JD's Planted 55

Getting back to my roots LOL! Told you guys I'd get another Guppy tank going!

Looks good! I like it

I'm a big fan of planted tanks, looks good, now a bit of low growing stuff will have you loads of fry growing nicely away from hungry adults.

I decided to do this with the 77 instead of a reef. I got a 320 watt t-5 Odyssea fixture and planted aponotogen bulbs , anacharis ( hydrilla) narrow-leaf anacharis , vallisneria and jungle val . I also zip-tied a couple of bunches of local hornwort ( after making sure any predators were gone) to the top of the tank . I'm thinking about mini hair grass or micro-swords. Ever try those ?

Dwarf harigrass grows really well in dirt, with moderate lighting and no co2, or in sand with good CO2 and high lighting. I prefer pygmy chain swords to micro swords myself though. HC is also a pretty good carpet plant, and not as messy to trim as dwarf hairgrass.

Honestly, what I do sometimes is buy some of the packaged green wendtii cryptocoryne, the baby ones in the bag, and either use them as a partial ground cover for large portions, or plant them around my hardscape to soften the transition between soil and rock or driftwood. Unless your trying very hard to grow these particular crypts, they do not grow that fast (when you plant them, they will melt, but grow back, can take months for them to get over a couple inches tall, it can take them a year to get decent sized, and I take advantage of that), but under high light DO develop a beautiful bronze/purple coloration. In a year they will outgrow your scape, but you can redesign or barter off 30-40 good sized beautiful green wendtii cryptocorynes for new plants or trade in.

Sounds like some really good advice...
3 problems..
1) Have little experience keeping a "True" planted tank.
2) Don't know the species... fauna wise.
3) Where do you get this stuff!

Lighting may be an issue as I'm using cheap stock T-8's. I also don't want to get into CO2. Please keep the advice coming though.

You know what, I use stock lighting on my planted tank and have for a couple years.. Of course you'll see better growth with better lighting but its finding a balance between what you want and what you can get away with.. Any type of Anubis, some swords, and broad leaf plants are easy to care for and don't require insane lighting or additional co2 from an injection( but a simple DIY co2 system works well)

+1 to Bigeflashfordon's comment. All about balance. Don't want to get fancy? Don't. T-8s are fine for quite a few plants (as long as you have the correct color spectrum, like 5500K-7500K works the best, most freshwater plants use light around those colors). In fact, anubias plants suffer if they get too much light many times.

With low lights, you shouldn't have to fertilize anything, and you shouldn't need CO2, and your scape won't grow fast, so when you get it the way you like, it will stay that way longer. Fast growing tanks are hard to keep looking good.

As far as plants go and where to get it, you can beg and borrow from other planted tank guys, trade clippings or off shoots much like reefers trade frags. I literally throw plants in the garbage once a week that are healthy, I just don't have room. (Duckweed, Wisteria, probably Jungle Vals soon, possibly narrow leaf java fern, christmas tree moss. . .a couple argentine swords)

I've made an order through aquariumplants.com before with a friend. The plants were healthy, if not a little smaller than I would have liked, and the prices on most of their stuff is not bad at all. I also barter with a LFS here in shreveport for some plants, critter co, but they can be really pricey if you don't know what your getting. . .

That hydrilla grows soooooo fast in my 29. Got a 65w 10k powercompact on the tank and it will grow like 6" a week so I'm constantly trimming it down. Its all about exporting nutrients