Jake’s Planted Aquarium Pages

So , you want to start a planted tank?

The absolute, number one thing you’ll need for a planted tank is free. That, my friends, is a goal . Do you want a fish tank that incidentally has a couple or a few plants in there? Do you want an easy tank with easy plants, requiring minimal care and pruning, with no specialized equipment? Do you want to grow quite a few different species of plants, and fertilize your tank with various fertilizers every few days? Do you want to grow any plant you want and get into the high end of the hobby, with pressurized co2 and co2 reactors, a lot of fertilization, plants growing like mad, constant pruning and such? We will refer to these different stages as low, medium, and high light tanks because your lighting level dictates what plants you can grow, what other equipment you’ll need, and so forth. I explain this and more in the lighting section.

Ok, so now you have a goal, or at least a rough idea. Now what?

You need to develop and implement a plan based on your goal(s). If you don’t have the aquarium yet, you’ll have to keep in mind that whatever you get you will have to buy substrate for it, light it, heat the water, provide filtration for it, and fertilize all that water, not to mention get a hold of enough plants to make it look how you want it to look. This is important to realize before your pocket book realizes it for you. So, in other words, a budget is a very important part of the plan.

Other things in your plan should include the following :

What tank to use-
Using or buying an aquarium that allows for you to easily reach the substrate and plants. Why? Standing awkwardly, standing on step stools, or having to stand any other way than flat on your feet while working on your tank , ( pruning plants, planting plants, moving plants around in the tank), can be hard on the body and be just a general pain and take away from the joy of the hobby. Just something to think about before you buy that tank that is twice as deep as your arm is long.
Can the tank be easily lighted enough to suit my goals? You can only physically fit so many lights over a tank. If you decide on a hex tank or something else that has a small area on top, you are limiting your choices for lighting and therefore might not be able to reach your goal(s).

Glass vs. Acrylic tank - Are you going to be using other stuff in the tank that may scratch acrylic? Which do you like the look of better? If you have to move it, do you have help or can you get help moving it?

Where is the tank going to go?

Ideally, not somewhere where it will receive direct sunlight from a window. You want to be able to control the lighting for the most part using the lighting you provide. Also, will the floor support the weight of the tank when it’s full of water?

Ok, I know what size and type of tank I want, where I am going to put it, how much work I want to put into keeping the tank ( Low, medium, or high light and such), how much money I want to invest in the tank, and just about everything else I can think of. Now what?

Now you’ll want to pick the right plants for your tank, decide on what lighting to use specifically, what to use for fertilization based on your plants and lighting, whether or not you want to inject co2, what you’ll use for a substrate, heater, and filter, what sort of fish or other aquaria you want in the tank, and so forth.

For a list of places to find hardware and other items such as these, check out this page.