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I set my 5g back up today to give my new Betta boy a bigger home. I used plants from my existing tanks. I know there are a few people who are setting up smaller planted tanks now so I thought I would post a picture of mine.
I wasn't trying to do a great aquascaping job, just so that I like it. I had to put a piece of slate on the DW because it wasn't waterlogged yet, so it looks kind of tacky. I will take it off when the DW will stay down and may put my java fern from the 55g onto the wood. I was going for a simple look. I really just have different kinds shoved in there.
My vals were not doing so well in the 55g so I am hoping they do better in the 5g. They are still short and I know they will grow taller, but I will deal with that when it happens.
I have a 10w screw in compact fluorescent bulb.
It is a 5g Minibow aquarium with small gravel substrate.
Whisper 10i filter

Plants are: Dwarf Sag
Dwarf hairgrass
Corkscrew Val
Bacopa carolinia
Rotala indica, for some color
giant hygro (I know it will get big)
wisteria (which I hope won't take the tank over)
If I had another crypt I would put one in there, instead but I didn't want to make another plant order just for the 5g. I just put different plants in there so my Betta will have some.


edit: Oops...forgot the picture. :%)

Last edited by GirlieGirl8519 at 10-Dec-2005 23:45[/font]

*Kristin*

Very nice well done. If there is a chance move the DW more to the left or just use the slate as it has a very interesting shape.

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Keith

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Hi,
Along with light, one of the reasons for Val to not do
so well is that they need some Calcium (Ca) in the water.
You might want to check the hardness (Gh & KH)of
your water.

Frank


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I only have 2 wpg in the 5g. I had 2.4 in the 55g. I hope it will do better with the light being closer.
My water is hard actually.
GH is 15 and KH is 6.


Last edited by GirlieGirl8519 at 11-Dec-2005 18:08

*Kristin*

I don't think that is very hard water at all. I'm not an expert but I think to be considered hard the numbers have to be higher than that.
I have had no luck with vals, I know my water is too soft, I filter with peat and adding carbonates doesn't help, they just disappear. I found water onion gives me nice long leaves and it comes in a dwarf form as well. So my vals are all small like the tenellus and they look ok that way.

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Very nice little tank.
I would have to agree, your water is pretty
darn soft.
Here, my water has a gh of greater than 220.
Now thats hard water.

It is a lovely little tank. Now you can just sit
back and watch the plants grow!


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It is 15dGH or 268.5ppm. I don't quite get the hardness stuff and what is considered hard and soft. The instructions that came with my test kit say above 200ppm is hard. I guess I should have mentioned the number in ppm in the other post. I didn't know which number you could tell by though.
KH would be 107.4 ppm.
Are the two numbers supposed to be close or does it matter. I see what each measures but my test kit thing says that 1 dGH and 1dKH are the same ppm. Just confuses me.:%)

Also it says with higher GH and KH you have higher pH. My pH is 7.6. Maybe that helps to determine if it is hard or soft.

Last edited by GirlieGirl8519 at 11-Dec-2005 20:19

*Kristin*

The gh is fairly high but that could be due to magnesium instead of calcium since a gh test gives you the measure of both. The kh test is showing low calcium carbonate. However I notice no difference between the growth of the vals I tried to keep in my well water(~15-18kh and gh) compared to the ones I'm trying to keep now in softer water. In both cases they just won't grow for me. In the hard water they slowly died off over several months and I figured maybe the water was actually too hard. Now using ro water and raising the parameters to 6dkh and 6dgh my jungle vals are still barely there. I did have problems with growing other plants in hardwater that are doing much better now.