As mentioned already, CO2 gas tank system, get this first, then the high powered lighting.This is the classic recipe for algae, high light, no CO2.
I'd say 1/2 of new folks make this mistake. I did many moons ago. I thought I just needed high light and Iron. But the plants only did well in tanks with a good stable fish load that I did not do many water changes on.
And only after I removed some of the light.
CO2 is the thing you want/need if you want faster thick plant growth, this is likely why so many are into planted tanks. If folks had just non CO2 methods, this would not be a very popular part of the aquarium hobby.
The gas makes the plants grow about 10-20X faster.
That's 1000-2000%.
Light is part of this as well, but when you add more light=> more CO2 demand, louse that up, you get algae, then the higher CO2 demand => more nutrients, so then we dose those.
If you can keep those 3 things straight, then you are pretty good shape. Dose is easy for nutrients, since it's freshwater, do a large water change, add the ferts back, crank the CO2, watch fish and plants, and garden.
Don't wait and save up for the CO2, just do not use the light at full power, use 1/2 the bulbs till you get the CO2.
You might not quite know why and how about CO2 to justify it's importance like we are mentioning here, trust us though.
If you want to slow things down later when you have the CO2 running, reduce the light, if you run into algae issues, reduce the light.
You get the picture.
Good luck,
Regards,
Tom Barr
I'd say 1/2 of new folks make this mistake. I did many moons ago. I thought I just needed high light and Iron. But the plants only did well in tanks with a good stable fish load that I did not do many water changes on.
And only after I removed some of the light.
CO2 is the thing you want/need if you want faster thick plant growth, this is likely why so many are into planted tanks. If folks had just non CO2 methods, this would not be a very popular part of the aquarium hobby.
The gas makes the plants grow about 10-20X faster.
That's 1000-2000%.
Light is part of this as well, but when you add more light=> more CO2 demand, louse that up, you get algae, then the higher CO2 demand => more nutrients, so then we dose those.
If you can keep those 3 things straight, then you are pretty good shape. Dose is easy for nutrients, since it's freshwater, do a large water change, add the ferts back, crank the CO2, watch fish and plants, and garden.
Don't wait and save up for the CO2, just do not use the light at full power, use 1/2 the bulbs till you get the CO2.
You might not quite know why and how about CO2 to justify it's importance like we are mentioning here, trust us though.
If you want to slow things down later when you have the CO2 running, reduce the light, if you run into algae issues, reduce the light.
You get the picture.
Good luck,
Regards,
Tom Barr
