To All That Have Non-ei Tanks

[Themuleous]

Hi,

I've been given 'permission' to convert my main tank to a planted tank, well my G-friend stood in the LFS and also most forced me into it! Can't say I was expecting it, but she just said, 'go on, just do it!' Bargin, new planted tank journal here we come!

Anyhoo, I'm not sure if I should go the whole EI hog, and was thinking I would do a low-light, low-tech tank with easy plants, and just wanted to run my plans past you lovely people to see if it'll work or not.

Tank

30x18x12"
90l / 20g

Plan to add

Substrate - change to 3mm gravel and add laterite as per the box instructions
lighting - I would keep the currnet lighting which is 1x 18w but change it to a freshwater tube. Gives me less that 1WPG
Ferts - weekly using the EI fert mix from Aquaessentilas
CO2 - yes probably pressurised, cos I'm lazy, amount ppm, not sure?
Fish - see my profile, but needless to say I'll got a fair bioload in there, but nothing hughely messy
Filter - keep my eheim 2222

Plants would be easy ones like anubias, ferms, moss, vals, swords (will probably flourish tabs these as well to help them along)

My main concern is that my lighting is going to be very low, but the cost of upgrading it to say 1.5WPG will be about the same as to get it to 2.5WPG, should I just bite the bullet and go EI with this one? Bearing in mind that I have a big bioload, and will not be able to control NO3 or PO4 (that said I dont have any algae apart from some stuff on the tank glass, its never had an algae problem this tank, woohoo!).

What do you people think? Do i even need CO2 if I leave the lighting alone and ahve 1WPG?

Thanks

Sam

 

[nmonks]

I'm not a plant expert, but in my experience, going from 1 WPG to 1.5 or 2 WPG is like night and day. In really low light conditions, you may have plants that live, but they don't grow quickly, and it's the fast growing species that surpress the algae. Anubias, for example, is a plant that tends to get plagued by algae, and some algae eating fish (like my Panaque nigrolineatus) simply destroy the Anubias leaves.

Plant growth is limited by "limiting factors", and I think lighting is the first one, then substrate, then CO2. Others may have different opinions, I'm sure, but I think you need to get the lighting right first, and the substrate and CO2 only afterwards. So it isn't so much that CO2 isn't required in a low-light tank, it just isn't the limiting factor.

Basically, the more light, the better. By the way, natural daylight seems to work too, if you can put the tank somewhere close to a window. You do need to watch for temperature changes, but beyond that, I've used dayling very effectively in small tanks. I've even heard of people using large mirrors to reflect light from a window into a tank from above. Sunlight is much more powerful than it seems, and is obviously the perfect wavelength spread for plants.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[zig]

Maybe you have seen this already

Non CO2 methods

 

[jimbooo]

going by my experience with my cube tank i personally would leave the light alone, stick a basic yeast type co2 kit on there (unless you have cash to burn, then go pressurised) and see how the plants perform. you will definatly see an impact from adding the co2 even at around 1wpg. (my cube was 1.3WPG!) at such low light ferts will not even be necessary if your doing weekly 25% water changes. if it was me i'd set it up with the co2 and watch it for a few weeks. if you see any nutrient deficiencies then add the appropriate fert. my cube got a dollop of csm=b (trace fert) every few weeks, totally random and really only when it looked like the plants needed it.

all that is dependant on adding the laterite though, that will provide lots of nutrients for the roots and if the plants are growing slowly you'll probably find it's enough.

lots of if's and maybe's there but just do it and see what happens, you can always upgrade the light further down the line if you need to.

as Neale said though it will be quite dim, you may want to upgrade the lights from a visual perspective if it isn't bright enough.