Plant bulbs and fertilizer.

blackwolfXKAV

Homo sapiens
Apr 20, 2006
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New England Abroad.
Ok, i know what youre thinking, that it was a rash decision and that i should have reasearceh it first,but here goes.
10 gallon(the first one in the sig)
Just now i went over to my Petco and purchased another Coralife Mini Compact Flourescent 50/50 10 watt bulb. this will make the second bulb in my tank, so that should put me at about 2 wpg. the 50/50 part is supposed to be 50% 10,000 K and 50% Actinic 03 blue. I also purchased one piece of driftwood and 8 plant bulbs. 4 were an "assortment of Aponogenton" and 4 were either waterlily, onion (judging by the stems at least two of them), barclava, and aponogeton(again?). I tried to bury as many as possible, but i ended up having the onions in and a few others hanging right on the bottom. Two indistinguishable(top to bottom indications) were left to float and two larger bulbs were secured behing some decorations until (hopefully) full grown. Just to be safe i got Kent Freshwater plant in the 5ml vials. It said to put them in (for thirty gallons, so i only put in a 1/3) every two-three weeks. what do you think about this setup?
 
You are not supposed to plant the bulbs until they have sprouted, so just let them sort of lie on the bottom or float on the top. I also just bought some--they just seemed like a sort of childhood science project--but in true nerd fashion I researched them here and then set them on a sunny window sill in a tub of tank water to see if they sprout.

I'm not sure about the lighting, but I think the 50/50 are more for saltwater--at least the actinic part is. However, I'm still a newbie at this as well. Plants are just so tempting!
 
right, i unburied everything except the onions, due to the clear orientaion of the bulb and the fact that it already came with a fair sized amount of green stem attached. I also adjusted the photoperiod to 12 hours 6am-6pm, so hopefully it wont heat up the tank to much. any other advice?
 
Best advice I saw on the other thread on this was to keep the package and your recipt, and if they don't sprout in three weeks you can send it back and they will send you another bulb!
 
the water is cloudy, which i suspect may be due to the organic matter on the bulbs and/or the fertilizer. is it a concern, and if so, should i do a water change or something else. If it helps, the filter cartridge was just replaced yesterday. Thanks.
 
Is the cloudy water greenish in tint? If it isn't, it should clear up after a couple of days. If it is, you have an algae bloom. Cut back the lighting period to 8-10 hrs and get some fast growing stem plants in there.
 
Don't worry too much...

If you have good enough filtration... it'll clarify the water in a few hours (up to a day or so).

Plus, my fish seem to like it when there's dust in the water (at water changes). Just as long as those organic debris aren't always in the water column.

Though I imagine that's exactly what it's like in native systems for some of the freshwater fish..
 
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