Confused

[dixiedawn]

Ok i'm confused. I'm just reading through alot of the posts thru here, and some of the stickies, but im still utterly and completely lost.(i'm researching for when i set up)

First off, to have a planted tank (mine will be 3 foot long) you need substrate like sand. Will sand only work, or should you have anything else with it? (suggestions please)

Secondly..er...CO2 diffusers or liquid stuff, which one is better, and when do you not have to have either?

thirdly, does having a planted tank speed up the cycling process? If not, will adding pure ammonia to the tank to bump it up to 5ppm kill the plants, or what is the reccommended dosage for ammonia?

fouthly im so confused about the lighting things, can anyone put it in dummy terms for me?

Thanks everyone

 

[Neo8223]

Ok i'm confused. I'm just reading through alot of the posts thru here, and some of the stickies, but im still utterly and completely lost.(i'm researching for when i set up)

First off, to have a planted tank (mine will be 3 foot long) you need substrate like sand. Will sand only work, or should you have anything else with it? (suggestions please)

Secondly..er...CO2 diffusers or liquid stuff, which one is better, and when do you not have to have either?

thirdly, does having a planted tank speed up the cycling process? If not, will adding pure ammonia to the tank to bump it up to 5ppm kill the plants, or what is the reccommended dosage for ammonia?

fouthly im so confused about the lighting things, can anyone put it in dummy terms for me?

Thanks everyone

Ok, just about to head off out but heres a quick answer:

1) You shold buy some plant specific substrate for the bottom layer of the substrate, Such as tetra complete substrate. After thid, you may put whatever substrate you want on top.

2) You should have both in the tank size that you have. With low co2 and low nutrients, you are likely to get the dreaded algae.

3) The plants actually absorb the ammonia, (and then nitrte followed by nitrate upon the previous compounds being used up) that is introduced in the cycling process so although you are slowing down the process of your filter being cycled, your plants are actually compensating for this.

4) On average i believe that you aim to have over 2 watts per gallon of tank water. (this calculation assumes you have light reflectors. So if you have a 20 gall tank, you want 40watts+ of light. 30 gallons and you want 60+. ETC ETC

Hope this helps