# 1.5 gallon Planted



## Namialus (Jul 9, 2013)

I've been wanting to start looking into live plants for my tanks. I don't think I'll add some to my 10 gallon, but I do have a spare 1.5 gallon (not in use for anything) and I was wondering if I could set it up for one betta. I'd plant it but it won't have a filter, it would be heated, and it'll have a betta and maybe a nerite snail. Would it work? What maintenance would have to be done? I was thinking since it would be quite planted, I'd change some water every week but never 100%. About the gravel vacs, some people say it must be done and some say never. So what about that? What do you guys think? Would it work? What plants do you recommend? Here's the tank: http://www.epinions.com/review/Tetra_Water_Wonders_1_5_Gallon_Aquarium_Kit/content_407409233540?sb=1

Thank you!


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

I keep lots of Betta successfully in 1-2gal unfiltered soil based planted tanks without issue. Once the system is mature I don't even make water changes in the soil based but maybe 3-4 times a year other than top offs. Without soil and/or lots of active plant growth I would make at least 50% weekly water changes-vacuuming usually isn't needed when you have live plants-the mulm/debris will break down for plant use, however, in the smaller tanks it can start to look unsightly and you may want to remove it for that reason.


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## Namialus (Jul 9, 2013)

Oldfishlady said:


> I keep lots of Betta successfully in 1-2gal unfiltered soil based planted tanks without issue. Once the system is mature I don't even make water changes in the soil based but maybe 3-4 times a year other than top offs. Without soil and/or lots of active plant growth I would make at least 50% weekly water changes-vacuuming usually isn't needed when you have live plants-the mulm/debris will break down for plant use, however, in the smaller tanks it can start to look unsightly and you may want to remove it for that reason.


How long would it take for the system to mature? Let's say I added in the plants on a day, and then the snail and the betta on the next day. 

Also, can I use gravel instead of soil?


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## darkangel (Jun 11, 2013)

Namialus said:


> How long would it take for the system to mature? Let's say I added in the plants on a day, and then the snail and the betta on the next day.
> 
> Also, can I use gravel instead of soil?


*Do not add the betta/snail the very next day! Soil tanks need a long time to setup.*

You have to make sure the soil does not become anaerobic and start releasing nasty stuff into your water! Soil tanks take a long time to establish and you need to properly make the appropriate soil. Top soil can be come easily anaerobic due to the amount of organic stuff, you need to add clay and sometimes sand. You can Google recipes for proper aquarium soil. Than you need to soak the soil to do the so called 'soil-cycle', than layer some rocks on top to set it down or you will have debris everywhere. You will also need to have good light as the nutrients in the soil can create algae blooms if the plants don't use them up.

I had a 1.5 gallon soiled tank before upgrading to 2.5 gallon, it took well over a month before I added anything living into the tank and made sure the soil didn't smell like rotten eggs. Between the two tanks I tired, the non-soil tank is less work in my opinion. Unless you have a huge tank with CO2 supplement, high lighting and have rooting plants, soil doesn't really have that many benefits since soil most aquatic plants take in nutrients through their stems/leaves. 

In a tank that small, I recommend you buy a lot of non-rooting plants like hornwort and do bare bottom or large river rocks. Water changes will be easily and you can easily suck up poop/guck.


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## Namialus (Jul 9, 2013)

darkangel said:


> *Do not add the betta/snail the very next day! Soil tanks need a long time to setup.*
> 
> You have to make sure the soil does not become anaerobic and start releasing nasty stuff into your water! Soil tanks take a long time to establish and you need to properly make the appropriate soil. Top soil can be come easily anaerobic due to the amount of organic stuff, you need to add clay and sometimes sand. You can Google recipes for proper aquarium soil. Than you need to soak the soil, than layer some rocks on top to set it down or you will have debris everywhere. You will also need to have good light as the nutrients in the soil can great algae blooms if the plants don't use them up.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I wasn't planning on doing soil. My plan was for the plants to act as a filter so I'd never do 100% WCs and that would be it, but some people said water changes would hurt the plants so I began to wonder. My original plan was a 50% change per week, never 100%, with gravel and a betta.


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## darkangel (Jun 11, 2013)

Namialus said:


> but some people said water changes would hurt the plants so I began to wonder.


 I have no idea why they would say that...it doesn't even make sense.

plants are perfectly fine with water changes, they are are far less sensitive than fish so as long as your changing your water like you regularly do, there shouldn't be any problems.

your water changes should be based on ammonia tests, unless you know for sure your plants are keeping the water clean, you should do 100% every 3-4 days in a 1.5 gallon. 
btw, you can do 100% water changes with plants if they are not the rooting kind. I have a bucket of horn wort sitting outside and I do 100% every single day because dead bugs fall in. 

My 2.5 gallon has lots of plants and I test the water every week for ammonia, I get 0.25ppm after about 2 and 1/2 weeks so I do a 50% water change every 2 weeks so its always 0.

If you want hardy plants that use ammonia, hornwort, java moss and guppy grass are good ones. The popular ones like java fern and anubias don't grow very fast or use that much ammonia so they don't make a difference.


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## Namialus (Jul 9, 2013)

darkangel said:


> I have no idea why they would say that...it doesn't even make sense.
> 
> plants are perfectly fine with water changes, they are are far less sensitive than fish so as long as your changing your water like you regularly do, there shouldn't be any problems.
> 
> ...


Yeah, me neither. :lol:

But for me I don't want to do 100% changes as I think it really stresses the fish out. That's why I thought of plants. 

Hmm..


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## darkangel (Jun 11, 2013)

Well, if you have lots of plants, than you can probably just do 50%-75% water changes. Most people do 100% because its easy to just dump the entire water than slowly suck up 50%.

Do you have a ammonia test kit? Just test your water every week and do 50% water changes before you reach 0.25ppm. There is no need to do water changes if you don't have any ammonia.


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## itsme (Jun 4, 2013)

Oldfishlady said:


> I keep lots of Betta successfully in 1-2gal unfiltered soil based planted tanks without issue. Once the system is mature I don't even make water changes in the soil based but maybe 3-4 times a year other than top offs. Without soil and/or lots of active plant growth I would make at least 50% weekly water changes-vacuuming usually isn't needed when you have live plants-the mulm/debris will break down for plant use, however, in the smaller tanks it can start to look unsightly and you may want to remove it for that reason.


I have followed Oldfishlady's advice when I set up my 10 gallon NPT, my 6.6 gallon NPT and my 2 1/2 gallon NPT. I have never had a problem and my plants, shrimp, Betta;s and snails are fine. I set mine up on 5/3/13.


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## Namialus (Jul 9, 2013)

darkangel said:


> Well, if you have lots of plants, than you can probably just do 50%-75% water changes. Most people do 100% because its easy to just dump the entire water than slowly suck up 50%.
> 
> Do you have a ammonia test kit? Just test your water every week and do 50% water changes before you reach 0.25ppm. There is no need to do water changes if you don't have any ammonia.


How many plants would be needed? Would it just be easier to have a non-filtered, non-planted tank?


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## Laki (Aug 24, 2011)

Wait. The only thing I HATE about my non-filtered 3g is the debris that floats around at the surface and during water changes. Mine are heavily planted, not NPT. But I'm getting a filter for it pretty soon to deal with the "mulm" :/


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## Namialus (Jul 9, 2013)

Laki said:


> Wait. The only thing I HATE about my non-filtered 3g is the debris that floats around at the surface and during water changes. Mine are heavily planted, not NPT. But I'm getting a filter for it pretty soon to deal with the "mulm" :/


Now I'm beginning to think I shouldn't do this....


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## Skyewillow (Dec 28, 2012)

I have a planted 1.5, the hardest part for me is finding a suitable light bulb for the plants.

100% changes would only be harmful if you uproot the plants every time you pull a change, roots are sensitive and prone to breakage, also, you take all of the nutrients out of the water and your plants will starve. A 75% (at most) will be fine, a light vacuum for visible poo will be ok too. My guy is much happier with his live plants.

if you used any kind of sand, Malaysian trumpets stir it up and keep it from going anaerobic and turning toxic.


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## ismintis (Jun 23, 2013)

Oldfishlady said:


> I keep lots of Betta successfully in 1-2gal unfiltered soil based planted tanks without issue. Once the system is mature I don't even make water changes in the soil based but maybe 3-4 times a year other than top offs. Without soil and/or lots of active plant growth I would make at least 50% weekly water changes-vacuuming usually isn't needed when you have live plants-the mulm/debris will break down for plant use, however, in the smaller tanks it can start to look unsightly and you may want to remove it for that reason.


Oldfishlady has perfect advice that I am going to do in my spare 1 gallon. Although it won't have a betta in it for a couple months. 



darkangel said:


> I have no idea why they would say that...it doesn't even make sense.
> 
> plants are perfectly fine with water changes, they are are far less sensitive than fish so as long as your changing your water like you regularly do, there shouldn't be any problems.
> 
> ...


This actually does make sense because some plants don't like to be continuously uprooted and will die. The most you can do is a 90% change without hurting the plants at the bottom. If you do a 100% change you will also ruin the cycle, all the natural good bacteria will be gone and you would have to start from scratch; and would cause more problems making it unstable. If you cycle the tank it will stay healthy and if you do 50% changes every week you will get rid of the ammonia. Just test your water a lot in case problems arise. 



Laki said:


> Wait. The only thing I HATE about my non-filtered 3g is the debris that floats around at the surface and during water changes. Mine are heavily planted, not NPT. But I'm getting a filter for it pretty soon to deal with the "mulm" :/


You can get a sponge filter if you're concerned about keeping up with the water changes too. But if you get a bubbler that will keep the film from growing at the top and the icky debris will be continuously pushed around.


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## Namialus (Jul 9, 2013)

Skyewillow said:


> I have a planted 1.5, the hardest part for me is finding a suitable light bulb for the plants.
> 
> 100% changes would only be harmful if you uproot the plants every time you pull a change, roots are sensitive and prone to breakage, also, you take all of the nutrients out of the water and your plants will starve. A 75% (at most) will be fine, a light vacuum for visible poo will be ok too. My guy is much happier with his live plants.
> 
> if you used any kind of sand, Malaysian trumpets stir it up and keep it from going anaerobic and turning toxic.


That's what I was thinking. What plants do you recommend?


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## Namialus (Jul 9, 2013)

So right now:

-No filter but heated
-A few plants
-50% water changes weekly
-Gravel
-Do I need to vacuum? Some said don't because the plants "need" the poop..


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## ismintis (Jun 23, 2013)

Yeah you would want a small siphon or airline tubing, just to get all the debris and extra poop. It will also make it look better


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## Namialus (Jul 9, 2013)

ismintis said:


> Yeah you would want a small siphon or airline tubing, just to get all the debris and extra poop. It will also make it look better


Okay, but wouldn't the plans need it?


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

IMO/E-You need to look at the soil based system as a complete system sometimes-Often failures with the soil based are related to doing too much-over thinking it-over cleaning...etc.....and this can be with any kind of system IMO/E.

I just tore my 75gal soil based down a few weeks ago due to over growth of crypts and I wanted to do a complete re-scape for my Angelfish.

It took me a week for the tear down and re-setup using soil I dug out in my back pasture I like to call black gold-along with some of my native red clay for added iron-I didn't even stiff it this time like I usually do-I just added it to the tank-about 3 inches and topped the soil with half to 1in of regular play sand-added my native wood I collected from my forest-one piece of wood I had in another tank for a couple of years that I had to use that black electric tape to tape a big rock to it so it would stay under water-I did replace the tape....Anyway.....hard scape went in then I planted-I like to plant covering at least 50-75% of the floor-Usually I use a lot of stem plants but this time I used more rosettes-I want a lawn in the front. I added my MTS, a breeding pair of BN pleco, 20 or so RCS the day I setup. Then 6 large Angelfish the next day. It has been 2 weeks and I have changed the water once the first week and plan to make a water change today. No livestock loss-everyone doing just fine and the plecos just spawned-Water prams 0ppm across the board and it usually will stay that way-rarely do I ever even have nitrate readings due to active plant growth even when I overstock. The pH, KH/GH are high due to my hard well water-

Point I am trying to make-as long as you start out right and you see active plant growth within the first week-you need to relax and allow the system to do its thing-by over thinking, over cleaning...etc.....you disrupt the little ecosystem you just created-it is still a closed system and will need some tending to-but not as much as you might think.

Often more harm is done by doing too much than not enough-the system and livestock will tell you when something is wrong and 9 out of 10 times-all you need to do is a 50% water ONLY change...IMO of course....MMV (millage may vary)


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## darkangel (Jun 11, 2013)

ismintis said:


> This actually does make sense because some plants don't like to be continuously uprooted and will die. The most you can do is a 90% change without hurting the plants at the bottom. If you do a 100% change you will also ruin the cycle, all the natural good bacteria will be gone and you would have to start from scratch; and would cause more problems making it unstable. If you cycle the tank it will stay healthy and if you do 50% changes every week you will get rid of the ammonia. Just test your water a lot in case problems arise.


I said for non-rooting plants.....

the concept of you can't do 100% water changes because you will 'kill' the good bacteria is a myth. even in a cycled tank, 99% of the bacteria is your filter media and even if you do a 100% water change, you rarely will cause the cycle to crash. you are far more likely to crash your cycle if you mess with filter media. If you tank has insanely high nitrates or something, than its better to do a 100% water change than to risk poisoning your fish.

without a filter, there isn't really enough bacteria to make a difference. plants _do not cycle _your tank, they can't turn ammonia into nitrate, only bacteria can do that. the only thing plants can do is they can absorb ammonia which reduces the amount of water changes...



Namialus said:


> So right now:
> 
> -No filter but heated
> -A few plants
> ...



plants don't need the 'poop', the poop decays to become ammonia which the plant can use but the plants cannot absorb all of the ammonia which is why you do water changes. fish create ammonia continuously through their gills too so there is really no reason to leave the poop there. you risk having too much decay and ammonia poisoning. I don't recommend gravel, they are such a pain to clean and end up hoarding lots of poop/debris which decay, but if you really want gravel, you will need to vacuum.

imo, you should try to get an ammonia test kit. its the best way to find out when/how much water you need to change. sometimes all you need is 25% wc a week if you got lots of plants, sometimes you might have to do two 50% wc if your plants don't use ammonia very well.


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## Namialus (Jul 9, 2013)

Yah, I think I'm scrapping this idea...  I think I should get more experienced before using plants.


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## Naladari (Jan 4, 2013)

I kept my plakat in a heated 2.5 gallon planted before I moved him to his new 10 gallon.
I did 2 25% water changes a week. He blew a bunch of bubble nests and did great.
No complications whatsoever.

The plants were anubias nana and dwarf hairgrass. Sand substrate.

I used a turkey baster to get the gasses out of the sand and to vac up extra food and his poo.


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## Namialus (Jul 9, 2013)

Naladari said:


> I kept my plakat in a heated 2.5 gallon planted before I moved him to his new 10 gallon.
> I did 2 25% water changes a week. He blew a bunch of bubble nests and did great.
> No complications whatsoever.
> 
> ...


Not filtered? Yah, your set up was exactly what I was thinking.


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## darkangel (Jun 11, 2013)

My 2.5 gallon doesn't have a filter either, just a bubbler to keep surface film at bay. I do 25% every 5 days and test for ammonia weekly. 

If you want to, I think you can try is a big handful of hornwort and just 3-4 very large river rocks and setup your 1.5 gallon without the fish first. Get a desk lamp with fluorescent light, like 9watts and turn it on for 3-4 hrs a day. hornwort is tough and generally don't care much for light, 9 watt fluorescent is plenty.

I have a bucket of hornwort that hangs outside all day with no filter/anything and I dose 1ppm of ammonia, they use it up within 48hrs. Hornwort is very good at using ammonia compared to other plants IMO. They don't need to be planted either, just float them. They do grow very fast under good conditions, you can have too much very quickly. I have 1 strand that ended up close to a meter in length. I am sure someone out there has some for free.


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## Namialus (Jul 9, 2013)

darkangel said:


> My 2.5 gallon doesn't have a filter either, just a bubbler to keep surface film at bay. I do 25% every 5 days and test for ammonia weekly.
> 
> If you want to, I think you can try is a big handful of hornwort and just 3-4 very large river rocks and setup your 1.5 gallon without the fish first. Get a desk lamp with fluorescent light, like 9watts and turn it on for 3-4 hrs a day. hornwort is tough and generally don't care much for light, 9 watt fluorescent is plenty.
> 
> I have a bucket of hornwort that hangs outside all day with no filter/anything and I dose 1ppm of ammonia, they use it up within 48hrs. Hornwort is very good at using ammonia compared to other plants IMO. They don't need to be planted either, just float them. They do grow very fast under good conditions, you can have too much very quickly. I have 1 strand that ended up close to a meter in length. I am sure someone out there has some for free.


I'll have to see what my petstore carries, thanks!


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