u/hayabusasp

I was given this 75 gallon tank from a friend who previously used it for his turtles and decided to turn into a hi-tech planted tank for nano fish, shrimp, and snails. I’ve always wanted a large planted tank with schooling/shoaling fish but since this was my second attempt at aquascaping, I definitely struggled. From diseases, deaths, and parasites to collapsing hardscape, plant melt, and algae, this tank has been through a lot. Still, I’m very happy with how it turned out and learned a lot along the way.

This tank is 6 months old and currently home to roughly:
40 cardinal tetras
20 rummynose tetras
20 pygmy corydoras
15 otocinculus
7 honey gouramis
? neocaridina / amano shrimp
? ramshorn snails

After taking ownership of her new kingdom, we thought it would be a good idea to bring in some shrimp friends. When she first saw them, she started getting really excited. Then I put them in.. And just like dropping a bag of squirrels into a dog house, she lost it and started chasing. Now chase has turned into hunt after she has already taken her first victim (the only female shrimp). Safe to say I probably won’t be seeing the other ones for a while as they have all fled into hiding.

Rip shrimpy. All hail the queen.

I showed my tank to the folks over at r/bettafish and figured you guys would appreciate it as well. It went through many different stages and failures to get to this point but I’m happy with how it all came out in the end. I added some pics of previous attempts at the end that was during the time I started going down the aquascaping rabbit hole. Currently it’s home to this princess and a snail. Im still thinking of putting in some shrimp as well.

I shared my setup in my other post so I’ll leave it here too.

This is a Fluval Spec V 5 gallon (19L) tank
- 20” Finnex Planted+ HLC 24/7 light
- Fzone mini dual stage co2 regulator
- Aquario neo tiny diffuser
- 20oz paintball tank
- Hygger mini 1.5 W air pump
- Both co2 and air pump are on Kasa smart plugs

For everything inside the tank
- Fluval Stratum
- HTC pool sand
- Dragon stone (caribsea brand from petsmart)

Plants
- Anubias barteri, Anubias nana
- Bucephalandra
- Java fern black Forrest
- Dwarf hairgrass
- S. repens
- AR mini, AR broadleaf
- Rotala blood red
- Red root floaters
- Lucky bamboo

I just got her yesterday but I wasn’t planning to originally. I was at my LFS picking up pygmy corys for another tank and saw her by the counter as I was checking out. Figured I wanted something to enjoy this tank before it gets overrun with shrimp so I bought her too. Safe to say she’s been enjoying the tank so far and likes exploring. There’s one snail in the tank that she likes to follow and stare at.

I’m might be pushing it with the size of this tank but if I need, I have a 75 gallon community tank I can move her to.

Edit:
Thank you all appreciating this tank as much as I do.
Someone asked to post the setup so I’ll leave it here.

This is a Fluval Spec V 5 gallon (19L) tank
- 20” Finnex Planted+ HLC 24/7 light
- Fzone mini dual stage co2 regulator
- Aquario neo tiny diffuser
- 20oz paintball tank
- Hygger mini 1.5 W air pump
- Both co2 and air pump are on Kasa smart plugs

For everything inside the tank
- Fluval Stratum
- HTC pool sand
- Dragon stone (caribsea brand from petsmart)

Plants
- Anubias barteri, Anubias nana
- Bucephalandra
- Java fern black Forrest
- Dwarf hairgrass
- S. repens
- AR mini, AR broadleaf
- Rotala blood red
- Red root floaters
- Lucky bamboo