Don't mean to sound dumm.......

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AquaBaby

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Nov 14, 2003
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I'm not getting this CO2 thing. I have 2 tanks. One is a 55 gallon long and one is a 20 gallon long made by Top Fin from Petsmart. When I called they said the lights on the 20 was 40 Watts Daylight and the 55 was 2 - 100 Watts daylight bulbs. Is this enough to grow plants? I also have two air stones in the 20 and 3 in the 55. I have a Whisper 30-60 HOB on the 20 which contain tigerbarbs and a pleco. I have a XP3 and 2 Whisper HOB on the 55 which house 7 Fancy Fantail Goldfish (various sizes) and 1 pleco. My other question is according to a my O2 & Iron test and the other normal tests my paramters are fine. i am also adding Flourish Iron, Flourish Excel and Flourish Tabs. Am I losing CO2 by using airstones and filters? I just planted a few plants last week and hope they will gow without adding more expenses or becoming a scientist to figure out those CO2/PH charts. I also use Proper PH 7.0 in both tanks. I read somewhere that using it alters some readings.

Please Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks,

AquaBaby :sad
 
The first thing you should do is double check those bulbs. Read what it actually says on the bulbs for wattage. The reason I say this is that I've never heard or seen any lights that come with a tank that have that much wattage. I wouldn't believe what they tell you at PetsMart.
Anyway, if I'm wrong and you really do have that much power, try to find out what they mean by "daylight bulb". If it means you have full spectrum, like about 6500k, then you have just about enough on the 20 gallon, and more than enough on the 55 gallon.
If this turns out to be the case, you wouldn't really need to inject Co2, but it would help an awful lot, if you really want a lush heavily planted tank.
 
also you will want to stop the airstones, any surface agitation will let the CO2 out of the water, also your HOB filters, try and keep the water level close to the output of the filter so it doesnt disrupt the surface too much either.
 
I have a couple of those very same 50 gallon tanks, they have 15w bulbs in each of the lids for a total of 30w. (for the split 2 piece tops). If you were lucky enough to get the glass hoods and light strips then you might have a single 40w bulb strip.

Either way, about the only plants that will handle the low light would be anubias (if you keep the phosphate down so the algae doesn't cover the leaves of the plant), some cryptocorynes (the red, bronze and green wendtii that is also sold at Petsmart), as well as java fern and java moss (if the water quality is good).

Basically the lower the light total the slower the plants will grow and with the standard lights that come with the tank you should at least be able to keepo the above plants alive without a lot of trouble. No additional CO2 is necessary, if you do decide to use a fertilizer, only add it at water changes which I recommend 20% once a week.
 
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