Scott's Planted Aquarium

Starting on the left and working towards the right.

In the back, a small, 100Watt heater. There's a another 250Watt heater at the other end of the tank. This one is set to a slightly lower setting, so the other one is mainly doing the work, and this one just kicks in to help if needed. These are "Ebo-Jager" fully submersible heaters - IMHO possibly one of the best brands available in the world. Both of these are more than seven years old, and have never given me a bit of trouble. Cheap heaters have a tendency to go bad, lock in the 'on' setting and cook all the fish in the tank. Ebo-Jager units are designed to shut down if anything goes wrong, leaving you time to realize there's a problem before the fish all die. Ebo-Jager also seem to be more efficient than usual; I keep my house pretty cold and normally I would need at least 500 watts of heat to keep the tank at 78 degrees - but the 250 is pretty much doing it all alone, with just occasional help from the 100. The fun part is, they really aren't any more expensive than any other fully submersible brand.  I do understand that there is some argument about whether the Ebos are really "Fully Submersible" - it seems that depending on when you bought yours - there'll be a little line around the top that will either say "Min Water Level" or "Max Water Level" - or there may be no line at all.  Mine have no line, and I have always run them fully submersed without problems.

Next up; the tall, spindly plant is an "Aquatic Onion" - or so I was told. The next plant (On top of the fake rock) is an Amazon Sword. It's had a hard life. It was a nice big plant when I bought it and stuck it into my orignal tank setup a couple months ago, but it didn't do well (not enough light) and most of the leaves died and were trimmed off. The few taller pointy leaves are leftovers that are sorta 'hanging in there.' The little bushel of leaves at the base is new growth. The next little clump is a "Java Fern" and directly behind that is a "Miniature Onion", both new. If you look behind those, you'll see a 2-liter soda bottle, with a little tube coming out. That's my Carbon-Dioxide generator. Plants respire CO2 and produce oxygen, but the fish that this tank can hold cannot produce enough C02 to keep the plants healthy. So - I'm using a mixture of water, sugar and yeast to create a steady supply of CO2 that I'm injecting into the tank.  You can read about this at The Krib or Hoa G Nguyen's websites, among others.

Next, directly in front of the smaller "Rock" is a "Cardinal" plant of some sort, it's got the more purpley kinds of leaves. It's a "Foreground" plant that won't grow much, just stays low to the bottom. Behind that are five more plants in a row; a round-leaved stemmed plant, a hairy stemmed plant, a broadleaved plant, then a hairy one and a round-leaved one. The one in the middle with the big round leaves is a Brazilian Pennywort. The Pennywort looks like it's going to be a major player; it's been in the tank less than 48 hours and it's already sprouted three new leaves. It's also trying to send out little runners across the back of the aquarium. I don't actually know what the other four are (two each of two matching types), I bought them in clumps because they were cheap and interesting. I think the leafy one is a "Bacopa" and the hairy one may be a "Myriophyllum." Whatever those are... In front of that group is are a few dark green/brown/purple things that are actually just fronds that a pet shop gave me because they were dying. I'm hoping they'll revive and send out roots, but the jury's still out. I hope so, because the few healthy leaves that are there are gorgeous - a rich dark green on top and a stunning almost irridescent purple underneath - the picture just doesn't do them justice. If they really start to grow, I should be able to identify them. Moving right again, is the plastic stump. This is actually doing multiple duties; it gives some of the nocturnal fish a place to hide during the day, it's acting as general clutter, and it's acting as a 'bell reactor' for the CO2. There's a little tube coming down behind it, and I'm feeding the CO2 in through that tube, into the stump. The stump catches the CO2 in a big bubble inside, allowing it to be absorbed into the water, rather than just bubble up and out into the outside air and being lost. I need to work on this, as I don't think the absorbtion rate anything to write home about.

Behind the "Stump" is an aquatic Wisteria, that you can only see the edge of. Next over is a clear plastic tube sticking down - that feeds a wet/dry trickle filter that provides mechanical and biological filtration for the aquarium, but which moves the water so gently that almost no current is created.   It's a Whisper WDF 4000, which is a regular hang-on-the-tank power filter with sponges in the outlet that act as wet-dry filtration.  It's a pretty decent design for this purpose.  Next is another "Rock", and behind that is a little clump of something or other. It's actually a ridiculously common plant - every fish store in the world has plastic versions of that plant and for the life of my I can't remember what it's called, or find a picture on-line to identify it. It grows like a weed. It's been in the tank for five days. I had it in the old tank, and it nearly took over, so I let it die while I redid the tank. This is just a tiny clump of leftover bits; it's just gotten over transplant shock and it's grown three inches in the last 48 hours. I'm going to have to trim it like crazy.

Next up you can see a big black thing hanging down behind the tank; that's a Hang-On-Tank cannister filter. (a H.O.T. Magnum 250) It's connected to the black "boom microphone" which is actually the intake. This one is providing several types of mechanical filtration, as well as biological filtration. It would normally do chemical filtration as well, but I'm counting on the plants for that. This filter is also providing the only real water movement - it pumps out a pretty stiff blast of water, which I have directed along the back of the tank, and it keeps the whole tank very gently circulating along its length so that filtered water is delivered through the whole tank evenly. Beside that is the other larger water heater (mentioned before), and in front of those is the last plant, a "Radican Sword". It's also very new, and still in transplant shock.