My plants have grown a little

Before pic


After pics

Oh wow that's looking awesome!!!!!

Ha....your plants are growing and looking good, but mine are looking like crap.

I even have a blown bulb lol..I'm scared to replace it

bulb will hibernate and sometimes need to be kept moist in a dark place to re energize,

I mean light bulb thing vixen... It burned out even before the plants went in and I think if I put a new one in the plants will grow even crazier lol

Or an outbreak of algae! LOL

I got the uv sterilizer cause of the first outbreak...hopefully no more of that lol

Sometimes those rough starts end up a well balanced planted tank. Your tank looks great.

Ya if they are growing that well you shouldn't need to replace that bulb.

Oh, I am so jelous! I am working on setting up a planted tank for my two baby koi. Did you use the plant substrate when you set yours up. Also what do you all think would happen if I put a few cat fish in with the koi, will I cause death?

I have regular black gravel I bought from Petco lol. The sad part is I just had a massive PH crash lol and the tank don't look so pretty anymore Not sure about the catfish. May depend on the type of cat you want to get

Oh no, sorry about the ph crash. I put a 1" layer of caribsea plant substrate under my gravel, I read that it help make planted tanks successfull. We will see, I havn't quite decided what type I want yet, I know I am going to stay away from the larger ones that will eventually outgrow my tank.

I think the most important thing is the lighting. you can have the best substrate but it won't do any good without proper light. Fish love java fern and trident fern is great for bottom dwellers IMO.

Your tank is awesome ! Love the plant work and stuff!

Hope it works but Koi LOVE to eat and dig up all plants.

KristenB wrote:Oh, I am so jelous! I am working on setting up a planted tank for my two baby koi. Did you use the plant substrate when you set yours up. Also what do you all think would happen if I put a few cat fish in with the koi, will I cause death?

Koi grow fast. Koi are also carp, or basically bottom feeders. If I have surface feeders with my koi, then they will come to the surface with the other fish to feed. Elsewise, they really enjoy rooting thru substrate for everything that settles to the bottom.

Having real plants with koi has proven to be somewhat of a nightmare. If your koi are too small to uproot your current plants, enjoy this time while you can, because in a few months they will be a few inches longer and will uproot anything that isn't being held down by a fairly sizeable rock.

I'm speaking from experience. I have almost a dozen koi in a 90G tank and I've only found one variety of plant that they don't eat immediately, even then I had to grow that plant out in a second tank until it was "established" because they would eat any new tender shoots that it would send up from it's seed pod. Once it was established and had a good 10 surface shoots I put it in my koi tank and they did to several taste tests just to make "sure" that they didn't like it, but they've left it alone since that initial sampler. The plant is a hogwart lily - I believe - that I bought in a kit of freshwater seeds. It took a good 2 months before it felt like sending up shoots, but within two weeks of sending up shoots it had 6 good sized playing card sized leaves and shortly had lily pads on the surface of the tank after that. This plant grows very very fast and is seemingly very resilient. I keep the base of the plant under a fist sized rock, so the koi don't/can't dig it up... cuz they will root thru substrate constantly.

One thing that will help extend the life of your plants is getting your koi trained to eat romaine lettuce and zuccini. Mine love the romaine lettuce, but not iceberg. I cut the zuccini up like cucumbers and stick it a metal fork to hold it down near the bottom of the tank for them to find when they are rooting... they eat the middle straight out and leave only the rind. With the Romaine, they eat everything except for the very thickest part of the stalks.

I forgot to answer the question... koi eat the same food and on the same "water level" as the catfish. They would essentially compete for food.

I tried the "eco-complete" substrate when initially setting up my koi tank. Don't waste your time or money. Find a local pool supply store and buy pool filter sand or what they call PFS on here. I don't know what you use for filtration, but HOBS, hang on back filters, generally aren't going to like having their intakes near - w/in 4 inches - of sand. The sand will get caught in the impeller and make awful noise before eventually destroying the impeller. If you have a canister type filter, then it shouldn't be an issue at all. 2-3 inches of pfs should be plenty to provide room for roots to grow. I would put a small mound of stones - not pebbles, koi root and small pebbles can and will get caught in their mouths, koi LOVE sand - around the base of each plant to protect it from being dug up.

I would not put catfish in with koi because they would be competing for all of the same bottom foods. I have a pictus catfish in my cichlid tank and he goes absolutely gonzo crazy during feeding time, trying to gulp up everything that touches the bottom of the tank. If you already have a catfish in there, I think they will be fine, just remember to make sure that the koi are able to get at least "some" of the food.

Koi and catfish both give off heavy bioload (waste) so you need a VERY large tank with at least 4 time the recommended filtration. (so for a 55 gal smallest size recommended for Koi you would need filtration for 210gal) plus lots of cleaning the bottom of the tank.

here's a new pic taken today of the tank lol. I can't get a pic of all the floating plants though

Very nice. Good work. What size is that tank and what are you using for lighting? How many hours are your lights on and do you have any algae problems? Substrate?

It's a 75 gal no clue what the lights are but one is blown lol. The amount of time I leave the lights on varies from day to day to. Normally I don't have a problem with algae although I did have massive green water right after I got the new lights and I didn't have the plants I do now. The gravel is plain old black gravel from petco.

looks great Zeke