Help Please, Set Up For Plant Growth

[FishyDan]

Hello i am setting up a new tank and am going to have live plants, i am looking for low maintainence and im not worried about having plants grow like crazy, i just want them to beat off the algae

i have 1.6 WPG lighting but with reflectors as well, so i suppose its a bit higher
i was planning to use a laterite substrate with small gravel on top, or just eco complete

do i need to dose ferts? or will the substrate provice enough fertilisation?

also with my light level can i avoid CO2, as i want to keep it as simple as possible

thank you in advance for your help

 

[Wolfenrook]

Hello i am setting up a new tank and am going to have live plants, i am looking for low maintainence and im not worried about having plants grow like crazy, i just want them to beat off the algae

i have 1.6 WPG lighting but with reflectors as well, so i suppose its a bit higher
i was planning to use a laterite substrate with small gravel on top, or just eco complete

do i need to dose ferts? or will the substrate provice enough fertilisation?

also with my light level can i avoid CO2, as i want to keep it as simple as possible

thank you in advance for your help

At 1.6wpg (unless it is T5) you have low lighting, so need to look for plants that can tolerate low lighting such as amazon swords, java fern etc. As to the substrate, I would just go for the eco-complete, it's a nice colour and your plants will enjoy it.

Ferts, you can probably get away with just dosing trace ferts with low lighting like that. A product such as Tropica Plan Nutrition, AquaMedic Ferreal+ Spureal or Seachem Flourish should do the job.

As to CO2, this isn't essential with such low lighting, but wouldn't do any harm either. If you want to give your plants a boost you could try using one of the liquid carbon supplements such as flourish excel or easylife easycarbo.

Hope this helps.

Ade

 

[FishyDan]

thanks alot, yes the lighting is T5

but your points are exactly what i was looking for

thanks

 

[Wolfenrook]

thanks alot, yes the lighting is T5

but your points are exactly what i was looking for

thanks

Then consider it low/medium lighting, and you should be able to grow most none high light plants with that lighting, T5 is a fair bit more intense than T8.

Glad I was of help.

Ade