5.5 Planted

[Phantom_Cichlid]

Ok well im going to be moving my african clawed frog out of my 5.5 and I would like to do a planted nano. Can yall share your what you know and suggest what I need, please and thank you.

[Damon]

Plants, substrate, water, lights.

[Phantom_Cichlid]

Ok Damon, I should have been more specific such as what plants will work, what substrate should I use, and how many watts?

[HybridS130]

You can go several routes when it comes to substrate. Shultz has a new inexpensive substrate for aquatic plants available at all home improvement stores (lowes, home depot, etc). The problem with this stuff is it's kind of ugly and extremely light so it doesn't do a good job holding down plants but, if you're on a budget it'll work.

Eco-complete is always an option but, it's $22-30 a bag and you'll have quite a bit leftover sitting around unless you can use it in another tank of yours. Then there are several other aquatic soils that I have no experience with but, most of which are black, inert, and great for holding down plants.

I would start with a minimum of 20 watts of lighting. You have several options here. I suggested in another thread but, desk lamps work great and there are many varieties available to suit your needs and tastes. I have two types of desk lamps that I use.

http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS...4+4233&pos=n12

This is the lamp that Im using on my 2.5G nano. It has a 27 watt 6500K four tube compact florescent bulb, perfect for growing any plants. This would be plenty of wattage for your 5.5G and it's very cheap too! Under $20.

I also use an architect type desl lamp with a 20 watt screw in 6500K CF bulb and it ended up costing about the same as the lamp above.

If you don't mind buying the water then I suggest just buying distilled water from your local grocery store, it's probably best for the planted tank and wouldn't take much to keep up with water changes. It costs about $.64 a gallon around here in pensacola, fla at wal-mart.

Plants, well you have a huge selection to choose from so it's pretty much up to your personal taste and budget.

Also, you don't have to have filtration on this tank if you're only going to have plants and maybe shrimp or just a few small fish if you keep up with regular water changes. If you do get a filter though I highly reccomend the Aquaclear 20, it has an adjustable flow and it works great, Im extremely happy with mine. I haven't bothered to worry about heating for such a small tank, so far it's doing fine. I hope this has helped a little bit.

[Phantom_Cichlid]

Well I am on a budget and I found this amazing site that has nano fish http://www.franksaquarium.com/nanofish.htm
What could I do for plants?

[Ringo]

Some differant bags of planting substrate.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...?N=2004+113223

Well obviously the tank is small, so the plants will need to be small to.
Any plants with red on them will need more of a 3WPG than anything.
Anubis nana, Echinodorus tenellus, Micro sword, and hairgrass are all pretty good plants, and they stay pretty small too.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/s...fm?pCatId=1630

[JustOneMore20]

Remember on smaller tanks, you need more light, so the wpg rule is different. I'd shoot for atleast 3wpg, like Hunter said, or more like 4wpg, so you'll have a decent selection of plants.

I wouldn't put too many stem plants in the tank, as you'll be trimming them constantly.

You should be able to grow a good foreground of dwarf hairgrass, E. tennellus, or Glosso with around 25 or so watts over the tank. You could get some Anubias nana petite for a piece of driftwood and then some small Cryptocorynes (Crypt parva are really small) for the midground. For the background you could have a few different types of stem plants. Hemianthus micranthemoides (sometimes called Baby Tears) is a good little plant for a nano tank. Remember that the smaller the plants you have, the bigger the tank will look. In a small tank, if you pack it full of really big leaved plants, it will look like a tiny tank.

I would browse around on THIS site to get some ideas. It really helps IME to have an idea of what you want to achieve, and then pick the plants. It also depends on what is available to you. I'd suggest buying online if you can.

Hybrid has a really nice nano tank...I think he has pictures in the Photo section...I would check them out if you haven't already, Mark.

[HybridS130]

I deleted all those pictures off my photobucket account. I'll upload them again so that I can show him though.

Edit: These are from when I first set it up in this way, it's grown in a bit since then but, not by much. That excel doesn't seem to do as much as everyone says.

[Ringo]

I have tons of them baby tear plants, I really don't like them at all. Well I cannot seem to get them to look good in my tank.

Low light plants-2-3WPG
Medium light plants-3-4WPG
High light plants-4+WPG
Thats pretty much it right?
or can the low light plants go for more of 1-2WPG's? I don't know much about low light plants and there requirments, I've only done more research on the higher light plants.
I was reading in a book not to long ago that Java fern (not 100% sure if thats the plant) even likes some shade.

Kristen you have any more links to sights that show about aquascaping and all that?

[JustOneMore20]

Kristen you have any more links to sights that show about aquascaping and all that?

I don't know any that have aquascaping like that, but I like to go to http://www.plantedtank.net and search for my size tanks to see what people have done with theirs. Hopefully its ok to post that link, since its strictly a planted tank site...even though it has a forum too. There are some awesome planted tanks on there.

You can browse through different years of the Aquatic-gardeners contest. So you can go all the way back to 2000 I think.

Thats pretty much it right?
or can the low light plants go for more of 1-2WPG's? I don't know much about low light plants and there requirments, I've only done more research on the higher light plants.

That is right. In smaller tanks though, the wpg rule breaks down, meaning you need more light for even the low lights. So I'd say that 1 wpg would be ok for maybe Java fern and Anubias, but thats about it. 2wpg would be ok for other low light plants like Anacharis, Wisteria, Crypts, and so on.....which some of them would outgrow a small tank.

http://www.tropica.com is a good site for plants and their requirements. The plant names are all scientific though, so you may have to do a google search to find the common name. You can go to the advanced search and find plants for a certain light requirement, height, continent (for biotope type aquariums), and even growth rate I think. Its a cool site as well.

Hope that helps!

[Phantom_Cichlid]

Hybrid what kind of plants are those? Are they easy to find? Did you do anything special for yout tank?

[HybridS130]

The taller plant is red ludwigia which is commonly available at just about every LFS. The foreground plant is Glossostigma, it too is readily available, a bit more rare though. It's also harder to keep and requires high light. Im doing something wrong here because the tank isn't filling in the way it should be. I have eco-complete as a substrate, flourish root tabs, 10.8WPG, flourish excel for carbon, flourish for trace ferts, distilled water. Buuuuuuuuut Im doing something wrong here.

[Phantom_Cichlid]

I dont know what your doing wrong but it sure looks good.