Cheap Light System For Micro Aquascape?

[cooledwhip]

I am making my dad a small aquascape in a 2.5 gallon. I have the tank and I plan on putting some seachem flourite in there. I will be growing dwarf baby teras, maybe some DHG and I will have some stem plants like ludwigia, rotala. Maybe even pearl weed. Anyway, I am going lowtech, I will have a small really tiny HOB filter. As for inhabitants, I will have some shrimp and at most 2 guppies (I know they shouldn't be in the tank and I know it's a lot for a 2.5).
 
Anyway, what kind of light should I have? I've never grown dwarf baby tears before and I tried growing DHG before and it didn't work out. I will be using some fertilizers, plant food, no CO2 but my question is still, what kind of light should I get? I've never used actual lightbulbs before, only LED's. There is little to no natural light, and I plan on starting emersed until the HC carpets out.
 
Thanks

 

[tunagirll]

A small led will be fine.
 
Shrimp should also be fine in there, but I would avoid any fish.

 

[StevenF]

LEDs or compact florescent bulbs will work fine as long as the light is bright enough and the CRI (color rendering index) is high.   LED bulbs made by Cree, Sylvania, and Philips will have a CRI of 80 or more.Energy star labeled bulbs are required to have a CRI of 80 or higher.   Use the link below to estimate how many lumens of light you need.  Baby Tears are listed as high light plants.  
http/www.plantedtank.net/forums/10-lighting/300490-how-calculate-your-tank-lighting-lsi.html
 
 I have no experience with Baby tears.  Many people prefer bulbs with a color temperature of 6000K but I haven't seen any difference inplant growth due to bulb color temperature.  I have gotten good result with 3000K bulbs.
 

 
 
I will be using some fertilizers, plant food, no CO2 but my question is still

 For a fertilizer with limited stock and fish feeding I don't think  you will have to worry about macro fertilizers that much.  I would be more concerned with the micro fertilizer levels.  It won't take much growth to rabidly deplete your micro nutrients in a  2.5 gallon tank. I wouldn't rely on seachem fluorite  by itself to keep your micro nutrients in up.  I have used Seachem flourish in a 5 gallon successfully, but that brings up a new problem.  
 
Seachem recommends a dose of 0.083ml per gallon.  You will need a fine scale syring to measure the dose and I get best results if I use a little less than than Seachem recommends.  You will probably need to dilute it down with water to get reasonable  dosing levels you can accurately measure:
 

1. Buy the smallest Flourish complete bottle you can find  According to their website 50ml bottles are available, Enough for 600 gallons of water.
2. Put 1.6ml of Flourish complete in a small bottle or old pill bottle will work. 
3. Then put in 18.4 ml of distillled water in the pill bottle.
4. This mix willl give you the correct dose at 1ml per gallon instead of 0.083.  
5. freeze the remaining flourish complete.  it has a limited shelf life.
6. The pill bottle will have 20 doses in it.  20 times 0.083 will equal 1.6ml of fertilizer  The difference between 1ml and 0.083 times 20 will then equal 18.4  (actually 18.34) of water
7. Dose according to the water you remove from the tank during your weekly maintenance.  Do not dose based on the size of the tank.
8. As stated earlier I would recommend dosing at levels a little bit less than what the manufacture recommends.  Too much fertilizer may be harmful to some plants (I do not have the plants you are planning on using).

A good syring is essential for this.  I still haven't found one I am 100% satisfied with.  The ink on plastic syringes tends to wear off.  Glass syringes do last longer but some don't have a good seal on the plunger.  Petrolium Jelly will help the plunger seal better and it has not affected my test results or shrimp.  My best syring right now is a Hamilton syring I purchased off of Amazon.com.  You have to order Lur Lock needle tips sold separately 
 
http/www.amazon.com/Dispensing-Needle-Blunt-Tip-1-1/dp/B001QRRDJM/ref=sr_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1459627010&sr=8-2-spell&keywords=syringneedle+18+guage
 
https/www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SBA1S8Y/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
 
Note after my 5 gallon was set up the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels were always zero (which is good).  But without sufficient nitrogen plants cannot absorb phosphates or potassium, which will be in the food you feed the shrimp and fish.  That will then probably build up and cause a algae bloom (which is bad).  Adding a nitrogen fertilizer dosed to provide about 5ppm nitrate in the aquarium should help prevent that.  You will need to do 50% water changes weekly in order to keep phosphate and potassium levels in check.
 
I would encourage you to position your filter  so that the water falls a short distance to the tank surface (1/2 inch or so) so that air bubbles  are created.  This will insure oxygen and CO2 levels in the water are at the highest possible levels.
 
I personally think it would be better to just have shrimp and one Nerite snail. I don't think the fish would be appropriate at this size, but that is your choice. Buy the Nerite once algae appears on the glass.  One Nerite would be able to keep the glass nice and clean.  

 

[cooledwhip]

Wow that is a lot of information to take in. I do have seachem flourish. I put about a quarter cap in which I know is way too much but as of now I have the tank in my window sill getting lots of natural light. For plants I have in there, just some trimmings from my  plants in my main tank because the DBT will take a while to arrive. I have had my flourish for about a month now, the bottle says the shelf life is 3 months. Should I refridgerate it now?
 
Also for fertilizers I have Osmocote Plus which I put in gel caps and put those in my substrate. Is that good enough for a fert? I have co2 being pumped in by the DIY bottle system.
 
I think I will just purchase some LED's. All these lumens things are too hard to keep track of.

 

[cooledwhip]

Just bought some Sylvania Micro Mini CFL 6500K. It says it's a 60w replacement using only 13 W. Is this fine for my aquaruim? Is this going to give it enough light? It is 800 lumens. Thanks

 

[StevenF]

 
 
Just bought some Sylvania Micro Mini CFL 6500K. It says it's a 60w replacement using only 13 W. Is this fine for my aquaruim? Is this going to give it enough light? It is 800 lumens.

If you look at the link in my earlier post you need to calculate the area of your tank and then calculate how many lumens you need from the bulb or bulbs..  Watts is just a measurement of how much elctrical power the bulb uses.  it doesn't tell you anything else.  
 
As to Osmocote  Look at the label.  It will tell you what it has.  Do the same for the flourish comprehensive and Fluorite compare the mineral content.  You will see that the Osmocote is heavy in macro fertilizer.  Flourish comprehensive is more balanced.  The Fluorite doesn't have macros but it is a time released micro fertilizer.  Why would you need 3 very similar fertilizers?  Drop the Osmocote.  it was not intended for aquariums.And doesn't offer anything more than the SeaChem products provide.

 

[cooledwhip]

 

 
 
Just bought some Sylvania Micro Mini CFL 6500K. It says it's a 60w replacement using only 13 W. Is this fine for my aquaruim? Is this going to give it enough light? It is 800 lumens.

If you look at the link in my earlier post you need to calculate the area of your tank and then calculate how many lumens you need from the bulb or bulbs..  Watts is just a measurement of how much elctrical power the bulb uses.  it doesn't tell you anything else.  
 
As to Osmocote  Look at the label.  It will tell you what it has.  Do the same for the flourish comprehensive and Fluorite compare the mineral content.  You will see that the Osmocote is heavy in macro fertilizer.  Flourish comprehensive is more balanced.  The Fluorite doesn't have macros but it is a time released micro fertilizer.  Why would you need 3 very similar fertilizers?  Drop the Osmocote.  it was not intended for aquariums.And doesn't offer anything more than the SeaChem products provide.
 

 
All over the internet I see aquarists using osmocote. I will move to more seachem products. Any recommendations?
 
I tried that link but it was too confusing. I just glanced over it but I will try and actually print it out and do some math. (because it's awesome when I can apply my math skills I learn in school to this hobby, and chemistry)
 
I was mainly using the osmocote to develop stronger roots in my plants. I put some in my rotala and I almost tripled the amount I got when I purchased the plant. The roots are about 2 inches long...
 
I was thinking flourish excel or advance. Maybe flourish Iron because I have a couple red plants.

 

[tunagirll]

It's worthwhile understanding a little more about what you are actually trying to achieve in terms of dosing the water for your plants.
 
Otherwise you may run into some trouble. Once you add strong light, ferts, CO2 things can run away pretty fast