new to plants.. need some advice

[3mrhythm]

i have a 90 gallon with 2x96w of PC lighting

and i want to do some live plants..

i scored a piece of driftwood that spans the whole length and heighth of the tank!

and i would like to have something grass like for the bottom of the tank... nothing tall

i have the tank setup and just added a couple lyre tail swords as guinea pigs... if they do well after a few days i'll go get some more...


i would like to do fiddler crabs and some shrimp as well.. are they going to eat the plants?

thanks!

i mainly just want to do tetras and maybe one pair of torquoise gouramiis... i need to get a few catfish ..like those small octisomethingorothers and some farawellas ... but i think it will be neat.. i dont want to deal with c02 unless i can do it REALLY cheap... i am not against adding some lateralite as well if need be ...

so suggestions?

 

[Kissofthegorami]

Fiddler crabs prefer brackish water and need land. Shrimp are great. Amano shrimp are less likely than some of the other to get eaten and they will eat algae.

 

[tanker]

At about 2 watts per gal your semi-limited on your plant choises. Also a 90 is just a tall 75gal so again less light will reach the bottom.

You can try some anubius on the wood, that will grow well under your lights. For for-ground try some small cryps. (nevilli, bechetti, willisii, ect).

PS-- you do not need CO2 with only 2 watts per gal.

 

[happychem]

Try some Echinodorus tenellus. I've seen it growing with less light than you have. You've got more than 2 wpg, and it's pc lighting, which produce more light/watt than NO lighting, so the standard wpg "rule of thumb" doesn't really apply.

I might be inclined to tie some java fern onto the lower parts of the wood and some sloping up. Then maybe try some anubias nana right at the top, I'll bet you that you can get it to flower there.

Crypts are a good call too. You may try some balansae crypts for mid-round if you can find them.

 

[knashash]

You've got more than 2 wpg, and it's pc lighting, which produce more light/watt than NO lighting, so the standard wpg "rule of thumb" doesn't really apply

Never knew that.....so is there a different WPG rule for CF lighting?

 

[happychem]

Not really, the rule itself is pretty hand wavey. It's just a matter of recognising that the wpg rule was arrived at using standard T12 NO bulbs over moderate sized tanks (say 15-90g, but 90 could be considered on the outside of the upper limit).

So if you're dealing with T8, T5, pc bulbs you just recognise that you've got more light/watt. The benchmarks with wpg are pretty broach anyway. For example, one might say that CO2 (or carbon supplementation) should be used when lighting is greater than 2.5 wpg. So if you had, say 2.4 wpg PC, you might decide to round up to the 2.5wpg benchmark.