Yenko
Fish Addict
I know most people want a planted tank when they start keeping fish. You buy your plants, usually for high prices at your Local Fish Store, and they die in a few weeks. Not fun. If you pick up one of the "Aquarium care pamphlets" avaliable they are usually produced by companies that make fish supplies - some useful, some useless, and some that can easily kill your fish. One example is "Doc Wellfish". The pamphlet explains the basics of aquarium care, but the ultimate purpose is to sell you completely useless products. Most of these will do little more than waste your money, but some (Especially pH adjusting products) cause very serious problems.
Their instructions for aquarium care are some of the best ways to kill plants and promote alage growth and poor fish health. According to those books, plants will grow with a minimum of lighting in gravel, with the area around their roots getting continually vacum-cleaned.
If you don't grow plants, you will need to maintain your aquarium very well. Frequent water changes, constant gravel vaccuming and very limited feeding. If you fall behind on any of these things, your fish will suffer and they will literally begin to suffocate on their own waste.
Most people with healthy planted tanks use a very high-tech method of growing plants. They have lots of lights, pressurized CO2 systems, expensive fertilizers and heavy maintenance to make beautiful tanks with excellent conditions for fish. Of course, that approach eats lots of money and time.
If you've ever read Diana Walstad's book Ecology of the Planted Aquarium, you will know that you can set up a very nice planted tank with a minimum of expense, because you don't need special fertilizers, don't need CO2, use garden soil and use the sun as a light source.
Both methods work. Diana Walstad's method is simple, cheap and it might work. I tried it, and it failed. The problem is that it depends on the soil in your area. The soil in my area is possibly the worst stuff you could possibly put in a planted tank. I'm sure I'm not the only one with poor soil conditions around, so I use a method that does not depend on the unpredictable nature of the soil around you.
The high-tech method used by people like Takashi Amano (Pictures of his tanks here: http
/www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14399 ) is very expensive. It does produce nice results, however.
If you achive a healthy middleground between the two sides, you can run a very simple to maintain, very nice planted aquarium, with a very low setup cost.
The main factors in a planted aquarium are lighting, substrate and water chemistry. That's it.
Lighting:
Lighting comes from the sun in nature. If you've ever looked at it, you'll notice it's quite bright. Luckily for us (or whoever pays your power bill) you do not need to achive natural sunlight levels to grow plants. One rule of thumb is the Watts Per Gallon rule. In other words, watts of flourescent lighting divided by the number of gallons of water in your aquarium. Anything below 1 WPG is considered insufficient for most plant life, 1-2 WPG is medium light. 2-3 WPG is high light, but that doesn't stop some aquarists from going into the 5-6 WPG range.
That rule is absolute rubbish. It sort of applies to tanks in the 30-60 gallon range, but it's really not worth bothering with. It is a good tool; but going by your actual WPG isn't a great idea. Smaller tanks require a much higher WPG than larger tanks. You might get similar light intensity in a 10 gallon tank with 50-60 W of lighting that you would get in a 150 gallon tank with 160W of lighting. Although the 10 gallon tank has 6 WPG and the 150 gallon tank has 1 WPG, the light intensities are about the same.
You should go for about 3-5 WPG with 5-15 gallon tanks, 2-4 WPG with 15-30 gallon tanks, 2 WPG with 30-60 gallon tanks, 1.5 WPG with 60-100 gallon tanks and generally 1 WPG with any tank over that. It can drop as low as 0.5 WPG for extremely large tanks, but I doubt anyone with one of those needs the information I am presenting.
Substrate:
It's the stuff on the bottom of the tank. Gravel, sand, moon rocks, ect. Some people say that to have good plant growth, you need to buy a tropical clay called Laterite for roughly $50/pound. Nope. Laterite is excellent stuff, but not worth the price tag. Plain old gravel is not ideal, but will work. You want slightly finer gravel, mabye 2-3 mm grain size, not the large-grained synthetic gravel sold at Wal-mart and stuff.
Nearly every plant has roots, and almost all plants want to put them in soil. Soil is a very good medium for plant growth. It has very little oxygen, which is not good for plant roots. It allows the roots to get very good contact with the substrate particles, which in turn allows them to rapidly absorb nutrients. One good solution to this is to buy compressed disks of soil that become little miniature pots when water is added. Stick these in your gravel ; they will expand within 24 hours and then you can put plants in. Don't put too many in; I actually only used 4 for my 10 gallon tank. I found that plants love these.
Water Chemistry:
If your fish were in completely pure water they would die. Most of the high-tech aquarists are very concerned about their water chemistry, and go to great legnths to maintain it. There are several factors that influence a planted tank:
Dissolved oxygen: Without it, the plants and fish would die. If your fish are gasping at the surface that means that they need more oxygen in the water. It's completely normal for Corys, Gouramis, Paradise fish and Bettas to breathe from the surface; those species all use air from the surface because their natural habitats are very oxygen-poor.
Dissolved CO2: This is the byproduct of metabolism. Fish and bacteria in the tank produce CO2, and the plants consume it. Plants absolutely require CO2; they cannot function without it. CO2 dissolves into the water on it's own. If you have a bucketful of water with no fish or plants in it, then it's levels of dissolved gas are at what's called atmospheric equilibrium. Aquariums without artificial CO2 addition are generally below atmospheric equilibrium. In addition to what the plants and alage consume, CO2 is forced out of the water by agitation. Filters that spill their contents into the water and airstones reduce CO2 levels in water very quickly. If you do not have plants in your tank, then equipment like this is a good idea. If you do have plants, then equipment like this is a bad idea.
Note: Everything below this requires some knowledge of chemistry. PM me if you're uncertian about it.
Water hardness: Water hardness is a measure of the amount of dissolved Calcium and Magnesium in water. KH is Karbonate Hardness. It measures the amount of carbonate and bicarbonate ions in your water. Calcium Carbonate (Chalk, coral, ect..) or baking soda (NOT POWDER) will raise your water's Karbonate Hardness.
GH is General Hardness. It is a measure of the amount of dissolved salts in your water. These primarily include Calcium and Magnesium salts. Epsom salts (MgSO4) is a good example of a GH-raising chemical.
pH: Ph stands for potential Hydrogen. It is a measure of the ratio of H+ ions to OH- ions. A low pH (More H+ ions) will have a rating below 7, and a high pH (More OH- ions) will have a rating above 7.
Nitrites: These are extremely toxic byproducts of fish waste. Bacteria in your filter reduce these to Nitrates, which are much less toxic. Plants will absorb this chemical, but you do not need plants to keep levels of this chemical at zero.
Ammonia: A toxic product of fish waste. Bacteria will break it down into Nitrates, which are much less toxic. Plants will absorb this chemical, but plants are not needed to keep levels of this chemical at zero.
Nitrates. Nitrates are the final byproducts of the benificial bacteria in your filter media. These can only be removed by plants, alage or water changes. They are not nearly as toxic as Ammonia or Nitrite.
Potassium: Plants need this element. It is contained in (Usually) ample quantities in fish food. You do not need to worry about levels of this chemical.
Phoshpates: Phosphates are a natural product of fish waste. Plants consume phosphates, but because fish food contains more phosphate relative to the amount of nitrogen and potassium the plants need an excess of phosphate generally occurs. Alage, unfortunately, love phosphates. So does duckweed, so duckweed is usually an effective cure for alage problems. It will severely shade other plants, so it will have to be kept in limited amounts.
Other nutrients: In most aquariums, these are provided in sufficient quantities by the fish food and water changes. Generally referred to as trace elements, they are not something a beginner needs to worry about.
Plants can absorb their nutrients from the water, but prefer to absorb it from their roots. Fertilizing the substrate is usually nessesary in a planted tank. You don't really need a fancy aquarium product for fertilizing your substrate - fish poop provides most of the nutrients. When selecting a fertilizer, choose one that comes in sticks or tabs that can be pushed into the substrate. It can be intended for terrestrial plants. Make sure the fertilizer is VERY well buried; just shove it all the way down to the glass. When choosing your fertilizer, look at the 3 numbers on it. These are the NPK values. They stand for Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potassium (K is the elemental symbol for Potassium). Choose one that has a low amount of phosphates relative to the other numbers. It doesn't have to be zero, but keep it as low as you can. I use sticks made by Miracle-Grow; it's about 2 bucks for a lifetime supply.
When using fertilizer, keep the quantities small at first; always play it safe.
Setting up your Aquarium:
When you make your descision about what size to buy, you need to consider your budget and space. That's it. The stand is up to you, ultimately that does not matter as long as it holds your aquarium.
Lighting is an issue. It's very hard to light corner tanks, hexagonal tanks, very tall tanks, ect. You will have a much easier time lighting a tank that is at least 4 feet long; it's annoying and generally expensive to get smaller tubes.
On the other side of the coin, the 10 gallon kits sold by wal-mart are VERY easy to light. They normally take 2 25 watt incadescent bulbs, but you can put in 2 23 watt flourescent bulbs (The kind that screw into regular light sockets) and get VERY good lighting. That's what I did for the 10 gallon tank I'm basing this guide on.
Fish are another issue. There's alot to choose from. The key thing is not to overstock. Overstocking encourages alage problems, reduces fish health and increases maintenance. Keep things moderate. It's also better to buy large numbers of one or two species of fish; you will see more natural behavior as well as less fighting (In most cases).
Plants are the best part of a planted tank. They encourage natural behavior in fish, improve water quality, greatly reduce maintenance, and in some cases (Especially with livebearers) provide enough cover for fry to survive to adulthood with no special care. There has even been some ancedotal evidence that neon tetras can be bred in densely planted tanks without any of the usual special care.
CO2 addition is optional. It is not very difficult to make a simple system that uses a bottle of fermenting sugar water to produce CO2; Gff25 (On this board) uses that system for his tank, as do I. For tanks over 50 gallons you will likely have to use pressurized CO2; to get the CO2 levels I have now in my 10 gallon tank would require 4 bottles, each changed twice a week, or a new bottle every 3-4 days, which is time consuming. You can still use a one or two bottle system and see an improvement in growth, but optimal levels may be out of reach. Optimal is not really important for a beginner; I certianly don't bother with optimal anything in my tanks.
It may sound complicated, but you don't really need to worry about most of the stuff I posted. Remember to never accept any one source; always find more than one source before trying something.
http/img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/LNC-3/DSCN3372.jpg
That tank was created with $20 worth of modifications to a 10 gallon kit from wal-mart. The plants are nothing special - they are all very cheap, hardy plants.
Plants that are easy to grow:
Hygrophilia
Java Fern
Java Moss
Water Sprite
Duckweed
Giant Salvinia
Swordplants
Sagitaria
Vallisineria
African Fern
Tiger Lotus
There are others but those are the ones I can easily remember.
Maintianing an aquarium like this:
Water changes. Do a 20-50% water change weekly. I don't do any; my plants absorb all the nutrients my fish produce. Before trying this approach, buy a Nitrate test kit from a good company like Denerelle or Hagen and make sure your nitrates are under control. Don't waste money on ammonia or Nitrate kits; those chemicals are not an issue in an aquarium with sufficient filtration.
Gravel Vaccuming. No. If you have a large unplanted area, then you should vaccum, but don't go within 4" of substantial plant growth.
Alage-scraping. Do it as needed.
Plant pruning. As needed.
"Humans, the newcomers on this four billion-year-old planet, now have the power to destroy nature. The once-clear water is muddied, and the once-green land is losing its color. In trying to make their lives rich, people have made us all incredibly poorer from the destruction of nature. Only desolate hearts can grow in desolate surroundings. We have to remember that we either live in nature or not at all. Through building and maintaining beautiful natural aquaria, people relearn the intricate connections between forms of life: plants, fish, microorganisms and humans. Riches and beauty come from harmony, from balance. Aquaria are great teachers of this truth." - Takashi Amano
Their instructions for aquarium care are some of the best ways to kill plants and promote alage growth and poor fish health. According to those books, plants will grow with a minimum of lighting in gravel, with the area around their roots getting continually vacum-cleaned.
If you don't grow plants, you will need to maintain your aquarium very well. Frequent water changes, constant gravel vaccuming and very limited feeding. If you fall behind on any of these things, your fish will suffer and they will literally begin to suffocate on their own waste.
Most people with healthy planted tanks use a very high-tech method of growing plants. They have lots of lights, pressurized CO2 systems, expensive fertilizers and heavy maintenance to make beautiful tanks with excellent conditions for fish. Of course, that approach eats lots of money and time.
If you've ever read Diana Walstad's book Ecology of the Planted Aquarium, you will know that you can set up a very nice planted tank with a minimum of expense, because you don't need special fertilizers, don't need CO2, use garden soil and use the sun as a light source.
Both methods work. Diana Walstad's method is simple, cheap and it might work. I tried it, and it failed. The problem is that it depends on the soil in your area. The soil in my area is possibly the worst stuff you could possibly put in a planted tank. I'm sure I'm not the only one with poor soil conditions around, so I use a method that does not depend on the unpredictable nature of the soil around you.
The high-tech method used by people like Takashi Amano (Pictures of his tanks here: http
/www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14399 ) is very expensive. It does produce nice results, however.If you achive a healthy middleground between the two sides, you can run a very simple to maintain, very nice planted aquarium, with a very low setup cost.
The main factors in a planted aquarium are lighting, substrate and water chemistry. That's it.
Lighting:
Lighting comes from the sun in nature. If you've ever looked at it, you'll notice it's quite bright. Luckily for us (or whoever pays your power bill) you do not need to achive natural sunlight levels to grow plants. One rule of thumb is the Watts Per Gallon rule. In other words, watts of flourescent lighting divided by the number of gallons of water in your aquarium. Anything below 1 WPG is considered insufficient for most plant life, 1-2 WPG is medium light. 2-3 WPG is high light, but that doesn't stop some aquarists from going into the 5-6 WPG range.
That rule is absolute rubbish. It sort of applies to tanks in the 30-60 gallon range, but it's really not worth bothering with. It is a good tool; but going by your actual WPG isn't a great idea. Smaller tanks require a much higher WPG than larger tanks. You might get similar light intensity in a 10 gallon tank with 50-60 W of lighting that you would get in a 150 gallon tank with 160W of lighting. Although the 10 gallon tank has 6 WPG and the 150 gallon tank has 1 WPG, the light intensities are about the same.
You should go for about 3-5 WPG with 5-15 gallon tanks, 2-4 WPG with 15-30 gallon tanks, 2 WPG with 30-60 gallon tanks, 1.5 WPG with 60-100 gallon tanks and generally 1 WPG with any tank over that. It can drop as low as 0.5 WPG for extremely large tanks, but I doubt anyone with one of those needs the information I am presenting.
Substrate:
It's the stuff on the bottom of the tank. Gravel, sand, moon rocks, ect. Some people say that to have good plant growth, you need to buy a tropical clay called Laterite for roughly $50/pound. Nope. Laterite is excellent stuff, but not worth the price tag. Plain old gravel is not ideal, but will work. You want slightly finer gravel, mabye 2-3 mm grain size, not the large-grained synthetic gravel sold at Wal-mart and stuff.
Nearly every plant has roots, and almost all plants want to put them in soil. Soil is a very good medium for plant growth. It has very little oxygen, which is not good for plant roots. It allows the roots to get very good contact with the substrate particles, which in turn allows them to rapidly absorb nutrients. One good solution to this is to buy compressed disks of soil that become little miniature pots when water is added. Stick these in your gravel ; they will expand within 24 hours and then you can put plants in. Don't put too many in; I actually only used 4 for my 10 gallon tank. I found that plants love these.
Water Chemistry:
If your fish were in completely pure water they would die. Most of the high-tech aquarists are very concerned about their water chemistry, and go to great legnths to maintain it. There are several factors that influence a planted tank:
Dissolved oxygen: Without it, the plants and fish would die. If your fish are gasping at the surface that means that they need more oxygen in the water. It's completely normal for Corys, Gouramis, Paradise fish and Bettas to breathe from the surface; those species all use air from the surface because their natural habitats are very oxygen-poor.
Dissolved CO2: This is the byproduct of metabolism. Fish and bacteria in the tank produce CO2, and the plants consume it. Plants absolutely require CO2; they cannot function without it. CO2 dissolves into the water on it's own. If you have a bucketful of water with no fish or plants in it, then it's levels of dissolved gas are at what's called atmospheric equilibrium. Aquariums without artificial CO2 addition are generally below atmospheric equilibrium. In addition to what the plants and alage consume, CO2 is forced out of the water by agitation. Filters that spill their contents into the water and airstones reduce CO2 levels in water very quickly. If you do not have plants in your tank, then equipment like this is a good idea. If you do have plants, then equipment like this is a bad idea.
Note: Everything below this requires some knowledge of chemistry. PM me if you're uncertian about it.
Water hardness: Water hardness is a measure of the amount of dissolved Calcium and Magnesium in water. KH is Karbonate Hardness. It measures the amount of carbonate and bicarbonate ions in your water. Calcium Carbonate (Chalk, coral, ect..) or baking soda (NOT POWDER) will raise your water's Karbonate Hardness.
GH is General Hardness. It is a measure of the amount of dissolved salts in your water. These primarily include Calcium and Magnesium salts. Epsom salts (MgSO4) is a good example of a GH-raising chemical.
pH: Ph stands for potential Hydrogen. It is a measure of the ratio of H+ ions to OH- ions. A low pH (More H+ ions) will have a rating below 7, and a high pH (More OH- ions) will have a rating above 7.
Nitrites: These are extremely toxic byproducts of fish waste. Bacteria in your filter reduce these to Nitrates, which are much less toxic. Plants will absorb this chemical, but you do not need plants to keep levels of this chemical at zero.
Ammonia: A toxic product of fish waste. Bacteria will break it down into Nitrates, which are much less toxic. Plants will absorb this chemical, but plants are not needed to keep levels of this chemical at zero.
Nitrates. Nitrates are the final byproducts of the benificial bacteria in your filter media. These can only be removed by plants, alage or water changes. They are not nearly as toxic as Ammonia or Nitrite.
Potassium: Plants need this element. It is contained in (Usually) ample quantities in fish food. You do not need to worry about levels of this chemical.
Phoshpates: Phosphates are a natural product of fish waste. Plants consume phosphates, but because fish food contains more phosphate relative to the amount of nitrogen and potassium the plants need an excess of phosphate generally occurs. Alage, unfortunately, love phosphates. So does duckweed, so duckweed is usually an effective cure for alage problems. It will severely shade other plants, so it will have to be kept in limited amounts.
Other nutrients: In most aquariums, these are provided in sufficient quantities by the fish food and water changes. Generally referred to as trace elements, they are not something a beginner needs to worry about.
Plants can absorb their nutrients from the water, but prefer to absorb it from their roots. Fertilizing the substrate is usually nessesary in a planted tank. You don't really need a fancy aquarium product for fertilizing your substrate - fish poop provides most of the nutrients. When selecting a fertilizer, choose one that comes in sticks or tabs that can be pushed into the substrate. It can be intended for terrestrial plants. Make sure the fertilizer is VERY well buried; just shove it all the way down to the glass. When choosing your fertilizer, look at the 3 numbers on it. These are the NPK values. They stand for Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potassium (K is the elemental symbol for Potassium). Choose one that has a low amount of phosphates relative to the other numbers. It doesn't have to be zero, but keep it as low as you can. I use sticks made by Miracle-Grow; it's about 2 bucks for a lifetime supply.
When using fertilizer, keep the quantities small at first; always play it safe.
Setting up your Aquarium:
When you make your descision about what size to buy, you need to consider your budget and space. That's it. The stand is up to you, ultimately that does not matter as long as it holds your aquarium.
Lighting is an issue. It's very hard to light corner tanks, hexagonal tanks, very tall tanks, ect. You will have a much easier time lighting a tank that is at least 4 feet long; it's annoying and generally expensive to get smaller tubes.
On the other side of the coin, the 10 gallon kits sold by wal-mart are VERY easy to light. They normally take 2 25 watt incadescent bulbs, but you can put in 2 23 watt flourescent bulbs (The kind that screw into regular light sockets) and get VERY good lighting. That's what I did for the 10 gallon tank I'm basing this guide on.
Fish are another issue. There's alot to choose from. The key thing is not to overstock. Overstocking encourages alage problems, reduces fish health and increases maintenance. Keep things moderate. It's also better to buy large numbers of one or two species of fish; you will see more natural behavior as well as less fighting (In most cases).
Plants are the best part of a planted tank. They encourage natural behavior in fish, improve water quality, greatly reduce maintenance, and in some cases (Especially with livebearers) provide enough cover for fry to survive to adulthood with no special care. There has even been some ancedotal evidence that neon tetras can be bred in densely planted tanks without any of the usual special care.
CO2 addition is optional. It is not very difficult to make a simple system that uses a bottle of fermenting sugar water to produce CO2; Gff25 (On this board) uses that system for his tank, as do I. For tanks over 50 gallons you will likely have to use pressurized CO2; to get the CO2 levels I have now in my 10 gallon tank would require 4 bottles, each changed twice a week, or a new bottle every 3-4 days, which is time consuming. You can still use a one or two bottle system and see an improvement in growth, but optimal levels may be out of reach. Optimal is not really important for a beginner; I certianly don't bother with optimal anything in my tanks.
It may sound complicated, but you don't really need to worry about most of the stuff I posted. Remember to never accept any one source; always find more than one source before trying something.
http
/img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/LNC-3/DSCN3372.jpgThat tank was created with $20 worth of modifications to a 10 gallon kit from wal-mart. The plants are nothing special - they are all very cheap, hardy plants.
Plants that are easy to grow:
Hygrophilia
Java Fern
Java Moss
Water Sprite
Duckweed
Giant Salvinia
Swordplants
Sagitaria
Vallisineria
African Fern
Tiger Lotus
There are others but those are the ones I can easily remember.
Maintianing an aquarium like this:
Water changes. Do a 20-50% water change weekly. I don't do any; my plants absorb all the nutrients my fish produce. Before trying this approach, buy a Nitrate test kit from a good company like Denerelle or Hagen and make sure your nitrates are under control. Don't waste money on ammonia or Nitrate kits; those chemicals are not an issue in an aquarium with sufficient filtration.
Gravel Vaccuming. No. If you have a large unplanted area, then you should vaccum, but don't go within 4" of substantial plant growth.
Alage-scraping. Do it as needed.
Plant pruning. As needed.
"Humans, the newcomers on this four billion-year-old planet, now have the power to destroy nature. The once-clear water is muddied, and the once-green land is losing its color. In trying to make their lives rich, people have made us all incredibly poorer from the destruction of nature. Only desolate hearts can grow in desolate surroundings. We have to remember that we either live in nature or not at all. Through building and maintaining beautiful natural aquaria, people relearn the intricate connections between forms of life: plants, fish, microorganisms and humans. Riches and beauty come from harmony, from balance. Aquaria are great teachers of this truth." - Takashi Amano
