Evolution of a 29 gallon planted tank

So, I rearranged plants, picked up a couple seiryu stones & installed a 36" FENNEX for planted tanks. Will do a review on this new plant grow LED when I see some results.

New fish; pair Orange flash Apistogramma , school of Amber tetra, school of Serbai Corys, a rubber nosed Pleco , & 1 assassin snail to weed out pesky snails.

Looks pretty good, just gotta let the plants fill out, and perhaps add a couple more stones.

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My planted tank with my Finnex on it turned to brown hair algae. I've been battling it for a couple of weeks now. Maybe I started out with too many plants...looked good but didn't work very well...LOL. Down to just a few plants now and I've thrown in the cleanup crew...SNAILS. They cleaned three plants last night and are having a great feast. We'll see how it goes. I still don't know if its something nutrient based or light based that set the algae on fire. I do know I don't have "green" algae.

Well, from my experience whenever I change lights dramatically I am prepared to make adjustments. All tanks that I went straight from T5HO to LED has had issues. Like this 30 gallon, the LED strip is suspended under my 140, the light is at lest 7 inches above the tank. This fixture is a 36" LED (to big for the tank). This FENNEX for planted tanks replaced a 36" RAY2 LED.  I set it on its legs its algae hell. My 9.5... Same deal, with the regular legs that came with the fixture, to much light- so, the amount of time on that tank is limited, and I put extensions to raise the light.

The new FENNEX clearly puts out less white light than the RAY2. & I will definitely update how it does over time.


Anytime I switch out lighting I try to do so slowly. But when it comes to tanks that only have 1 source of light like smaller tanks I try to ease into lighting durations and make adjustments to the clearance between light & water surface.

The Finnex planted+ is supposed to be really good. So says the company, I haven't read any reviews, but from what I have read about the other finnex products, it should be real legit. Cant wait to hear your thoughts as I was leaning this direction when I set up 40B.

Well so far Im digging the "warmer" hugh its giving off. With the addition of red and blue LED's the colors in the fish pop a bit more than the FENNEX RAY2.

Nice, I haven't done the research but evidently the red is supposed to be a really photosynthetic spectrum... have you seen the finnex monster, its made for color popping, they advertise it in a video over a Malawi tank. Thought it would be cool to use in conjunction with the fugeray I have on my 7 gallon.

Yes I have seen it. And OMG, red fish nearly glow. What is nice at the LFS where I am picking these LED lights up they use on their display tanks. That's important to me to not just read, or hear about but actually see them in use. Granted, the PLANTED TANK + is too new for a good experienced review i still jumped on it. I did like the look on the display tank.

Nice, what shop is rolling these on their displays? I would love to see them, side by side ya know, monster ray, ray2, planted + etc.

Honestly,  I value the opinions of a lot of shop keeps, but I will always question if they are just trying to sell something. I mean, no matter what anyone says, shop keepers have a vested interest. I mean, if they order 30 of something,  lets say, these lights. And they turn out to suck, they aren't going to just, throw it away.
This is not to say, we don't have A LOT of great stores in this area. I would be more likely to buy something that I can see on display,  and working right in front of me.
To me, other consumer reviews are invaluable.

Hope that didn't come off as argumentative or anything. That's not my intention.

No its all good. When researching, and researching something I will be spending $100's on, something important like specialized lighting, i am reading reviews asking questions at LFS. Its just really nice to go that extra step further and see the product working. I purchased all my FENNEX LED lighting (5 now) from Aquarium CoOp. I know we hear a lot of this place but its the only place near me with clerks that can answer near all my technical questions. Whenever i go to other places I get a lot of blank stare looks when i try to talk tech. i have no shyness to open up display cases to see what they are running equipment wise. Its funny to see shop keepers faces as i am opening lids, crawling under large tanks to see what pumps & other equipment they are using...lol...

Lol, we have to go shop hoping together, I do the same thing. Man, Aquarium co op is soo far for me. I have to pass like 6 great shops to get their. Probably the reason I haven't made the trek yet. I'm sure I will sometime. Although Cory will probably slap me for my antics upon entry. But I can take a hit well, awesome, keep us updated.

Older thread, thought I would rename and update the thread and use it as a journal. This tank has been used primarly as a plant and fish grow out. An update on lighting would be a switch to a 30" Finnex planted + to fit the tank and I added a 2' aquatop LED just because it was laying around. Since is a grow out tank the plants change quite a bit. I also plant clipping to root them before passing them to members and LFS' s. Currently growing out a Koi Angel I picked up from bronzefighter months ago.
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Hi fishNAbowl,

That sure did fill in nice!

Thanks Roy . The current jewel is the wood in the center. I've been trying to grow a small form Anubias up the stem with java fern windelov growing on the base (the wood is the shape of a boomerang) . If it pans out like planned a form of weeping moss will attach under the fern.

Awesome work in that tank!! Your plants look amazing! That's one sweet grow out tank for sure hehehe

Amazing transition on this tank Chad.  Running two lights really seems to make a difference.  I haven't made that leap yet but I see the difference that makes on the tank.  Do you fight more algae because of them? OH...and I've got a new name for you Chad, Mr. Aquatic Greenthumb, whom I think rocks the planted tank casbah.

Thanks guys!

@ Donna, LOL!  As the plants fill out the tank less algae grows. So as a grow out tank there is a tendency to pull a bunch of plants out. So in turn I have to be careful not to throw the equilibrium off by pulling to many out without replacing them.

There is a wierd string algae in this tank. When I pull it out it reminds me of pulling fuzz off wool   . Any ideas on that would be appreciated.

I think that would be the same string algae I battle in my tank although not so much anymore.  It was/is Cladophora.

From the guitarfish site: Cladophora is by far the toughest algae to remove from the aquarium. Forming green, tough, wool-like mats, it seems to favor intermingling itself into hairgrass, substrate, and hardscape items.

Causes:

Marimo Balls – Being in the same family as these algae balls, they can sometimes introduce Cladophora to your aquarium.
Healthy Conditions – Unfortunately, Cladophora seems to favor the same healthy water conditions that your plants require.

Cure:
Manual removal – Use toothbrush/tweezers to remove as much as possible.
Excel/H202 treatment – Use a syringe to spot treat problem areas.
Luck – Very difficult to 100% remove.

From your description then, that is java fern windelov underneath the log and around where it heads down out of site? Looks really good.

Correct. And under the fern, right next to the substrate there is a type of weeping moss. The moss is attached to stones. I've seen this type fern have large leaves but these are staying smaller. I was hoping for the leaves to be longer as to fill in the gap between the lower and diagonal stem of the wood thus creating a wall.

29 gallon clean out, rescape.

From all the plants I've picked up and stuck in this tank I've aquired some hitchhikers. Wierd plants, one ID'd the other grows like a spiderweb and hasn't been ID'd. And an odd algae that grows and feels like wool. This stuff had inter woven its self throughout all the plants. I've been just pulling it out.

Yesterday I got a bag of ADA soil that was used in another tank shortly. Good stuff that I wanted to try. I totally just dumped it in my tank and mixed it into my substrate. Haha, what a mess...
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All the plants i am putting back in is getting a bath in peroxide. Trimming tattered leaves, splitting crypt.

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Ahhhh that looks like a neat project!
Mmm new planted tank! That log looks great!

PokeSephiroth wrote:Ahhhh that looks like a neat project!
Mmm new planted tank! That log looks great!

Thanks Poke. It's my favorite log. A small form Anubias (plant is seen full grown), and Java fern 'Windelov'. It'll probably be another 3 days before the tank clears, lol. Tonight I'll be vacuuming the plants once again. It looks like Mount St Helens ash storm in the tank now....

Would that be Anubias Nana Petite? I have some that are...well, small. LOL

PokeSephiroth wrote:Would that be Anubias Nana Petite? I have some that are...well, small. LOL

No its not petite. I picked it from Aquarium co-op. Cory brought it in from his own tanks I believe, and - I think he called it small form, or dwarf?! Not sure. Maybe he will chime in. The leaves are a tear drop shape like Nana but the leaf size is in between Nana normal form and petite. I would say the leaves don't get any larger than half dollar pieces. Most stay around the size of a quarter. It's a nice plant.

Here is an updated picture of this tank. I conducted a water change vacuuming all the plants off. Just dumping the used wet substrate in made a heck of a mess. You can say this is an evil scientist experiment mixing substrates...
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I'd say that, that would be Nana Petite... it's the smallest form of Anubias I know of. Hrmmm...

PokeSephiroth wrote:I'd say that, that would be Nana Petite... it's the smallest form of Anubias I know of. Hrmmm...

True Anubias Nana petite leaves won't get any bigger than the size of a dime with most of the leaves being even smaller than a dime.  I have the petite ver. in my 9.5 . If I get the opportunity I'll snap a photo of both versions side by side. Actually i do have 3 versions. The normal sized Nana, 'small form' and petite. It's like having anubias nana small medium and large

The reason I started calling this plant Nana 'small form' is because I've seen a plant that someone was calling Anubias nana 'dwarf' . And the plant I seen was  a mature cluster with Nana shaped leaves but was smaller than the petite. Noticeably smaller, each leaf was the size of a pencil eraser.

Whoa that's crazy!

When 'dirting' a tank goes wrong... Or, when you dirt a tank wrong.... DOH!

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Wow. Did you mineralized the dirt first and put 1 inch to 1 inch or 2 inch dirt to 1.5 inch cap?

No. The dirt I got was in 'mud' form. I put it in as handful clumps and dug in the existing substrate with my fist. Then covered. So, I did it in a unconventional way. If you click to previous pages you can see the death cloud it created. I did clear it up as much as possible with water changes but had to leave for a camping trip soon after. I think whatever debris was left floating settled on leaves then killed the plants. The plants will come back, but damn....