Lots of questions!

[AquaVelva]

I have never tried live plants. I have a 75 gallon tank and have just installed two 96 watt compact fluorescents from AH Supply. The tank is up and running, but the substrate is pure gravel. From reading on this forum and other web sites, it looks like pure gravel isn't very good substrate. But how can I add anything to the existing tank? Is there any way to do it without completely draining the tank? Also, can anyone suggest an assortment of plants that would be good? And are there any good mail order places to get plants? I found a place online called Aquariumplant.com. Has anyone used them?

[Richer]

Welcome to Aquaria Central. I'd also like to personally welcome you to the plant section of this board! =D You'll find that once you get a good hold onto plants, there's no turning back! =)

Looks like you got a decent start on your lighting. Two 96watt CF lights will do great on a 75 gallon tank. There are a few things you need to consider however. With that much lighting going through your tank, you must consider getting a CO2 system for your tank. DIY CO2 can work, but it will take a considerable amount of effort to maintain (think 5-6 bottles per 1-2 weeks depending on recipi). For any tank larger than 30 gallons, I would suggest getting (or building your own) pressurized system. My 70 gallon tank has 4x55watt of CF lighting over it, and a 5 pound tank of CO2. I'm able to keep about 20-25ppm of CO2 in the water column, and my 5 pound tank lasts for 6 months. Refills only cost me 10 bucks Canadian. IMO, its well worth the initial costs of setup. I won't get into the details of a CO2 system, for you can probably go back into older posts to look for more info.... but if you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to ask.
As for your substrate. Plain gravel will do fine, but initially, you may need to supplement the gravel with plant tabs. Of course, this entirely depends on whether or not your plants are heavy/moderate root feeders, or water column feeders. Personally, when it comes to plant substrates, I like to use a substrate called "Flourite," which is made by Seachem. I find it to be a very good substrate. If you are not willing to completely replace your substrate, you can mix the flourite into your gravel bed. You want to achieve a depth of at least 4 inches for a good plant substrate. A 50/50 mix of flourite and gravel should do fine... but a lot of people find that a 100% flourite substrate does best.
For your plant questions... I have no experiences with mail order plants and whatnot (being in a northern Canadian city doesn't make it easy to order stuff), so I'll leave that to the others. As for what kind of plants to get, what exactly are you looking for? Do you want a tank that has fast plant growth, or slower plant growth? What kind of colours are you looking for? A lot of it involves your own personal tastes. Don't ask for me for design hints and tips... I can grow my plants nicely, but I can't aquascape to save my own butt.

One thing I will mention though. When you start your tank, before you turn on your lights, or plant your plants, make sure you have a good and stable concentration of CO2. This table (http://www.sfbaaps.com/reference/table_01.shtml) is a good place to start. After you are sure you can keep the CO2 levels constant, pack your tank with as many fast growing plants as you can get. Turn on your lights, and run your filter(s). After a day of allowing your plants to settle in, get your herbivores (ie. algae eaters). C. japonica (amano) shrimp, SAEs, ottos, etc. will do fine. Make sure you keep the bioload very light at this point, keep a very close eye on ammonia levels. If done right, you shouldn't see any indications of ammonia, as the bacterial colonies present on your plants and the plants themselves should take care of any ammonia your herbivores can produce.
Allow your tank to further settle in, prune your plants if they are overgrown, you can sell your clippings to your LFS for store credit if you want. Just make sure your plants still take up a very large majority of your tank. After a month, you can begin to very very slowly introduce your main show fish into your tank. Keep a very close eye on your ammonia readings. Again, if done right, you shouldn't see any indication of ammonia on your tests.
After you've completed the addition of your fish, let your tank to settle in for another month, then slowly remove your plants and plant other plants in their place. Over the course of a few months, you can slowly remove the fast growing plants and put in slower growing plants instead... which will reduce the amount of maintainence time that you'll spend on your plant tank. During this period, make sure you don't remove too many plants, or you may cause a small ammonia spike. You don't want to see ammonia in a plant tank (or in any tank with fish for that matter).
Don't worry about throwing out those plants that you bought in the beginning... you can bring them back to your LFS for store credit (or however they pay you back). Use that credit to buy different plants for your tank. It works out quite well.
Thats one way of setting up a plant tank.
Other people do a fishless cycle on an empty tank. After the fishless cycle they plant their tanks and immediately add in all the fish that they were planning to get. This works too, but you'll spend a week or two staring at an empty tank. I personally like the longer method.

Remember one thing... keep ammonia levels as low as possible (0 is preferred). Even a small ammonia spike can lead to an algae outbreak... and I know that a lot of people (including me) hate fixing that kind of problem.

If you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to ask... I might have missed something important.

HTH
-Richer

[AquaVelva]

Wow! Thanx for taking the time for such an in-depth answer. You covered a couple of things I never thought about.

So, then you say that plants will grow OK in plain gravel...with a little help from a few plant tabs? It looks to me like the cost of Flourite will be a little prohibitive for me right now! What about some of the laterite products? I had not planned on doing this, but I could drain the tank, take out the gravel, put down a layer of something, then put the gravel back in. Right now, the gravel is about 4 inches thick...maybe a little more at the back of the tank. All I need is something cheap, effective, safe, and easy! :-) But if plain gravel will work, I will go with that. I just don't want to regret in a few months not taking the time to do some extra preparation.

Speaking of being cheap...this brings me to the CO2 setup. I was planning on trying the yeast/coke bottle method, at least for a while until I can afford something better. Will this be feasable with 75 gallon tank? I was thinking of daisy chaining several bottles togethere...maybe 3...and changing out one each week. Would this work?

And as far as my lighting goes, right now I have the two 96 watt CF's mounted side by side in my hood. They are about 36 inches long, which leaves about a 6 inch "blank" spot on each end, but you can't tell by looking...the tank is VERY bright. But I read elsewhere that if the bulbs didn't go all the way to the end, then the plants would curve in toward the light and not look too good. Do you think this will be a big deal? I could mount the two strip offset, so that there would be less space at each end, but the light would still be somewhat concentrated at the center. I never considered that this might be a problem.

...AV
;) ;)

[Richer]

Plain gravel should do just fine... as I said (I think?) before, initially, you'll probably want to supplement the gravel with plant tabs, if your plants are rootfeeders. After a few months, enough organic material should build up in your gravel to make it a decent enough plant substrate. Which brings me to another point... in a plant tank, you generally don't want to vacuum the gravel too much... a light sweep over the surface of the substrate will do. I usually don't vacuum my substrate at all.

How many bottles of yeast you're going to need varies from tank to tank... experiment with the number of bottles untill you can get a good CO2 concentration. I would start with at least 4-5 bottles for a 75 gallon tank, then move on from there. Some sort of power diffusor is strongly suggested for a tank of your size. I'm not a big fan of the DIY method... I found it a pain in the butt to maintain for my little 15 gallon tank... can't imagine multiple bottles. However, if you're willing to put the effort in, then go for it, it will work just as good as a pressurized system.... you'll just have to deal with a bit more work.

Your lighting scheme should work out just fine. If you're worried about plants curving in towards the center (which I wouldn't really worry about in your tank) aquascape your tank so that your taller plants are near the middle, and your shorter plants are near the edges of your tank.

HTH
-Richer

[anonapersona]

If it is not too much trouble to move the lights towards the ends, I suggest doing it. I have one 55 watt in a 29 gallon tank and a 3 inch dark spot on each end, If I could I'd eliminate that. The AHS kits do a good job of throwing light to the front and back of the tank, but can't really throw it to the ends.

[fishfrenze]

Hi Aquavelva,

I have a 72 gallon w/live plants which has been running for about 2 months. I have been playing with the DIY yeast method without much sucess. I have three bottles going right now and I change one each week. I use 2 cups of sugar and 3/4 tsp. yeast. The pH has only gone from 7.6 to 7.2 (my KH is about 3). I think this weekend I will add another bottle to see if I can bring the pH down even more. I've mostly been playing with the reactor to see if I can get better dissolution (is that a word?). I have a Rio 600 pumping water into the top of a 20 oz coke bottle, the CO2 line coming in through the side of the coke bottle, and the bottom of the bottle cut off with a course netted "scrubbie" stuffed into the open bottom. This way, the CO2 comes in and the water forces it through the scrubbie, which breaks up the bubbles and the dissolved CO2 exits the bottom. I've got it now that you can't see anything coming out of the bottom of the reactor, so its all dissolving...before you could see tiny bubbles coming out. It still isn't up to par though.

In my 30 gallon though, I use one bottle, 1/4 tsp. yeast, and a "bell reactor" (mine is the bottom of a 20 oz coke bottle, upside down, with the CO2 line coming in through a hole in the top, so the Co2 just gathers under the "bell" and slowly diffuses into the water). I went from 7.6 to 6.6 and had to turn up my power filter just to get rid of some of the CO2! Strange how its so effective in that tank...so maybe you'll have better luck than my in your 75!

Melanie

[AquaVelva]

Melanie...
Thanks for the information. I will see how it works out for me. I just want to see how big a pain the DIY CO2 is, or if it works at all on a tank this size, and maybe later upgrade to a pressurized system. But is would seem that if the CO2 is being produced at a decent rate and all being dissolved, then it should be working. How are the plants in your big tank doing?
...AV

[fishfrenze]

AV,
I just added some more fast growers about 2 weeks ago. Previously, I just transferred my old plants from my 30 gal while I broke it down and changed the substrate.
The big tank has given me a run for my money! First, I had a cyanobacteria outbreak. I had to use antibiotics to get rid of it. (try dosing Maracyn on a 72 gallon! I should get insurance to cover the meds!!!) That's finally taken care of, but I have this brown algae that I thought might be a different form of cyano b/c it's kind of slimy. But I've seen the cories eating it, so it must not be cyano. That stuff is tough...I clean the glass and it is back on it in, literally, TEN minutes! The plants are slowly starting to outcompete the brown algae...both spp. of Hygrophila are growing well (not as well as they are in the 30 gal though) and the Egeria is coming along. The vals would be growing great if the Rainbows would stop eating it! The java fern put on like 6-8 leaves after I moved it from the 30 gal. And the Crypts are doing great...I love those plants... throw 'em in and they start growing immediately! So stuff is starting to come along....its no jungle though!

Melanie

[Richer]

A bit off topic, but I figured I should add this in.

Melanie - next time you have an algae outbreak, I would strongly advise against using any kind of chemicals to get rid of it. Instead, try using a blackout to rid your tank of algae. Do a 50% water change, and clean out the mechanical filters in your tank. Get either a few heavy blankets, or black trash bags and cover your tank. Raise your spray bars, or add an airstone+pump to increase surface aggiation. Shut off all your lights, and leave the tank in complete pitch black for 2-3 days. During this time, don't feed your fish, or do anything to the tank... don't worry, your fish and your plants will be fine. After that, remove your blankets/trash bags, lower spray bars, remove airstones, and do a 50% water change. All your algae should be gone by that time. To make sure they don't return, keep CO2 levels up and at a stable level, and make sure you're able to keep nitrate levels at around 5-10ppm and keep your trace/pottassium/etc. dosing at a decent level.
Blackouts can be quite effective to get rid of algae if you're able to keep nutrient and CO2 levels up afterwards. If you cannot keep those levels up, algae will return, whether you used chemicals or the blackout method.
The best part of the blackout method is that its competely free. Unlike those chemicals that you bought for your previous outbreak.

This (http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1374) might be interesting of a read for a couple of you. The post addresses algae and nutrient balances. There should be more posts like this in our archives. (http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?forumid=37)

HTH
-Richer

[fishfrenze]

Richer,
Thanks for your reply... Believe me, I tried that. This was horrible!! A while back I was communicating w/Tom Barr re: an outbreak in my 30 gallon, who also recommended the same thing as you did. Unfortunately, it got transferred to my 72 also. I always try everything I can before adding meds to the tank, but in this case, I was desperate! Now that I have the nutrient levels right (almost!), I hope to never have to deal w/that stuff again.
If its not one thing, its another...I wonder if I'll ever be able to look at my tanks and be satisfied!! :rolleyes: I know you all are shaking your heads, saying "nope!"

Melanie

[AquaVelva]

Hey...you guys are scaring me! I pictured a nicely lit tank, beautiful greenery, and happy fish. Now I am having visions of a tank of green stinky sludge! :-)

[fishfrenze]

haha, no that's just my tank. Most people have really nice tanks!

[The Gipper]

You might end up w/some algae or worse, but you will work your way out of it. I set up my first high tech plant tank (120 gal) last May. I had a green water break out, but no algae. had I followed the advice of those here, I could have avoided the GW. I tried to take a couple of shortcuts to speed things up (you can't rush Mother nature!).

Now things look great.