Should I go with live plants?

[johnnyr]

Here is my tank, What do you think I could put in there, without much fertilizer? (there is none in there now, and I can't remove all the substrate to put a layer of it)

Do you think some dwarf hairgrass or java fern would be a good start?



The water is all yellow because of my driftwood that i've given up on.

 

[Jen]

How much light do you have on the tank,and how big is the tank? The Watt/Gallon ratio makes is the biggest limiting factor.

I don't have a fertalizer layer in my tank... just sand. I add liquid fertalizer and root tabs.

 

[johnnyr]

2 15 watt 10,000k lights in a 55gal...ug...thats barley .5 wpg...and do you think the rocks are too big to support some grass-like plants? I havent seen any 18" bulbs in more the 15watts...nay suggestions?

 

[MXPX4318]

if you want better lighting, go with power compacts, and for freshwater you're probably going to want to go with about 6500K bulbs instead of 10000K (that's more for reef tanks). Compact's will cost you a bit but look around, Big-al's has some good prices last time I checked. As far as plants for your current set up I'd recommend javafern, javamoss, Green Hygrofila, and Hornwort. Those tend to be pretty good low light, grow anywhere plants. check out http/www.plantgeek.net for more information on plants and their requirements. Goodluck.

 

[Blade]

You are going to need atleast 110 watts to do anything worth while with plants. I would not bother with anything else (co2, ferts) until you get that. As a minimum you could get a double bulb strip and do some low light requirement plants.

 

[rdd1952]

You might want to try aquariumplant.com. They seem to have the best prices online for plants. I have ordered from them twice now. Also, for plant info, try liveaquaria.com. They have pretty good plant profiles but to me their plants are too high. I also just bought PC lights for both my 29 & 75 gallon tanks at bigalsonline.com. They do seem to have good prices.

 

[johnnyr]

What about my gravel...you don't think it's too big?

 

[Lateral Line]

Java Fern you do not plant, you attatch to wood or stones, so the substrate is irrelevent. Dwarf Hairgrass is a small, quite difficult plant the you will not be able to root in gravel, you'd need sand.

 

[FrAnK3333]

110 watts? For a 55 gallon I hope? 1 watt per gallon would be good for javaferns, and amazon swords, and other plants tthat can live in low lite conditions.

 

[littlefishie]

With 30 watts of light over a 55, your best bet are low light plants like java fern, anubias, and java moss.

 

[johnnyr]

Well My question is, all the bulbs that are 18" are only 15 watts...how do I get around this?

 

[FrAnK3333]

Buy double strip lights.

 

[rdd1952]

The only way to get the lighting you really need for plants (2 or more wpg) is to go with a double power compac strip. I don't know what is available for 55 gallon as I don't have one but for 29 gallon you can get 2 65 watts (130 total watts) and for 75 gallon you can get 4 65 watts (260 total watts). Other than upgrading to those, I doubt you will be able to get enough light for slow growing, low light plants. Slow growing plants are also very susceptible to algae too.

 

[nc_nutcase]

55 Gal tanks are four foot long, and so are the 75 Gals. So the lighting rdd referred to that he has on his 75, you could do on the 55... although your entire top would be lights... lol…

But even if you go with one double bulb fixture... at 65W per bulb.. you have over the 2 Watts per Gallon ratio which is great to have (you will have 2.36 W per Gal).

I only did the maths for you because this thread helped me decide to go with the double four foot bulb system on my 55 which is cycling now