Making an attempt to go from plastic to live...again...am I ready?

[tfish]

I have tried in the past to grow live plants in my 55 gallon, but have had little success. I only had the 30 watts of light that came with the tank, so I increased it to 160 watts of light. Result: green water. :Pmad: I put in a bunch of fast growing stem plants. No help. Covered the tank for 4 days and green water was gone. So were 3 of my fish. :eek: Added DIY CO2 but I could never get to work right. That didn't matter because as fast as I was putting CO2 into my water, the excess surface turbulance of my Emperor 400 filter pushed it all out. Result: algae growth on my plants. Because of this growth, they could not photosynthesize, and passed on to a higher place. Anyhow, through all of my attempts, my most successful growing plant was algae. I tossed in the towel and converted to plastic.

Time has passed and so has my anger, so I am willing to try again. I am only going to increase that wattage to 80 this time and I have opted to go for just lower light tolerable plants such as java fern, anubias, and maybe amazon sword. (BTW, my java fern has actually done quite well since I put the 30 watts back on and forgotten about it. I started with 2 plants and now have six!) Anyhow, I decided to check some water quality stats and here is what I found:

Nitrates: 10ppm
pH: 8.2 :(
GH: 11 degrees (should I be worried?)
KH: 5 degrees

What do you think about that stats? What types of things do I need to address? By looking at my pH and KH, it is pretty evident that my CO2 in next to nothing so I will need to do something about that, yes? How about my GH -- should I attempt to do something to lower it? It looks to be a tad high. Any advice you can offer would be great!! Also, any tips on how to increase my wattage from 30 to 80 watts with the least amount of algae growth possible? Thanks again for any help!! :D

PS: Here are some fish stats if they are helpful: congo tetras, danios, livebearers and otos

[125gJoe]

I recently mentioned this, and most likely, you have read that you will need to plant very heavily at first -- 80% heavy. This will stop the algae blooms. Your better lighting will help out too..

[Fishiebusiness]

why not invest in a good co2 system and go with your full 160 watts? CO2 is the key to growing any plant you want, and a decent pressurized system can be had for 150 dollars or so.

[125gJoe]

Originally posted by Fishiebusiness
why not invest in a good co2 system and go with your full 160 watts? CO2 is the key to growing any plant you want, and a decent pressurized system can be had for 150 dollars or so. That is a good idea.... Hope you can get one, if not you can still have nice live plants. The CO2 really "kicks in" the plant growth - amazingly so! ;)

[Richer]

Your water is fine for plants. For 80 watts, anubias, java ferns, java mosses, etc. will work fine. During this time, you might want to look into experimenting with CO2 again. Low lighted tanks don't need it, but it does help your plants a bit.
Judging from your current nitrate levels, and the fact that you tried DIY CO2, my best guess at why you had so many algae problems was that you didn't have a high enough nitrate level (5-10ppm), and your CO2 concentration wasn't good enough. DIY works fine, but only for small tanks. Once you get into larger tanks such as yours, you need multiple CO2 bottles. Thats where a pessurized system would step in. They are more expensive, but are well worth the price in the long run.

HTH
-Richer

[Tempest]

If you stick with the Emperor, you can use a sponge on the output to lower the turbulence. I cut a large one in to several slices then rubberband them on my penguins to make a sort of spout under the water level. I also took off the biowheels. Obviously, I'd chose another filter if I had it to do over.

[tfish]

Wow! Thank you for all of your input! I just have a few additional questions...

80gjoe -- You said that I should start by planting heavy. Do you have any suggestions as to what kinds of plants I could start with considering my 80 watts of light over a 55 gallon. (I may go back to 160 later, but I need to ease back into it.:) )

Also, since I am transitioning my lighting from a wimpy 30 watts to a tad better 80 watts, is it necessary to make the increase gradual? I think I remember reading somewhere that making a drastic lighting change too fast would be bad. I remember someone suggesting to simply place strips of toilet paper between the light and the glass canopy to shield some light out. Then, over the course of a few days/weeks :confused: , taking off the t.p. to let in all of the light. What do you think? Good tip or waste of Charmin?

Tempest -- Thanks for the filter tip! Dumb question -- do you use regular sponges or aquarium filter sponges? I tried the filter sponges and they definitely worked, but they often turned green thanks to all of my algea problems and were a pain to continually clean.

I am considering trying the Emperor 400 modifications again, but I am also thinking of just getting a different filter. Any suggestions?

Thanks to all for your help! Receiving your input, reading through all of the other messages in this forum, and seeing some of your wonderful pix has really inspired me to give this another go!

[125gJoe]

Originally posted by tfish
Wow! Thank you for all of your input! I just have a few additional questions...

80gjoe -- You said that I should start by planting heavy. Do you have any suggestions as to what kinds of plants I could start with considering my 80 watts of light over a 55 gallon. Most plants will be fine. Crypts are slower growers.. The plants that are not green, but brownish, etc.. need higher lighting. Vals, Anarachis, Hornwort, Wisteria, Water Sprite, Corkscrew Vals, and others will be good. The main thing is to plant heavy. :)

[Tempest]

I slice up aquaclear 500 sponges. I've learned to keep extras around to replace *grungies* although I'd think the grungy ones have a good bacterial field. I use a prefilter sponge and a thing that looks like a plastic choregirl on my Co2 reactor and that one requires a cleanup more often to keep it all unclogged. I keep an extra on hand and soak the dirty one out in clorox water.. It can then be reused after you rinse it well, let it dry good, then soak it again in water with declorinater in it. The final soak is for *paranoia* at maybe still having chlorine in them.

[wetmanNY]

Is there any practical way for you to do a 50% water change with distilled water? That would cut into your very high buffering.

You'd have to be topping up with distilled afterwards, and doing 50 tap/50distilled water changes. That might be impractical in the long haul...

A water softener can be used if you'll change out the brine recharging solution from sodium chloride to potassium chloride. (The plants will be glad to take up the potassium, so you'll actually be ahead.)

[val]

tfish, to Aquaria Central, home of the greenest fishkeepers on the internet:)

I don't have much to add, being a fully certified black thumb of both submerged and emersed plants, but wanted to welcome you on-board...

Val

[Tempest]

Wetman, I think you misread his kH. His first post said kh of 5. He was concerned about the gH being high.