Planted 65 gal.

[Satcom135]

Ok so I've had this 65 gal. tank going for about a year and some change now, it has all the bright plastic plants and a castle and now I think it looks just to fake. So I want to plant it! Here's my plan....

I am getting a new light hood off ebay, its a compact flourescent with 192 watts which is right at 3 watts per gallon. I know I have to replace one bulb cause its one of the actinic bulbs for saltwater coral and stuff, the other one is a 12000K bulb. Will that be ok for freshwater plants? I read the lighting article and noticed it said personal preference and stuff but I'd hate to spend the money for a lot of plants and have em die.

I'm going to be using flourite as the substrate, unless someone can recomend something better. The store I am buying it from said if I use flourite I won't need an iron fert. cause flourite has a lot of iron in it, is that true?

I don't have the money for an expensive CO2 set up yet, I'm working on that part, I want to get a fully automated one so I don't jack up the ph level in my tank. Until then I was told Flourish Excel is a good supplement for carbon, is that an accurate statement?

I think thats about it for now, any advice is greatly appreciated!

Satcom

 

[qwikimpss]

As for Co2 you can go with a DIY set up using 2 liter bottles...but with a 65 gal tank you may need 3 bottles of it all running into one diffuser. I would say to replace that 12000 kelvin bulb too with a more plant friendly one...thats all i got, gf225 can give much better advice...as can a lot of other people.

 

[houndour]

I'm going to be using flourite as the substrate, unless someone can recomend something better. The store I am buying it from said if I use flourite I won't need an iron fert. cause flourite has a lot of iron in it, is that true?

Yes I think it's true. But it doesn't last forever though - in terms of nutrients - I dont mean it disappears!. But yeah fluorite is a great choice of substrate. Or you can use laterite/gravel (or sand) mix.

At 3 watts per gallon you're definitely going to need CO2 or you will probably have severe alage problems. DIY is fine, a lot of us use the nutrafin units (in my case - purely cos I dont trust myself to make one out of a coke bottle), but buying 3 of these would set you back nearly £60, so for that you may as well go for the proper CO2 canister things...you can get them for £100 - £130.

I'm useless on the topic of lights. From what everyone says I would say the 12000K would help encourage algae...but I'm sure I've seen people with more than one bulb where they've had a high K bulb in their selection. Definitely get rid of the actinic one. What other bulbs are there? Or is it just those 2?

 

[Satcom135]

Cool... well that helped a lot. The light fixture only has the two bulbs. One 96 watt 1200k bulb and one 96 watt actinic. Looks like I'm going to replace both of these with some 7000k bulbs so thats no problem.

The only other lights in this fixture are 3 led moonlights. So 192 watts of real light and the 3 moonlights. Thats it.

As far as CO2, I'll have to check out what I can afford. I had the coke bottle DIY ones on a 10 gal tank once. Just didn't know if it was a good idea to do it on a tank this large. I guess I can do three of them and run the CO2 output into the filter intake tube and hope I don't waste to much of the CO2. I just hope I don't screw up the PH to bad.

Umm... If I think of something else I'll write more!

Thanks!!

Satcom

 

[Satcom135]

One more question about CO2, I found a stie that I can buy a fully automated system for a resonable price but, I don't know what size canister to get. They offer 5, 10, and 20 lb. canisters. How big of a canister would you guys recomend buying for a 65 gallon tank?

Oh yeah, until I can get this, I have to use a DIY system and I forgot how much sugar and yeast to use? How much would you guys use for a 65 gal. setup?

Thanks!

Satcom