Thinking of trying live plants...

B

bzehr

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Oct 3, 2005
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I have had fish for a while and I have always just had fake plants. Now I am thinking of planting my 55 gallon tank. I really don't know much at all about keeping plants. I have been reading a lot on the subject and I have a few questions.

1) I am not set up for plants at all, mostly due to insufficient lighting. My 55 gallon tank has 2x15 watt flourescent bulbs and that is it. Am I going to have to completely upgrade the lighting to be even remotely successful with plants? Can I get away with just sticking a couple special bulbs in there (the LFS has "grow lights" that supposedly are better than regular bulbs). It seems to me like it is still only 15 watts so it won't work, but hopefully I'm wrong. Or could I just go with "low light" plants?

2) My substrate is just regular aquarium gravel. Will this be ok?

3) I read the sticky on DIY CO2 injection and it seems like a piece of cake. Using 3 cups of sugar, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and 1 teaspoon of yeast; how much CO2 is this going to introduce to the tank? My biggest fear is killing my fish by introducing too much CO2. Also, does it make a difference what kind of yeast I use? I went to the grocery store yesterday and there were like 6 different kinds (brewer's years, rapid rising yeast, active dry yeast, etc...)

Here is some other info, just in case it matters.
ph - 7.8
Kh - 8.4
Ammo/nitrite 0
Nitrates < 20 with weekly water changes
Inhabitants:
3 tinfoil barbs (about 4 inches and growing.. will be moving into a 180 in Jan)
5 giant danios
2 pictus catfish
1 pleco

Thanks and if there is anything else you think I should know, please share...
 
Yeah id say you will need to upgrade your lighting to try and get at least 1 Watt Per Gallon. If you stay under 3 watts per gallon, you dont really need to worry about C02 injection.

When you do upgrade your lighting, depending on how much you upgrade it will determine what kind of plants youll be able to get. Plants like Java Fern and Java Moss, Hornwort and Anubias will do well in the low light (1-2 WPG) range....and you need not worry about C02 in this case.

The plants should do fine in standard aquarium gravel as long as its about 3-4 inches deep. Also...getting an overall plant fertilizer is a good idea....you wont need much with a low light situation but a little bit once a week will help things out.

Keep asking questions and do research before you dive into anything and youll save yourself some big headaches down the road.
 
1) 30w over a 55g tank not enough light for even low light plants. Those special plant-gro bulbs are still the same wattage as a similar size tube, so they won't help. You will need 55+ watts in order to grow low light plants.

2) depends on the plant. Heavy root feeders like amazon swords will do better with a nutrient rich substrate while most stem plants receive much of their nutrients from the water and the substrate isn't important.

3) The formula you listed would be on the low end for a 55g tank, you may find out that you will need to have an additional bottle running in order to reach the optimum 15-35ppm of CO2. To measure your CO2 level, test your pH and kH and calculate it here.here
 
Thank you for the responses. I was afraid my lighting was too weak. Any suggestions on what to buy or where to buy it? How much money do you think we are talking about?

I just checked out Big Al's. They have a 24" with 2x15 watt bulbs for $35. If I got two of those, would that be ok? They also had a 48" 4x54 watt for $211 that would probably be great. If I needed something like that, I think the plastic plants would start looking a lot better.
 
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bzehr said:
Thank you for the responses. I was afraid my lighting was too weak. Any suggestions on what to buy or where to buy it? How much money do you think we are talking about?

I just checked out Big Al's. They have a 24" with 2x15 watt bulbs for $35. If I got two of those, would that be ok? They also had a 48" 4x54 watt for $211 that would probably be great. If I needed something like that, I think the plastic plants would start looking a lot better.
Click to expand...

The 2x15's won't do any better than you already have. Go for the 4x54's. :thm:
 
Galaxie said:
The 2x15's won't do any better than you already have. Go for the 4x54's. :thm:
Click to expand...

I think that is just more money than I am willing to spend. I found a 48" light strip with 3 40 watt bulbs for $100. I may go that route. That will give me a little over 2 watts per gallon. Do you think that would suffice? Would that still be considered low light, or moderate?
 
ttan said:
you could always build the light yourself, It could be much cheaper for you.
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Do you know where I can find some information on doing that?
 
bzehr -

What exactly do you want to accomplish with your planted tank? In other words, how much time do you want to invest in it? Do you just want enough light to grow a variety of low light plants which would require little time and expense feeding and pruning and over time develop nicely, or are you more into fast growing plants with more color that would require higher light and more of your time.
If you're like I was, years ago when I started with plants, you may not even know the answer to those questions.
If you don't, as an keeper of two 55's I would suggest to you, that you start 'small' and inexpensively, and if you want to jump in deeper as many of us do, you can re-mortgage the house and go nuts with all kinds of fancy lighting and CO2 injection.
Here are two 'cheapie' options:
You can get 80 watts over that tank with a shop fixture (about $15 - $20) and two 40 watt T-8 'daylight' tubes, for almost 1.5 wpg. Or you can do what I did and put two shop lights together and have 160 watts. The dual shop light option is a nice one and also fits nicely over a 55.
This arrangement would give you decent lighting cheaply and allow you to find out how much you like the hobby with live ones involved.

Len
 
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