Having plant trouble....

Feafur

Feafur

Mrs. Mayo
Apr 17, 2007
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Seagrove, NC
www.zakar-norfolks.com
I'm hoping I didn't...but, I think I may have shot myself in the foot. Ok...for alot of you who are very experienced in large tanks, please forgive me. I am new to all of this large tank stuff. I have a 180 gallon tank with very few fish currently. I laid down some plain old gravel and then put sand on top of that...I have a few rocks scattered around. Here's the problem. I then decided to add plants. I should have read up more on adding plants, as I have now done since they are DYING! Almost everything I read says that they need some sort of substrate and CO2. So, am I completely screwed? I sure as heck don't want to have to take all that gravel and sand back out and the ad that I purchased the plants ( on ebay ) said that I would not need CO2 for these plants...any suggestions? I've already lost the pearlgrass and the Amazon Swords are getting brown spots. The plants that look like bamboo are almost completely colorless now....I would shoot you a picture, but I'm not sure how to do that either! Please help! Thanks, Kim
http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=12466829608.521580432208.1189447467732&page=1
 
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The first thing we need to know is how many watts of light do you have running?
 
Well...I have the regular lights up there that came with the tank (flourscent type ) and then I added 2 full spectrum lights that I had on some bird cages ( used for keeping them in breeding season! ) All I can remember about them is that they say 5,000K and I believe they are 91% full spectrum....hope that helps. If you need more info...I can see if I see anymore specs on them....
 
the sand and rocks should be fine.

HOWEVER you said you have very few fish currently.. my guess is that the plants dont have any food (they "eat" fish poo)
and with a tank that size (or that deep) you need some pretty strong lights to get down to the bottom of the tank. i can't advise you on the lighting, but i can suggest buying aquarium plant food. (you should be able to find it wherever you buy your plants/fish)
 
get the wattage from the bulbs and add them up
5000k is the 'heat' of the bulb rated in Kelvins
what is most important is getting enough light to the plants.
and in the right spectrum
daylight bulbs usually cover the full spectrum

how deep the tank is will have some bearing on how much light you need.

the WPG rule is out the door on the large tanks.

normally 2 wpg is considered high enough to keep many plants without adding CO2. adding CO2 will help in most situations,
gravel and sand for substrate is fone for many plants.
but gravel is usually inert and some root feeding plants will need fertilizer tabs(sword)

other plants feed from the water column.

planted tanks are differetn than non planted in that you want some nitrtates to show..usually the minimum nitrates need to be atleast 10 ppm as the plants will need the nitrates .

how deep is the tank?
 
Most likely you need more lighting meaning stronger lights then the standard lights that come with the tank. Those lights are fine for viewing the fish but it has been my experience that they just do not measure up when it comes to live plants. I have 4 double strips of t-5 lighting for my 125 and it is adequate as long as I do not try to grow anything too elaborate. Also it sounds like for a tank that size you may need to add more fish. The plants thrive on the waste produced from the fish. Plant food will also help if you have some plants like amazon sword plants. The substrate you have is fine to grow plants in. There is no need to change it out unless you do not like the way it looks in your aquarium.

Marinemom
 
I was just thinking, plant food. Swords tend to need iron suppliments, and flourish makes a very good one. Or you could get the general flourish treatment, which will keep the swords looking good, but not growing huge, and should help everything else a good bit.
 
Ok...I bought some seachem flourish excell....one bottle and then realized it said I needed to add almost a bottle of this DAILY! :( Man....having a big tank is expensive! DUH... I guess I need to go and buy ALOT more fish and ALOT more light. My lights that came with the tank say 25W...there are 4 of those and the full spectrum lights say 40W and there are 2....so I guess I don't even have close to what I need light wise. Oh...the tank is 24" tall. I do have about 3-4" of gravel and sand on the bottom.
 
well, you could go and get some plant substrate, sometimes it is really cheap, here atleast, and mix it in with the sand. I'm just curuise as to what it is stocked as for now.
 
Sad to say ( and people who are dying to fill a large tank will quiver )
It only has 2 green spotted puffers, 3 glass fish, 2 albino tiger barbs, 1 large pleco, 1 cory cat and 1 danio...whom I haven't seen in a little while! )
Any suggestions on types of fish I could add that wouldn't cost me a fortune? My biggest wish is to have some discus, but I'm still doing research on them and making sure I can handle the pressure of such delicate fish! I want to do everything right before adding something like that! I have a really good deal on buying a large group of them.... 6 for 170.00 and that includes shipping, but I haven't done it just yet!
 
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