Question For All You Plant Lovers Like Me

freshwaterfishlover

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I just Finished planting my 65 gallon:

13 Micro Swords
10 Narrow Leaf Micro Swords
2 Dwarf Hairgrass
2 Bannana plants
3 Ludwigia Repens
4 Cabomba- Purple and Green
1 Sagittaria Subuiata
2 Penny Worth
2 moss balls
1 Tiger Lotous
1 Amazon Sword
1 Marble Sword
1 driftwood
2 plastic Rock caves

I add Excel everyother day and Iron once a week. Most of my plants are doing great except the Dwarf hair Grasses and Marble Sword. Since I only use the standard light that came with the tank I have been think if I spend all this money on plants let me do it right and upgrade my lighting.

I have always have heard 2-3 watts per gallon for planted tanks. Last time I was in my favorite LFS and talked to my favorite Employee he told me to get 2 T5 Strips. He told me it was his last day last week. Today I go back and talk to another employee and tell Him I want to upgrade my lighting because few plants are not doing that great. He tells me ow your light is probably dimming out because it has been on your tank over 2 years. He said T5 are standard on 65 and I should just replace it with a 40w T8. I ask about 2-3 watts per gallon and he said never heard that. I bought the T8 bulb but now thinking was it the best idea.

What do you guys think?

Also told him I wanted to try Dwarf Baby Tears and he said don't try it. Nobody grows it successfully even with the best of lighting ???
 
I just Finished planting my 65 gallon:

13 Micro Swords
10 Narrow Leaf Micro Swords
2 Dwarf Hairgrass
2 Bannana plants
3 Ludwigia Repens
4 Cabomba- Purple and Green
1 Sagittaria Subuiata
2 Penny Worth
2 moss balls
1 Tiger Lotous
1 Amazon Sword
1 Marble Sword
1 driftwood
2 plastic Rock caves

I add Excel everyother day and Iron once a week. Most of my plants are doing great except the Dwarf hair Grasses and Marble Sword. Since I only use the standard light that came with the tank I have been think if I spend all this money on plants let me do it right and upgrade my lighting.

I have always have heard 2-3 watts per gallon for planted tanks. Last time I was in my favorite LFS and talked to my favorite Employee he told me to get 2 T5 Strips. He told me it was his last day last week. Today I go back and talk to another employee and tell Him I want to upgrade my lighting because few plants are not doing that great. He tells me ow your light is probably dimming out because it has been on your tank over 2 years. He said T5 are standard on 65 and I should just replace it with a 40w T8. I ask about 2-3 watts per gallon and he said never heard that. I bought the T8 bulb but now thinking was it the best idea.

What do you guys think?

Also told him I wanted to try Dwarf Baby Tears and he said don't try it. Nobody grows it successfully even with the best of lighting ???
Dwarf hair grass need a high tech setup: high lights and CO2. Not sure about the Marble Sword.
 
Watts is a measure of energy. It is not measure of how bright a light is. On a typical light bulbs the brightness is listed in lumens.

An incandescent bulb will produce about 16 lumens per watt of electrical power. A fluorescent will produce about 70 lumens per watt. A LED is about 100 lumens per watt.

When incandescents were the only bulbs available the old watts per gallon rule was OK. However today with all the new lights available it doesn't work today. Also the watts per gallon rule never took into account the shape of the aquarium . some are square, some are rectangular, and others are round cylinders.

today some people us lumens per square inch. But I think that this over estimates how much light is needed.

http://fishtanktv.com/forum/topics/how-to-calculate-your-tank-lighting

Also told him I wanted to try Dwarf Baby Tears and he said don't try it. Nobody grows it successfully even with the best of lighting ???

Plants need more than light and water to grow. they need about another 14 other elements that plants need to grow. If your aquarium is short just one of these 14 you plants won't grow. When you have a nutrient deficiecy no amount of light will help. Algae may also grow and take over the tank. Iron is just one of the 14. For a fertilizer use one that has everything. Sachem Flourish Comprehensive is an excellent choice since it contains all of the 14. Others mix there own. Many fertilizers on the market don't have all 14 of the needed elements. Also Don't assume your tap water has all of the 14. Water utilities are under no requirement to insure all nutrients are in the water.

CO2 is like light. IF you have a nutrient deficiency it won't help. Excel is not CO2. It is however a hydrocarbon that plants can use instead. However Excel is toxic and some plants are damaged by excel. Most aquarium don't need excel or supplemental CO2. In many case and air stone and air pup is all that is needed. CO2. CO2 is only used when rapid plant growth is desired. And often when CO2 is used carefully attention to fertilizer it needed.

My recommendation is to try stopping excel That might resolve the issue. However if it doesn't you might want to try a new fertilizer. And if that doesn't work you might need to improve lighting.
 
Plants need more than light and water to grow. they need about another 14 other elements that plants need to grow.

Plants need fish poo water and light only in my tanks. I do not use any fertilizer other than fish poo, I do not vaccum the substrate in my tanks, the only thing I do is feed the fish and change 50% of the water once a week.

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I must be blessed or something, do these tanks look like they need any expensive fertilizers or CO2?
 
Plants need fish poo water and light only in my tanks. I do not use any fertilizer other than fish poo, I do not vaccum the substrate in my tanks, the only thing I do is feed the fish and change 50% of the water once a week.

Beautiful! There are high tech plants that need more to thrive and low tech plants that dont.

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I must be blessed or something, do these tanks look like they need any expensive fertilizers or CO2?
 
He tells me ow your light is probably dimming out because it has been on your tank over 2 years. He said T5 are standard on 65 and I should just replace it with a 40w T8. I ask about 2-3 watts per gallon and he said never heard that. I bought the T8 bulb but now thinking was it the best idea.

I hope one of those is a mis-typing. T8 tubes won't work in T5 sockets and vice versa.
 
Essjay is correct, you can't mix T5 and T8.

Steven has explained things very well. I just want to add a couple observations.

First, what light do you now have, the "standard light" that came with the tank? Be specific. Replacing lighting is very expensive and not always the solution.

Second observation, you have a huge variety of different plant species. Plants have varying requirements for light (intensity) and nutrients; the light intensity and nutrients must balance, as Steven mentioned. But different plants have different needs, and sometimes it is better to find out what works with your system and stay with those. Generally, substrate or carpet plants have high requirements for light (less light reaches the bottom so it has to be stronger to begin with) and with more light you need more nutrients, including CO2. I am not sure what "micro swords" and "narrow leaf micro swords" are. If this refers to the pygmy chain sword (Helanthium tenellum), they only require moderate light; if it refers to the Lilaeopsis species, you need more light and nutrients to balance.

Knowing about your existing light will help us. Two T5 tubes will be a lot of light, probably too much without CO2. One T8 would be too little light for most of the plants; two T8's might work very well, depending upon length of the tubes. I use T8 lighting because it works with my moderate light plants, and I rely on naturally-occurring CO2.

Byron.
 
I must be blessed or something, do these tanks look like they need any expensive fertilizers or CO2?

You are one of the lucky few that has tap water loaded with nutrients, Has the ideal PH, no excess Nitrate, Most people are not that lucky.
 
It seems I do everything " wrong " by my plants I cut them brutally when I prune up I cut roots when I replant, I have the wrong light, I dont use fertilizer, and yet every few weeks I have to throw out a small bucket full of plants that I trim out of my tanks,
I did try Seachem Comprehensive all it did was kill my Vals and Java moss, once I stopped using it the java moss and Vals started growing like mad again. Even the Blue Stricta which I was told would fail because its not a true aquatic grows like there is no tomorrow. I pulled up 1 stalk of Blue Stricta and the roots were 3 feet long.

The only thing I add to my tanks is fresh water treated with Easy Life Fluid Filter Media and food for the fish.
 

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