Help me seting up my 1st planted tank?

L

Lucas Kane

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Oct 10, 2005
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Hey guys im taking my FW tank up a level and putting in live plants here is the list and my tank specs look it over and tell me what u think. Remember this is my 1st time so let me have it heh :D

Micro Sword or
Dwarf Hairgrass 1

Anubias Nana or
Anubias Barteri Round Leaf

Java Fern 1

Red Cryptocoryne or
Green Cryptocoryne 1

Anacharis 2

Cabomba 2

Water Sprite 1

Substrate will be Flourite

My tank is 40gallon and its got a few pieces of driftwood and one fake wood thing my pleco likes to hide on :P

anyway that’s what I have now (plants I have not ordered yet but will. just wanted to ask u guys first)

Im guessing I will need CO2 of some kind so any suggestions on that would be helpful. I don’t really want to buy a huge CO2 pump with canisters and all that junk but I will if I need to.

Also I will get fertilizer when I need to so no problems there I believe.


Here is a list of the fish just in case u wanted to know
1 big common pleco(im selling him soon he is getting to big)
1 elegant or green Cory I cant tell >.>
1 Albino Rainbow Shark
and 1 zebra danio

Ok that’s it :D
 
Ditto on the wattage. We'll need to know the type of lighting - a couple of those plants you listed are medium/high light plants. The level of lighting will also factor in to whether you'll need some type of CO2 added. If you've got at least 80 watts of compact fluorescent light over the tank with a good polished reflector, you're probably good to go.
 
My lighting should be fine it used to be for my Reef tank but I converted it to a FW tank. Its compact fluorescent lighting 10K 96watt I believe. Not at my house at the moment and I don’t quit remember heh sorry I will find out.

I will work on a CO2 setup but do you think im overstocking my tank with plants?
If so tell me what you think I should cut out of the list

Thanks again :D
 
I don't think you're overstocking the tank at all. You'll probably need a good fertilizer regime though.

It would only be overstocked if you allow the plants to become overgrown and don't have anywhere for the fish to swim. ;)
 
lol cant have that fish got to swim :P

Ok well then i think this is what im going to do. Im going to go CO2less for a little while but then when i get more money i will buy one of those fermenting CO2 doohickeys >.>


Anyway thanks for the help keep an eye out in the members photo section for when I post b4 and after pics of my 40fw you all have helped me setup :D
 
Lucas Kane said:
Im going to go CO2less for a little while but then when i get more money i will buy one of those fermenting CO2 doohickeys >.>
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If you're going to get "one of those fermenting CO2 doohickeys", why not just do DIY CO2 ? It's the same yeast+sugar stuff for just a few bucks. If you don't have a lot of plants in there, you may be ok w/ DIY. Check out the sticky for CO2.
 
Good luck, I would wait till i had CO2 or your going to get alot of algae.

I suppose you could start with flourish excel and try that while your setting up CO2
 
justintoxicated said:
Good luck, I would wait till i had CO2 or your going to get alot of algae.
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Why should there be a lot of algae? 96 watts over a 40 gallon tank is only 2.4 watts-per-gallon. Hardly enough light to warrant C02 as a necessity.

I've got a tank with 3 watts per gallon and no C02 and have no problems with algae.

PS. Lucas: Cambomba is a pretty light-demanding plant. Not sure that your 96 watts is going to be enough...
 
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