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Re: personal goals with a planted tank



In setting up my first aquarium with live plants my goal was just to provide a more natural and healthier environment for the fish. I'm a cautious person and always do a ton of research before leaping into anything, so when a display setup at a PetsMart provoked an urge for an aquarium, I did my ton of reading and was convinced fish would be happier and healthier with real plants. What attracted me about the display tank was that it was pretty, and I thought having something like that at home would be soothing (that's the one feature that didn't really work out, I can worry about fish as much as about mammals, so soothing isn't very often the effect peering into my own tanks has on me - I count noses, check barbels, fins, color, etc.).

Of course, starting out with the live plants led me to a ton of research on aquatic plants, which brought me to APD, and by that time my first tank was going through typical this algae and that algae, so my goal then was algae control. My reading brought me to Dianna Walstad, which gave me the algae free tanks I wanted and left me to work on pretty.

So today my goals are a natural and healthy environment for fish that's pretty and easy to maintain. I'm among those who don't want to prune and fiddle. If I can eliminate stem plants and still have pretty tanks pretty much algae free, I'll have achieved my goals.

Ellen O'Connell
Parker, CO
mailto:oconnel4 at ix_netcom.com