Day 42: Low-Tech Tank

Green spot algae is now under control. There's still a lot at the floor but they did not return back in the glass walls after I scrubbed them last week. a 40% water change has been done earlier today as well.

Other than that, not much has happened, except for the addition of a new plant.

Blyxa Japonica

Another hobbyist is rescaping his tank and decided to not use his existing blyxa plant so he offered to sell it. I got a ton for two dollars so it was a very good deal. However, it was filled with BBA's and possibly snail eggs so I had it dipped in Flourish Excel for several hours before planting it in both low and high-tech tank.
I doesn't look very healthy though but not sure if It's because I stressed it out from dipping in Excel. If it thrives in the high-tech tank then it is not due to Excel.
Anyways, after a day in the low-tech tank, it looks like it's starting to melt. I hope it's just try to adjust to the water parameters.


Staurogyne Repens and Alternanthera Reineckii Roseafolia
They are finally out of the tank. The large soil pot it was previously planted is removed. The soil is now used on the hanging pot holding blyxa japonica.


Ammannia praetermissa and Ludwigia Glandulosa
These plants are not growing in this tank but they are not suffering at all. They are very demanding plants and is generally challenging to maintain their red coloration but I'm happy enough that they are not melting in this tank.


Bacopa Caroliniana, Hygrophila Polysperma, Hygrophila Difformis, and Rotala Indica
These easy growing stem plants are thriving well and may need trimming this week. Bacopa is about to hit the surface and its stem shoots have grown out of the pot. Water wisteria keep





Hydrocotyle Leucocephala
This plant is struggling in this tank. It's growing very slow and the new leaves are small. The older leaves are covered by green spot algae. It does thrive very well in a high-tech tank and is probably the healthiest plant in my high-tech tank right now.

Christmas Moss and Java Moss
As usual, doing their own thing and growing very slow.

Hydrocotyle Tripartita
It's growing slowly but steady. A few leaves were covered by green spot algae but nothing serious. This plant finally took off in the high-tech tank and is very lush and thick already.

Day 35: Low-tech Tank

It's been a challenging week for this tank. Green spot algae has invaded it and spread not just on the glass walls but also on leaves of brazilian pennywort, hydrocotyle tripartita, and bacopa caroliniana. Only a few leaves were affected so I hope it does not get any worse.

Nitrate levels reached a high of more than 80 ppm last week but dosing some phosphorus probably helped by allowing plants to take up most of it. Today it measured at 10 ppm only.

Staurogyne repens melted away. Only a few stump of it were left. There are small leaves left over but I don't expect it to survive. It is supposed to be fine in a non-CO2 tank but perhaps, the high temperature caused it to melt.

Hydrocotyle tripartita continue to do well except for those that were planted beside staurogyne repens, which melted away. Could it be that they are too far from the light? those that are hanging at the middle of the tank continues to do well except for a few older leaves that are starting to get covered by green spot algae. The rest of the leaves are slightly covered by diatoms but in time I expect it to get better.

Water wisteria continues to do well too. It has grown thick and lush but it keeps growing horizontally. I always thought it will grow vertically on a low-light tank but I was wrong.

Hygrophila Polysperma has acclimated. I remember this stalk as the last remaining one in the high-tech tank several weeks ago when I was battling with nutrient deficiency at that time. This plant has no leaves at the bottom because it melted away. I threw this stalk in this tank and let it just float around until I found a pot to plant it in. It was a good decision as you can see how pretty it is now. It took sometime before it adjust to this tank but now it looks so healthy. I can try to cut and replant the new stems this week as I would like this to propagate.

Rotala indica also took a while to establish it self in this tank but it finally start growing fast. I may need to trim it as well this week to encourage growth.

Christmas moss looks almost exactly the same as it was when it was first planted. It's not dying but it's growth rate is just extremely slow. I'm not surprised as this tank is running at 28 to 32C.

Day 24: Low-Tech Tank

The tank looks very nice today after water change. I also performed maintenance on the canister filter's tubing.

Prior to water change, pH is at 6.0 and nitrate is more than 40.0 ppm. Ammonia is 0.0 ppm so parameters are fine. The water change will put nitrate under control. A couple more weeks and there should enough bacteria to take control of the nitrate.

Hygrophila Difformis (Water Wisteria)
It's growing slower than in a high light, CO2 injected tank. It looks vibrant and compact though. I thought that in a low light environment, this will grow more upwards but it doesn't look like it. The biggest stem is propagating horizontally and new roots are growing.

the other 2 stems remained small. I'm not sure if the big one is keeping the these two from growing.

Hydroctyle Tripartita (Pennywort))
More leaves and stems. I started replanting some of them on the soil pot where monte carlo was planted before.
The plant looks so healthy showing it really thrives in a low-tech tank.

Ammannia Praetermissa
New addition to the tank. This is said to be one of the most difficult stem plants to care for so I don't expect much from it in a low-tech tank. More stems were planted in the high-tech tank though.

Rummy Nose Tetra and Yamato Shrimp
I got 2 of these tetras and 2 yamato shrimps from another hobbyist that is giving up this livestock. Unfortunately the shrimps jumped out of the tank on their first night. I found one of them and got it back in the tank but the other one was never to be found.

Bacopa Caroliniana and Brazilian Pennywort
Both continue to grow. The bacopa stems in the soil pot started growing new stems.
Brazilian pennywort has new leaves as well.

Java Moss
I noticed that they are being eaten by the large siamese algae eaters so I move the 3 fishes on the high-tech tank. These plants are growing slowly and nicely though.
The ones in the driftwood has gone through trimming.

Christmas Moss
There are new leaves but the growth is way more slower than java moss. I'm not surprised as this type of moss is a slow grower and without high lighting, CO2, and at 30-32C, this is expected to even grow slower. The next few months will be colder here in Singapore (25-32C) so that's a good thing.

Day 17: Low-Tech Tank

Everything is going well in this tank and water is at 6.4 pH after 50% water change.

Bacopa Caroliniana

They continue to grow well but the tips are starting to turn pale red. Growth is also compact but all the stems are growing side ways probably due to high water current.

Hydrocotyle leucocephala (Brazilian Pennywort)

This is one of the new plants added this week. I intend to collect different types of pennywort or hydrocotyle as they are my favorite plant species. Initially, their leaves melted but has recovered since and growing new leaves. They smell like tobacco by the way.

Hemianthus micranthemoides (Pearlweed)

Another plant that has been added this week but it suffered major meltdown and at this point most of its leaves are gone. I thought SAE's were eating it but I later realized that they were only cleaning it up of algae but the leaves just took off because they have melted already. I start to notice new leaves growing though so I will leave it to its own business and hope that it grows back eventually.

Hydrocotyle Tripartita (Pennywort)

This plant just took off! It has more than double the leaves now since I planted it in this tank. I might start planting some of its leaves in a bigger pot soon.

Ludwigia Glandulosa

This was originally planted in the high-tech tank and it grew fast and beautiful. However, I noticed that this plant seems to be very greedy in nutrients and its roots are extremely dense. I'm now going to try if this will grow just as beautiful in a low-tech tank.

Staurogyne Repens and Monte Carlo

these plants do not seem to be thriving in this tank. I lost a few leaves on staurogyne repens and monte carlo had few dead ones already. I might start sending monte carlo back to the high-tech tank.

Hygrophila polysperma and Rotala Indica

These are cuttings from high-tech tank. I expect these plants to thrive here since they are considered to be "easy" plants. Let's see how they do here.

Day 9: Low-Tech Tank

It's been more than a week since we setup this tank and there had been a lot of new plants. I'll update each plant below.

Bacopa Caroliniana
Roots on both soil and "floating" pot are getting thick now.
New leaves on both pots and stems between leaf nodes are short which probably due to slow growth, which is a good thing.

Java Moss
I got a big tub of loose java moss a week ago from a neighbour who is also into planted tank hobby and I tied it up from a lava rock and a drift wood as shown in the images above.
There's still a lot remaining and I placed it in a plastic strainer and let it float on top of the tank.

Christmas Moss
There's no significant growth that can be observe in this plant yet but that's expected.

Water Wisteria
Three cuttings from the main tank were planted in a soil pot. It immediately established itself and new leaves start popping out in just a few days.

Staurogyne repens and monte carlo
These are also cuttings from main tank and I would like to see how they will thrive in a low-tech tank. They are planted on GEX soil as well just like wisteria and bacopa caroliniana.

Hydrocotyle Tripartita (Pennywort)
This is my favorite plant.
It's been in the main tank for several weeks but has struggled to established itself there due to nutrient imbalance and poor water quality. I've been putting a lot of effort to improve the main tank by dosing fertilizers and frequent water changes. However, I decided to transfer some cuttings in the low-tech tank to see if this plant will thrive.

Day 1: Low-tech Tank

In planted aquariums, a "low-tech" tank is typically defined as an aquarium that uses only low light and does not inject CO2. Dosing fertilizers is also optional and certainly not as aggressive as in a high-tech tank. Because of the limited resources in this environment, only certain type of plants can thrive and is expected to grow slower than when planted in a high-tech tank.

My goal for this experiment is to observe how certain plants grow in a low-tech tank with respect to their growth rate and quality. Bacopa caroliniana and christmas moss are the plants I choose to grow in this tank. however, I may add new ones in time in order to have a variety of plants to observe.

The following equipment is what i'm going to use for this setup:
1. 2x1x1 feet glass tank (65L)
2. EHEIM 2215 Canister Filter with Eheim Substrat Pro(0.5L) and Seachem Matrix(1L) as media.
3. Aquazonic T5HO light fixture with 24x2 light bulb (only one build will be used to meet low-light requirement of 1.3WPG)
4. light brown colored drift wood to tie christmas moss

The tank will also be occupied by 7 siamese algae eaters and 4 otocinclus.I was told that SAE's typically nibble on mosses but I will take my chances on this one. If after a few weeks and I noticed the moss is getting eaten then I will relocated the SAE's.

The driftwood is not fully water logged but it's fully prepared and water boiled for several hours before using. I did not have a lot of christmas moss so the "tree" is not fully covered with mosses.

"Christmas Tree"

One issue that I will likely have with christmas moss is temperature. The temperature where this tank is located ranges between 30C to 32C which is not the ideal temperature for this type of moss. Again, I will take my chances here and if after a few weeks I don't see any growth at all then I will probably replace it with java moss which is expected to grow at this tank's temperature range.


Bacopa caroliniana are cuttings from my other tank. 7 stems of about 10cm each are used.

Bacopa Caroliniana trimmings

Two pots are prepared, one with only stones to hold the plants. This is to observe if bacopa can grow floating and without a soil to attach its roots.
Another pot is filled with GEX plant aqua soil. In my other tank where bacopa thrives, this is the soil used.

Bacopa planted on 2 pots

This is the tank after the setup and a water pump is used to increase water flow.