Planted aquaria questions...

[David]

I'm really a marine fish and reef guy so I need some advice helping a friend with fw planted tank. First, does anybody think that "flourite red" substrate by Seachem is worth buying? I was just going to use about 3" of 1mm gravel but thought I'd ask. My real question is about lighting. I often use the 55w pc "smartlight" retrofit kits when setting up small to medium sw tanks, how would these be for fw plants? Better ideas? It's a 36" 50 gal tank, I could use VHO but which lamps? 96w pc's? MH is out. Ideas?

[Ninong]

Originally posted by David

My real question is about lighting. I often use the 55w pc "smartlight" retrofit kits when setting up small to medium sw tanks, how would these be for fw plants?

These lamps would not be appropriate for a freshwater planted tank.

Better ideas? It's a 36" 50 gal tank, I could use VHO but which lamps? 96w pc's? MH is out. Ideas?

You need full-spectrum lamps for a freshwater planted tank. If you choose 96w PC's, you would want 6700K; if you choose 95w VHO's, you would want Aquasun. Two of either of those should be more than sufficient for just about anything. The amount of light you need depends on the type of plants you are going to keep. Cryptocoryne, anubias and ferns are low-light plants but they can adapt to higher light conditions. The red stem plants require higher light to do well. One factor that has to be taken into consideration is whether or not you are going to use CO2 injection. If you are going to set up CO2 injection, you will need more light to take advantage of the CO2 input. If you are not setting up CO2, you should be careful that you do not provide too much light.

My suggestion would be that if you go with PC's or VHO's, you should strongly consider CO2. If you go with normal output fluorescents, you could go with or without CO2, but you really need CO2 to have a spectacular planted tank.

I haven't had a planted tank in many years so I won't comment on the various substrates that are available today.

Good luck,

Ninong

[David]

Hi Ninong, thanks for the input. I would not say we are looking for "spectacular" here, the guy just wants to be able to keep a few plants alive in his office tank. He has had little luck with the single 30w NO that he has now so I thought 'more would be better', you know. I think Co2 is way out of his league so maybe just one 96w pc or three NO lamps would be about right? I'm going up at the end of this month so I need to mo this stuff soon. thanks again- D

[Bughead]

I started a 10 gal FW planted tank about 3 months ago. All is going pretty well, the plants are doing OK. I used a substrate product similar to the "flourite red" that I got from HD for use in water gardens. I mixed in some sand at a ratio of about 1 pt.sand to 4 pts. red. I don't think that was necessary and wouldn't recommend doing it.

I'm using a NO flourescent light and the plants are doing pretty good. I can't tell you what kind of plants I have, except for a banana plant, as I got them at Petco on sale and nothing was labled. Obviously, I'm not into this like my saltwater tanks, but it is a nice diversion.

[Ninong]

If you want to identify your plants, go to this site and browse through the species list: http://www.tropica.com/default.asp

Ninong

[Bughead]

Thanks, Ninong, that's a big help.