Rescaping my 75 Gallon

Planted aquariums, like many things in life, grow haggard and derelict without the proper amount of love and attention.  And just like many problems, their incremental decline is not always apparent to those immediately around them.  So a few days of looking at my 75 gallon and saying, “I should really work on that aquarium,” became weeks, and the weeks became a couple months.  Until finally, even I could no longer ignore the travesty it had become.  The above picture was taken yesterday, before I tackled rescaping the 75 gallon in the living room.  Five hours later…

Voila!  You can even see the tiny Hengeli Rasboras that call this tank home.  This tank is actually not that bad to rescape, as most of the plants, excluding the carpet and the red stems, grow from rhizomes, and do not actually take root in the soil.  I managed to fit nearly all the plants back in too, which slightly amazed me, as it seemed pretty dense beforehand.

The tall plant in the back left is Needle Leaf Java Fern.  Nearly all the plants in this tank are slow growers.  The four tanks I maintain keep me busy enough, without having to worry about trimming fast growing stems and mosses every other week or so.  I’ve had this fern for over two years now, and I trim it back about once every six months.

The plant with thick roundish leaves is Anubias Nana, which grows even slower than the fern.  Notice in the center of this image the Anubias Nana ‘Petite’.  It’s very similar to the Anubis Nana, except the leaves are much smaller, and it grows even slower.  It’s a relatively expensive plant, both because of its slow growth rate, and its desirability.  Many planted tank enthusiasts enjoy Anubias Nana ‘Petite’ because its diminutive size helps add a sense of scale to smaller aquariums.  I’ve had these two clumps of ‘Petite’ Nana for over a year now.  The grassy plant in the foreground is a really cool little plant.  Utricularia graminifolia, or UG, is a notoriously hard to grow aquarium foreground plant, a 3×3 square can go for about $20.00.  The neat thing about UG, is that it’s carnivorous, just like a Venus Flytrap; it feeds on microorganisms in the water with little “mouths” all along the plant.

The strange looking green plant in the middle ground is another variation of Java Fern, known as Windelov.  In my experience it grows slightly faster than the Needle Leaf.  I like Windelov for the unusual texture it provides.

And lastly, my little aquarium helper, Noah.  He goes absolutely insane chasing little bubbles through this hose when I’m syphoning water out of my aquariums. 

I hope I’ve given people a little more insight into the world of planted aquariums.  I don’t really have an aquarium community that I’m active in, online, or in real life, since the store I frequented in Lexington closed down just over a year ago.  So instead, I’ll just share things with you guys, my readers. 

Enjoy the weekend,

Ryan