plants in an eclipse 37gallon ?

[resk]

i have an eclipse-3 37 gallon tank which i would like to turn into a heavily planted aquarium

the light strip uses one power-glo and one life-glo bulb (whatever the housing is rated for)

can this be done, given that the filtration system uses a biowheel ?

the LFS salesperson also said it would be difficult because the 37gallon tank is rather tall

is it even worth my trouble to add a c02 system to a tank like this ?

any advice will help, thx

 

[rdmpe]

IMO not worth the trouble... The eclipse biowheel and the eclipse outlet tend to churn the water up so much that you will loose co2 very quickly. Also, the lights are probably not strong enough for a "heavily planted" tank of that size/height. How many watts is each light tube, or what is the approx. length of the tubes?

 

[resk]

tank info

the tank dimensions are 30 1/4 x 12 1/2 x 22 3/4
i am not sure how many watts each bulb gives off
the bulbs' length is 24"

couldn't i just raise the bottom of the tank by using more substrate?

if so, what should the distance from the light tube to the top of the gravel be ?

 

[rdmpe]

So I think you have 20 watt bulbs if they are 24 inches. That gives you about 1 watt per gallon which is not much light. You would only be able to go with low light plants. Adding co2 would probably not be worth the trouble because your light is so low and the filter system will drive it out of the water so fast.

Your best bet would probably be to keep it simple with some low light plants and no co2 and see how it goes for a couple of months.

 

[superjohnny]

Actually there are plants that do ok in low-light situations. Anubius and Java Fern & Moss come to mind. The downside is that they grow slowly and are rather expensive. I have two large java ferns, a large Anubius nana and a pretty good size swatch of java moss in my Eclipse system 6 and it's doing great. The key is to find the right kinds of plants.

Also, you might check out a lighting upgrade. A 2 x 13w PC light or even 1 or 2 x 36w kit from ahsupply.com might work. PC flourescent lights get hot though so be careful not to melt your plastic hood. I've been thinking of fitting a 1x13w kit into my System Six.