IanB

It depends a lot on what you want your filter to do. As people have hinted at above, filters don't just do one thing and there is often no right answer for what the best filter is, even for a very specific tank like yours (75g, planted, low fish load). If your concern is fish health-- eliminating ammonia and nitrates-- then almost any filter that moves water will be good enough if there is strong plant growth. You would be just fine with a sponge and HOB. If you also want your filter to help remove detritus and remove suspended particles from your water to keep it looking crystal clear, then you want something with a log of mechanical filtration and decent circulation (maybe multiple HOB or a canister). If you want to keep a higher maintenance but really pristine tank, then you probably want a canister or sump because you will need the strong flow that their pumps can provide for circulation/to keep detritus suspended but also the media space that a larger filter offers to load up on sponge/polishing media as well as bio media and, perhaps some chemical media like Purigen. It all really comes down to how you balance goals, time, and resources. If you aren't looking for a high-energy show tank full of demanding plants, then sponge filters and HOBs will more than have you covered and, in many ways, be superior to a canister because of how much easier they are to maintain, their lower cost, and much lower likelihood of leaking onto your floor. If you are looking for a filter that you can cram full of tons of sponge/purigen/media to really polish your water and are willing to pay for it in cash and maintenance time, then something like a canister will probably be a good fit.

I don't have any good pics (I'm not in the same state as the aquarium right now), but here is a bad pic of one of them. So far no beak trimming needed, but I got them close to this size. I've had them less than a year.

You have done a really impressive job with the health of the plants. If you are looking to get more into aquascaping, I would say the next step is to get comfortable with hardscape and substrate. You may find it much easier to make aquascapes with visual impact if you try a few simple things. First, avoiding a uniformly flat substrate from the front to back can help a lot. If you bank up the substrate toward the back of the tank to create a slope that rises from front to back, you create the appearance of more depth, and you allow a viewer to more easily see your plants as they are not blocking each other as much. Often, getting the substrate as high as halfway up the back of the tank is a good guideline. You can use cheap garden center lava rock or gravel so that you aren't wasting money on expensive aquasoils. Second, using one of both of wood/rock in significant sizes so that they make an impact and create the structure for your aquascape for plants to fill in often creates more visual impact than using plants as the main shapes with hardscape as accents. Third, if possible, using aquariums that are at least as deep as they are high (or even deeper) makes aquascaping easier in many cases. Finally, using plants that have smaller leaf sizes relative to your aquarium will make it seem bigger (though this frequently can/should be ignored). You can find all sorts of "rules" for aquascaping (i.e. follow the golden ratio), but mostly it is just whatever makes you happy. Some of the tips above helped me make my scapes more aesthetically pleasing to my eye. I hope you find what works for you! Oh and valisenria is one of my favorite plants and can work well for a jungle-style scape, but will be the bane of your existence if you want a more controlled scape.

One of my favorite tanks ever was a 12 gallon bookshelf tank (36 inches long) with 6 honey gouramis. They were constantly playing/chasing (but not in a stressful way) and truly didn't need anything else in with them (though I did have some clithon snails and shrimp).

Great to see another person keeping these @NOLANANO. I have a group of six and have had similar ups and downs with food. They love bloodworms and like clams but not the shells. When hungry enough, they will eat frozen krill. Mine get along well with mid-size schooling fish (say rosy barb size) but have made a snack of some smaller rummynoses. Corys are completely ignored. Some love playing in the bubbles from an airstone, while others prefer to be a bit more sedentary and slowly cruise around waiting for something to play with/chase a bit. They seem to appreciate a heavily planted/hardscaped tank. Edit: I should note that mine are probably twice the size of yours, maybe a bit more, so they are much larger than the rummys. I'm sure at their current size, yours are fine with them. When they get bigger.... well I caught one of mine with half a rummynose sticking out of their mouth.

This is my feeling as well. You don't need a ton of biological filtration on a heavily planted tank. I think a lot depends on how you want your tank to look. If you want really clear water, you probably need a canister or a sump so that you can get a lot of mechanical filtration in and possibly something like Purigen if you want really clear water. You will also need reasonable flow to keep the aquarium looking good. I don't have experience with the Coop powerheads, so I don't know if they would do it, but two sponges running on air definitely wont. On the other hand, if you like some mulm in your tanks, as many do, I think you could definitely keep a healthy tank with that filtration setup. It will likely just come down to your preferences on appearance.

Here is the first community version with stuff he picked out (I did plant/arrange the stuff). He likes the chaotic jungle look.

@NOLANANO Ha, that is all very good advice and almost exactly what we did for the first tank (also a 75g). He got all sorts of community fish over about a year in weekly trips for the fish store for new food or plants or fish. Then, once his attention span calmed down, we re-homed the fish to a friend who wanted them and set up what he really wanted— an Amazon puffer tank. He has had that for about 8 months and still loves it/feeds it every day. He chose everything that went into the tank (with some vetoes for compatibility). This time around he is really obsessed with something predatory and I need something plant-friendly. He fell in love with the Exodons months ago and is really fixated so I want to make it happen, even if it is species only and his impulse stuff has to go with his puffers. As a species-only tank did it do well?

For a heavily planted 10 gallon, unless you are really heavily stocked, you don't need much filtration if you have a sand/gravel/soil substrate. You just need to move some water, get some oxygenation, and polish the water a bit. If I were looking to have a quiet option, I would consider using a small surface skimmer (UNS and Oase both have affordable ones). It will move the water, keep the surface clean, get some gas exchange, and have a small sponge to remove particles from the water a little. Only real downside is you may have to clean it out every few days, but it takes seconds to do so and doesn't make a mess.

Hi All, I have kept a lot of different fish but not many aggressive fish (no monster fish, though obv they aren't all aggressive, no African cichlids, etc...). Multis and Amazon puffers are about as aggressive as I've gone. I'm going to be setting up an aquarium for my nephew (7 year old) in a couple months and it will be a 75g stocked with Exodon tetras. My tentative plan is to heavily plant the back with Echinodorus and a decent amount of hardscape and leave the front pretty open for swimming, with lower carpeting plants or even sand foreground. I don't have any experience with Exodons, outside of reading up on them. There is a lot of conflicting information on whether it has to be species-only, or whether some durable, scale-less bottom-dwellers like plecos and/or corys are ok if they are put in before the exodons. I've also seen anywhere from 20-50 as a recommended stocking load for a 75g to spread out some of the aggression. Any tips on stocking, numbers, or other aspects of setup? (Filtration won't be an issue, as I always over filter to help polish the water)

My favorite aquarium in that range was a 12 gallon low tech bookshelf aquarium with 6 Honey Gouramis in it. I also have an 8 gallon shallow with CPD’s that has gone through a few scapes (2 pictured here). So much fun stuff to do in smaller tanks.

I think you have gotten lots of good advice here. I would only add that, in the future, APT1 is preferable in the first couple months of a new/redone setup, then switch to APT3 once the plants are growing faster and are larger and need more nutrients. Since you are using APT, I assume that you are familiar with Dennis Wong’s 2hr aquarist advice website. It has great answers to most planted aquarium questions and his advice and products have been proven not only in his own aquariums but are used as the main fertilizers by Aquarium Design Group (aka the Senske brothers) who are among the best-known aquascapers in the US and worked with Takashi Amano. If you get a chance, check out their gallery/store in Houston. Truly amazing stuff. Here is a video tour of the store from a few years ago, though it can’t capture how they look in person:

It really isn’t very hard to get enough surface area from any media, combined with surface area in an aquarium to host enough bacteria to convert ammonia to nitrate. In our home aquaria, it really isn’t an issue, so I’m kind of neutral on these surface area claims. To me, the more interesting, and much less clear question is about converting nitrate to nitrogen gas, or what some people call getting a “complete cycle.” This is probably best known from PondGuru who says his Biohome medias can do this by creating low flow zones inside the media that can host anoxic bacteria that can eliminate nitrate but turning it into nitrogen which then gasses off. PondGuru isn’t alone in this, though. Seachem Matrix makes similar claims in the fine print of their advertising. There are various other proponents of other methods of anoxic filtration. I have yet to see a scientific paper or real clear experiment proving that the commercially available media (matrix or biohome) actually do or do not do this. Almost all YouTube videos that I have seen purporting to prove or disprove this are either flawed (using prime or ammonia-binding conditioners which PondGuru and others say will prevent their media from completing the cycle), one-offs without controls, or have so many uncontrolled variables that their conclusions are suspect. I’d love to see a quality study (and one may be out there that I haven’t come across!) even though in a planted aquarium it matters little to me as I like having nitrates and have to add more via ferts otherwise my plants keep them at zero.

I also really like that there is a 120 cm version at that price. With Ada and chihiros forcing you to get 2 lights to cover a 120 cm if you go for the Solar style ones, it makes the prices even tougher to swallow. I do maintain a 75 gallon fairly basic setup for my godson and the coop style lights are great there because they are definitely getting dropped in the water and I don’t have a carpet, just some basic rotalas and easy stems to soak up nutrients and lots of low maintenance epiphytes.

Not going to disagree there. For myself, I would definitely take the WA lights (and may actually buy some as they look better value than the Chihiros ADA solar knockoffs I have). Was just trying to put myself in the poster’s shoes as most folks here aren’t full on aquascapers.

It is going to come down to preference and how you want to use them. The WA P series is going to, as you say, likely be a higher end light in terms of the PAR it can produce at the substrate. You really don’t need and 95% of people can’t handle 300 par at the substrate (see Dennis Wong here for real diminishing returns past 200 par in even very high energy setups: https://www.2hraquarist.com/blogs/freshwater-aquarium-plants-guide/how-to-grow-red-plants). I am in no way saying the WA lights are bad. In fact, I would take them for most of my tanks since I largely run rimless (with either Chihiros Ada knockoffs or Kessils) high energy aquascapes. The original poster doesn’t seem to be going that route with an Aquaon 75 gallon. In their case, to me, the coop lights being cheaper (even before needing a hanging kit for the WA P), more flexible (you can always move one to another setup to go low light), water resistant, and draw less power (50 w times 2 vs 150 w), backed by a proven warranty and customer service, makes them well worth considering to me. If you ran even 150 par at substrate in a low tech tank it would be an algae farm so you can’t really take advantage of all the WA P has to offer in a low tech setup. It looks like a great light, but it is clearly meant for high energy aquascapes. I haven’t had a chance to look at the “Fluval killer” that you mention, so won’t speak to that.

@Milliardo PeacecraftImo, it depends a lot on your goals. If you want to grow high-tech (high light/CO2 injected/high fert requiring plants) then I would go with 2 x the 48" aquarium coop light. If you are going with low light plants/non-planted one will do. I have 2 x Fluval 3.0 on my 75 gallon with a glass lid and they handle any plants I put in. The coop lights are at least as good and much more affordable. Had they been available when I was setting the aquarium up, I would have gone with them without hesitation. To me, lights like the Week Aqua P (ADA knock-offs) are only needed if you are going 1. for a serious, high energy aquascape with demanding carpeting and red plants and 2. are invested in the look of your equipment, which usually means you are running a rimless tank with lily pipes and are not looking in the budget realm. @Mmiller2001that is a great scape, btw!

I've had success by hollowing out a space for the mat, so that the top of the mat is level with the rest of the substrate then using some plant weights in between hairgrass plants to weigh it down without covering up hair grass like stones would. I find it less successful per dollar/amount of plants though, that either potted specimens or even tissue culture. I don't know if it is all grown emerged and the mass transition causes a mess or if I am doing something wrong, but I've stopped buying coco fiber matted carpeting plants.

CO2 and high light are really the keys to make carpeting plants easy. That being said, lots of people have success without CO2. Personally, I have found that soft water and careful fertilization is really important in those cases. Too much light/ferts and algae takes over the carpet, too little and it struggles to spread. A lot of the fertilizing depends on your water chemistry. If you have average to soft water, Easy Green should do the trick for anything you can grow without CO2 as a carpet. I have personally had more luck with monte carlo, marsilea hirsuta than with dwarf hairgrass, marsilea crenata, or other "easier" carpets. HC Cuba is definitely off the table without CO2. One that I have only done with CO2 but would be tempted to try without is Riccardia/Coral Moss/Mini Pellia (all the same thing). Unlike a traditional carpet it would mostly do better covering rocks, but it would be easy to cover a lot of the bottom with flatter stones. It is technically a liverwort, not a moss. I don't know if it would grow as dense and compactly as it does under CO2 injection, but I'd be interested to know. Crypt parva is the safest option as a low tech plant but calling a carpeting plant is a stretch, unless you plan to have your aquarium for 5+ years, because the parva carpet will likely take over a year to fill in, even if you plant relatively densely. Some people like MD Fishtanks on Youtube have amazing success without CO2. Others of us have less luck. Given that you said you have had trouble with Monte Carlo and Drwaf hairgress, you could try marsilea hirsuta? The only other options that I can think of are less traditional "carpeting plants" but fast growers that I have seen work as such (hydrocotyle japan, dwarf sag, and pearlweed). They will all require a fair amount of trimming to keep looking like a carpet.

You certainly have the space to stock what you are asking about and more. I might be a bit careful with adding mollies and platies to an aquarium full of soft water fish. Anubias are generally fine short-term without fertilization in an aquarium with a decent fish load. If the leaves start to go light, discolor, or show other signs of stress, you probably need to fertilize a little (there seems to be a little yellowing on some of the leaves). I would fertilize lightly, though, as without CO2 (and sometimes with) anubias grow algae on leaves really easily because of their slow growth rate not outcompeting algae. Ideally, most anubias are fairly shaded/low light unless you have CO2/ferts and out of really strong flow, which many say can lead to BBA. A recent episode of Jeff Senske's (one of the pioneers of aquascaping in the US and co-owner of Aquarium Design Group in Houston) podcast is really interesting re: anubias. He interviews Thomas Minesi a nature photographer and aquarist living in the DRC (Congo) and a lot of their discussion is about how anubias grows in nature. There are some really interesting insights, such as it almost always being paired with moss covering its root, rhizomes frequently being buried (which we are told will always lead to rot) and many other things.

For future reference/others reading, @Rube_Goldfishis right that Seachem has a calculator, as well as an app, that makes it relatively easy (as easy as it gets from the Seachem water/fert system). Targeting such specific parameters as those you listed, @Proyis definitely going to be a challenge to maintain, between evaporation, plant uptake, fish waste processing, etc... On the rare occasions that I need to use and remineralize RO, I find APT Sky much easier to use, but ymmv.

I noticed that while there is a blog post up on how to DIY a planted background wall (https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/diy-plant-background-wall), the accompanying video, linked throughout the video is listed as "no longer available." Has anyone else had success accessing the video?

My personal experience (and it is just anecdotal) is that a single Turkana Jewel will usually be ok in a community setup that has boisterous fish that can handle themselves (I have one in with tiger barbs and giant danios with no issues). Mine colored up really well even without a mate. When they pair off, though, they start to get into more typical aggressive Jewel Cichlid behavior. I personally would be fine putting a single one in most community tanks that can handle a semi-aggressive fish like a rainbow shark, but I wouldn’t put them in with really small or relatively timid fish. So, in short, depends on the community, but I definitely wouldn’t treat them like an apisto that can go with pretty much any tetra.

They make standard 75 gallon lids. You can get them everywhere from LFS to Big Box to Online retailers.

Totally agree with @nabokovfan87. If it is possible, I will almost always take a 75 over a 55. Especially for planted tanks where that depth gives you so many more options to combine heavily planted areas with swimming space.