Just got my 37 gallon colum and am going to start setting it up in a few minutes. I have a couple of water onions and big java fern from my previous african cichlid set up. I have a friend who is going to give me some vallisneria. The plan is to put the onions in the two back corners and the place vallisneria kind of diagonally in front of each onion. Have not made up my mind where to put the java fern. I'll probably end up getting a short (in height) piece of driftwood to attach anubiases and place in the fore ground and I'll have some lava rocks in front of the background plants.

That said I am looking for plants. I need some to cover the back wall of the tank (which is 24" tall). Some of the swords get there, but I don't have much luck with them. I saw anubias afezili is really tall and slow growing, but when I found it, it is always expensive. I am looking for suggestion for huge background plants. Also, looking for donations of cheap/free plants (if free would pay for shipping). After buying the tank and gravel and filters, I'd like to not go broke setting up the tank. The same friend who is giving me the vallisneria is give me some assorted mollies and I think two angel fish. Because of the footprint, I'm going to not put a ton of fish in the tank. I might add some rams to make the bottom active.

All suggestions welcome.

What wattage of lighting are you gonna have??

Check out this site, there's alot of information.

http://www.azgardens.com/newaquar2.php

I've had a plant tank before, my challenge this time with be having a slightly taller tank. If I get the light I want, I'll have about 2 watts per gallon. This will work for all the plants I'll have in the tank as far as their light requirements go. If I need to I'll add a simple co2 system (i.e. fizz factory). I plan to also use seachem flourish as it has always worked for me. When I had a planted 46, I had 1.9 watts per gallon and had no probem with ferns, anubiases, cryptocornes, etc. azgardens is on of my favorite sites.

Then check out this tall gracefull plant!

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumap...us&spec=Cabomba

I have it in my tank and I love it! Very easy to propogate and fast growing If I can get the algae to stay off of it I would be more than happy to send you some. I would wait till I get all the algae off, I wouldn't want to start an outbreak of algae in your tank!

This is what mine looks like right now, so pitifull! :Sad: As you can tell from my Rena intake it's pretty tall and ready to be trimmed. I hope I can get that algae off! dumb dumb

try adding a rosy barb or two to eat the algae off the plants. If your willing to ship, I willing to put it in my tank.

I bought a couple of jungle vals today to put in the back, maybe the camboba could go next to them. How much light do you have (watts per gallon)?

I only have 1.5 wpg and it did really well till the algae hit. I got some CO2 to try to push the algae out. I can ship if you don't mind waiting another couple of weeks till it warms up a little.

I'm not in a hurry. I'm going to be out of town the 13th-21st.

Nice plants for a tall tank! the Clap

I will have to keep this plant in mind if I ever decide to go
with a planted tank! Hmmmm

That was very kind of you to offer Yodahorn some of the plants
as well. grup hug

It's my favorite plant. Nice soft stems, it flows great in the current! When you turn the lights on the tops open up. Very cool plant!

The tank is going well thus far. I took my lava rocks from my African Cichlid aquarium and put them in the center of the 37 column with a narrow leaf java fern growing out of them. I put my water onions in the back corners. All three plants mentioned thus far spent a week in a pitcher between tanks, so we will see how they do. The water onions are in as good of shape as the fern. I bought some crypts and put them around the front of the rocks and put some jungle vals in the back. I bought 3 black skirt tetras, just to make sure the take was safe and keep everything going while I am out of town. I also got 3 little green cories today. So far so good. When I get back on the 22nd I hope to add the mollies and vals I'm getting from my friend. I'll update everybody after the 22nd and maybe get some pics.

Sounds like your getting there! I'm looking forward to seeing pics.

I got back in town today. After a long workweek in Irving, TX I met my family in Cincinnati and we spent a nice relaxing weekend with my wife's aunt and uncle. My fishtank did well without me while I was gone. The plants are doing okay without me, but will start doing better once I hook up my co2 fizz factory and put the 72 watt light I got from ebay on it (it's in the mail).

Tomorrow my friend is bringing me 3 angels, 6 mollies and 3 cardal tetras and some vallisneria. I'll probably add a few foreground plants later, but I'll try to get picks once the fish are in it.

Glad to see you made it back home safely!

Good luck on your new fish and tank!

Can't wait to see the pics!

Got my fish today. One of the 3 Angels is a HUGE Koi Angel. It is the biggest angel I've ever seen. The other 2 are nice also (1 is a mostly black marble angel and the other is mostly silver with a little black on its body). He also gave me 8 mollies (5 of which are sailfin). The one angel is so big I might cut back a few mollies and get rid of the tetras; I'll just have to see how things go or how agressive the Koi Angelfish is to the rest of the angels. This is the kind of fish you plan a tank around. I also, got some decent vallisneria (hopefully looks better when it grows out, but it was free). I set up my co2 fizz factory today also.

Hey cturner don't worry about sending me that plant. I think that I have enough giant vallisneria and water onions to cover the back of the tank. Thank you for the generous offer.

Can't wait to see pictures of that angelfish. Cloud 9 I used to have a breeding pair of angels a long time ago and sometimes miss keeping them.

It sounds like you are well on your way to a great looking tank! I can't wait to see some pictures! Are you still in need of more plants? I can send you some when I feel back to normal after my surgery.

cturner, at this point I just need foreground plants.

Okay nevermind then. I'll have some HC cuba coming in the next couple of days and when that gets going I can send you some if your interested.

thanks cturner

a couple of crappy pics of the new tank

pics of the tank's king

The tank looks nice and the angelfish are beauties! But I have to wonder if there is enough room in there for all three?

The reason I ask is that many years ago, when I kept angels, I started out with three in a 55 gallon and when two of them paired up, the male killed the third fish. They seemed so calm and graceful that I was surprised to see them being so aggressive.

I haven't done any research on them so I don't know if the length and width of the tank are important. You have plenty of depth with this tank. It's a cool looking tank, bet it will look really impressive when those plants fill in. Good Job

I may not keep all three. My friend had these angels in with a few other and kept the two that pair up. The large koi, which I think is a male, but not sure shows no interest in the other two angels other than chasing them occasionally. I may just keep the big koi, but would love to find a mate for him.

Nice tank and fish, Yodahorn!

Nice koi angel too!

Angels love the tall tanks for swimming, but I agree that you will likely have to remove one, maybe two due to the "narrowness" of the tank. You might get away with a pair, but as mature as they are, it might not work out. I've found they can be more forgiving if you raise a group of them together.

Angelfish were my first cichlid and my first time at breeding, about 35 years ago!

Notice Aura and I aren't giving any advice on your plants? Giggly

I'm back with plastic, Aura...The oscars wiped out what was left of our real plants, but believe me, there wasn't much left to wipe out!

Kim

I think I am going to keep the Biggest Angel with a trio of sailfin mollies from the current stock (give rest of mollies and black widow tetras (used for cycling) to a friend. Then I am going to get some long finned serpae tetras. Also, opened to any other suggestions for a colorful fish to put in the tank with the Angel and mollies.

I am probably going to reduce the angels to just the one koi, because the tank will be too little in the long run (darn kids). I got the two smaller angels free along with 9 mollies after paying $20 for the large koi angel. I think about reducing the number of mollies to 3-4 and getting rid of the black widow tetras I cycled with. That would leave 1 large angel, 3-4 mollies, 3 cory cats. The tank is 20" X 18" X 24." What else could I have in the tank? I thought about a group of serpae tetras?

Today I narrowed the numbers in my tank. I gave most of the mollies away (I kept the nicest male and the three females he hangs out with). I also gave away the 3 black widow tetras and one angelfish. Tomorrow, I think I'll trade in another angel fish for some rummy nose tetras. This will give me 1 nice angel with 4 mollies and a school of rummy nose tetras. The plants are looking good, they will do better once the bulbs for my power compact come in. I gotten 2 sets of broken bulbs so far.

I was considering one last try with live plants. There was a plant auction in Seattle that I was planning to attend and I got my dates mixed up and missed it. dumb dumb

Kim, I didn't know you had oscars!

Yodahorn, how is the tank doing? Any new pictures?

Good luck with those new bulbs. I recently ordered a new glass top for one of my tanks. It was packaged with all kinds of bubble wrap and styrofoam pieces, but when I opened the box, the glass was shattered. Grrrr

the light is sitll not up. the ballast was the messed up - it blew and the seller sent me new ones, but the set up is different. if i can get my electrician neighbor to fix it i will , if not i'll ship the light back and buy a new one from someone else.

My fish list has change a little over time. the koi angel is now the only angel in the tank as he bullied the others. I have 3 mollies - a sailfin male and his 2 favorite females; 5 rummy nose tetras; 3 green cories and just pciked up 2 bolivian rams. the plants are doing well for the little amount of light they have. I'll have to see how the jungle vals grow in to determine if I want a background or not. I'll try to update with pics here in the next week.

I got my electirician neighbor to fix my light and it is on the tank. 72 watts vs 15wats; wow what a difference.

Good! Now that you have light, lets see some updated pics!

some new update pics on tank, some full tank shots and some just of plants and fish:


tank shot

tank shot

close up of some of the vals in the back left

back right

front left - bunch of crypts and a ram hiding in the cave

proof that angel fish can be used as bike reflectors

close up of Frosty

Nice fish, plants, and pics!

Thanks for sharing!

It looks really nice, yodahorn! I love following the progress of a tank!

Kim

I think it's going to look really great when those plants fill in.

Do you have some of those mystery snails in there, or are those just empty shells?

I have a couple of gold mystery snails; the brown shells in the pics are from a couple of dead snails I got from Petsmart. In addition to the mystery snails, I have 5 pea size (some a little bigger) olive nerite snails (they eat algae) and there are also a couple of snails that came in on some of the plants.

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/clo...fishp1204936024

arrived today!!

I have a couple of brown shells just like those. They were alive when I brought them home. idunno My daughter wanted them for the tank in her room, but they didn't last long.

Cool plecos.

when I last updated this thread with pics, I tried to get picture of my flower shrimp (also know as a wood shrimp). They don't photograph well. It is a filter feeder and a 3 inch shrimp walking around the tank looks pretty cool (also, pricing $13). Anyway, he disappeared for a couple of days and I was thinking, "Crap, I spent $13 on a shrimp and he is hiding". Turns out he was molting. Today he is out walking the tank, but now he is red instead of dull brown. Way cool!! If you google it you see some pics of what they look like.