60 litre, low tech, planted comunity.

[Earlscapes]

So this will be my fourth attempt at scaping a tank after doing my nano cube twice, learnt alot with the first attempt and gained experience with positioning and soil depth that sort of thing. Then my 230ltr comunity, big bog wood peice with that jungle feel to it mainly easy grow plants.

My new project is a generic 60 rimmed tank (upgrade and increase for my sons tank, bought second hand.)
It's mainly a platy Community with re-tailed shark, corys, khuli and a single neon (all other passed on)

I will re use light and filter from existing tank as both were bought with an upgrade in mind somewhere down the line. So far I have removed built in central filter, removed generic energy saving bulb and cleaned down and paint back ground black.

I have some plants on order and few bits of hard scape but most plants will come from existing scapes. Looking forward to seeing how this develops and see if I have learnt anything from the last 3 attempts. More to come once I have time..

 

[Earlscapes]

So managed to play with hardscape and after initially thinking island scape as wanted to try and hide the internal filter, it wouldn't leave too much room for what I wanted to create. So have gone triangular with a mix of grey Mountain stone and a couple of redmoor root wood peices. I have all my plants bar java narrow leaf, either in my grow tank or ready to picked from existing scapes.

Plants delivered from Horizon aquatics (exceptional delivery care and kicker of a chocy bunny! And infamous sticker). The rest were from proshrimp and again couldn't fault delivery or packaging.

I have set up hardscape just need to add sand and details to foreground again just waiting on time. I have mapped out where I want everything as well see coloured pic.

Plants will consist off:
Limnophila sessiflora
Rotala sp mix
Ludwigia super red
Vallis
hellenthiam tellenam green
Hypgiphila diformis
Bucephalandra Green velvet
Bucephalandra wavy Green
Anubias petite
Anubias coin
Pearl weed
Cryptocoryne Green gecko
Cryptocoryne becketii
Java fern narrow.

Cant wait to get it all together finally. Please feel free to provide feed back or comments on scape/plant choices. It's very low tech so didn't want anything to fussy.

 

[Earlscapes]

Finally got some time to update,

Build went well all hardscape sorted in previous section, added plants and fitted hardware.

Filter is an allpond solutions internal 500 so plenty of filtration for these guys and the light was a nicrew submersible (as fitted in the hood) only got a 28cm one in there at the moment but will get a longer length as colour temp is good for viewing and all plants like rotala/pearlweed/crypts showing some great growth already and I been 2 weeks since planting.

All fish loving the set up as more plants engage/hide with and the overall look is much better than the previous set up.

Let me know what you think... not a precisely planted tank but it's for my son and to get the best out of the fish, already got babies from platys (no suprise there)

 

[Earlscapes]

Little update:

Tank doing really well plants all growing better than I thought with the tiny light, having a stronger filter than needed seems to be working a treat so lessons being learnt to adapt to my larger 230ltr set up. New 0laty added as the son didn't want to leave the last one on his own.. got to love kids. I said the same about 6 rummy nose and a betta they looked lonely so had to rescue them for my tank... wife did not approve! Haha 🙈

Some baby green gecko crypts I out in there not expecting to do much are really taking off and looking great.

 

[Earlscapes]

So boys and girls... I spoke too soon about all going well.

Water change starter, went to get filter, knocked bit of wood and not glued as well as I thought... floating wood and some plants taken with.. 🤬🙈

Got to love and hate this hobby.. 3 bits of contact but I think only 2 were actually glued properly.

Taken it out for now gives more room for growth but not as aesthetically pleasing as remain wood looks out of place. Glad its this tank (sons fun tank) rather than main money pot tanks that I want to get spot on.

You live and learn every day.. oops

Not the best pics but enough see the devastation 👍