How to Balance a Planted Tank | Step-by-Step Guide

This video helped me out so much when I first started the hobby, a little over a year ago! Had to come back and like and subscribe! Took me some trial and error to get a feel for the balance with my plants (and melt...oh all the melting). It would've taken a lot longer without informative videos like this! Thank you and keep up the great work!

I really appreciate your informative videos. I have 3 tanks and each one is unique and challenging.

i don't use fertilizer or fertilized soil but my plants are growing super healthy i just have a tank on my window with shrimp and snails and its booming ,its been more than a month almost no algea and the plants grew super nice

I use nothing but RO during top offs, and RO plus Seachem Equilibrium during water changes.... However I do not dose with CO2 yet. I kinda feel like I should.

Love this! Subscribed.

Ok so are we keeping our tanks at 20-50ppm nitrate all the time? is that the goal? It seems like that would encourage algae growth ?

What’re those black and white spotted fish with the big bellies? They’re so freaking cute!!!

Is that a hill stream loach ?

The fish tank equivalent of the woman who swallowed a fly.

Wow …. Overly complicated… no thanks.

Sigh, this sounds like alot of time and work adding plants. I have a 60 gallon but idk with working 5 days a week would I be able to keep up with the issues from adding plants. Maybe ill just stick with my silk plants

Change your name back to a gamers wife.

I have the helialux spectrum 1000 lamp, I can't find a profile or advice on the percentages to set. can you help me?

I thought the point of having plants AND fish together was for the plants to live off the waste fish produce while keeping the water cleaner for fish. Why would you ever add fertilisers? Either have less plants or more more fish... 🤷‍♂️

Great vid love the honesty about the difficulties we will likely face. Also... hey doesn't the atmosphere have plenty of CO2? Plants above ground don't need CO2 supplementation. Are we absolutively posilutely SURE the notion of CO2 addition is so darn meritorious?

Everyone share their success but you are the one who share their mistake so that people can learn from it.

You were no beginner when you did so many things to your tank.

Everyone that talks about aquariums have bias opinions.....show us your display tanks and let us see your success and more so your failures

This was a cool video. Thanks!

so fun thing, when I buy my plants from my nano tank, I got way too much extra because they pretty much sell it in bulk. So as not to completely waste it, I chuck the excess in a bucket, along with all the clippings I got. That bucket has no substrate, no fish tho some snails made it in there, not additional nutrients, basically only water and 12hrs of desk lamp light. And everything in there is in so much better shape than my actual tank. I literally can't even

Really enjoying your videos, they're so much better than your bosses lol. Subscribed 😊

Seachem excel and seachem excel advanced are your best friends after dosing my tank for only one week I'm already seeing new growth its amazing my water is slightly murky but I kind of like it that way because it also has lots of little things my fish and other little critters can eat

I can't. All of this makes artificial plants so very attractive. I have small planted tanks with low light. No algea, and plants grow very little. But if they die, they die. End of story. I don't have time for this.

Thank you so much for making a realistic and actually problem solving video! I am curious about which all-in-one fertilizer you were using. I do have hard water so I am curious to try it. Thank you!

Thank you, Irene, for going the extra mile and a half to cover the triad of plant needs. I discovered the same issues with fast vs. slow growing, who was gobbling up nutrients and why. Maybe the plant keepers can encourage vendors to add nutrients to their tank parameter care guides. Yep, it's extra work for them, but the payoff is more sales from us.

I’m still kind of confused about planted tanks

That is an awesome video thanks

As a former avid terrestrial Gardner it’s comforting to know much of my knowledge carries over…again great video.

Very helpful…used to have aquariums, became quite and gave everything away. Now ready fir a small bedside tank…thank you fir this!

So a year later...where you able to accomplish not doing water changes and only topping off???!!!

If you want better growth
One thing you can change is get a different filter. Use an hob filter and use seachem excel. The bubbles from the sponge filter will gas of co2 much faster and leave you with virtually none . One of the tips for water changes is to leave the new water out over night with a air stone running in it to gas off co2. So then you will have the ph stable prior to adding to tank. (Co2 causes ph to rise in tank when it gasses off ) another reason to buffer it to keep ph stable. I noticed better growth in my tanks without the sponge filters. I have hob filters and would run a small sponge filter to have as a back up for a hospital tank or in case i wanted to put up another tank or quarenteen a fish etc. Im in the pricess of looking for a very small fountain pump to replace the sponge filter as a source of water movement/circulation .
You were talking about only topping off and very little water changes. Ive heard of people doing it but i advise against it. Long term the tdi will rise and your fishes health may suffer. Theres plenty of reasons to do more frequent water changes. Gravel vacuuming your substrate should def be part of the maintenance. Bacteria, and parasites that naturally tag along with fish and plants are more likely to grow in population. The only way you keep those numbers down is through reg water changes. It adds back in oxygen. I always know when the O2 is a bit low. My mystery snails get lethargic.
Unless you are trying for a walstad. If thats the case start a new tank and commit to the walstad method correctly.

How did you come up with a value of 5 ppm for co2?
You dont have many plants and you dont have enough fast growing plants. Excess nutrients but more specifically an imbalance of those nutrients is what will cause it. Ph and gh and kh will also effect the growth and nutrient uptake. I doubt the excess of potassium wrecked the cryptocoryne. The low phosphates probably did it. Lack of carbonates is huge. Mix your water to get a minimum kh of 3 and a ph of 7 and gh of at least 6 if you keep guppies you need the gh and kh higher.
Using a sponge filter will gas of any co2 pretty much in less than a day. Lack of co2 will also cause slower growth but its not a bad thing. Your tank looks much better. Just remember. More light= more growth= more ferts. I use seachem excel for my liquid carbon suppliment. It definately helps. I run my lights high around 10 hrs. I didnt have issues with algae until recently when i started staying up later and forgetting to turn off my lights . So they were on for 14 hrs. I know its from light since the algae formed mainly on the tips of my valesneria at the surface and the top of my driftwood near the surface.

Its never a simple answer. Its math, science, chemestry and biology lesson all rolled into 1.
Ph, gh and kh are relative.

well this video sums it up ... I quit on fish keeping, I'm not going through all that work and money to fight algae lol

I'm curious, how would your video change if you need to grow algae and biofilm for inverts? What would the lighting parameters be? What is balance between having enough food for shrimp, healthy plants, and no filamentous algae?

I had the same issue with the holes and mealt! But 0, none, nada algeas!
Where did you get that potassium?? Or is it that flourish? I have easy-life but doesn't seem sufficient

I know I'm a year late, and everyone already mentioned it, but what an amazing video and instructions. This literally made me feel happy about maintaining my fish tank, and tackling problems that undoubtfully will arise. Thank you for being different :)

Sir can i use home made co2 for plantation aquarium

Very helpful. You have given me some ideas. I am still trying to "Balance" my planted tank . Something that I have learned along the way is that cryptocoryne plants cannot process Nitrates. That will be why your crypts melted. They can't tolerate Nitrates. Take care.

What kind of loaches do you have swimming around there? The black and silver ones that look like yo-yo loaches

I set up my tanks with some easy plants, and I put Watersprite in the tank, give it a few weeks, watersprite grows so quickly and absorbs so many nutrients it takes about 2-3 weeks to get it into balnce and it clears up.
I also use beamswork 10k led lights. I also hang on a power filter in addition to my sponge filters for a few weeks.

QUESTION: could seltzer water add co2? I’m curious…

3 days on maybe 12 hr off for my lighting, and i nvr seen that green slim

Ah, gahd. Your literally an expert now for small bouts of curiousity. Thank you for helping me.

Great job on this vid. I am still in the thinking about doing it phase. Nervous about getting in over my head. I appreciate information that keeps it simple for the rest of us.

Thanks for the video
You encourage me to get artificial plants for my aquarium