5.5 gallon tank growing Ricca

[bigtoeknee]

I am setting up a 5.5 g tank with a penguin 100 HOB. I will be using a 14watt screw in compact fl. 6500K. I am going bare bottom (no gravel) I would like to grow a carpet of Ricca over a nice rock. I will probably have 2-4 endlers and maybe some cherry shrimps. In this situation at 3 watts per gallon do you think I will need co2 or anything else for that matter.

Thanks Tony

 

[Viettxboii]

id go for more light and some co2 as the tank is smaller wpg ratings dont count. and also screw in lights arent as much as true, so you should prob. upgrade the lighting and try it, like one of those 27w screw ins, and DIY co2 may work.

 

[Mgamer20o0]

agreed. they are not effective as other power compact light. i would get a higher light bulb and co2 like viettxboii said.

 

[bigtoeknee]

I could add a socket on the other end of the light strip and do 2-14watt bulbs.
That would give me about 5 watts per gallon.

 

[Viettxboii]

like i said wpg doesnt count in such small tanks.
28 watts sounds good though, not sure if it will work....
I would halve the amount of watts getting in since its a screwin CF.. what i do on my tank..

 

[Ajordan]

Just curious why the wpg breaks down on small tanks? I usually think of small tanks being shallower meaning the light doesn't have to move through as much water meaning more light reaches the plants... this was just my gut feeling. I haven't researched it or put much thought into it but it seems counterintuitive (at the moment)

 

[bigtoeknee]

You are correct for shallow tanks you can get away w less light, remember alot of what you read here is based on opinion and some exp. best thing to do is research and trial and error

 

[SQUEAK]

I have an 8W on my little 5.5 gallon. I used a natural 'bell' to diffuse a bit of CO2 (ok, not very effective), and I could grow lots of riccia - in fact, more riccia than I wanted. Actually, I grew a lot of plants in there...

Excuse the poor photograph quality. There is no riccia in this one, however it's just to demonstrate that you really don't need tons of light to grow plants (albeit a rather jumbled assortment). With what you've got, I don't think riccia would be a problem at all.

Note that I have removed some of the plants - I was using it as a hospital tank at the time. These pictures are a bit out of date, the grass has about 6 plants to it on the chain.