well i have a 15 watt tube in there, it has the full light spectrum for plant growth. i don't think an 18w will fit in the fixture i ahve and it only has enough room for one tube. so i would have to by another light fixture in order to fit a larger bulb. i may just start off with one or two plants and see how that goes and work my way from there slowly but surely.
my tank dimesnsion are 24x13x17 inches
i bought an aqueon deluxe 20 gallon starter kit. It game with a 125 gal/hour filter, heater, and the lighting system with a 15w full spectrum light.
would i need to buy a bigger filter to increas the flow rate, or could i manage to do this with a little less expense?
i also have a 20 gal tetra whisper air pump for increased O2
The 15W linear tube (im guessing T8) will be great on it's own for many species of plants
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My advice would be to start off with as many plants (of suitable, easy low light species) as you can, as starting off with only one or two is much worse than starting off with many, and would put you at a disadvantage against algae. It's just the species that is important, the ones that Aaron mentioned above would be prefect
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If you visit your LFS or the internet and buy a powerhead of around 80gph that will put you in good steading and not cost too much. I would personally recommend one of these as I've found them very reliable, the lowest model will do:
http
/www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod...amp;pcatid=4644 . The LFS is more likely to stock these.
These, however, are more widely used for planted tanks and give a much better spread of flow from what I've seen, but you may want to purchase the next model up for best effect:
http/www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod...fm?pcatid=15955 . If the LFS does marine goods, they should stock these.
I would then personally remove the airpump, as its can only be removing CO2 (which plants use as a carbon source) from the tank. If you really like the effect, you could always inject CO2 to compensate or use liquid carbon sources (like Seachem Flourish Excel), but otherwise the surface agitation the bubbles cause will result in less CO2 in the water, potentially limiting the rate of growth of the plants. Not necessarily the end of the world, but not a good idea if you want faster plant growth. You will have plently O2 in the tank anyway, unless you way overstock with fish. Adding that powerhead will add circulation to the tank and help with O2 circulation anyway. Using an airpump for O2 is not something you need to worry about in the vast majority of cases, despite what your LFS may tell you (who want to sell an airpump).
The next issue is fertilisation, the best option in nearly all cases IMO is to go with dry powders and make your own.
On the subject of plant nutrients and sterilisers, I wrote a post in response to something else a while ago here that should explain the basics if your interested:
linky.
Read this article on dry powders:
http/www.ukaps.org/EI.htm
Then you can use this tool to make them up:
http/www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_dosage_calc.htm
This article is also a good read:
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...104737&st=0
You could just buy the whole Seachem range of fertilisers and use them all in your tank to get the same/similar effect, but this would cost a lot more, and you wouldn't understand what you were adding to the tank.
Hope that post wasn't so boring as to put you off. You should note that it's possible to have success with plants without doing anything special for them, but if you follow all the above it will give you the best chances and its well worth it IMO
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. Silly me.
