# Natural Plated Tanks



## lucydog (Mar 22, 2016)

Hello everyone, I'm newly registered but have been lurking here for about a month. I've learned a lot, thank you.

I've been keeping fish off and on for a couple of decades, and have been wanting to set up a natural planted tank since I read Diane Walstad's book, _Ecology of the Planted Aquarium._ I have 2 four gallon tanks that have been running for 3 years housing red cherry shrimp. At one point they were planted with high light plants and eventually I let them slide into decline by removing the lights (cat broke one, bulb died in the other) and so most of the plants died and I removed the shrimp and left only snails in the tanks. 

About 5 weeks ago I pulled the filters and added cheap and easily available plants as well as heaters to prepare for keeping bettas. I threw a little fish food in every now and then and monitored the ammonia, which in 3 weeks never rose above .25ppm (nor has it risen since adding fish). This is the reading I get from my tap so I always use Prime. Obviously I have some beneficial bacteria since the tanks were cycled, but I removed most of it when I pulled the filters. I think that the immersed pothos and lucky bamboo as well as the floating plants are doing a good job of keeping up with ammonia. I'm not sure when I will see nitrites or nitrates, none have been showing up on tests.

So, here are the tanks as of early last week:










The 1 gallon bowl has 5 cherry shrimp. I have since replaced the rock in the tank on the left with a piece of mopani wood that has colored the water nicely with tannins (I love that look, I know that some others hate it). I have Indian Almond leaves in all three vessels. The tanks are set up in front of two North facing windows that never receive direct sunlight because they look out onto my porch. The java fern and marimo came from petco, as did the two bettas. The lights are desk lamps with 13 watt 6700k compact flourescents (not the screw-type bulbs, they are 7" long and "U" shaped). You can see I've got them aimed fairly high over the tanks as it was too much light for the floating plants.

From the top, mostly dwarf water lettuce for floaters:










And of course, the fish! This is Baracuda, Petco had him labeled as a dragonscale but I don't know if that's accurate based on what I've read. When I brought him home 2 weeks ago he wasn't interested in eating and would clamp his ventral fins. He's doing great now and has a really gentle personality unless you are an invertebrate. He quickly destroyed the 6 or so ramshorn snails that were in his tank once he got to feeling better. I also tried some cherry shrimp and he was ruthless about hunting them down. He has been living peacefully with a nerite snail for about a week now and my fingers are crossed that this behavior continues.










Next is Shark who seemed fairly healthy when I got him, but I'm thinking he has a little fin rot since I'm seeing new blue growth in the white areas of his tail fin. He's doing well and likes to flare at the moths that gather on the window outside of his tank at night. He's quite the character who also made short work of every ramshorn in his tank, and is getting along well with a nerite snail that I added. I haven't added any shrimp to his tank but I may try two or three amanos in the future, we'll see.










After a few days I noticed that Shark had scraped off some of the scales on his head and along his back. I observed him shoving himself into much-too-small drainage holes in the plastic shower caddy that suspends the pothos plant in his tank. I plugged all of the holes with filter batting and his head has healed about 50% and the scales on his back have already grown back. You can see the white patch on his head on this (poorly focused) pic, I feel terrible about the whole thing. You can also see that his tank water is stained with tannins from the new wood.










I was initially doing 50% water changes every 3 days when I added the fish, but since the ammonia has never climbed above .25ppm I am changing to 30% once per week, with vigilant testing. As I mentioned my tap water reads .25ppm, and so that's the reading I get after every 50% water change. I get a decent amount of evaporation so I top off every two days with enough Prime to treat all of the tank water just to be safe as far as ammonia. 

That's it for now, thanks for reading if you've made it thus far. I'll update as plants grow in and when/if I add anything significant.


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## Nova betta (Dec 5, 2014)

beautiful tanks!


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## lucydog (Mar 22, 2016)

Thank you!


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## Sadist (Jan 1, 2015)

I love the tanks and fish! I want to point out that the butterfly pattern on Shark's fins come from the marble gene, so he may change colors and lose the pattern. He's got a really nice pattern right now!


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## lucydog (Mar 22, 2016)

Sadist said:


> I love the tanks and fish! I want to point out that the butterfly pattern on Shark's fins come from the marble gene, so he may change colors and lose the pattern. He's got a really nice pattern right now!


Thanks for the info on his pattern! I've kept bettas before but they were always VT's so I've just begun researching all of the different traits, it's fascinating.


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## lucydog (Mar 22, 2016)

Oh no!!! It looks like Barracuda has fin rot on his caudal. Gah, I feel so bad. I shouldn't have assumed that I was seeing ammonium on the test, and I shouldn't have added the fish yet. 

I haven't changed his water in 6 days, previously I was doing it every 3 days. I've been testing ammonia every day and it still hasn't been above .25ppm, I consistently add Prime every 2 days. I just did a 50% water change but of course it's still reading .25ppm. Maybe I need a new test kit. I ordered two of the Seachem monitors for free ammonia, they will be here soon. I added more IAL to his tank and will do 50% water changes every other day for now unless someone recommends something different. 










Shark is doing well, luckily I changed his water recently (to dilute some of the tannin in his tank - it was looking like tea in there). The java fern in his tank have already produced lots of babies - I counted 7 on one plant, this one has grew a 1 1/2" leaf in about a week. 










As much as I like trying natural planted tanks I don't want to do endanger my fish. I may remove the nerites, since they add bioload and only eat algae, and I might add some stem plants as well. Perhaps I'll end up putting filters in after all. Poor Barracuda.


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## nessabetta (Feb 26, 2016)

Oh my gosh, Shark looks just like my old betta that died.. RIP Naoki. He's so beautiful!


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## lucydog (Mar 22, 2016)

nessabetta said:


> Oh my gosh, Shark looks just like my old betta that died.. RIP Naoki. He's so beautiful!


Naoki, what a beautiful name. Shark's fins are starting to grow in blue where the white once was, I'll miss the butterfly look but I'm excited to see how his colors change.

Well, now I'm really confused about whether Barracuda's fin rot is caused by ammonia. I got the seachem free ammonia monitors this morning and both tanks are showing 0ppm. Maybe it's the Prime working, maybe my ammonia test kit is bad, I have no idea. I added some creeping jenny to Barracuda's tank just in case. I'm wondering if it's fin biting? I have looked at lots of pictures online and thought it looked more like fin rot, but I have little experience with this.


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