I was given a 55G saltwater tank with liverock, livesand, and fish. I dumped the sand, gave the liverock and fish away to the local petstore, and cleaned the entire tank and system with NO CLEANERS. Just ALOT of hot water. I am using it as a freshwater tank. I set-up the wet/dry filter, and a heater. I have a mesh net in the wet/dry with carbon and phosphate sponge and placed a couple rocks from my cycled 20G in the tank. I am using black and blue sand and was wondering if that is ok to use for live plants. I've heard that laying a layer of the sand then a plant friendly substrate and then more sand will help. It's been cycling for 24 hours and I would like to get some plants in the tank to help. Also, is using a wet/dry ONLY and no other filtration a good idea? Again, I am using a carbon "sack" in the wet/dry container. Any suggestions?
Saltwater to freshwater
- Thread starter DaddyOf02
- Start date
A wet/dry filter is a very efficient filter for any setup, provided you have the recommended amount of water flow (measured by the water pump used) for the tank size. If it was enough for a saltwater tank than its enough for a freshwater one.
As a plant substrate, sand alone is a poor substrate for plants because they lack any nutrients used by plant roots. You can mix the sand with a plant substrate like flourite, aragonite, onyx sand, etc to provide them with the nutrients. You can also use root fertilizing tabs to do the same but I'm not a big fan of those, easy to disturb them when rearranging plants and that can lead to algae problems.
As a plant substrate, sand alone is a poor substrate for plants because they lack any nutrients used by plant roots. You can mix the sand with a plant substrate like flourite, aragonite, onyx sand, etc to provide them with the nutrients. You can also use root fertilizing tabs to do the same but I'm not a big fan of those, easy to disturb them when rearranging plants and that can lead to algae problems.
Is there any mix that works well with all plants in general? And also, if water is already in the tank is it still possible to add more substrate? Further, I was reading about CO2 injectors but was wondering if those are neccisary and when? Thnks in advance!
You will preferably want more of the plant substrate than sand, at least a 50/50 mix should be used. Flourite is pretty common in most LFS and is cheaper than some of the other plant substrates like Onyx Sand and Eco-Complete. You can add the extra substrate anytime, it doesn't have to be in uniform layers.
CO2 injection will depend on the amount of lights (measured in wattage) you have under the hood. CO2 isn't required until you have around 2wpg (watts per gallon) or more, though it'll still benefit plants at lower light levels. If you're using the saltwater setup, chances are you have alot of light since corals require more light than plants.
However, CO2 injection isn't very effective with a wet/dry filter, assuming its the trickle filter setup where water is overflowed into a sump like tank and then pumped back into the main tank. The trickling will gas off alot of the excess CO2 .
CO2 injection will depend on the amount of lights (measured in wattage) you have under the hood. CO2 isn't required until you have around 2wpg (watts per gallon) or more, though it'll still benefit plants at lower light levels. If you're using the saltwater setup, chances are you have alot of light since corals require more light than plants.
However, CO2 injection isn't very effective with a wet/dry filter, assuming its the trickle filter setup where water is overflowed into a sump like tank and then pumped back into the main tank. The trickling will gas off alot of the excess CO2 .
The tubes for the saltwater set-up were $30 each and it took 3 in the fixture I used so that's a little too expensive for lighting, so I bought 2 hood lights with a single fluorecent tube each. I'm planning on purchasing tubes made for plants, but again, each hood is only a single tube. Is that sufficiant to keep plants without a CO2 injector? Yes, it's the overflow, into a 10G with a bio-ball trickle pan, then a pump back into the tank. I've heard there is a liquid that helps with CO2. Does it work? Are there any other tips to keep plants in this wet/dry, sand based tank? And I guess what I'm asking more then anythign else is, Are plants a good idea for this? Or are they more trouble then they're worth with my set-up?