Planted Aquarium Help

[Bethany]

I'm trying my first planted aquarium. I have a 55gallon that I bought used to try it. It came with a jbj compact fluorescent hood that had bulbs I couldn't use so I ordered these hoping they work, they are 6500K, but they are 65 watt and my hood has 4 bulbs so that is 4.7 watts per gallon.

Which brings me too can you have too many watts per gallon?

I tried to pick plants that have moderate to high lighting requirements. These are the plants I have picked I have not ordered any yet, but I was looking at live aquaria. Wisteria, Cabomba, Myrio, Green, Myrio, Red, Ludwigia Peruensis, Rotala Indica, Ludwigia, Broad, Potted Dwarf Baby Tears, Four Leaf Clover - Potted, Micro Sword- Potted, Rotala Nanjenshan, Anubias nana on Driftwood

There are few options on beginner plants so please tell me if any of these are too hard to keep or will not mix well?

As far as substrate I tried a diy recipe I found on yahoo, it is manure compost, bone meal, pond fertilizer tables, and mason sand. I cleaned that sand for hours only to put 5 gallons in today to keep it moist and the water turned black from the manure compost. I went ahead and filled it up to try and get it settled and filtered.

I also have high ph so I need to adjust that. I've never worried with all this testing or adjusting my water so info on that will be great.

I have ordered a magnum 350 canister pro filter, flourish, trace, potassium, nitrogen, excel, and iron. Basically I got a flourish kit and ordered trace and potassium because some of the plants I picked said they needed these.

I also bought 2 of these yeast co2 things. The store only had two, and now looking back I would have been just as well off buying an injector kit. I'm not sure how to go about shutting it off at night, but I'll come up with something.

Bringing me to my next question could this produce too much co2? I do intend to have fish in there as well?

Thanks for any help and info.

 

[ChinnyMom]

your co2 you describe won't be sufficient for a 55 gallon tank. in my opinion, those store bought yeast co2 systems are a waste of money. homemade co2 systems are super easy to make with a 2 litre pop bottle, some airline tubing, yeast, sugar, and water. i can walk you through it with some photos if you want. i have a 20 gallon long that i am going to be doing DIY co2 on soon, and i'm looking at two 2 litre bottles for that tank, and it's close to a third the size of yours. if you want to do DIY, i'd be thinking four 2 litre bottles for your tank at least. you can't overdose on DIY co2 (well, it's nearly impossible to anyway), so let it run 24/7.

what is your ph? most plants aren't fussy about high ph. mine is 7.8/7.9 and i grow java fern, amazon swords, various crypts, crinums, vals, various anubias and a rose sword. i've been semi successful with a red ludwigia type, wisteria, and onion plants before too. wouldn't call the water here 'liquid rock' but it's pretty darn hard.

best thing to do is pick plants and fish that work with your water (ph, kh, gh, and such), rather than try to tweak your water to work for plants/fish that want softer water. the less additives and crud you add to your tank, the better. the KISS method is key!

good choice to go with a canister, because with hob filters you'll simply be off-gassing and wasting any co2 you pump into the tank, unless your water level is right up to the tank's top, and the hobs are barely making a ripple on the water surface. most people that run co2 on a planted tank use canister filters and keep the water surface as undisturbed as possible. i don't have experience with the magnum, so can't help you there. my canisters have all been rena xp's (love them!).

i'd simplify your substrate. go with just sand or just gravel, and add root tabs for any heavy root feeder plants (swords, crypts, etc). stem plants take their nutrients from the water for the most part, so root tabs won't help them out too much. i have a hunch you'll be wanting to muck in the tank for at least the first while, moving plants around and getting it 'just right', and dirt under your sand/gravel is going to make a bloody mess every time you pull up a plant.

also, with the compost/manure, i'd be very concerned about ammonia spikes and the resulting fish death that may happen due to them. as well, anerobic gas pockets could form at the bottom of all that 'ferment friendly' substrate and when you disturb one of those gas pockets, it is like setting off a noxious bomb in your tank, killing fish and causing problems. my 20 long has just sand and no root tabs, and my plants are doing quite well. i dose Flourish Comprehensive every so often (when i remember to, lol).

your plant list may want a little tweaking. i'd work with the medium light plants at first (wisteria, anubias, micro sword, and the ludwigia species), get a feel for your tank and how things go in there, then move up to higher light plants. i've been keeping tanks for almost 4 years here, and i'm not ready to move up past low/medium light plants myself, and my tank is running 65 watts over a low and long tank. so that's 3.25 watts per gallon, but the tank is only about a foot tall.

i've never heard of Myrio, i'll have to look that one up! i do know that camboba likes the water a little warmer than other plants, and the needle-like leaves will fall off super easy if the plant isn't happy, so you might want to skip that one. i tried it once and it was just a horrible mess in the tank!

i'd suggest trying crinums, amazon swords, java fern (likes to be attached to driftwood like anubias), vals (vallisneria), various cryptocoryne species, and of course you have to have a marimo moss ball in there! lol. i have three and i love my balls....... hahaha! they are actually a type of algae, not a plant, and are super neat.

you can have too much light/watts per gallon, but it only causes an issue if you don't match the ferts and co2 with the level of lighting. you may want to just bite the bullet and invest in a pressurized co2 system - it'll save you a lot of headaches in the algae department due to fluctuating co2 levels with the yeast system.

if my post seems all discombobulated, lol, it's because i kept going back and adding stuff to various paragraphs. any questions or huh?'s, just holler!

 

[Bethany]

The to be planted tank ph is 7.8, but I'm not sure if it could be from all the stuff in the tank. I thought most plants prefered less than 7 so if it can be high that is good. I actually do hate adding stuff to the water and having to fuss with it.

My ammonia did spike yesterday to dangerous levels. I haven't bought the test kit, I just have one of the ph/temp/amonia checkers that suction cup to the tank to give me a quick glance general idea.

I definatly want a moss ball, they are on back order at live aquaria, but my petsmart has them. I think I will skip camboba, I thought it was pretty and would be a good contrast, but I don't want needles all over.

The co2 canisters are just like diy, but it is a canister instead of a 2 liter. I was in a rush and don't have 2 liters. I do need some more, but the store is out. I think I may end up buying a injector as of right now I have spent quit a bit and I don't even have plants or fish so I'll wait it out a little longer.

My canister filter should be here tomorrow. I have a little filter in the tank now, and the water is kinda clearing. I may end up trashing the substrate and going with sand, it has settle out and looks really neat though.

 

[ChinnyMom]

your ph will be just fine. i know many planted tank people here in my city and they all work with the tap water as it is, just adding dechlorinator, and their tanks look beautiful, including some hard to keep plants that are finicky about water conditions.

when you go to get the test kit, pick up the API Freshwater master kit. it's the best and most reliable one out there. it does seem pricey compared to the other single kits, but it will last you a LONG time! i actually had to toss out my old kit, it expired before i had a chance to use up all the liquid regents. they are usually good for about 3 years after purchase.

i've seen those Hagen co2 things. the container for the yeast/sugar/water is not nearly as big as a 2 litre pop bottle, and you'll be re-making the mix much more often than you think you will be. once, just for kicks, and to test my setup, i ran one 2 litre on my 55 gallon to see how long the mix would continue to make co2 - less than 2 weeks. that's why i said four 2 litres would work for your tank, and stagger them so that you are only having to refill the mix on one or two bottles at a time (so week one you would add on bottles 1 and 2, week two you would add bottles 3 and 4). the biggest issue with co2 is that when it starts running low, that's when you run into algae problems.

that being said, you can run a nice planted tank without any co2. I do. this is my current planted tank with no co2, just sand as the substrate, and rare dosing of ferts (Flourish Comprehensive). it's grown out a bit since this photo, and i've added a small red lotus and some pennywort:

this little 2.5 gallon was also just sand on the bottom, with no co2, and rare fert dosing:

and here's my old planted 55 gallon, with no co2:

just to give you an idea of what you can do with the KISS method and a planted tank )

 

[Bethany]

Your tanks look very nice, I'm in the process of draining mine and tossing the old to put sand in. My filter and lights should be here today. I just need to buy the test kit to see what plants I actually can have.

I took out the dwarf baby tears and comboba from my list. You didn't say anything about the rotala, I read it is easy to keep. I have added a couple of cryptocoryne species to my list. My list is just plants I like that have a large range of tolerance. I will go through and tweak it once I test the water.

Is it better to buy potted or bare root?

 

[ChinnyMom]

i've never kept rotala, so i can't really comment on that one, and there are so many different variants of it. i'm not a big fan of stem plants, more of my experience is with root feeder type plants (swords, crypts, etc) and anubias and java fern (not a stem plant but not a root feeder either).

either potted or bare root, doesn't really matter in my experience. what you will find quite often with the top names of plant suppliers is that their plants are grown emmersed (out of water), and when you go to put them in your tank you will see them 'melt' some as they get used to growing and living underwater (immersed). a lot of people freak out and think they are doing something wrong with their tank, when it is just the plants getting used to a whole new environment. places like Live Aquaria, if i recall correctly, grow their plants emmersed (out of water), so you'll see some melting for sure.

if you get plants in pots, you'll want to remove them from the pot anyway, and take away as much of the 'rock wool' from around the roots as possible. plants left in the pots can get root bound just like a houseplant in too small a pot. and any bare root plants, be sure to remove the lead weight and separate all the plants before you plant them in your substrate.

one way i've found success with my plants is to buy them from other local fish tank geeks, lol, or local 'mom and pop' type stores. that way the plants are already used to being underwater, and are usually much healthier than plants from large distributors. most often much cheaper too!

i hope we are allowed to post links to other forums here, because i would strongly suggest you check out www.aquariacentral.com. it's a wonderful international fish forum, and one of my top 'go to's' whenever i have a question or concern with my tanks.

 

[Bethany]

Well I'm making progress:

My wisteria, micro sword, and dwarf saggiteria have shot off like weeds, but my ludwigia died I think. My cryptocoryne didn't melt like I expected, so all in all I think it is doing well.

I ended up setting my 10 gallon with a couple of saggiteria, and hairgrass, the hairgrass is melting, but it is doing okay. I'm thinking of planting my 29 gallon next.

I did have a green water algae outbreak and had to buy a uv sterilizer.

 

[ChinnyMom]

looking good! your log ornament, i don't know why, but it looks like some creature ambling around, lol. now you just need a black background to make everything 'pop' and a few taller plants in the back right corner!

green water issues can be fixed by lowering the amount of lighting and frequent water changes (about once a day). a uv is nice to have (makes your water so clear it's almost invisible), but not necessary.

oh, weigh a slice of zucchini down with a fork for your pleco, he'll love it.

 

[Bethany]

My plants takin off:

 

[ChinnyMom]

looking good!!!!! your pleco looks nice and fat and happy )

 

[Bethany]

He is growing like a weed too

 

[ChinnyMom]

you'll find once he's bigger that you may not want him in your tank. he could tend to uproot the plants and cause a mess, just by the way he swims along the substrate. plus, common plecos (which i'm pretty sure your guy is) get much too big to live comfortably in a 55 gallon long term.