Setting up new planted tank

[mrakins]

I wasn't quite sure what forum to put this is in, as it combines questions about fish with stuff about plants--but I figured with so much uncertainty, it must be a newbie question! Sorry, this'll probably be longwinded as things are still crystallizing in my mind...

I recently lost most of my fish, so my survivor's in a 10g while I get the 45g (36x12x24) back up and running. Right now it's fishlessly cycling. Since I'm starting over, I'm trying to do more planning this time to make the tank look more natural. Out with the fluorescent gravel, in with the sand! I'd like to include plants in the mix, as I like how natural plants look, but want the focus of my effort to be on the fish. After reading posts here, I checked out ahsupply.com. They recommended either a 96W or 2x36W for my setup. But, they also brought up another point--some fish will prefer avoiding the bright light. So, my questions are--will either of those setups drift into the CO2, frequent fertilizer realm? I'd like to avoid both of those for now (although this addiction might lead me down that road eventually ;) ) and don't mind the limitation on plant choice. Also, are there any fish that would be ruled out by the higher lighting, or could that be mitigated with lots of hiding places and some floating plants? The woman at ahsupply mentioned cardinal tetras as usually hiding from the bright lights.

FWIW, fish I'm considering at the moment include rasboras, tetras, cherry barbs, platies (to go with my survivor), cories, and/or maybe some of the smaller loaches. I'll take stocking suggestions for such a tank, too!

Thanks!

-Mike

[Swimfins]

Number one issue: Lighting. Fish will adapt to the higher light I've found. My gourami went from a 2 watt per gallon tank to a large tank with 3.9 or so watt per gallon. They used to spook when the power compact kicked on, but now its old hat. No problems there. There may be some species that this could bother, (nocturnal ones)but in general for what you plan to keep light is no the issue.
If you upgrade your lighting, you will need co2. For a small tank, you can use flourish excel as a carbon substitute, but high light tanks require co2, no getting around it. C02 is not at all difficult to set up and maintain. 2 Hagen natural plant systems would work on your 45g tank if you don't want the hassle of diy co2. (but its a cinch once you know how)
Sand is not the best medium for plants, but if you fortify it with a planted tank substrate or an additive like laterite or terralit, it can work well. Or mix half-half with flourite to save costs. (use the flourite as a base).
If you plan on seriously planting this tank (why got to the lighting expense if your not?) you will need an aquatic plant soil. Profile is cheap and good. I'm using it in my 25g betta tank with alot of success. Its available at Home Depot in the pond equipment department (garden center).
Good luck.
Remember, its better to start right than to have to change things as you go along. You can save money by buying the right things from the start.

[mrakins]

Number one issue: Lighting. Fish will adapt to the higher light I've found. My gourami went from a 2 watt per gallon tank to a large tank with 3.9 or so watt per gallon. They used to spook when the power compact kicked on, but now its old hat. No problems there. There may be some species that this could bother, (nocturnal ones)but in general for what you plan to keep light is no the issue.

That's good to hear--that was my biggest worry, that I'd limit my fish choices with the lighting.


If you upgrade your lighting, you will need co2. For a small tank, you can use flourish excel as a carbon substitute, but high light tanks require co2, no getting around it. C02 is not at all difficult to set up and maintain. 2 Hagen natural plant systems would work on your 45g tank if you don't want the hassle of diy co2. (but its a cinch once you know how)

Right now, I'm at ~.5W/gal, which I'm guessing is too low to grow anything (perhaps even too low to keep plants alive?). Jumping to 72-96 W would give me somewhere between 1.6 and 3.6 wpg (depending on how much you believe ahsupply's claim that they direct a 50% increase in light into the tank). I've read elsewhere that ~2.5 wpg is a decent cutoff for CO2 injection. Where do the ahsupply bulbs fall into this?


Sand is not the best medium for plants, but if you fortify it with a planted tank substrate or an additive like laterite or terralit, it can work well. Or mix half-half with flourite to save costs. (use the flourite as a base).
If you plan on seriously planting this tank (why got to the lighting expense if your not?) you will need an aquatic plant soil. Profile is cheap and good. I'm using it in my 25g betta tank with alot of success. Its available at Home Depot in the pond equipment department (garden center).

I'm not too worried about the sand--I'll be mostly planting plants that use their roots primarily for anchoring. And a lot of those will be attached to driftwood, rocks, etc, so the substrate won't matter so much.


Good luck.
Remember, its better to start right than to have to change things as you go along. You can save money by buying the right things from the start.

That's why I'm here asking questions--I want to make sure to get this right (enough). Thanks for the help!

[Tom.E]

IME, 90w of NO light and above on a 45G needs CO2 supplementation to avoid algae headaches and growth deficiencies. For a low light 45g and no CO2 injection you might want to consider 60w of light with tall growing hardy plants. Swords, Water Sprite, Java Fern, etc… For a good low light stem plant there’s Rotala Indica.


Tom

[Swimfins]

Rotala indica is alot happier under highlight, I think. It brings out the pinks and peach colors in the plant.

For what you plan mrakins, 2 - 2.5 watt will be suffficient. But even at 2 watt, I found supplemented co2 beneficial to keep algae at bay and by boosting rate of growth and nutrient consumption so the plants absorb more and the algae less.

[mrakins]

It sounds like about 2 wpg is what I should aim for, then. The more I think about this, the more I figure that I want the light to be right around the point where algae's a minor problem. That way, I'll be able to settle into the tank and figure out the plants before pushing their growth by adding CO2. Baby steps...

Does anybody have advice on the ahsupply kits? In calculating wpg should I just use the normal value or should I assume they really are 50% brighter than normal?

[Swimfins]

The reflector they offer is very good. Yes, a good reflector will concentrate light and almost double the intensity, It is not afalse claim. Many people have used their products with alot of success. I have heard good things about AHS, altho I haven't used them.
I bought my 220 watt jebo on ebay for less than what they are charging for a diy. (I can't do anyhthing by myself) But if your handy, they are good.
Even so, calculate watt per gallon. You can't really have toooo much light and will probably be thankfull for it when your plants respond. :)

By the way, I found algae easier to manage with higher light. Your co2 setup is a big help and after the initial new tank syndrome and the plants take off with high growth, algae disappears. Plant heavilly at the start with nitrogen sponges like hygropholia difformis, and anacharis. You can even leave anacharis floating and remove it after things are in balance. I found algae a problem in lower light tanks with excess nutrients that the plants didn't need, however, the algae were happy for it. Algae is algae, be ready by learning how to deal with them as they arise. Don't fear the algae, just find out what causes it and remove the cause.

[mrakins]

I think I'll go with their 96W bulb then. It seems a shame to spend pretty much the same amount of money to get the 2X36. Plus, I've been spending a lot of time reading up on CO2 for the last few days (work? what work?), and it really doesn't seem so bad. I guess I may as well dive right in here!

[Swimfins]

Your right to go ahead... You will have a happy planted tank and there's always lots of advice under the Aquatic plants thread.
Plant geeks.com is another placeto get good advice and inspiration. :clap:

[Gunnie]

Your right to go ahead... You will have a happy planted tank and there's always lots of advice under the Aquatic plants thread.
Plant geeks.com is another placeto get good advice and inspiration. :clap:

I agree with swimfins on the plantgeek suggestion. All my tanks with live plants are low light and low tech. You don't need a lot of fancy equipment to have a beautifully planted tank. More light just gives you more options on what types of plants to add. I would upgrade my lighting like you are planniing to do though. Here's a great article you might find interesting:

Setting up your first planted tank (http://www.plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=17)

[happychem]

I thought of one thing while reading your post, if it's not too late, try to find a dark coloured substrate. I've got both the reddish fluorite and white filter sand and I like the fluorite much better, plus it hides crud better.

If you've got the money for the initial payout, go with pressurized CO2. You can probably get a reasonably cheap tank locally and build your own diffuser. But invest in a good quality regulator and needle valve, these two are too important to want to risk low quality. You can still go the DIY route with a 45g, but it'll be a fair bit of work and if you're serious about it, I figure that the pressurized setup pays for itself in about one year, if not in dollars completely, in time and frustration for sure.

[FishSeller]

Florida Drifwood.com has a pretty decent CO2 pressurized set up for reasonable money.

I have an Eheim Carbo Plus unit on a 29 planted and I've been pretty happy with it. It's a pretty simple carbon block that uses a mild electric current to produce CO2 (from what I understand). I must admit that I haven't tested my CO2 in a long while, but my plants seem to grow faster and show better colors than friends that don't use CO2, but have similar set ups. I've heard that problems can arise if you're running a tank with a ph below 6.5 or so with these units but I haven't seen it. I try to keep mine somewhere between 6.8 and 7.0.

As far as fertilizers are concerned, I add Flourish, Flourish Trace, Flourish Iron and Flourish Potassium about every week. However, if I see algae creeping up, I'll cut back. I add tablets about every other month. It doesn't take long to see a pattern and learn the "rhythm" of your tank and you'll begin to pick out "indicator" plants that will let you know it's time to bump up your fertilizer.

Earlier posts are correct: use bunch plants in the beginning to suck up excess nutrients. For low maintenence though, I've replaced bunch plants with taller, slower growing specimens like vals, crinums, and apontogetons. You'll create the height without the work of constantly pruning. Depth can be established with midground plants like Anubias, Crypts, and others.

If there were anything I'd do differently, I'd spend more time planning my layout and figuring out where I want my focal point to be, where I want open areas, what combination of colors/textures I'd prefer, etc. I would also put in a substrate cable heater! They're much less expensive than they were a few years ago, and from what I've read, they can be very beneficial. If I'm not mistaken, you can get one from a mail-order house for about what you would pay for a decent tube heater at a LFS. If you opt to go with one, I would certainly recommend mixing your sand with gravel to avoid compacting. Off the top of my head, I would imagine you would negate the benefits of a cable heater if your sand is packed too tight.

[happychem]

It depends what we mean by "sand". #2-#3 silica sand (as either blasting grit or filter sand) won't compact and cause problems. It's about 3mm in diameter and is pretty smooth.

If you want to use a substrate heater instead of a standard heater, have at it, it'll be one less obstruction in the tank. But as far as benefits to plant growth go, highly overrated, espcially if you're not gunning for heavy root feeders. Since most stem plants draw the majority of their nutrients from the water column, the heater would not be any benefit to them, since if I recall, the main claim of effectiveness for substrate heating is root growth. There was a thread on it in the planted tank forum a long time ago, try a search on substrate heater with an open end to the date range, we're going back months.

[mrakins]

Hmmm...so I've been looking into this substrate issue. Right now I've got pool filter sand which I like the look of. It's brownish with lots of variability in color--so it'll hopefully hide the gunk pretty well. I saw a tank in a store with the white sand--it looked sort of nice, but it mostly just showed the dirt, kind of like a white car. I'm trying to figure out about adding something to the sand to enrich it. Fluorite? Laterite? What plants need the enriched substrate? Obviously things attached elsewhere don't. And I think I've figured out that stem plants don't. What does? Looking at plantgeek, it looks like a lot of the ones mentioned as root feeders are in the rosette category. Are those the root feeders?

[Swimfins]

yes, swords, vals, anything that doesn't put out arial roots is a substrate feeder :) You can layer laterite, terralit, or flourite beneath your sand, however once you plant, the plants should stay put, otherwise you risk hashing up the bottom layer. Believe me, you'll move plants. Mine are nomadic.

I'm wondering why you want to use sand in your tank. Profile aquatic soil is pretty cheap and the plants seem to like it. I'm using it in my 25g betta tank,
it looks nice, good color and texture and inexpensive.

[mrakins]

I want to use sand largely for the fish--cories and loaches. Basically, I'm trying to figure out how best to balance the needs of the fish and the plants. I finally found a picture of the Profile in one of Leopardess's posts. It does look nice, but I'm wondering about how it'll be for the bottom dwellers. Plus, I'm not sure how many substrate changes I get before my wife draws the line... :rolleyes:

[mrakins]

Also, I've been reading the Profile is too light and easily stirred up for moving plants around. I'm guessing you don't find that?

[happychem]

Profile's not a bad substitute, but it's definitely lighter (in both weight and colour) than Fluorite. Mixed with sand or Fluorite it would be fine as a substrate enricher, but I couldn't see using it on its own.

One piece of advice for substrate, think very carefully about your goals for this tank. If you think that this tank will evolve into an intensive planted tank effort, go with something like Fluorite or Eco-Complete perhaps with some Profile or Turface mixed in to help lower the cost. If this tank is just to be a forray into the planted tank realm and if successful than a different tank will be set up for a more intensive effort, then go with the sand and save the money for the next tank.

Substrate is the hardest thing to change after the tank is set up, so err to the side of quality and you won't be disappointed.

Have you checked out: www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua ? There's lots of good info there, read all the articles. Chuck's also archived Karen Randall's AFM articles which are quite good and worth a read. Some notions have changed since the articles have been written (for example, it's unlikely that trace elements are a cause of algae), btw, so don't rely on them biblically, but there's definitely some good info. His planted tank nutrient calculator is a great app. But if you want something more in depth, check out Reiverix's H2Overview program, I think that there's a link to it in has sig.

[Swimfins]

Also, I've been reading the Profile is too light and easily stirred up for moving plants around. I'm guessing you don't find that?

If you disturb any planted substrate, you'll get alot of cloud which lasts a short time before it settles. I'm using 100% profile in my betta tank with small fish and no bottom feeders, except for 2 cameroon filter shrimp which will be moved later. I love the clean look of it and the fact I have nearly no algae in my tank. I wonder if the profile has an algacide in it?
I highly recommend Profile. Its nice to dig your fingers into when planting, its a clay and is nice and soft. Once a bio-film covers it, its not anymore easily disturbed than sand. In fact, I had sand before, with my firtst setup and found it to be about as dustier than the Profile and not as visually appealing.
The color is a bright sandy beige. It offsets the plants really well.

You can mix it with sand as Happychem suggested, but personally, I'd use it 100%. I'm sure cories and loaches will love it. I like the feel of digging my finger into it, I found sand was too sharp and it roughed up my hands alot when I planted. The Profile is alot nicer on your fingers and cory whiskers, believe me. :)

[mrakins]

Let's just say that I do go ahead and change out my substrate. How much (poundage) would I need of the Fluorite or Profile to cover a 36" x 12" bottom to a decent depth. I'm not quite sure where this tank will go in terms of planting, so I'm definitely leaning towards "overdoing" the substrate.

[happychem]

2 bags will give you a minimum depth. My 33g is the same footprint and I used 1 bag Fluorite and 1 bag Profile. If I were a little more diligent with sloping the substrate towards the back it would be perfect, but I'm not so I'd say that a third bag would be ideal for me. Of course, if I didn't grow stem plants that needed uprooting and trimming every week or two then it wouldn't be an issue. ;)

[mrakins]

Just checking here--Fluorite I think only comes as 7kg. Profile can (only what I've read on this forum) come as 10 lb or 25 lb. Which did you use? Thanks!

BTW, you guys might recieve angry calls from my wife :)

[happychem]

The only bags I could find came as 5kg bags, so I'm thinking 10lbs.

[mrakins]

Oh yeah--forgot you're in Canada :duh: You can speak to me in kgs if you want :)

This is off-topic, but there seem to be a lot of Canadians on this forum. Are Canadians skewed towards fishkeeping? Is this board skewed towards Canadians? Or is my sample too small?

[Swimfins]

Oh yeah--forgot you're in Canada :duh: You can speak to me in kgs if you want :)

This is off-topic, but there seem to be a lot of Canadians on this forum. Are Canadians skewed towards fishkeeping? Is this board skewed towards Canadians? Or is my sample too small?

LOl maybe us canucks is just a weeeeeeee bit friendlier. :joke: :)

[happychem]

Hehe, I think that your sample is too small and so your statistics are skewed. :D