As some of you might recall, I had a 75 gal planted that used to house my rams and angels. Fast forward a few years, and because of changes in personal life with a new job and etc, the tank was neglected. So I recently took 2 weeks off from work as a vacation and finally have time to completely revamp my tank. All inhabitants of the tank were actually given to relative as I didn't have time before to take care of them. So now I have the luxury to do a full revamp of thank without needing to worry about the fishes.
As a refresher, this is what the tank looked like before it turned into a big mess
Now I am starting fresh, with a new piece of driftwood that I bought from April's a few years back but havent had chance to use. keeping one smaller piece of driftwood on the right side as a dividing line between the foreground plants and background.
I am still using corallife 4xT5HO lighting setup, but currently just running two bulbs as the tank is still settling, and I don't want to brew green pea soup. Also still using CO2 injection with a pressured system with an atomizer.
Plants I bought
- two pots of Aquaflora 1 -2 - Grow Staurogyne Repens for fore ground
- a pot of dwarf hairgrass as midground blocking the sharp cut of the driftwood that is showing
- 1 pot Bacopa Australis as background
- 1 pot Hygrophila Siamensis as background
- Echinodorus "rose" (one pot but in there, there was actually two plants) as center piece, hopefully will have some nice immersed red leaves growing once the plant settles in
Temp set to 82 degrees F as I will eventually want to add 4 adult discus as this will be a planted discus community tank eventually
Dosing regime - EI dosing
This won't be my final layout but basically just a general skeleton. Planning to add more mid ground plants to have some sense of layering (hopefully some red plants to add to the coloring)
Day 1
Day 4 - Most of the plants starting to perk up, but some S. Repens started melting to the stem (I assume those were weaker ones from the pots that won't make it) but those that are doing well seem to have some growth already!
Hopefully the tank will come out as nicely as I plan it to be. I will be adding a couple more plants, and do some trimming/replanting once these plants settle in
As a refresher, this is what the tank looked like before it turned into a big mess

Now I am starting fresh, with a new piece of driftwood that I bought from April's a few years back but havent had chance to use. keeping one smaller piece of driftwood on the right side as a dividing line between the foreground plants and background.
I am still using corallife 4xT5HO lighting setup, but currently just running two bulbs as the tank is still settling, and I don't want to brew green pea soup. Also still using CO2 injection with a pressured system with an atomizer.
Plants I bought
- two pots of Aquaflora 1 -2 - Grow Staurogyne Repens for fore ground
- a pot of dwarf hairgrass as midground blocking the sharp cut of the driftwood that is showing
- 1 pot Bacopa Australis as background
- 1 pot Hygrophila Siamensis as background
- Echinodorus "rose" (one pot but in there, there was actually two plants) as center piece, hopefully will have some nice immersed red leaves growing once the plant settles in
Temp set to 82 degrees F as I will eventually want to add 4 adult discus as this will be a planted discus community tank eventually
Dosing regime - EI dosing
This won't be my final layout but basically just a general skeleton. Planning to add more mid ground plants to have some sense of layering (hopefully some red plants to add to the coloring)
Day 1

Day 4 - Most of the plants starting to perk up, but some S. Repens started melting to the stem (I assume those were weaker ones from the pots that won't make it) but those that are doing well seem to have some growth already!

Hopefully the tank will come out as nicely as I plan it to be. I will be adding a couple more plants, and do some trimming/replanting once these plants settle in