My First Real Planted Tank

[Man of fish]

This will be my first actual planted tank!! First some specs:

Tank size: 8 us gallon bowfront (about 38 liters I think)
Substrate: caribsea super naturals Tahitian moon sand
Ferts: Flourish excel and dry ferts, I forget all their names but potassium nitrate, cbn+ I think and something with an s.
Lighting: I just retrofit the hood so it'll be 2 13 watt CFLs so a little more than 3 WPG.
Plants: java moss, stargrass, bronze crypts, green crypts, pennywort, and dwarf lilies. Possibly some others but that's what I'll start with.
Hardscape: I'm thinking just one long piece of drift wood that comes from back right to front left covered in moss, then a few small flat stones all around to complete 'the look'.
Fish: 3 yellow pingu guppies (may up this once I can determine genders. My prediction is heir about 2 months old now.) and cherry shrimp. Hoping to breed both of these.


Right now the tank is a bare- bottom qt with the 3 guppies in it, and just a thrown together scape, so I'll throw up some pics once I get started. Plants will be sent out once
I'm back from vacation around July 6th, via mikaila31. A big thanks to you!


Which of those plants would make a good carpet as well? Or what plant could?

 

[stu40]

good luck

 

[Man of fish]

Thanks! Can't wait to get started! I may put the sand in this week and workon the gardscape if my wood sunk in my toilet. I outta go check.

Edit: the half I wanted to sink has sunk

 

[stu40]

i don't know if this applies to CFL's but 3WPG is a lot of light without co2

 

[Man of fish]

I think it should be Fine with just the ferts. I'm not sure if the amount of light time should be upped or lowered to help me not need co2........

 

[ian]

you'll need a source of C02...

 

[Man of fish]

Where can I get this source from? Checking the dimensions I think it's actually a 10 gallon so it's only 2.6 WPG but would I still need co2? Is there another way other than injecting it via a co2 canister?

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Liquid would work

 

[Man of fish]

Oh ok is that like flourish excel? That'd be good if that's what it is. Then dose it with every water change or once aweek or every day?

 

[Man of fish]

Ahh ok just looked it up and it says 5 ml after a 40%+ w/c than 1 ml per day after that (for my setup). So a 500 mL bottle should last me a year then.

Would this in conjunction with the dry ferts be good?

 

[Man of fish]

Here's the tank and a few of the guppies:

I know it's messy, sorry.

 

[FishFanatic04]

Excel would last awhile in a tank this size.

 

[Man of fish]

Yes my estimate was it'd last at least a year and possibly up to 2.

I may be ordering 3 more yellow pingus for the tank, 3 more females as I'm pretty sure now I've got 2 male 1 female so I'd like to have that 1:2 ratio. I don't think 6 guppies will be overstocking but maybe I should just do 5?

 

[Man of fish]

Now looking around the forum, I'm sourcing quite a few plants for this tank and my main tank. I'll have a little wisteria in here, possibly some bacopa, and some crypt balanse possibly. We'll see. Still wondering about the guppies though^^

 

[RossC]

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