Just Wanna Check That Im On The

[darksheep]

G'day all.

After all the reading and pictures ive seen of nice looking fish tanks, with live plants ive decided to create my own.

I have a 30 gallon tank.

Now i no the filter and heater are fine and do quite a nice job. i also think my lighting is good but am unsure if its good enough.

i have 3 lights in my hood. 3 x 25 watt which too me is bout 2.5 watt to the plants is this correct? im not good at maths. Is it suffient for my plants to be healthy in?

My bottom layer's consist of: A Flora base plant substrate bout 2 to 3 cm thick which is then cover in gravel, a further 3 cm.

My ph in the tank is 7.2. running the tank at a temperture of bout 25 degress

In the tank i have 9 different plants in which im not sure there exact names but i have posted a pic of it in the member rtanks pictures heres a link to it here if ur interested in seing what it looks like:http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=151819

(planning on maybe addin a few more in the future or hopefully if the plants get going properly cutting a few shoots and multiplying them way)

Ive been reading all this stuff bout co2 for the plants but im scared to do it incase i kill my fish. is it possible to have healthy plants with out adding co2?

 

[juicebox]

hello darksheep,

i am not super-experienced with planted tanks but i might be able to answer a few questions.

your lighting consists of 2.5 wpgs and typically with that amount of light you will need some sort of co2 system. there are definitely plants that can survive without any co2 injections, but it's always best to add co2 to improve the health of your plants.

don't worry about your fish! some types of co2 diffusers will allow you to control the bps of the co2 and if you get it to a normal level (1 bps), your fish will not be at a risk at all. if you decide to make your own co2 system (here's an article on co2 and different methods of injections, etc.), controlling bps is rather difficult but you can moniter how much is going into your tank.

as you have it now with the amount of lighting and no additional co2 injections, you might have an algae problem in the near future. you can go ahead and prevent algae messing up your tank by adding co2 (there are several methods in the article i linked in the above paragraph) and also consider using the EI method of fertilization.

good luck with your planted tank, i'm sure your fish will just love it!

 

[netcode]

looks like your on the right path to me. Some things you might wanna add to your setup is CO2 injection as you have more then 2 WPG. without it you may run into algae problems.

Also you may want to look at getting some moss or something that will create a carpet like effect. Also some foreground plants will make it look real nice too.

GOodluck with it. looking good so far

 

[Themuleous]

A few quick things, the setup sounds like its got most things you need to go fully planted, but I would strongly recommend you get CO2 either yeast or pressurised. If you're worried about killing your fish (which BTW is actually quite hard to do unless you do something majorly wrong) pressurized would be best as you can control the amount of CO2 you add more easily but these kits can be expensive. Yeast would be ok but you'd need 2 kits to get the right CO2 level.

Is the tank 30 USg or UKg? WPG uses USg

Do you have reflectors over the lights bulbs? The WPG 'rule' assumes you have. If you dont then I would certainly recommend you add one over each bulb.

With 2.5WPG you'll def need CO2, or the algae will take over. Oh and I would remove the non-aquatic plants as these will soon die and pollute the tank. Replace with lots of fact growing plants. Have you read the Estimative Index article? It has a list of fast growers and lots of other help info.

What ferts are you thinking of adding?

I hope Ive not baffled you by the mass of questions, but you have almost everything you need for a great planted tank, so might as well get it right

HTH

Sam

 

[darksheep]

Sorry yea my tank is 30 us gallons and the lights do have reflectors.

Looked into the pressurised co2 i just cant do it. its too expensive for me. So im thinking ill have use the a DiY way yeast reactor with the 2 litre soda bottles. ( gotta do a few searches to find out on how best to build one. any good links would be appreited ) and one question with the DiY version should i put in a tap so it can turned off during nite? and turned back on in the day?

I havent thought bout adding any fertilizers yet. and will get a few more plants later on this week seeing ill have to get em ordered in seeing my choice at my lfs isnt really big in the range of plants.

Additional info (water qaulity)

PH = 7.2

KH = 140 PPM (7.84 DH by my maths LOL)

 

[Themuleous]

Dont think you can put a tap on yeast systems or they would explode!

 

[Waterloo Kid]

I've put a tap on my system before now. Just use a 'T' splitter. One tube goes to the tank, the other to a one way valve and then a tap. When you want CO2 just close the tap. When you want it to stop open the tap just enough to hear the gas escaping. That way some pressure will remain in the system but not enough to get the gas into the tank and the yeast will remain in an oxygen free environment.

Ta daaaaah!

WK

 

[Themuleous]

Well there you go then! Just out of interest I run my CO2 24/7 with no apparent problems

Sam

 

[Waterloo Kid]

I used to run mine 24/7 until I had a MASSIVE pH crash that killed a third of the fish and shrimp in the tank. That was with one Nutrafin ladder running off 2 one litre bottles in a 400 litre tank. Who'd have thought! Basically my tank ran out of KH! Once bitten and all that....


WK