Pescado Guy
Fish Fanatic
Hi everyone,
I have always wanted to have a freshwater planted tank and it seemed like every time I tried all the plants died. This time I'm going to do it right. I will get all of the stuff I need and do it all the way so I wont be so frustrated. First of all I think ill get a canister filter instead of the cheap hob ones that I have. I'm thinking the Fluval 304 because it has a decent flow rate and it's $70 at petsolutions.com. For lighting I think I will be using either 4 or maybe 6 24 inch 17 Watt T8 fluorescent bulbs powered by a Workhorse 8 Ballast. Have any of you used the workhorse ballasts? They seem pretty cheap and I hope theyre good. Any info would be great. If I use 6 bulbs it will give me 102 watts over 29 gallons. If I get six I think I will use 3 ZooMed Floraglo and 3 Aquaglo. For substrate I think I will get Seachem's flourite. I know there are lots of people here who say that all you need is some swimming pool filtration sand and some laterite or whatever, but personally I think that flourite is pretty cheap and I really like how it looks. For CO2 I think I will just make my own reactor with a control valve. I am way too poor to go and spend like 200 bucks or so on a real system so for now this will have to do. For fertilizers I will be using the full line of seachem plant products. I have all of the test kits I will need to monitor the levels of each one so that will make my plants quite happy. I'm thinking I will get softwater plants with a few small tatras and avoid overcrowding the tank. What do you guys think? Any Problems of info or suggestions would be great. Thank you so much!
Kevin
I have always wanted to have a freshwater planted tank and it seemed like every time I tried all the plants died. This time I'm going to do it right. I will get all of the stuff I need and do it all the way so I wont be so frustrated. First of all I think ill get a canister filter instead of the cheap hob ones that I have. I'm thinking the Fluval 304 because it has a decent flow rate and it's $70 at petsolutions.com. For lighting I think I will be using either 4 or maybe 6 24 inch 17 Watt T8 fluorescent bulbs powered by a Workhorse 8 Ballast. Have any of you used the workhorse ballasts? They seem pretty cheap and I hope theyre good. Any info would be great. If I use 6 bulbs it will give me 102 watts over 29 gallons. If I get six I think I will use 3 ZooMed Floraglo and 3 Aquaglo. For substrate I think I will get Seachem's flourite. I know there are lots of people here who say that all you need is some swimming pool filtration sand and some laterite or whatever, but personally I think that flourite is pretty cheap and I really like how it looks. For CO2 I think I will just make my own reactor with a control valve. I am way too poor to go and spend like 200 bucks or so on a real system so for now this will have to do. For fertilizers I will be using the full line of seachem plant products. I have all of the test kits I will need to monitor the levels of each one so that will make my plants quite happy. I'm thinking I will get softwater plants with a few small tatras and avoid overcrowding the tank. What do you guys think? Any Problems of info or suggestions would be great. Thank you so much!
Kevin
