away something is, the higher its base appears on the horizontal plane. If two objects touch the ground at the same horizontal point, that usually means they are equally far away. So to make your path look like it's farther away, you need to raise it as high as you can in the back as it narrows. 

To make the path look like it's going on into infinity you'll also want to hide the end of it. Do this by making it curve around a plant or rock at the back or planting something bushy enough to cover the end. Then it will look like to goes off into the distance instead of coming to a sudden stop at the back of the tank. Like this:










See how you can't quite see the end of the path? I know moving it will be difficult because of your rock wall, but with the density of the plants, I don't see the point of the black sand. I would remove it and just use white for the whole tank. This would allow you to use loose rock to form your border and give you the opportunity to change the rocks so they reinforce the illusion of depth by getting smaller as they go back. 

Another issue with the rock border is that it's too clean and defined. You should soften it by adding some plants right on the inside edge so the leaves drape over and hide some of the rocks. 

The pieces of driftwood are nice individually, but don't work well together. The one on the right is angled too horizontally. It would look better if you could get another piece that pointed towards the tip of the left piece. And the giant anubias on the left piece of driftwood is very distracting. I would move it to the substrate towards the left, right next to the tank wall.

With the driftwood, you're making a pyramid shape, but with the path you're making a valley shape. Decide which one you want and arrange the plants to match. I would go with the valley shape. That would give you more plant mass and you wouldn't have to be as precise with the slope.

You have the same stem plant all over the tank. You need more variety - at least two other stems, preferably different in leaf shape and color. Make sure you trim them so they get bushier.

The finishing touch would be to hide the filter intake by either moving the filter or moving the path.


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## KookScape (Oct 31, 2011)

Didn't care too much for the first few photos, however the most recent update shot looks wonderful! You have a fairly unique layout which I think could be improved through several changes. The biggest thing I notice when looking at this tank is that the substrate is too even, more substrate needs to be added to the back in order to improve the scale. Also filling in the back with more stem plants will look great! Maybe even throw some moss and anubias on that rock wall. Overall you have a beautiful scape on your hands! Well done!


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## chowdan (Jun 29, 2012)

Would love to see another update shot The one 2 months ago looked decent. I do agree the white sand part distracts from the plants. Takes the eyes off the most attractive part - fish and plants. 

Depending on how it looks now, the front center area where the path is could have some fill in of maybe the black sand. Something to part the entrance of the white creating a "Y" effect for the path way. On the black sand you could plant some marsila minuta.


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