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55gal Amazon BioTope

4K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  willow 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi FW fish keepers! Im setting up a 55 gallon FW tank and will be making it a biotope(Amazon). the list of equipment is:
-AquaClear 110 Power filter
-Black Hood with 1 54W T-5 bulb
-Fine ("Pea") Gravel for substrate
-1 large piece of driftwood as centerpiece
-Sock with peat moss in it
-10gal Q-tank

Animals will be(in order of introduction to tank)
-100's of cherry shrimp
-4 black-widow tets
-6 panda cories
-15 cardinal tets
-4 emperor tets
-2 baby angels (koi and original)
-2 german blue rams

plants will be:
-Java Moss(only non-amazon plant)will be placed on driftwood
-Several Amazon Swords as accents to centerpiece
-Foreground forest of Dwarf Sags
-Background Jungle of Corkscrew Vals
-1 Hornwort as the big tree of the background jungle
-several roseafolia as red accents to background jungle

my only problem is the roseafolia-ive heard they are very hard to keep. if so, can anybody recomend another tallish, red, yet hardy type of Amazonian Plant?
 
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#2 ·
Sounds like a wonderful plan; I love SA setups.

For red plants from SA there is the stem (bunch) plant Alternanthera which would grow quickly (and need regular pruning) but be a nice background plant. Some of the hybrid swords (Echinodorus "Red Diamond", "Red Melon" sword, E. "Ozelot") have reddish-brown leaves, redder in brighter light such as you will have. You can see these in the photos of my tanks, some in the 70g and one in the 90g, which are both SA setups.

One suggestion, I would use smaller gravel than "pea" size. I have natural gravel in my 70g and dark gravel in my 90g, both small grain size; I couldn't find smaller gravel without going to sand. I would suggest sand for the substrate, but it has some drawbacks in a planted aquarium if you're not careful. You might also want to look at planting substrates that can be used alone or mixed with gravel. I use only gravel with fertilizer tablets inserted next to the larger swords that are heavy feeders.

Actually, another suggestion or thought anyway. Vallisneria prefers neutral to slightly alkaline water with a bit of mineral hardness, while all the other plants (and the fish) prefer soft slightly acidic water which the peat will provide. I have never had luck with vallisneria in such water, but it always grows like a weed in water above pH 7.0 so you might consider using Sagittaria subulata in place of Valisneria (looks very similar, long narrow leaves) or there is a species of Echinodorus that has similar leaves.
 
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