Planted tank Noob

OK excellent! First give some thought and feedback around
- low maintenance vs high maintenance
- budget
- styles that appeal to you. I would suggest either jungle or nature style as a start to your planted tank journey

Jungle style could include some large plants eg swords, lotus, aponogeton etc mixed with epiphytes and possibly stems. It would be more wild looking and a mix of plants. If you’re more of a ‘wing it’ person this might be for you and it can have great impact. A 60cm might make it trickier though, but your tank has good depth and height. Might work out cheaper too, as you’ll include some larger plants and might need less of them.

Nature style would be more stylised with great emphasis on the hardscape and perhaps more presision and planning involved.

In suggest you use those key words to google and see what resonates with you before you take take the next step. Perhaps post a photo of tanks you like and we could discuss it. Pinterest is a surprisingly good source of inspiration. There’s no right or wrong, just important to be clear on what you’d like to get out vs what you’re willing to put in ito resources.

 

Will be following to see how your tank developes

 

Ok excellent. Please post pics of nature style and biotopes that appeal then we can chat about pros and cons and start narrowing it down

 

Ok excellent @Shabir totally doable,will give some input tomorrow, please remind me if I fotget. Hope others chime in also.

 

Great, the fact that you need to set it up for an annual 2 months holiday is an important consideration and I’d say:
- no CO2. If something goes wrong with CO2 while you’re away it could be a real disaster. Also in low tech the plants will grow slower so upon your return it won’t be quite as much of a mess to clean up.
- go lighly on the stem plants that need more regular trimming, and do a big trim on them right before you leave
- get your timer on the light dialed in well in advance. Auto feeder also
- keep the tank on the lightly stocked side, assuming you won’t have anyone to do water changes over that period. The plants will actually help quite a fair bit with filtration, so that’s cool. As long as the light is working properly

 

From your inspiration photo:

Hardscape
- wood is probably spiderwood or perhaps you have manzanita wood available there. Try soak the wood in advance if possible so that it sinks, or alternatively you might have to superglue it to the stone to keep it down
- some Purigen in the filter will help remove discoloration from the wood, which should reduce over time.
- for stone, dragon stone should work well or perhaps you have other options available. If you use stones collected from nature, give them the vinegar test and clean them thoroughly (I’d probably crub them with an unscented Jik solution then soak in clean water)
- the decorative sand used in the pic is in my mind too white and it looks unnatural. In nature, sand probably comes from the surrounding rock but in the pic it doesn’t create the illusion that the super white sand is in any way related to the red stone - something you could improve upon in your choices. You could also improve on this scape by including smaller stones and pebbles/ bits of gravel to create details on the sand
- in the pic they have aquasoil under the decorative sand in the foreground which is a nightmare waiting to happen!!! I suggest you clearly separate the sand from the aquasoil by eg using stones (gaps plugged with filter floss) else the substrates will get mixed up in no time and look horrible. A bit of spillage is probably to be expected but can be syphoned up easily now and again during wc.


The tank on the pic is probably high tech, looking at their specific plant selection and the vibrant reds. This could be recreated using a selection of the following easy plants on your Tropica list (Edit: not saying you need to buy all these plants)

Foreground:
- small leaved epiphytes for on stones: anubias ‘petite’ and the 2 bucephelandra species
- staurogene repens and crypt parva for in aquasoil on the sides and accents in the middle perhaps
- eleocharis parvula

Midground:
- microsorum ‘Trident ‘ is smaller than the other java ferns. Epiphyte plant
- crypt petchii is smaller than many other crypts
- anubias nana
- ludwigia glandulosa, grows much slower and more compact than ludwigia repens

Background:
- limnophilla sessiliflora - very fast growing stem plant, useful to absorb nutrients especially in the beginning of a tank’s life cycle
- ludwigia repens ‘red rubin’ is the easiest red plant for low tech
- microsorum (java fern) and bolbitis heudelotti both epiphytes
- anubias angustifolia (epiphyte)
- wide selection of the larger crypts. The crispatula would add nice height right at the back

The Tropica website is an excellent resource to look up these plants and their requirements. Will also give you an idea of their final height etc which will help you decide where to position them

 

Take your time to process, it is a lot

And feel free to ask more questions

But yes when it comes to the plants one can always move them around and add more until you’re happy don’t stress too much. Just keep the aqua soil from spilling over onto the decorative sand cause that’s just frustrating

Edit: and get some planting tweezers, won’t regret it!

 

Great, there are a lot of super resources out there these days