new tank

[Warr40]

I'm looking into growing live plants in my 29 i have never grown live plants before what do i need to do,
I'm looking to grow some christmas moss, java ferns and some amazon swords what find of lighting, fertilizer, CO2 do i need
P.S i have gravel in my tank can the fertilizer go in the gravel
I also want to grow my plants on driftwood and slate
Is there a website that can help me with this

 

[zig]

First thing you need to do is work out your lighting, see whats running under the hood of your tank, the plants you want to grow dont require much light 1 to 2 watts per gallon (WPG) will be sufficient, find out what the wattage of your bulb is and compare it to the gallons in your tank, so if the bulb is only 20 watts and your tank is 29 gallons then you have less than 1 watt per gallon, but you want somewhere between 1-2 watts per gallon, so first things first work out your lighting.

Once you have that figured you buy bulbs of the correct spectrum in order to grow plants.

At low levels of light you dont need co2, but you can add it if you wish, it will help your plants, they will grow a lot better and healthier, a diy sugar yeast mix in soda bottles is fine or you could use the Hagen ladder system, these are also cheap.

Your gravel will be fine use root tabs for your sword plants to fertilise them, stick it in the gravel beside the plant, unless of course you want to spend money and buy a special substrate for growing plants.
The moss and java fern can both grow on driftwood you can fertilise these through the water column.

Have a look at the pinned topics here and browse the web, i dont have any links to hand.

 

[Warr40]

my fixture has 4 incadecent sockets each with 20 watt bulbs is that good

 

[zig]

No incadescent lighting wont work.

Read the pinned article at top of this section on lighting.