beginner to plants

J

Julianna

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Jan 16, 2003
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I just bought a 36 gallon bow front tank set up. (30x15x21H) . The lighting included is a double flourescent bulb 30 inch fixture (40 watts total). I want to include some plants in this set up, with fish being my main focus. Am I being to optomistic, or is there some way to make this lighting set up work. (i.e with better bulbs or d.i.y CO2, or whatever) Any suggestions. Keep in mind that I'm not terribly handy and I don't see myself building a new light fixture. :)

Thanks for your help, Julie
 
Aloha e Julie,

I run a low-light (~0.5 watts/gallon) planted tank, so I'll give you advice from that perspective.

When choosing plants make sure that they are low light plants. My lfs has little tags on the plants indicating whether they are low-, medium-, or high-light plants, and whether they are fore-, mid-, or back-ground plants.

I've got cryptocorne (lutea) in the foreground, java fern growing on bog-wood in the mid-ground, and water sprites in the background. All are doing quite well. The fern has little baby ferns prouting out all over it, and I just had to trim the sprites down to a manageable level.

I add fertilizer every other week when I do water changes.

I also have a DIY CO2 cannister going. I have no doubt that it helps quite a bit, but I don't know if it's neccessary. The mad scientist in me couldn't resist adding it. :p

The main key with a lowlight tank is patience. The plants take a while to really take root and they grow slowly. (But compared to my terrestrial plants they grow rather quickly).

HTH.
 
Thanks for that advice. it's good to know that I can be successful even if I don't have all of the bells an d whistles. How did you set up your CO2? I think that is something I will try.

Thanks again, Julie
 
With the right plants(low light) you can develope a very nice tank, especially with the addition of CO2. IMO, that's even more important for success than lots of light. What kind of filter do you use? If it's a hang-on-back filter, ie. AquaClear, you can run your CO2 line right into the uptake of the filter. I use a "reactor" for better absorption(smaller bubbles), but for your purposes you could get away with the above set up. I found that if I put an airstone on the end that goes into the uptake tube I get a much more even flow of CO2 and it doesn't make a swooooshing sound that I was getting without the airstone. Actually I use those disposable airstones because the CO2 destroys the regular ones after a few bottles of CO2 are run through it.
Len
 
DIY CO2

I was originally doing the 2-liter coke bottle thing. For diffusing I ran the tube under a hollow tank decoration. The CO2 pooled under there and then periodically 'burbed' out. I wasn't too happy with that, and I ran across the Hagen system which comes with a kewl diffuser. I bought it for the diffuser, but the other equipment is worth having also.

For those that haven't seen the Hagen system, the CO2 is output into a clear plastic device that is suction-cupped to the inside of the tank. The device consists of a series of zig-zagging baffles. As the bubbles zig zag along they gradually diffuse. It's pretty neat watching the bubbles shrink down to almost nothing.
 
I've got a 38-gallon planted tank, and I run two 20-watt fluorescents with it. (Sounds like what you've got.) One is a daylight (full-spectrum) bulb, the other is a "plant" bulb.

My plants are doing great, and I've got a big variety of them in there. I give them a shot of fertilizer once a week (Flourish). Moral of the story: don't be afraid to try some "higher light" plants along with the lower-light ones in your setup--they might do fine.

-- Pat
 
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