Aquarium Planting

The plants I ordered for the fish tank arrived yesterday. Rather than pick individual plants I decided to just buy a plant collection specifically for a 36″ tank from Java-Plants. Not only was this a lot cheaper but it was easier too and would give us a good start.

The plants all arrived in good condition with each plant species packaged separately and marked with a ‘B’, ‘M’ or ‘F’ – Background, Mid-ground and Fore-ground.  The website said the package consisted of the following plants:

• 5 x Echinodorus Tennellus
• 5 x Hygrophilia Polysperma
• 5 x Red Ludwigia
• 5 x Ambulia Aquatica
• 5 x Bacopa Monniera
• 5 x Red Ivy
• 5 x Diplis Diandra
• 5 x Vallis Torta
• 5 x Elodea Densa
• 5 x Hairgrass
• 5 x Bacopa Caroliniana
• 5 x Pygmy Chain Sword
• 5 x Cabomba Aquatica
• 5 x Vallis Corkscrew sml
• 5 x Crypt Lucens
• 5 x Water Wisteria
• 5 x Crypt Ciliata
• 5 x Creeping Jenny
• 5 x Sagittaria Subulata

We didn’t quite get all of these but I guess there is going to be some variation in such a package, but there were plenty of plants and I can also add a specimen plant here or there or a particular species that I want to grow at a later date.

Morgan and I set to arranging them where we thought they would look nice and then planting them. We did a water change at the same time and did a little more cleaning of the tank but before long the tank was looking much nicer.

Here’s how it looks at the moment.

Planted Tank

There were just the right amount of plants for our 36″ tank. I had half expected it to still look a little bare as hopefully they will grow to fill the tank, but already it is looking quite full. This does of course mean that it is often difficult to see the fish in there, but I don’t mind that. It must be so much nicer for the fish to have places to hide and some shelter. The Corydoras seem to be loving it.

The plants seem to be settling in well already. Not long after the lights came on this morning there were stream of tiny little oxygen bubbles emanating from them. I always like to see that as it shows that the plants are happily photosynthesising away and oxygenating the water for me at the same time. Not only do the plants make the tank look so much nicer but they improve the water quality and provide a nice habitat for the fish.

Unfortunately it’s not all good news though as it was a little sad to see that Mr. Shrimp was dead this morning. He/she had been living in the tank with very little water, no heating, no filtration, no light, no plants, no food and no companions for years.  I suppose there have been lots of sudden changes to the temperature, lights, water chemistry and then all of the added stress of me messing around in the tank won’t have helped. All this commotion and stress as we have re-instated the tank must have been too much for him. I guess he/she was fairly old as well and it was just too much to cope with.

We feel quite bad really having had the shrimp in the tank for so long, unloved and uncared for it’s a real shame that finally giving it some attention and the conditions it deserves that it should have been too much for it. We were planning on getting some more shrimps at the weekend as well, I guess Mr. Shrimp will never get to meet them.

Tags: Aquarium & Aquascaping