The old man

Pics of my setup tank after 2 days.
Coralife Aqualight lunar 192watts with a 10,000 and 6700 cf bulbs.
Tank is 36x18x18 with 1/2 glass top to give room for adjustable mounting legs.
Substate is Aquariumplants own about 3-3 1/2 inches deep.
Plants are Sags on left back and side. Vals on right back and side.
Anubias midground with mostly green small on left and gold small on right.
Will try and keep the sags and vals to see how they will do.
Filtering currently is with a Emporer 280 and it sure did clear up the tank after putting in
the substrate and planting overnight. Will be adding canister later.
Stand is from Petco. Lights are set up on a Coralife Digital timer controlling three cords
and running full time with the other cords for the pumps, etc.
Comments appreciated.

trenac

Very nice start! 50G tanks are easy to aquascape, I've been enjoying mine for a while now.

With the light wattage you have you will need to add pressurized C02. Make sure that the lights are on daily for only 8-9 hours. If possible you may want to run just run 1 bulb, at least until you get C02 injection.

To me it looks if you may have your Anubias planted too deep. You want to leave some of the rhizome showing. Planting it at an angle is usually best.

Don't forget to start a fert routine soon.

The old man

The rhizomes are attached to small lava rocks and are juist above the substrate.
I adjusted them slightly.
I did get about 200 free plants with the Sags. Duckweed

Navarro

looking good my friend!

kwc1974

Great, the vals and sags will fill out very well for you. Are you going to fill out the front with a carpet plant?

Bert H

Looks good. Before you know it, you will have a forest of grass in there from the vals and sag!

Bunbuku

Looking good old man!

Is that Eco complete you are using?

The old man

It is not eco complete, but similar to soil master. Sells at aquariumplants.com for about $45.00 for a 5 gallon pail and will definitely cover a 55 gallon tank to about 3 inches in height. I actually bought it because of getting the free pail and the price seemed reasonable. A little light in weight to plant my stem plants, but managed to do it with patience and the crown a bit deeper on some, but plan on trying to raise them a little after they get their roots established if needed after the substate settles.
Next project will be pressurized C02 and then a front carpet and some kind of plant on the driftwood. Will see how this does for awhile first. 3 Small 1" swordtails enjoying helping it cycle right now with probably three more next week.

The old man

Update on tank: Got my fish load up to about 10 baby swordtails, no nitrites, nitrates, ammonia.
Plants doing ok with the exception of a couple anubias showing signs of probably
nitrate difficency (clear to yellowing leaves) See pic on bottom left. Added some
java moss on a thin rock on top of driftwood and another moss and anubia
in the crevice front middle. Sags holding in substate, but will try to raise them a
bit next weekend. Running just the 6700 bulb about 8 hours a day so far. Any
suggestions for adding more plants welcome and other ideas on the yellowing,
brown spot in middle and clear leaves.

davemonkey

Hey "OldMan", the tank looks great. Maybe could use some color. The layout is great and I REALLY like your driftwoood. I may have a little somethin' for ya'. I'll PM you.

As far as the substrate, your plants will root in quicker than in some other substrates, and after that you won't have the 'floating' problem...but until that time...
Anyway, it's done a GREAT job with my plants, especially with root tabs added. I've also had great results with the Seachem line of ferts and the EI fert method. (Not trying to say it's better than another brand, it's just the one I've been using. Pfertz also had a good line of products.)