Stocking 100g (long) planted tank

[Brian42]

I've been considering my option for some months I was originally going to go with a light brackisg tank ~1.003 and a group of figure 8's and some gobys. The down sides are that there are no reliable algae eaters that are compatible and salt maybe hard on even salt tolerant plants on top of the risk of possible aggression between mature puffers. I have also considered South American puffers with sae. But sap are hard to find and with the rock work I have in my tank may make it extremely difficult to catch fish in need of dentistry. Though I already have a snail breeder (pond snails and mts, the mts were stow aways). The last option would be dwarf puffers with some peacock gobys and panda garra. Though would a 1" fish even be noticeable in a heavily planted 100g and I've read mixed results as to there aggression.

[bertie 83]

All puffers can have a mean streak, in a tank that long you should stand a good chance as territories could be easily established. Dps are always visible as they will normally come to the front glass to look at the strange creature looking in on them lol. Saps are easy to catch in my experience as they are so inquisitive, I just hold a jug at the surface and when he comes to look I push it down and he drifts in.

[Brian42]

Thanks for the reply! I'm leaning towards dp how many do you think I coul get away with in my tank? The base dimensions are 5ft by 18 in.

[bertie 83]

I personally would do no more than 10 in there, max 2 males but preferably none. This may sound minimal but these guys have huge personalities and you would enjoy them more. You could potentially add a couple of bottom feeders to help keep the tank clean and put plenty of snails in too

[Iliveinazoo]

I'd go planted with Figure 8's at SG1.003 but I would say that because I have a planted Figure 8 tank. You don't really need algae eaters if you have a good fertilisation routine, good filtration and plenty of flow. Admittedly my Bacopa and Saggittaria have picked up a little algae over the years but if I was that way inclined I would snip off the leaves or trim the stems of those plants affected.

Some people report success keeping Figure 8's with Nerite snails because of their hard shells but it didn't work out for me.

[Brian42]

So what plants have you had success with at 1.003? And what is your fertilization routine? EI? I've limited myself to substrate fertization and heavy root feeders. In the tank I have vallisneria gigantiae, cryptocoryne wendtii bronze, water sprite (floating and planted), Java fern and some bacopa monnieri that I might move to another tank. I was considering bringing back a trio of Amazon swords and 1 crinum calastrium. Pressurized co2 is really out of the question for me with this tank. My po4 at the tap is 1.0-2.0 on an api liquid tests.

[Pufferpunk]

There are a couple of threads stickied in the BW Tank forum about keeping plants in BW.

[Brian42]

I'm aware and its a good list all my plants were chosen off this list. But it and all the other lists I've found on the Internet (wet web media and fish forum) seem to end by saying salt is a detriment to plants in general be sure your dosing and co2 are spot on. Which leads to other questions but those should probably be their own posts. Ultimately I know in my 100g I'm not gonna want one specimen and I've read too many mixed reviews about figure 8 puffers being a real gamble with conspecifics. And sap but are just too hard to find and too risky with the dental work. Btw I spent a year and a half trying to catch 1 trouble making cichlid in this same tank when it was a mix African tank.

[Iliveinazoo]

So what plants have you had success with at 1.003? And what is your fertilization routine? EI? I've limited myself to substrate fertization and heavy root feeders. In the tank I have vallisneria gigantiae, cryptocoryne wendtii bronze, water sprite (floating and planted), Java fern and some bacopa monnieri that I might move to another tank. I was considering bringing back a trio of Amazon swords and 1 crinum calastrium. Pressurized co2 is really out of the question for me with this tank. My po4 at the tap is 1.0-2.0 on an api liquid tests.

Valli's, water sprite and java moss grew well for me but died off in the end which I put down to the tank temperature getting too high. Crinum calimustratum survived a long time but died off when I upped the salinity to SG1.005+ for a time.

The tank has been up and running for 5-6 years or so and the plants that I've not had to replace are: Aponogeton crispus, bacopa monnieri, crypt wendtii brown (& Mi Oya), saggitaria subulata and java fern.

I dose an EI based macro and trace mix with liquid carbon (IME Valli's doesn't like liquid carbon). I used to dose macro and trace mixes every other day and carbon daily but now I'm much less structured and probably dose the carbon once week and macro and trace twice a week.

I used to have blue-green algae issues and i used to spend hours pulling it out every week but once I upped the flow by removing my small HOB and Eden 501 filters and replacing them with a fluval 305 the issues went away, a quick scrape of the glass every other week is all I need to do now.

My tank is 60litres and I have a 24w TC-L lamp over the top of it.

I wouldn't recommend injected CO2 in a brackish tank anyway because it lowers the pH.

A plant that I would try again if I had a more powerful lamp would be nymphaea lotus zenkeri because it was beautiful plant and grew fantastic until it exhausted its bulb.

I also have high nitrate (not sure about phosphate) readings from my tap water but I still have to dose additional.

[Brian42]

Yeah co2 in brackish was one of my other concerns. Co2 i believe pushs to bicarbs and raises the kh in solutions with high gh. As for ei I need to do more research I think it might be a hoop idea to balance the phosphate with kno3 when doing water changes but I'll have see what others have had success with. Thanks for all the replies.

[Iliveinazoo]

The philosophy of EI is just to provide more ferts into the water column than necessary so that your plants don't suffer from any defficiencies, you then dilute with a 50% water change at the end of the week.