Thinking of a planted tank, any suggestions

[MySpace Mike]

I have a 18 gallon cube tank I use for my Convict Cichlid fry, I was wanting to change it into a planted tank for the fry. I would be doing the following

Submersible heater set to 78*, 2 Power filters with polyested fiber fill to keep the water clear. Has natural sand as substrate, but I was wanting to add in a bit of API Pure Laterite under the sand for the plants, I would be setting up a DIY 2 liter bottle co2 using bakers yeast and sugar to produce co2 into the tank, and adding in once a week seachem flourish for the plants.

I have a coralife 30" t5 plant lamp for it. Would this work as a setup. I would like to have the following plants.

Drift wood with java moss strung to it.

Java Fern

Medium Amazon Sword

Cabomba around the back corners

and some corkscrew val around the back and sides.

Let me know if you have better ideas or plants to work with.

[MySpace Mike]

Here's a couple pics of the tank, it houses around 100 1/4" Convicts Fry and a 3" Rubberlip Pleco.

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/2922/18ggalon001.jpg

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/3689/18ggalon002.jpg

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5226/18ggalon003.jpg

[odinthejd]

Yeah thats sounds like you have a good plan. For the co2 you will want a bubble counter or something along the lines of that because with the homemade co2 all the co2 wikll go into the water and will be more co2 than o2 and your fish will die. So make sure you have a regulator of some kind. You may want to think of getting Eco-complete substrate so your plants will flourish. Than you can sell the plantlets and make a meager profit of this. All together it sounds like you got a good idea.

[MySpace Mike]

I was also thinking of some shorter grass plants in the front. kind of like the Brazilian micro sword or something comparable to it.

[MySpace Mike]

I like the eco-comeplete I will add some under the sand because I want the sand look on top of the substrate as like a natural river bottom look.

I already have alot of the stuff I'll be using such as the drift wood, filters, heater, medium/large river rock. Just need to get the live plants, eco complete, and set up the co2 system.

The co2 will be a 2 liter bottle into a 16oz empty pepsi bottle then out to the tank, this will help if any of the yeast gets into the tubing it'll get caught into the smaller pepsi bottle. I'll be picking up a bubble ladder to slow down the co2 bubbles into the tank,and can act as a bubble counter.

Let me know if I'm on track here with my ideas

[67chevelle]

The easiest way to diffuse the CO2 would be with a wood airstone,
http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ctl3684/cp18288/cl0/woodenairstones
With one 2 liter of DIY CO2, I would not worry about overdosing your tank with it,or worry about getting the ladder.Just run it through an airstone and you should be fine.
Eco Complete is not necessary,but won't hurt either.Root tabs will give you the same results.

[MySpace Mike]

I was hoping to go with API Pure Laterite under the sand since I had huge success with it in the past planted tanks I've done. Along with seachem's flourish once a week liquid additive.