Plants in a 60g.

[bbrianhaag]

Hi I'm new to this website I just bought a 60 gallon tank and I want real plants only. I don't necessarily want it heavily planted but I do want a few scattered around my tank. So would I need 2x 60 watt bulbs? and for the soil would 2 bags of Seachem Flourite Plant Substrate be okay? After this what else is required to maintain real plants? And does anyone know of a good website for buy plants from? Thanks!

:help2:

 

[pinkertd]

Hi and welcome! I can't help you with the lighting and substrate questions, but I can tell you there are a ton of plant varieties for sale in our AC Marketplace thread from members. You can pretty much find any plant you want there.

 

[Jaykit]

If you are looking for just a few scattered plants there are lots of lowlight plants that you wouldn't even need to change substrate or changing lighting to grow. Anubis, java moss, java fern and some others. What kind of lighting do you have on your tank now?

 

[montanafish gal]

hi bbrianhaag, welcome to ac!!
your lighting will depend on a couple of things. you've got 2 wpg, but what kind of lights are they? Most will recommend flourescent daylight with a kelvin range of 5600-6700. Personally, I found the whole lighting issue to be the most confusing when I started my planted tank. Someone else could probably give you a more precise answer on the lights.
Substrate - I don't know how big those bags are, but 2 doesn't sound like enough for a 60 gallon unless you are mixing it with something else. I used 3 bags on my 46 gallon and wish I had used 4. You want your substrate to be deep enough to anchor the plants in good.
I would look at the classifieds here for your plants. I've ordered from customdrum and mrsjinkzed and both are great to buy plants from. They can answer questions for you also. Good luck and we'd love to see pics when you're done!

 

[customdrum]

you would need 4 bags of gravel for a 60g tank maybe even 5, but you can just use 3 bags of eco and use black gravel for the rest of the tank, just mix it together and it will still work fine.

if you want low light easy plants i would go with a 96 watt fixture on a 60g tank, you could use a dual 55w as well but depends on what type of plants you want to use.

if you use low light plants you can use some ferts like seachem flourish and seachem excel. with some plants you can use root tabs as fertilizer and they will be fine.