# So excited, started planting my Ebi!



## Sundancex (Feb 24, 2012)

Yesterday I went out and got some driftwood. I was originally planning on using rock to do my aquascape but my LFS didn't have any rock I liked but had some beautiful driftwood. So it was either the driftwood or drive an hour to get to a ginormous fish/pet store (it's the size of Walmart) to get rocks there. Needless to say I now have three gorgous pieces of driftwood arranged in a stump-like set up in my tank. I planted a dwarf lily and some other easy going, low light plants last night and now I'm waiting for the water to clear. I need to plant some dwarf hairgrass (it's on a mat that needs to be weighted down and I don't have weights yet), and some other plants I will butcher the names of. ;-)

Castiel is chilling in a 5 gal heated, unfiltered acrylic hex until I finish planting and setting up the Ebi. Hopefully it won't be too much longer before I can move him into his new 8 gal tank. Spoiled fishy.

When I first decided I wanted to do a planted tank I had a very sparse set up in mind with rocks w/ moss being my only aquascape. Now I've switched all the way to a heavily planted, driftwood set-up. Oh well. Next tank will be rock...whenever I have the money to get one. I want a 2 gal spec next to sit on my nightstand.


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## Sundancex (Feb 24, 2012)

Oops, just saw there is now a planted tank sub forum. Mods, if you wouldn't mind moving this thread, that would be great! :-D


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## MyRainbowBettaFish (May 9, 2012)

sounds like a great tank and great plan! Can you post pics?


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## Sundancex (Feb 24, 2012)

It's not currently in a state acceptable for public viewing. 

Water is cloudy, plants don't look that great...I'm worried they're going to all die. If they are still looking ok in a few days though I will definitely post some pics.


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## Oldfishlady (Mar 1, 2010)

I would make some water only changes and get the water clear for better light penetration to the plants.

What kind of lights, kelvin, watts, age of bulbs and photoperiod.
Type of substrate and how deep.

How many and what specie of live plants and how planted.


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## Sundancex (Feb 24, 2012)

I have 2 Fluval 13 watt lights over my Ebi, which is ~8 gallons. I'm honestly not sure of the Kelvin, I'm assuming 6500k as the light is made for plant growth. I planted yesterday afternoon into the night, and then finished up mid morning along with an approximate 50% water change (which cleared things up a lot). I think visibility went from ~50% to 80%. I'm planning on doing another 50% change tomorrow. 

As for photoperiod, since I just planted yesterday, I don't really have a schedule yet. I had some clippings of plants that arrived before the tank was ready to plant, I put them in a clear glass bowl filled with water in my sun room, so the plants got sun all day. 

I have the plants in Fluval Shrimp Stratum, probably 1 1/2 inch depth at its shallowest, 2 1/2 inch at the deepest. 

As for plants, geez, let me think. I know I have purple and green cabomba, arachnis, dwarf lily bulb, little bits of duckweed, water sprite, cryptocoryne wendtii 'red', cryptocoryne parva, cryptocoryne retrospiralis, and a few little bits of microsword. I think I have one stem of something I don't recognize as well. :roll:.

The Cabomba looks decent, arachnis is iffy, dwarf lily's leaves are curled and look in pretty bad shape, duckweed is growing like crazy already, water sprite doesn't look very good...has some browning/clear areas, the wendtii looks decent, and the retrospiralis may or may not be doing well. It looks kind of brownish but it also looks like it does in most of the pictures I've found. The parva looks the best out of everything I think. Very nice and green.

I dosed with Florish and Excel a few hours ago. When I watch closely I see a bubble or two rise from the plants and go to the surface, I believe it is called pearling and that is a good sign? 

It didn't help that the styrofoam bg on my Ebi popped up out of the water last night and disrupted a lot of my plants so I had to re-plant them.


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## Sundancex (Feb 24, 2012)

Oh, the lights are brand new, and everything except the duckweed is planted in substrate. Duckweed is floating...obviously lol.


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## kfryman (Nov 7, 2011)

The plants will adjust soon, since tanks can differ a lot in terms of lights and nutrients. I have heard of the back coming off, so a lot of people don't even bother putting it on.

Watch out for dosing Flourish so soon, there is probably nutrients leaching out of the stratum already. Make sure to keep nutrients lower while the tank is still new and plants aren't actively growing.


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## Sundancex (Feb 24, 2012)

Well, I really don't think my plants are dong well. Some of them have white fuzzy stuff on them. Others are browning. :-(


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## MSG (May 8, 2012)

Do you have an before & after pictures? I'm about to start the plant thing as well. 

Taking a picture of the tank is easy, since plants don't move. 


Did you ever find out the Kelvin rating for your lights? How long are you leaving them on? 

What are you water test results?


Good luck.


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## kfryman (Nov 7, 2011)

What are the list of plants? And can you show a picture? It will help to show us if the plants are just melting from different water conditions or something else.


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## Sundancex (Feb 24, 2012)

I'll try to upload some pics now. I have a water test kit on the way but don't have one currently so no test results as of now...


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## Sundancex (Feb 24, 2012)

(the white stuff you see around the leaves is actually there, not just a camera effect or whatever)...the white oval things are silicone from the stupid styrofoam bg that popped out though


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## MSG (May 8, 2012)

That white stuff is not good you should rinse those plants off. 

Just a guess from the photos, you're not RUNNING any type of filter at all on your EBI?

That water in the tank looks stagnant. Also you need something, to circulate/move the water or those plants you have will just sit & rot.


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## kfryman (Nov 7, 2011)

Run a filter to help clear the tank up a bit, a small filter like the Palm Filter is fine unless you plan on other things then just a betta. But definitely get some water flow in there.

I had that white stuff before, i just rinsed it off or rubbed it off. The aquarium will soon have a bacteria that eats it in my case as it never came back.

Do more frequent water changes, you want the brown to slowly disappear. You could also run carbon for the first week or so then get rid of it.


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## Sundancex (Feb 24, 2012)

Ok, I'll put a filter in it when I get home tonight. Right now all I have is the stock filter that the Ebi came with, not sure how good or bad it is. I heard that plants take care of the filtration so I didn't think I needed any. Some of the plants have gone gooey and soft. Like I touch a leaf and it breaks off. So I removed all the "bad" stuff.


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## kfryman (Nov 7, 2011)

Plants will only take care of the filtration if you have tons of them and they are actively growing, if they aren't growing they aren't doing anything. 

The filter it cones wig I have heard it was noisy, but you could always use it. On initial setup you at least want a filter. After that you can remove it as long as you test and make sure you have all 0s.

Yeah your plants are probably adjusting and melting their leaves as the leaves are meant for a different light intensity and different water. Some can take a few days to bounce back and some can take weeks. Crypts usually take a bit longer if they don't have good roots. The better the roots the more likely it will bounce back fast.


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## Sundancex (Feb 24, 2012)

Ok thanks, that makes me feel a bit better.

I'm not concerned about noise, I can sleep through anything (it's in my bedroom) so for now at least it will be fine.


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## Sundancex (Feb 24, 2012)

*Update*

I ended up replanting the tank. I didn't like the look, I felt like some of the plants weren't planted right, and my dwarf lily was in the spot where I wanted my filter. So I removed the plants, trimmed the dead stuff off, and replanted. I have the filter running now. I think my plants are starting to adjust. The dwarf lily looks good I "think" as does my cabomba. In a few days I guess I will know if things are adjusting better, or if I'm going to have to remove plants. I hope my dwarf lily makes it, it is a very pretty plant. Once/if these plants get settled I'm going to get a few amazon swords to plant at the very back of my tank.


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## kfryman (Nov 7, 2011)

Careful with amazon swords in a tank with good substrate. In a few years it can outgrow a 100 gallon tank, they can get huge. I guess you can always trim leaves off or rid it.

Update pictures?


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## Sundancex (Feb 24, 2012)

Will try to post some new pics tonight. The water is still cloudy after messing with the substrate. 

Wow, I didn't know they got THAT big. The ones at my LPS were only 3-4 inches in height. Any recommendations for a broad leafed plant that will get say, 12-14 inches hight? Preferably easy to grow as well. I thought about doing a moss wall too. 

Actually, if I can figure out how to get the stupid silicone off the back of my tank I won't even have to worry about hiding the back panel.


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## kfryman (Nov 7, 2011)

A moss wall would look awesome in the EBI! They certainly look ugly at first setup but give them a month or so and you start to get more growth, after a while the back of the tank will be moss and will hide the outflow very well.

Have any pictures?


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## Sundancex (Feb 24, 2012)

Sorry, haven't gotten around to getting any. I did put Castiel in the tank a few days ago and he seems to be doing well. The current is strong for him right near the filter, but he doesn't seem to mind and there is plenty of space to avoid the filter, so for now it stays. My lily seems to be doing pretty well, it is growing and there are new leaves coming up. I think the cabomba is doing well too, it might be my favorite plant. Not sure about the wendtii, parts look healthy, not browning or clear, but the leaves have parts that have gone soft and now there are large sections cut out. I have no clue what to think about the retrospiralis, I ended up cutting it back a fair amount because the leaves were pretty bad, and now it is just kind of "there". Microsword didn't survive, which I figured it wouldn't because it really does better in tanks with co2 that are more "high tech" plus it got messed around with a fair amount before planting. But no big deal. The bit of water sprite I have appears to be coming back and it looking better, so hopefully it will continue to grow. 

I'm not sure how Castiel likes his new digs. He is swimming around A LOT, which he did not use to do, but I figure him swimming is a good thing. Unfortunately, under this light, it much easier to see how ripped up his fins are, I didn't realize how bad it was. But I don't believe he is a tail biter as they look more shredded than bitten. He seems like a happy fishy and attacks his food (Omega One) with gusto. I'm thinking about going to get some ghost shrimp and a snail in the next few days, but I want to make sure I don't overload my betta or the tank too soon, if that makes sense.


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## Aus (Feb 3, 2012)

Go for the shrimp over the snail for the moment. Low bioload, algae-eating betta snacks are brilliant value so long as they have somewhere to hide from the fish so he doesn't guts them all down at once. I've found the larger shrimp species tend to survive being picked on a bit more, depending on the fish, whereas RCS are less aggressive and easier for the fish to spot, being red.. they are great at hiding however, and I always find one or two have survived when I go to restock the shrimp population every few months. RCS also breed quite easily, as the baby shrimp are brilliant live food - I have not seen a fatter (meatwise, not bloaty), more active and healthy female than my Cleo, who just cleaned up a pile of shrimplets this past few weeks.


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