I'm New To Planting

[fish-r-fancy]

Hi I want to plant my 72 gallon bow front tank. This will be my very first planted tank. I just bought the tank with the lights used off of craigslist. The tank came with 2 lights, a blue light and a reddish pink light. Both are about 4 feet long, unlike the lights on a 55 gallon when there is 2 lights around 2 feet long. Like stated before I purchased the tank used so I have no way of finding out how many watts the lights are, all I know is that they are made for planting because of their colors. The only plants that I want are lilly pads, the kind that you can buy at home depot that come in a tray with soil and I cover the soil with gravel. I will be using black gravel left over from my 180 gallon. I will also probably be using an air stone. Will I need to purchase co2? Is there anything that I will need to purchase and are these easy plants to grow that can stand low lighting (I'm not sure how good my lighting is like stated above)? Thanks for any help in advance.

 

[atmmachine816]

If you are using an airstone you can't use co2 as it reverses the effect and you are wasting your money and not sure on your lights and the type of plants you want are they aquatic?

 

[afishdude]

if you want good lilys buy some lily bulbs from walmart, the bulbs grow in about 4-6 weeks and form 3-5 pads ea with flowers. i have them in my little 30g and they look nice, my fish love to hide under them. and i only have 20 whatts on a 30g tank( not planted) and lilys grow fine.

edit: checked it out on net and the bulbs cost $2.00 for 2-3 bulbs wich will give ya 8-12 pads.
they dont need co2 eather to grow pads so your wasting money if ya use co2 for just lilys.

 

[nicklfire]

If your serious about getting a planted tank started.. before you do anything read buddy.. read all you can.. A planted tank has alot more to do with just lighting... Sure they got light... but... if it's not enough it's not worth the effort.. shell out the money for a good lighting system.. or do a do it yourself if you got.... a good construction background. Second off... your going to want to do a first cycle on your tank... so you gotta read up on how to cycle your tank... then you gotta figure out if your doing with dyi co2 or if your going pressurized. (200$), you need fertz (fertilization) food for the plants.. right.. so you gotta figure out exactly what you need.. read the posting on the estimated index. This may seem like alot of information.. but if you just put those lights on the tank.. throw in some plants.. and substrate... then i can promise you , your going to have huge problems with plants just dying.. or HUGE algae problems... planted tanks are a mathamatical science..... do not get impatient... or else you'll just drown yourself in problems and everyone here who's gone through it can back me up. i'd personally be surprised if the bulbs.. dont state what wattage they are. you are aiming for about 2.5 watts per gallon with your lighting.... but again it depends what type of plants you want. Somone correct me if i'm wrong but you may need more than that with a bowfront tank because of the depth of the wateR?

And yea.. you dont need a airstone, your plants are going to want co2 in the tank to use.. not o2. And you gotta figure out what substrate you want.. do you want just normal gravel or do you want your plants to have nutrients.. like a flora substrate like red sea.... Again more research.. i'm here to help if you need

best of luck

 

[fish-r-fancy]

Thanks for all of the help everybody. I'm not going to be doing a planted tank with all different kinds of plants, just lilly pads. I'm not new to fish just plants, therfore I already know about the cycling process and have done it numerous times. I think I will stick to the lilly pads that can be bought from Walmart that don't need CO2. I will pick some lilly pads from Walmart the next tim eI go to Walmart. Hey afishdude is there anyway that you could post pictures of your 30 gallon with the lilly pads? I'd love to see them. Thanks again everybody for all of the help.

 

[fish-r-fancy]

Okay I just went to Walmart and picked up some of the kinds of plants that you just drop in the gravel and they grow 3-5 inches in just 20 days. The plants can be pink or green. They came with only 2 lilly bulbs but, I should get more pads than bulbs. They are called nymphaea lilly bulbs(red or green).

 

[atmmachine816]

I'm not positive but I think I remember something about planting the crown side down, not sure just obviously plant the side without stems coming out down, i mean layit on the gravel not plant. could you post some pics when yours have grown, I tried to get some of those last time I was at wal-mart but they were out.

 

[fish-r-fancy]

Yeah I'll post some pictures when mine have grown. Nothin much to look at now just a clog of dirt.