The picture would be better if I had a clue how to turn off the flash.
I was somewhat skeptical of starting a planted tank, but Flo
talked me into it. We started cycling a tank with fish(six zebras) and added the plants about 2 weeks into the cycle.
I used plant tabs every two weeks for a couple of months and now only a splash of Flourish excel at weekly water changes.
What may have helped these plants take off lately could be the hundreds of juvenile Malaysian trumpet snails
in the substrate. They haven't added much to the bioload and they don't eat the plants.
I never thought I'd have a freshwater plants green thumb. It's probably not even me but the excellent
conditions for plant growing. There are 3 marble mollies, 12 harlequin rasboras, 2 cories, and a few pond snails in
addition to the MTS so they provide enough poop and food waste to feed the plants. The 65w Coralife light helps a lot too.
I don't have a C02 injector.
It seems these plants grow an inch or two a day. It's getting to the point there isn't much room for
the fish. I can't move the plants to any other tank because I have two tanks with low light and plastic plants and another
tank with plenty of light but not enough fish or food waste to provide enough nitrate to sustain them if I moved them. Maybe
the fish store would trade me something for some plants. Of all my tanks this is my favorite.
As it turned out, the fish store took a huge load of plants. Now i just wish they would take some of
my orange swordtails. The tank is way overstocked because they won't stop having babies and they don't seem to eat too many
of them.
