Trouble With Pants

[sman]

Hi all, new here, not new to fish, just live plants. 2 weeks ago I added some live plants to my 29gallon freshwater setup. They looked okay for the first week but now the leaves are starting to shrivil up on them. I switched from the light that came with the hood (all glass - no real markings looked to be about an 8000k tho) to a zoo med tropic sun 5500k. It doesnt seem to have done much other than make everthing look less "purple/blue" more like natural light really.

I have a dwarf gourami, 3 neon tetras, 3 dainos, 3 hatchet fish, a bamboo shrimp, and a chinese algae eater.

I have a german ram, a rainbow, and another shrimp on the way, should have by tuesday!!

Any Ideas? Here are some pictures, its kinda hard to tell the plants condition in them but it was all i could do before the camera battery died.

I know not all of the plants are real, well not even half, but I just dont really have a good plant source nor do I want to add anymore if the ones I have arnt doing well. I was also considering adding more black gravel to the point were you only see very little colored if none at all, any opinions welcome as to weather or not it will look good.

 

[frozenbarb]

If you want to get started on a All planted tank check here.

http/www.rexgrigg.com/

How much watt is your light.
Your bulb K doesnt matter. And those Plant light bulbs are garbage.. If you want better light buy a whole new fixture.
O yea that green and white stripe plant is non aquatic, i would take that out

 

[sman]

The bulb says its 18 watts. I heard t5 is the way to go, can anyone recommend a t5 fixture? And the green and white one is not aquatic? Thats a bummer, petco assured me it was (figures).

 

[sman]

Im going to get a 65w power compact tomorrow, will this be sufficient in lighting the tank w/plants?

 

[nry]

65watts is fine providing you are also able to sort out some stable CO2 addition alongside decent fertilisation such as the Estimative Index (see pinned thread).

Hit much beyond 1.5wpg on a tank your size and algae will love you unless you cater for the plants properly. No CO2 and default plant fertiliser from the local pet shop will not be suitable.

You have loads of plastic plants in there and some live plants which are not true aquatics (which will usually die at some point). You may be better trying to choose some low-light plants (anubias, java fern, moss etc) rather than try to up the lighting to such a level. Remember that many plants also take weeks to settle in once planted - in this time they may appear to die but should hopefully sort themselves out after 2-3 weeks.