I agree that choosing the plants for the light you have and planting heavily is the key to any tank, whether you have co2 or not. Most people start out,(myself included),and want to upgrade their lights because there are so many great moderate to high light plants not realizing that those same plants will usually grow with less light. They may not grow fast and sometimes the color will be a bit different but it is much better than having too much light and getting algae. I tend to think that co2 makes the transition to higher light plants easier but there are some folks who have more experience with those plants that do fine without it.
planted aquarium without CO2 Question
- Thread starter jemanser
- Start date
I appreciate everyones input., and the pictures are beautiful. Even with low lighting (some less than 1 watt/gallon) the growth is beautiful. BettaFishMomma can you share your routine, ie fertilizer regimien, lenght of light cycle,and what ever else you found helpful to maintain your healthy well balanced tank. My problem is that I have a 55 gallon with ~190 watts lighting( 2-96 watts JBJ aqua cf lighting setup) and dicontinued my DIY CO2 awhile ago(had good result but it became to cumbersome with the switching out of bottles). I did not reduce my photo period enough and the algae crept in on the leaves of the microsword and drift wood,ect. I guess it is trial and error process, but I have to reduce the lighting by half and see what happens or use a filter under the hood. Any advice with this or fert. regimens would be appreciated. What I have realized from everyones input is you can go without co2 but it is a different animal, and that high lighting with out co2 can be tricky when dealing with algae issues. I hope those who successfully maintain planted aqurims without pressurized co2 can share their success stories with specific in lighting periods and ferts, Thanks guys
ummmm...... what routine? lol!
seriously, i don't do much for this tank.
i dose 2 capfuls of flourish comprehensive when i remember (on average once a week).
the lights are just T8, two fixtures with a 20 watt bulb in each. i light the tank for about 12 hours a day. tank has glass tops that get scrubbed and scraped once a month - to keep mineral deposits from blocking light (i have hard water).
i don't touch my substrate, don't gravel vac it at all, unless i'm doing a major rescape then it gets churned up really well before a water change (i remove the fish from the tank for this).
tank gets completely rescaped at least 3 or 4 times a year (i love re-arranging things! lol)
i overfeed and overstock. my nitrates are quite often at 40 ppm before a water change. i do see a few nematodes here and there but the fish tend to eat them.
i'll be honest, i'm sporadic about water changes. looking back on my tank log, this tank gets a 50 to 70% water change about once a month, sometimes longer between water changes.
filtration is Aquaclear 110 hob with sponges and biomax, and a Marineland 350b hob with dual biowheels and sponge with polyester batting wrapped on the front. filters get cleaned about once a month.
i trim up plants and remove dying leaves about once a month.
that's about it! lol.
I was going to say, I had the most success with a low maintenance tank when I hardly paid any attention to dosing at all. A pinch of flourish/excel here or there was about it for me.
