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I bought plants from someone & they said to post before & after pics. These are the before pics. This first one is my 55 gal. The sword plant I bought tiny from wal-mart not knowing what it was. I was thinking it matched my background plants. Ha! The rest are fake.
The tank is messy from pulling up hair algae. The small fish (guppy) in the top right hand corner is showing off what is left of his tail after a mean flag fish got ahold of it.



left side. Driftwood is from my lake, unboiled, hence my hair algae problem.



right side. If you look close, under the tiger barb, you can see some hair algae threads leading to the top left where it has lassoed the roots of a floating water lettuce plant, holding it in place. That hair algae is vicious stuff.



18 gal. long. It has fake plants, real rocks & driftwood & an aponogeton plant from a wal-mart bulb. It is also holding all the real plants that I bought before planting them into the three tanks. I have not planted them yet. After they are planted & looking good, I will post the after pics.



10 gal. QT tank. Fake plants, real rocks & wood. Excuse the gravel in these last two tanks (for those whom it offends ) as they already had that gravel in them when I bought them.

I like your tanks Fishpatty! I really dig the background on the first pic. Oh, and I like your gravel too. Don't worry about who is offended by it. your the one who looks at it every day!

"Talk is cheap. Action can be almost as affordable"

Woo Hoo!! Finally some pics of Patty's tanks !

I don't know why you were concerned about not having live plants in the 55... that is a very nice looking tank even without masses of live plants.

Looking forward to the "after" pics once all the plants are in and settled.

G_T

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

sweet patty nice tanks!!!!!

Im not insane your insane thats why you think im insane so that makes us both insane....?

Thanks guys!

Kunzman, I'm surprised you commented on that background. I was thinking I was the only one that really liked it. Of course it looks a lot better in person.

I wasn't worried about who didn't like my gravel. It was said more or less jokingly, as I know a couple people who are really adamant about not liking colored gravel, especially neon. In fact, after having my white (once upon a time) gravel in my big tank for so long, I kind of welcomed the colored gravel when I got it. It makes for a nice change. I'm with you.....I'm the one that has to see it everyday. Although Calli. does have an interesting article on this site about how different colors of gravel affect fish. I don't remember where it's at though.

Troppo, I wasn't concerned about not having live plants in my big tank. It's just that after seeing your valls for the first time, you know I fell in love with them! I could just picture them on each side of my big tank.
And after being on here & seeing live plants in everybody's tanks & liking the look, I decided I wanted to give it a try. You're right though, with that rock cliff background, all I needed to do was to throw some big rocks in there.

I wish I knew what to do with that big sword though!? That is not the look I wanted for that tank & if I put it in another tank, I will have to cram it in there! I wonder if it would die if I put in my low light 10 gallon? That would take care of that one tank as far as live plants go!

OMG patty! I'm so excited you got pics up! Your tanks look really good. You found some really pretty driftwood! You're such a good little scavenger for your fishies =D

The pottery that growls!

Thanks chia for the nice comments! I admit I found the driftwood for myself, not the fish. I love the look of driftwood in a tank. I wanted to go back down this summer & look for more, but it's just been soooo hot! Maybe before winter I will make it again.

Very nice tanks you got there
I really like the wood in there.TFS/:'

---

I know human beings and fish can co-exist peacefully.

Thanks Rob.......I hope to get better pics after the plants have grown. I would like to do them justice, for the sake of the person that sold them. He might be selling next year too.

Well Patty , Finally you have been revealed .
I think your big tank has lots of possibilities. The Hardscape in there is already fantastic .
Great scavenging, we would love something like that in our tanks .
I wouldn't loose the big Sword either , I'd just move it to a corner so its not as obvious .

Can't wait to see the pics once you've finished planting , should be great .

Oh and by the way , there are no excuses for that gravel in the other tanks .
They are your tanks you should do what pleases you

Hope to see lots more pics .


Garry

Thanks Country. I didn't see many possibilities for my tank with that background, and I am not giving it up, so I will just have to work around it. I know the driftwood & sword don't match the background, so I am definitely going to remove the sword. I can't part with the driftwood, so it's staying. Move the sword to where it's not as obvious? I think that would be hard to do with THAT plant! Besides, the two sides of my tank are reserved for valls. Other than the valls, I didn't want many plants in that tank.....just a few smaller ones spaced around the middle of the tank. Someone suggested I plant the sword under the driftwood. I thought that was a good idea, as it would diffuse the look of the plant. But I don't want too full of a look, so it's going.

I'm not going to post pics of the tanks right after planting. Rather I will have some taken when they are pretty well full grown. But I appreciate the comments. It's interesting to hear other peoples ideas. You said you thought my tank had lots of possibilities. Out of curiosity, what would you do with it if you had it, assuming you kept the background?

Patty , I suppose I asked for that . Ok Lets have a Go I've drawn some areas on the photo.

General Idea is a Gap on the left beside the driftwood and a small beach in front of that .
Planting
Black : Vals :10
Brown : Wisteria: 6
Blue : Bacopia or Pennywort :8
Yellow : Tennulus :10
Purple : Java Fern :4
Tan : Annubia Barteri:2
Red Annubia Nana :6
Maroon: Swords 2, Your current one on the left and some more on the right defining the gap .

Thats probably too much but its not a bad starting point.

Lots of other ways to do it but I think that would make best use of you Hardscape , the idea
being to plant around it and highlight it . Number of plants in each group would depend on how
lush you want the tank to look , I've used some numbers next to the plants but thats just a quess .
I always go for more and if too much use in another tank .

So You asked, hope that gives you some ideas , don't forget though I'm just a beginner and you
need to decide what YOU want . Enough disclaimers

What do you think , too much

Garry

Attached Image:

garry you have good ideas but her plants are swords, corkscrew vals, val spiralis, hornwort, ludwigia, and anacharis

-Vincent

Right bud, those are the plants I have. But my question to him was

Out of curiosity, what would you do with it if you had it, assuming you kept the background?

I never mentioned the plants I had, so he was just putting in his own plants. At least he used my valls!

Your plan looked good Country. Thanks for that! Now I see what the tank would look like, if it was someone else's tank.
Unfortunately, it is mine.
My budget for plants is already spent for now. I will make do with what I have. I wanted a sparse look for that tank anyway, so we'll see how it goes. Since I have such high nitrates from my well water, I was told that plants might do good for a few months & then get brown. So I'll plant what I have & see what happens to them. If they keep doing good, I'll take another look at the tank & see if I want anymore in there.

I love your idea about keeping that gap open on the left Country. I think I was doing it already without really realizing it. But the idea of emphasizing it with plants didn't occur to me. Great idea! Now I believe I know where my anacharis will go.

Uh bud.....that small sword I got is NOT going into that tank with all that light! I'm not going to have another monster in there. It seems to be doing good in my 18 g. so I'll leave it there where it will grow s l o w l y.

Patty , Can't wait to see what you do . Your right I just picked a few plants . Yours sound fine and I'm sure you will make it look fantastic .

Have fun making it look how you want it .

Garry

Ok Patty , been a couple of weeks , any progress???


Garry

I've been sick on & off for the past few weeks, but am fine now. I finally got all my plants planted & all the tanks rearranged! Whew! I did not have fun. I decided I don't like rearranging tanks or planting plants anymore.

Anyway, I stuck a few plants in the smaller tanks & saved the rest for the big tank. I took all fake plants out of the tanks except for a few in the 18g. that I liked. I took the big sword out of the big tank & stuck it in the 10g.

The big tank is rather sparse but looks full because of the background. There are valls on both sides of the tank. There are two caves comprised of three rocks apiece & between them, in the middle of the tank is where I planted the anacharis. The hornwort hangs off of both pieces of driftwood.

The one waterlettuce I thought was dead from bleaching survived & there are now a dozen babies floating around.

I love the look of the natural plants along with the rocks & driftwood. I took everything out of the tank & soaked it all in bleach water & scrubbed the sides down. Yeah, no more hair algae! When the plants are fully grown, I don't expect the tank to look fantastic......just pleasing to my site with the few natural touches I added. I won't take anymore pics till the valls are full grown. With 130 watts & 12,000k lighting I hope it won't take too long. I'm guessing a couple months? Thanks for your interest Garry. By the time you forget all about this thread I will be popping up with new pics., I hope.

Patty , how could I forget . Come on , give us a photo or 2 so we can enjoy your journey with you .....

Garry

Ok. The person that sold me the plants wanted after planting pics anyway. I'll see if I can borrow my camera person's camera & take some good pics myself, as I wasn't too happy with their pic taking. Sheeesh! All I ever wanted was to watch some pretty fish..... then I had to learn about fish biology, water chemistry, substrate, lighting, algae, plants, how to upload pics on this site & now I need to learn how to operate a camera! lol What's next? CO2 & ferts?! Ahhhhh!

Hmmmm I forgot how I uploaded those pics now.

Ummmm this all may take awhile Garry, don't hold your breath.

i'll hold my breath with garry, i haven't been on here in like a week, busy schedule

-Vincent