teach a noob about the aquatic plant world

Squawkbert said:
Go read this excellent, quick intro to the subject. Rex touches on lighting, ferts, CO2, substrate, algae... All the basics with pointers to more detail, if you want to go there.
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im reading! interesting.

he suggests my tank to have about 110 watts of light. where can i get two aqarium appropriate lights for my 55 gallon tank? will petsmart have them? or home depot? how much money am i talkin here to upgrade the lights?
 
if you want a brighter tank, take the lids off and angle two flourescent strips across each half of the tank. thats what i did and i've got all sorts of plants growing well and i have no clue what my wattage is. even the new plants i have had floating since sunday are thriving and they're not even shoved in the gravel yet, lol. you will have to wipe the water stains off the light tubes once in a while (when lights are off and cooled down!).

as for the temperature of your tank, you are using one of those stick on temperature strips on the outside of your tank, right? they are not accurate measurements of the water temperature as they are on the exterior of the tank (they are great for determining the air temperature outside the tank though! lol). get a couple floating glass thermometers and place each on opposite ends of the tank. this will give you a much more accurate reading.
 
if you have a bucket to toss tank water into you can have other plants for cheap also. for $3 - $5 you can get the bulbs at walmart. some of these guys will grow in a dark closet with no lights... lol. the reason i suggest a separate bucket is sometimes the bulbs come with ich. 2-3 weeks under water at normal temps with no fish and they can't find a host to continue they're life cycle though, so that kills them off completely.

for the moss i definitely agree with the stringy post. the way to beat that though is to have wood or a rock structure that approaches the top of the tank and affix the moss close to the lights.

that's an excellent read also from rexx grigg. may i suggest the barr report and some information from chuck gladd to fill in the gaps. googling tom barr, plantbrain, and chuck gladd should give you more information than you'll ever want to want to read... but you very well may want to eventually. lol, it should make sense the second time around.
 
dundadundun said:
if you have a bucket to toss tank water into you can have other plants for cheap also. for $3 - $5 you can get the bulbs at walmart. some of these guys will grow in a dark closet with no lights... lol. the reason i suggest a separate bucket is sometimes the bulbs come with ich. 2-3 weeks under water at normal temps with no fish and they can't find a host to continue they're life cycle though, so that kills them off completely.

for the moss i definitely agree with the stringy post. the way to beat that though is to have wood or a rock structure that approaches the top of the tank and affix the moss close to the lights.

that's an excellent read also from rexx grigg. may i suggest the barr report and some information from chuck gladd to fill in the gaps. googling tom barr, plantbrain, and chuck gladd should give you more information than you'll ever want to want to read... but you very well may want to eventually. lol, it should make sense the second time around.
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the plant bulbs in the packages on the shelf?
those will not have ich . ich is a parasite and needs a host. the 'eggs' will not live on a dry bulb.

as far as your 55 with 40 watts.

you can grow moss(java), java fern(there are many species that have different shapes) all grow in this light, many crypts and bolbitus.

I have a similar 55 with stock light. I grow these with no issues.
 
A cheap way to add light to a 4 foot tank is to use shoplights. cheap and easy way to get 80 watts or 160 watts.
 
as low as $35 for a 4' double fixture and an array of bulbs to fit... i definitely agree 247!
 
Go to Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot, etc. pick up a four foot shop light, a can of brown spray paint (gloss or flat - whatever you like), a 5000k 4 foot bulb and a 6500k 4 foot bulb. Go home, spray the outside of you're glaringly white shop light with the spray paint. Let it dry, install the two tubes you bought, put it on top of the tank and now you have a fairly decent looking fixture with 80 watts of quality light for probably less that 35 bucks. You can now grow many low to medium light level plants with this set-up.

ROY
 
I originally used a 4 ft shop light on my 55 gal, but I decided to do a DIY CFL mod to some strip lights I had sitting around. It's really simple to do, provides(I think) better-looking light, and increased my WPG fror around 1.5 to 2.5. Also, because of the ease of this project it gave me confidence to try other DIY stuff! It's fairly inexpensive and if you buy your supplies online, you can cut your costs almost in half(depending on how jacked-up the prices are at your local hardware store). I think it's more fun and gratifying to end up with a great looking tank for pretty cheap.
 
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