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I am wanting to start a small planted aquarium so I can reproduce and use them in my 55 and maybe give some to others. What all do I need to start a good planted tank? Are the water changes as nessesary as they are in a fish tank? Tell me everything!
SnakeIce
09-28-2003, 10:34 AM
so do you have fish that eat plant in the 55? or are you just trying to buy a few and grow them enough to have enough for the 55...
sure you can get some stem plants that grow like weeds and have trimmings often.... but the plants a lot of people like to keep don't grow as fast and take more time to get established
the people I have seen talking about having extra plants they have had to thin/trim out of their tanks have quite involved aqua care for those plants and getting extra plants is not their goal but haveing a nice aquascape in their aquarium is
so unless you are just trying to grow a food source, setting the 55 up to handle plants from the beginning and buying plants is going to be less hassle
JLudwig
09-28-2003, 11:37 AM
There is really so much I have no idea where to start... assuming you want to keep things simple, stay away from high light... as you increase lighting stuff like additional CO2 and macronutrient dosing becomes important...
Lets say you want a simple 10 gallon tank. I would use flourite as a substrate, or blasting sand from home depot with laterite mixed the the substrate per instructions. Good water circulation helps, so I would use a power filter as opposed to a corner filter. On a 10 gallon tank, two aquarium strips (I think they are 12W, the prefab ones they sell at any fish store) is more than enough light for most plants. Heater. You will also want to add trace nutrients and potassium, they are a ton of choices here but I'm very partial to two: Seachem's line of products and Tropica Master Grow. If you go Seachem, buy Flourish, Flourish Iron, and Flourish Potassium, follow instructions. TMG is all-in-one but a little harder to find.
Amano shrimp can really help with algae, keep 10-20 of them in the tank, maybe an Otto. I think this should be a good starters setup, change 25%-50% of the water weekly... planted tanks usually need more water changes because fertiliziers can build up. DIY CO2 would be great for introducing you to this technology but not necessary... and of course, read as much as possible...
anonapersona
09-28-2003, 11:51 AM
If you have an incandescent hood, you can get screw in compact flourescents that will fit the tank at Walmart for $5 each, 10 watts. If the reflector is not restrictive, you can also use the spiral flourescents from HomeDepot, 19 watts, daylight spectrum, $8 each.
Well, I bought a bunch of plants and put them in the 55. My Tin Foils and other barbs ate most of the anacharis. I've seen the Tins swimming around the tank with whole plants in their mouths. The plants are starting to dwindle. So I basically wanted to take a 10 gallon and put in some easy to propagate plants and use them to replace the ones that get eaten in the 55. I have the 10 gallon, a hood which I plan to put in the already mentioned bulbs from walmart in, heater, filter etc. I also want to know if I should use CO2. Anything else that I left out?
johnstires
09-28-2003, 2:48 PM
Jon.
What is the end result you are looking for? If you have the time to scan the internet, try to find someone's tank that you like. Then you can post the pic on this thread and we can give you advice on how to accomplish this.
If I understand correctly, it sounds like you plan to replant into a tank where your intial plants were eaten. If you do this again, the fish will just pick at the plants again. I'd suggest first getting fish that would go with plants.
I guess my main goal is to reproduce plants that my fish like to eat so they can have another food source. Since they like plants, I figure why not grow them and keep growing them and replacing as needed. I know they like anacharis. Also, what would be some plants besides Java Ferns (they don't like them) that they wouldn't bother too much. Right now I'm down to 4 java's and thats it. They ate all the anacharis, amazons, cabomba and micro swords.