Background
I am new to planted tank, but not new in fish keeping. I have been keeping cichlid tanks for the last 30 years, but none had plants, only rockscape. My last attempt to keep plants with cichlids years ago had been complete failure with BBA took over, and I gave up. Last spring, I decided to try again, and did my research and determined to make it work this time.
Here are videos of my 75 gal before conversion, with rockscape but no plants, except for a fake plant background, and BBA on the rock which is botanically plants.
Here is how my planted 75 looks like now:
In the ensuing posts, I will describe the journey I got here. The journey wasn’t smooth, but haphazard with mistakes, before appearing to move in the right direction, as of now. There is still a long way to toward my satisfaction, and rooms for improvement, but at least the plants are growing, not fading. You notice that I have been active in this and other plant forums lately, asking many questions, and reading journals of other successful hobbyists, specially Fablau and Greggz, who provided valuable monitoring data. I also read Walstad’s book on “Ecology of Planted Tank”, and Karen Randall’s book on “Sunken Gardens”, two very different and apparently contradictory approaches.
I am new to planted tank, but not new in fish keeping. I have been keeping cichlid tanks for the last 30 years, but none had plants, only rockscape. My last attempt to keep plants with cichlids years ago had been complete failure with BBA took over, and I gave up. Last spring, I decided to try again, and did my research and determined to make it work this time.
Here are videos of my 75 gal before conversion, with rockscape but no plants, except for a fake plant background, and BBA on the rock which is botanically plants.
Here is how my planted 75 looks like now:
In the ensuing posts, I will describe the journey I got here. The journey wasn’t smooth, but haphazard with mistakes, before appearing to move in the right direction, as of now. There is still a long way to toward my satisfaction, and rooms for improvement, but at least the plants are growing, not fading. You notice that I have been active in this and other plant forums lately, asking many questions, and reading journals of other successful hobbyists, specially Fablau and Greggz, who provided valuable monitoring data. I also read Walstad’s book on “Ecology of Planted Tank”, and Karen Randall’s book on “Sunken Gardens”, two very different and apparently contradictory approaches.