Light-Moderately planted tank and CO2

[ArkyLady]

Is CO2 injection necessary for even a light to moderately planted tank? I'm redesigning my 55gal and want to use some plants. Not going to go crazy with it, but a fair amount of plants. Right now looking at a riccia lawn and something to grow on my driftwood pieces (likely a fern, maybe java fern or java moss). Then a few taller plants for accents here and there.

I have a very low KH that I've managed to raise up to around 3 with the use of crushed coral in the filter. My PH settled in at around 6.8 with the amount of coral I've used. Out of the tap my water is KH <1 and PH of 6.2 which doesn't seem to be very favorable for CO2 injection.

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you!

[tyler]

i think riccia favors high light and co2 injection.

how much light to you plan on supplying to this tank?

[Richer]

Riccia does indeed favor high light, CO2 injected situations. They are normally floating plants out in the wild, so in a submerged situation, a high CO2 concentration and lots of lighting is needed.

In any case, lightly, moderately, or densly planted, as long as you go over 2wpg of normal flourescent lighting, you need to inject CO2... either that, or have a bunch of floating plants near the surface of the water to reduce the light that enters the tank. The line at which CO2 injection is needed gets a little blurry when you go into MH light (metal halide), compact fluorescents, etc.

HTH
-Richer