Plant ideas for a 30 gallon tank...Please help

Discussion in 'The Planted Tank' started by ara35, Aug 19, 2008.

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  1. ara35

    ara35 Plankton

    Joined:
    Dec 19, 2007
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    heres my stock for a 30 gallon

    1 angelfish
    5 bronze cories
    5 kuhli loaches
    2 bolivian rams
    8 lemon tetras

    i am going to have black sand with two pieces of dark driftwood. i will take any suggestions. also, i am willing to do co2 or no co2, high light low light... just please give me suggestions!! pictures would also help alot!
     
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  3. SAW39

    SAW39 Ritteri Anemone

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  4. ssgheislerswife

    ssgheislerswife Ritteri Anemone

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    I have some corkscrew vallisneria in my freshwater planted tank, some red sword and some dwarf hairgrass. They are all growing well.
     
  5. liegeofinveracity

    liegeofinveracity Coral Banded Shrimp

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    ...the night time... is the right time...
    if you're not very experienced with planted tanks i'd start with vals. 15 or 20 and wait till they start growing, then you can experiment with others, to me vals are to a freshwater tank what base rock is to a reef.i'd go with some form of clay under the black sand to,atleast 2 inches, the filthier the better
    another nice thing about vals is if left alone they can grow in just about any light/water conditions,if you're adding angels thats a plus because bright lights flip angels out and they'll always be really skiddish under intense lighting
     
  6. sostoudt

    sostoudt Giant Squid

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    i would get some dwarf hair grass and get a nice lawn going on thats what im gonna attempt to do when my lfs finally gets some in. from what ive read you get great growth with high light however once your over 3 watts per gallon you must have co2 injection or else you will get algae blooms. i have a halide that used to be on a reef tank its on a 15 gallon tank 10 wpg, its lucky that i happened to have a co2 system lying around from a calc reactor.
    i think you should get atleast 3 wpg over a planted tank and you can pretty much grow anything.
    what you need to decide first is what type of planted tank you want a dutch(think thats the term) or a nature style. the dutch style has many different plants in it arranged in rows much like a garden. the nature style has only one or two species of plants and one or 2 types of fish. the nature style attempts to replicate what you would see in the wild.
    im gonna do a nature style tank, i think their more striking. do a search for takashi amano tanks( he made nature style popular).

    the tank i have planned will have hairgrass, wysteria, and Hemianthus Callitrichoides ''Cuba''. for fish it will have 10 cardinal tetras, and 5 cherry red shrimp. and as of right now two guppies that im using to cycle it since cardinal tetras are sensitive to water quality
     
  7. anemonecrab

    anemonecrab Flamingo Tongue

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    Try some java fern. So far, it's worked out great for me.
     
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  9. marc1986

    marc1986 Skunk Shrimp

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    Java fern, Anubias, are both good low light plants...but if you have good lighting (3wpg) get some dwarf hairgrass as stated or some baby dwarf tears... :) they're really cute...

    amazon swords are cool...too easy to grow...but they get big...

    Good luck...post some pics :)