Mid-Year Tank Progress! Let's see your growth!

[Art]

Welcome to the mid-year point, everyone!

I'm asking if you would consider sharing a mid-year update of your planted tank(s) and tell us how it's doing? Good or bad tell us how it's going and share a photo as well!

For me, my tank was planted a little under a month ago. As is common in the US, the initial plants were a combination of emersed, submersed, tissue culture and barely alive plants. For me, this usually means a transitional "ugly" phase where I'm reacquainted with many of the hobby's greatest villains. However, once the plants fully transition and settle in, the effort is worth it. Add starting with Aqua Soil and it makes for an interesting start.


Current state. Gaps are from plants that didn't make the transition. Bubbles are from the CO2 mist, not pearling.

Don't be shy, show us yours!

 

[Unexpected]

I’m pretty happy with the progress these last 3 months. I just need a few more adjustments to fix the middle foreground and have a few more plants to get fully converted. I’m really looking forward to getting beyond the AGA and moving on to my garden style I like to do. I also want to try some medium difficulty plants and I’m excited for the last half of the year.

 

[DTWGulo]

My 180 is scheduled for a tear down this fall, so I'm in bare-min maintenance mode. I'm keeping the fish happy but proper trimming and so on is falling behind. I've been busy as heck with a new non-planted high-current river tank, also pictured. So here's the big boy and the new kid, warts and all. I had JUST filled the river tank so particulates are super high. Fishless cycling is happening now.

 

[Hufsa]

Pic from a few days ago, relatively chaotic as usual
Got a bunch of new plant species earlier this summer, so things are just growing a bit random and wild until I can sort out the new placements

 

[Art]

View attachment 2401
Pic from a few days ago, relatively chaotic as usual
Got a bunch of new plant species earlier this summer, so things are just growing a bit random and wild until I can sort out the new placements

I know that feeling. I'm doing the same.

 

[plantnoobdude]

Algae filled tank... But it's not looking too shabby, today is WC day!.

 

[Art]

My 180 is scheduled for a tear down this fall, so I'm in bare-min maintenance mode. I'm keeping the fish happy but proper trimming and so on is falling behind. I've been busy as heck with a new non-planted high-current river tank, also pictured. So here's the big boy and the new kid, warts and all. I had JUST filled the river tank so particulates are super high. Fishless cycling is happening now.

Wow that river tank looks awesome. Oliver Knott made an awesome one too. Have you seen it on Facebook?

 

[*Ci*]

Tank #1 (68G) is almost 3 yrs old, and after a few iterations it has finally settled into lush low tech growth of non-demanding plants and thriving livestock. I favour dark greens and a deep, dark jungle feeling. Couldn’t be happier with this tank.
My lighting is pretty low and I add tannins, so I feel the tank does not photograph very well, as far as seeing details.



Tank #2 (84g) was put together last winter and had a rocky start, but has finally stabilized with good plant growth and fish health. Same vibe as the other tank, just different plants and fish! I had such incredible growth of moss that I decided to rip it all out! Lol! Really, I decided that I did not want the maintenance of constantly trimming it, then cleaning up all the mess that it made from trimming (the bits do not float), plus have to repeatedly re-tie down all the thick mats of it. It compl covered all of the driftwood, which is now bare, so I am re-thinking what to do with the wood going forward.

With moss (but not at it’s thickest):


Now:



And last, tank #3, my 4g antique betta “planter”. No filter, minimal light, just a 50% change every week with tank water from the big tanks. It is basically a houseplant holder : )

 

[Yugang]

I am just back from a 5 week's overseas trip, during which I tried to 'hibernate' my tank. No maintenance, no fertilisation, low light, no CO2, a tightly closed lid to limit evaporation and automatic feeding. I was not disappointed with what I found upon return, but had decided anyway that I wanted a complete reset (cleaning of 4 years old substrate) before going full high tech again.

Freshly re-planted yesterday. I took the picture with full daylight, sorry for the reflections.

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

I don’t have any recent pictures of my 40B sumped setup, but it’s basically back to ground 0. I moved to a new house a couple weeks ago and the difference in water quality just a county over is truly astonishing. My old house the TDS reading out of the tap was 450+ and the new house is around 95 . The old house had around 9 or so dKH and the new house is 2dKH. Much more favorable conditions for plants so I’m really looking forward to a restart. I have some young Boesmani Aytinjo (13), 3 M. Praecox and 4 peacock gudgeons who are doing great in the meantime, I’m looking forward to giving them a nicely planted habitat soon.

 

[Unexpected]

I don’t have any recent pictures of my 40B sumped setup, but it’s basically back to ground 0. I moved to a new house a couple weeks ago and the difference in water quality just a county over is truly astonishing. My old house the TDS reading out of the tap was 450+ and the new house is around 95 . The old house had around 9 or so dKH and the new house is 2dKH. Much more favorable conditions for plants so I’m really looking forward to a restart. I have some young Boesmani Aytinjo (13), 3 M. Praecox and 4 peacock gudgeons who are doing great in the meantime, I’m looking forward to giving them a nicely planted habitat soon.

I’m jealous of your water. I’m growing to hate filling reservoirs of RO

 

[Art]

At the moment, I am so glad I don't have to deal with RODI making anymore. It's SO much easier to do a water change now. I have a 50% down to 15 minutes. Good tap water is a blessing.

 

[RazzVegas]

My 135G just a couple days from the 2 year mark. I really dont do much on it except my weekly wc. Turned down the lights some to slow down growth. Colors took just a tad of a hit by its fine for me. Still love it, just dont want to do constant trimming lol!

 

[Art]

Take your foot off the light accelerator and it slows the maintenance. Well done. Looks great!

 

[Immortal1]

Mid year update.... Well, towards the end of June and most of July both tanks got neglected pretty badly. This past week I was able to spend some time cleaning things up and doing some much needed trimming / re-planting (with a lot of help from my oldest daughter!!!)

In the 40g, I finally pulled the very old driftwood covered in BBA infected Anubis nana, saved what I could, and set up a new Mopani wood feature that was 1/2 as tall. The saved Anubis is at the top with some random Buce at the bottom. The left 2/3 plant groups got heavily trimmed and re-arranged. Will get to the right 1/3 sometime soon.


Which brings up to my 75g disaster. Several water changes and uprooting 2/3rds of the plant groups got the tank pretty cleaned up. Still have a few groups to go. At least for the most part the green dust / slime algae is gone.

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

Glad to know I’m not the only human here! @Immortal1 Is the 40 low tech? Your hygro kompact looks nice and bushy, it’s one of my favs.

 

[Immortal1]

Glad to know I’m not the only human here! @Immortal1 Is the 40 low tech? Your hygro kompact looks nice and bushy, it’s one of my favs.

Actually both the 40g and the 75g are high tech. Both tanks feed off of the same 10# co2 tank. Regulator has 2 solenoids and 2 metering valves.
Also, welcome to the human race

 

[yalon140]

Hello all!
its a really hot summer in here and with AC/no AC the tanks get unconsistent temperatures, if i leave the house for 2 days it goes to 30c, when i get back with AC it can get to 24c

this is my 80L
i changed the output nozzle lately, used aquario flow releaver thing with the skimmer, now i use a reagular elbow, the plants like the extra flow i think, i have a bba problem in this tank for long time, with bba i never know if i have too much flow or too little flow, this algae can drive me crazy.
now when i dont have skimmer the biofilm is back and big time, i dont get it, a fluval 407 is blasting water all over the surface and the biofilm is still there..
might put back the skimmer eventhough sometimes i have to get out of bed when it makes noise because a random leaf got stuck



tap water (6kh 9 gh )
waiting for the new baraclya to get big
im gonna take out the wood on the left and put something bigger but at opposite angle



40*40*30cm
i just put plants in there randomly.
substrate is inert quartz by aquael (the best sand i have found for its price) and actually these are the most stable AR i have had, par is aroud 50.




my lowtech.. i stopped gasing this aquarium 2 months ago and its been great so far,
low tech is fun, i really need to try more of them
i have monsteras growing hydroponic, one day i would like to use their roots as a real part of the scape and tie some small anubias on them, waiting for more roots to come


^
our sweet baby

 

[Dennis Wong]

Tore down this tank to do a different design with hardscape


This scape houses Albino X Ray tetras and Kerri tetras that spawned. Testing new LEDstar light that was sent to me.


Got tired of seeing all the shitty pantanal pics on the internet, so grew out a large bunch myself so that I could write an article on how to grow it properly without the usual stunting small tops and poor coloration.


Wood fin scape testing new soil sample from manufacturer.


Top view of one of the 2ft plant-only scapes.


Low N experiment. The redness of red root floaters can be induced with low N environment. Moving plants to subsequent high N water results in immediate green new leaves.



Scape that is 1.5 years old. Testing our root tabs as a method to continually enrich aged substrate to perform like new.

 

[Bolbi]

Just updated my build thread: Build Thread - "Green Echoes" - 292L aquascape