Well I decided to start a journal of my first planted tank. There will be many pictures and I will update as often as I can. The tank, hood/light, and filter that I will be using came in a kit that I bought at a local fish store.

Equipment

6.6 gallon acrylic tank (24"Lx8"Wx9"H)
Hood/strip light with 15w fluorescent bulb
Small hob power filter
25w heater
Coralife digital thermometer
1 bag of flourite
Diy co2 with glass diffusor
1 piece of driftwood

Livestock:

6 White Clouds

3-4 Amano Shrimp

Plants:

Anacharis

Hornwort

Java Fern

Various Crypts

Anubias Nana

A few pictures:













I decided to go with Flourite because it looks great, lfs had it in stock, and from what I hear it is a great substrate for planted tanks. :)

That's looking good. I like the driftwood.

Pretty neat, I've never seen that size of tank.

Have fun with your first planted tank! :D

That is a new tank size to me... 24"Lx8"Wx9"H... it's like a 6g designer tank on it's side, with 1 extra inch of height. That's cool.

Can't wait to see some pictures!

Update: Well using silicone to attach the driftwood to the slate didn't work too well, it actually wouldn't hold at all, so I'm probably going to not use the wood and just pack the tank with plants. I also added to flourite to the tank. Here are a few pictures.







I added enough flourite to have a good substrate depth. I still need to pick up a few supplies like test kits, AquaClear 20, digital thermometer, and a Hagen Co2 system. Well I should be adding the plants to this tank sometime next week. :)

Did you use GE silicone I or II or a diff. brand? I have found that II (the pure silicone) didn't hold anything at all, but I does.

GE Silicone I is definitely the wya to go. Have you tried super glue? i hear people use that when propagating corals. They use it to glue the coral pieces to rocks until they can get a good hold. Must be aquarium safe if they use it in a reef tank, you know?

Thanks for the suggestions. I used All-Glass aquarium silicone. Another reason I'm thinking about not using the wood is because this tank is small and with the wood it takes up alot of room so I think going with just a bunch of plants will be the way to go, but I would like to hear your opinions on this. :)

My wife bought me a piece of fake resin driftwood for my birthday... they have several pieces, and some even have silk plants on them. You might think it's cheesy or unnatural, but I love the look and the fish absolutely love it. Plus, it doesn't float! I've got a piece in my other tank that I've been trying to get water logged for EVER and it just doesn't seem to want to sink. Might be an idea. The silk plants blend right in with the real ones. At least they do to me. Unless you are looking hard, it's tough to tell the difference. They have smaller, skinnier pieces of driftwood, too. Some even with small slate bases to keep them weighted down. That would always help you avoid water logging the driftwood. BTW, where do you find a tank that size? I absolutely love it! I'm even thinking about trading in my 10 gallon for something like that to raise snails and ghost shrimp in.

I use African Berl Root driftwood, They actually shove it into termite mounds and they get these cool looking swirls on it, my Royal pleco spends most of her time munching on the wood, Beautiful pieces too,

Update: I added a few plants last night to get the tank started. I added anacharis, hornwort, and a small crypt. Here are the pics.

With flash






Without flash




In the next couple days I will purchase a couple Anubias Nana for the tank. :)

Looks cool. I like it without the driftwood because you have a lot more water in it. Driftwood ends up taking away from the amout of water your tank will hold.

:D

what happened to the driftwood

Its coming along great. keep up the good work.

Those are some goodlooking plants.

Thanks for all the comments. :)

Well I tried to attach the driftwood to a piece of slate but it didn't work too well, so I decided to not use the wood. The tank looks great without the wood and it leaves more room for the fish to swim, but I am going to add a couple pieces of petrified wood.

:o WOW! That is looking tight! I really like the look so far! great pics too!!