Aquascape Tutorial: Peace Lily Betta Fish Aquarium (How To: Step By Step Planted Tank Guide)

[Music] what's going on guys and welcome back to md fish tanks so this is going to be a little bit of a different build video i saw something online i thought looked really cool so let's give it a go so over here on the windowsill you can see that i've got this piece lily now is currently planted in potting soil obviously now to do an aquarium we need to get rid of that soil otherwise it just obviously pollute the water obviously stop saying obviously so all we need to do is take it over to the sink wash off all the soil and trim the roots so we've got some scissors we've got the piece of lily we've got an empty bowl this is going to be really useful for putting the water in and then we can put the roots in there and the bowl will just keep the plant upright and then we've got a bucket full of water so we need to now take the soil out wash it well not the soil take the plant out wash all the soil off in the bucket [Music] okay so you can see that i've got most of the soil off there's still a bit remaining i'm going to use the tap to get the rest of that all off [Music] so you can see there that's the majority of the soil all off of the roots it's a little bit at the top but it doesn't matter anyway once the soil had come off and stopped binding them all we've now actually got one two sort of three main groups there this bowl here is what we're going to be putting them in now you only want the roots to be going in the water we need to trim them as well so there won't be quite as much length of that the point of trimming is apparently that the new roots that will grow from the trim section will be more better suited to the underwater conditions i think they're more fine art with more sort of like fine i i don't even know what i'm saying now they're just better all right so in order to put them in this bowl without it all flopping over i'm just going to put a little bit of driftwood in there just to sort of raise the the area for them the platform for them to sit on [Music] and here is the wood selection that we've got so there's loads to choose from loads of little bits of wood i just want something quite spindly that will just stick in and just raise it up [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] so that's looking really good on the windowsill here alone actually it's not even an aquarium it's just the bowl so this window is tinted so it won't get direct sunlight but it will get good amounts of light and then down underneath here you can see it's just the roots that are peeking in the top part of the plant is just out of the water and then roots in same on this side i think that's dropped a little so yeah i'll raise this side up a little there we go look just lifting it up like that and then the the leaf sort of keep it just out we can drop the water level again as we need to or raise it as well so yeah it's just the case now just letting it sit like that for a while and give it time to sort of convert to being under water rather than in soil [Music] and i'll tell you guys what i will do as well is add a little bit of fertilizer into the there you go that was way too much don't matter we can drain the water out and do it again i couldn't see what it's doing on the screen but yeah i've got fertilizer in the water now so there should be loads of nutrients for uptake of those roots into the plant yeah one squirt of fertilizer will be absolutely fine [Music] so it's now actually been a month since we first put the uh piece of lee into this vars bowl whatever you want to call it and it is looking amazing look at that i've had loads and loads of new flowers you can see here in the time the weather's completely changed it's now fully winter but yeah loads of flowers coming off the top the plant is looking great it did start to droop for the first few days whilst it was sort of converting if you like to being in water the roots obviously weren't in water they're in soil so but now it's just booming absolutely booming perfect right we need to set up the tank for it now though and this is gonna be the tank so we have got a clip-on desk lamp let me turn it on there we go clip-on desk lamp it's got a 6500 kelvin bulb in it i'll leave links to the lamp and the bulb it's like one of those led ones so it's energy efficient and it's nowhere near as bright as that's let me sort that out that's way too bright oh there we go so yeah this is this is it it's a shallow tank so i'm gonna have to build up some sort of mound for the for the piece lily to sit on so just the roots in the water the pieces will be coming all the way on the back on the wall that's going to look great and i can do some really cool sort of immersed plants coming out a nice open area in the foreground for our fish saving the fish for later guys it's going to be a special one hint you've seen it before on the channel but yeah let's start getting some hardscape together so here is our hardscape selection now i want to keep some of the wood there's some wood in there that is actually used to sort of hold it all up and in shape i'll reuse that again because it's worked well but i think i want to use these round rocks i really really love them loads of detail in them these i got from aquarium gardens so you guys can follow the link in description um to go and have a look they've got loads of selection but i particularly like these ones they're called young youngstee stoke i don't know how to pronounce it but anyway i'll put a i'll put a link up to it so yeah let's just grab a few of these get them in the tank and just just do a little rough design and see where we're at [Music] so that's what i've come up with so far now that looks a little bit of a mess doesn't it but the only real bit i'm focusing on is the front line that's coming around everywhere because that's the part where the sand will meet and that's the most impactful view that you're gonna get but all those other bits at the back are just like sort of crevices and everything for the roots to sit onto and for the bits of wood to go in and create the framework so i'm not too worried about the visuals of that a lot of that's all going to be covered up with plants and different things anyway so it's more about the visual treat that we have here of these front free rocks look at the details on them they're just so nice looking aren't they absolutely love these stones oh yes good choice good choice and then you know we've got the variations in color as well which i think just give it a little bit more interest and there's going to be detail stones in the foreground as well but we'll get to that part later first of all i want to start filling in some of the gaps with some crushed lava rock that'll just add even more media for beneficial bacteria to colonize and that'll just give us an even better chance of success with the tank you know some tanks fail some tanks don't most often they don't anymore for me because i've done it quite a few times and i've come up some little tricks and tips along the way that hopefully you guys can use too but yeah let's get that crushed lava rock in between all of those stones [Music] so [Music] and there we go look all the voids are sort of filled in well most of them i need some gaps because that's what we're going to put plants into you know plants that don't need to be in soil that can be attached to rocks epiphyte plants but now i need to bring the pcb over and just see where it's got sort of gonna sit because i'm not even sure at the moment i'll probably have to move a lot of this all around but that's not a problem it can easily be pushed back in and rearranged [Music] [Music] [Music] oh yeah that is looking sweet loving that so the important things to remember the point where the roots meet the base of the plant that needs to be out of the water but the roots themselves need to be in the water so i've kept them about that level there so that it's not too close to the top so the fish can't jump out now i need to get a move on because obviously these roots are going to want to be back in the water as soon as possible but next thing i want to do is get a decorative sand down at the bottom here [Music] [Music] oh yes that was absolutely definitely the right choice of sand you could i've got so many choices of sand but you need to have the right colors to go with the right rocks you're using and maybe the plant but that green on that sort of yellowy tinge to the sand is great i mean it's hard to get better than this from ada it's so good i mean i'm not sponsored by them or anything like that but there's no there's no harm in pointing out a really good product when you see one and the different colorations and grain sizes that you see in it it's just so nice oh i've just made a mess with that stuff sorry whoops there we go okay detail stones [Music] so that is looking really good so we've got our piece in the middle nice little cheap light the side that anyone can get and then if you have a look so what i did there was i actually sprinkled the the decorative gravel you know the coarser pieces the detail gravel i call it it needs to stay the majority of it close to the rocks and then as you come to the outside of the tank or further away from the rocks is what i'm trying to say you just get less and less and that's quite easy just sprinkle it and flick it gently with your hands but place it near it and then just you know you work it out and then i put a load on the top there just to make it a little bit more sort of real looking it doesn't matter too much it's all going to move around as we put different plants in that in normally i'd start putting plants in now but i'm a little bit worried about the pizza lily not having any water and roots currently it's been so used to that i'm going to fill the tank up now and just do everything else we need to do with water in it it will be a little bit more awkward than usual but we can work around it it's fine [Music] and we're all filled up that's looking good so you can see there the roots are just peeking into the water and then the top part of the bottom part of the plant sorry top part of the roots is just above the water level but yeah ordinarily i would have carried on planting and put some different stuff in there but like i said i want to get the water level up so now i want to add in some anubias i want to keep the planting really simple low maintenance so i don't have to do anything to it at all and then the fish and the pizza lube is going to be the main centerpieces of the tank rather than just a absolute mass of green in there because i've got plenty of tanks that one for instance those ones i've got plenty of tanks that have masses of green in them already so i want this one to be like the green is out of the water mostly and there's some little detail points underneath the water surface and to do that i can use some plants i've got over here so on top of this area hello timmy this is timmy's tank he was just out where's he gone oh there he is he's hiding timmy you're gonna come out and say hello tap it let it come out in a second it's actually his feeding time so he should come running around any second tap tap tap tap tap tap here we come siri cub siri cubs ready hey timmy come on in come over i'll give you some food yeah you gotta come out though he's in it he's in the food he knows here you go then buddy here you go there's your food no timmy you missed munch it there we go you got it finally you'll run off now and hide with it he always does probably drop it a few times but he'll float around the tank soften up and then he'll lead to all of it he's trying to use his paws up to break it up anyway timmy we're not here for you as cute as you are oh my god okay bye go get it go get it buddy go get it you got to work for your food but anyway yeah up here we've got all the plants that i want to be using so anubias i don't really want to use java fern because it's quite blare and i want more sort of soft rounded shapes if you like maybe a little bit of that ludwigia for a little red hint as well some red root floaters would be good for those who don't know red root floaters these are red root floaters and this is my better tank mic if you look at the top here don't worry guys there is space for him to breathe like there's plenty of little holes and everything everywhere these are red fruit floaters look the flowers coming off the top of them they're amazing but look at the coloration you get underneath it's hard because it's dark you won't see it quite as well but my goodness they're so red and cool so we used some of those because it's getting too many in this tank already but other than that we use the anubius as well [Music] so [Music] [Music] okay really really happy with that it's looking good i don't want to overdo it you see but i do want a little bit more of an injection of green in these bottom areas here just where the stones are meeting each other and i've got just a plant so this is my little mini indoor pond i use it for breeding my little guppies well they're not guppies they're endless which are people call them endler guppies but they're actually different fish anyway it's quite overcrowded in there let's get a trim up soon but this is the one i want this is hydrocotyle japan and it doesn't grow too fast but it grows fast enough that you can sort of farm it if you like and there's actually quite a lot in there isn't there so i'm going to take a snippet of that and just divide it up and then put it into some of the cracks in the in the rocks you saw in the other tank [Music] right that really is starting to look great and i love the simplicity of it but i want to add some pearl weed now i've got a lot of pearl weed in my tanks i don't want it to end up looking like this one this is its own entity but pearl weed is great in new setups because it just sucks nutrients from the water column and because it grows so fast but i don't want it to take over it grows very very fast so what i'm going to do is take some trimmings and place it right in that back corner over there so it's not in the way or like a visual massive visual impact because it would be quite an eyesore in this little tank to be honest and then a little bit in each corner just a little hint of it but it'll be enough so it's doing its job of sucking nutrients out of the water column and that is really the key to stopping algae in a new setup stem plants guys new tank get your stem plants in even if you're gonna remove them later on get them to start with [Music] all right planting complete now let's get some filtration on this bad boy so over on my desk here this is the filter i'm going to be using it's a really nifty little filter it is it does the job perfectly although we can improve it so inside we have got this little separator to make sure the sponges don't come to the top then we've got a ton of sponges in here which to be honest it works and it creates surface area for biological filtration we don't need that many sponges in my opinion all that's going to do is slow down the flow and then you know i've used this one by the way guys this is already cycled so i'm not going to need to cycle the tank it's all been used for like about eight months total this one has on a previous setup and i've kept it going whilst i was doing this tank so but anyway i'm going to take all this out i'm not even going to use it to be honest so that actually makes no sense but inside my discus tank this is my discus tank by the way here are the beauties you can see the two blues in the middle are going dark there and i think that's because they are about to lay some eggs they are a pear this is another male but it's not the uh the pear these are the pear there they're going to be laying eggs shortly and i guarantee they do it on there as many of you on the channel already know that's their little love making sport yeah they're definitely darken up getting ready anyway i'm talking about the filters so inside here i've got one canister filter there and i've got another canister fill to this side now i put extra media bags in there so that i can transport or take them out at any point and put them into new filters there's way more filtration in there than i currently need so it's fine for me to take some and replace it with some some new stuff anyway let me take it out and get one of the bags out and i'll show you [Music] right there is so we've got sponges at the top same as the other filter to be honest a little bit of grime on them but you do want them to have a little bit of grime i'm going to spill water everywhere here because i'm doing it one-handed but there we go look so there's the first bag now i'm only going to need one bag for that little filter so i'm going to take this one out put that in and just spill water everywhere there we go nice and then all i need to put on top of that to be honest is the one sponge the finest sponge not the filter floss i don't feel it needs it not going to need it at all and then back on top with that one lid goes on job done [Music] well so far everything's going great and we could quite easily just stop there and add fish but i've got a little plan i've seen something in another tank that i think could easily just be trimmed off and put in here it's overgrown it i'll just show you it's easier let me show you so over here next to the goldfish tank hello guys i've got like a little sort of racking system going along oh that's bright stop there we go we go um so this tank here was the one i set up a few weeks back for phantom you can see him in there well well this was only a temporary tank for him i mean it looks great don't get me wrong i'm going to be using it for something different but he is going to be going over in the new aquarium over there so we could just move him straight away we could move him right now couldn't we technically but before we do that this up here is my p puffer tank where's p p are you there oh there he is you can barely see him there's barely any light getting through and that's deliberate i i let this grow all the way to the top because i started noticing something quite cool if you look here look there's loads of rotala hr growing immersed which means out of the water now beneath that is also a ton of java moss that's like a floating bed now i think i can get underneath there just trim it across as like a whole slab and place it in some of the sections in here so like in that area across that rock you know some of the pebbles there this side i just think that'll look really really cool and it'll just carry on growing as it is now and just add another sort of little bit of depth to this tank not a lot of it i just want a little hint of it here and there but i think that could look really good so i'll give it a go and see how it looks [Music] oh it's looking so good really really like that let me stand back and just give you the full impression really really nice but there's one thing missing one final thing to do and that is to add the floating plants now because of the way the flow comes from this end and then the intake is on this side they will all float to this end so i won't add too many but just for some nice detail they'll look good and i'm going to go with some red root floaters so it's the red root floaters that are in mike's tank mike the better fish it's these ones here that are actually flowering they look so good but as you can see this this tank is packed full now i mean there are gaps still obviously for mike to be able to get out to the surface because better fish are labyrinth fish and they like to breathe from the surface he thinks i'm going to feed him now i'll feed you in a second let me just take these plants and put them into the new tank and that's it the final product or tank it's not a product but yeah i'm really happy with that moss actually the more i look at it that sort of different tone of green separating from the piece of elite i think it it really adds like a little interest point just in that bottom base area plus it hides all the sort of mechanical parts of it well not mechanical you know what i mean like the wood the structural part it hides all of that quite nicely and ties it all in kind of looks like it's been there for a long time i think anyway enough babbling on let's put in our fish oh how nice does he look guys just exploring at the moment just having a little look around just taking it all in stride his colors look really really good as well in that in the tank i'm really happy with that because that's just that's the look i wanted real sort of simple looking scape and then um you know just just just him popping out and i think i think i've achieved that he's just having a little look around the knee just sussing things out well this is very different to before i don't know why he would talk like that but you know you guess [Music] so you can see i've left the water level right down so that you know there's much much less i mean it's very unlikely he's going to jump out of that isn't it really let's be honest from what i've seen he's not a jumper but you never know so i'm keeping the water level down that low there's no need to have it right to the top is there there's plenty of swimming space for him and plenty of room in this whole aquarium look at him and those red root floaters look great as well don't they those two just the only red points in the tank a couple of little pieces of rotala hr but nothing you can really see but i think it's turned out great at nittler and there's the whole lily boom just exploding at the top i love it so some of you may be worried about a heater don't worry it's the whole room's heated so it's like it's really good temperature to be honest uh so i don't need to worry about that of any of my fish tanks apart from a discus tank which requires a lot higher temperatures let's just stand back for a second i'm really really pleased with how this turned out and i love the aesthetics of having just a lamp a desk lamp and that's going to grow up brilliantly those plants will also grow because they're all easy growers and yeah that light will be enough for them it's quite high wattage and if sometimes it looks dark inside the tank but that's because the camera can't pick up the the brightness of that light and the darkness of the tank so if i come down look when we're down here it adjusts really nicely and everything looks perfect [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: MD Fish Tanks

Views: 1,946,857

Rating: 4.907198 out of 5

Keywords: aquascaping, aquascape, aquarium, aquascape tutorial, md fish tanks, md, fish, fish tanks, aquascaping tutorial, betta fish, betta tank, betta aquarium, plant, planted tank, planted aquarium

Id: yFHMTjduO_s

Length: 27min 18sec (1638 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 05 2020