New To Planted Tanks

[juelz]

hey all

im getting a 35 gallon tank next week nd after seeing all of your nice planted tanks ive decided that i want to make it a planted tank

wut tips and advice can you give a beginner on planted tanks

regarding
-good beginner plants
-fish that go well with planted tanks
-and other general advice on what to stay away from in the world of planted tanks

thanks in advance

 

[karlp]

Hi Juelz

I've been having a go at this for a couple of months, so am still learning the ropes, but my top tips so far are:

- don't be impatient to add fish. Get the planted tank going for a couple of months so they get a change to be established. It helps in the algae war if the plants are already growing well. Also don't start a fishless cycle straight away either, because this will have the same effect as adding fish.

- Think carefully about what approach you want to do. High growth, with CO2 injection and high lighting is the most popular and generally yields the most pleasing results, but is expensive and fairly time consuming and you need to become expert on plant nutrients. Research the alternatives.

- You will almost definitely need to upgrade the lighting in your tank for good plant growth by adding extra tubes, reflectors and plant growth tubes. I would personally avoid Interpet T5 lighting (in fact all Interpet lighting), because there are overheating isues with the units (do a search on the forum) and I would avoid over-driving standard tubes (running a 30W tubes at a higher power to get more light - recent case on US forum of house fire caused by this).

- Get a good fertilized substrate for your plants

- Research all the plants carefully before buying and pick plants that suit your water and setup. I found the Peter Hiscock encyclopedia of aquarium plants (amazon do it) good for this.

- Keep your fish stocking levels lower than a non-planted tank.

- Don't leave CO2 on at night if you decide to go down that route.

Good luck!

 

[Jen]

It really all depends on how far you want to go, as fishy mad said. Going for a fully planted tanks can be very expensive. I have easily spent 6 or $700 dollars (canadian) on exuipment for my tank in the past 6 months. You can have some nice plants in a tank without all the frills... lots of light, co2, and extra fertalizers. Mr. Miagi and simonbrownhave low tech tanks that are quite nice. The dont add co2, or have tons of light. Have a look at the posts in that thread (its the members planted tank thread. A few of us with heavily planted tanks go into detail about what we do in our tank.

Decide on what you want to do first, and then we can help you from there.

 

[juelz]

i definetely dont want to spend as much as u said u did jenn

so im prolly looking at a low tech tank

i looked at miagis tank and its beautiful so i wouldnt mind sumthing similar to that

 

[Jen]

Ok. Now we have a place to start.

What do you have for the tank now? Or rather, what will you be getting with the tank in the way of lighting and substrate? It might not hurt to get something with some nutrients in it for the plants. Somehing like laterite or flourite. You will probably want about 40 or 50 watts of light. The stock hood will probably only hold a 20 watt bulb. You may or may not be able to modify the hood to add an extra fixture in there, but it depends on your financial restrictions.

Have a look at Plantgeek.com for some low light and medium low light plants. There some moderate light plants that will do ok in lower light conditions, but this is a good place to start. Java Fern, Java moss, anubias and cryptocoyrne species all do well in low light. Vallisneria does well in low leght as well. Stem plants like Hygro polysperma and ludwiga will be ok, but they tend to get a bit leggy at the bottom... stems but no leaves. This is just because there is much less light down at the bottom of the tank.

If you don't get a substrate with nutrients in it, then you will want to get some root tabs for some of the plants, as well as a liquid fertalizer for the stem plants.

 

[juelz]

where would i be able to find the best kind of substrate

im also located in ontario so i should be able to find the same stores as u go to

so if u dont mind can i have a aprroximate price range so i dont get myself ripped off

 

[juelz]

also im prolly going to my LFS one day this week could u tell me all the things that would be a good idea for me to look into

 

[Jen]

Ok. I'm not sure what kind of fish stores are in Toronto, but stay away from Petsmart. In my experience, their equipment is overpriced, their plants are always shawdy looking, and half of them arent even aquatic plants.

I do all my shopping at Big Al's. Its a great store and very decently priced. I don't have many options around me, but you might have more out that way.

For substrate, they have laterite, flourite and eco-complete. all are a bit pricy, but you'll save on root tabs in the long run. Laterite you should be able to get away with 1 20ox box at $14 since you arent going heavy stocked. You need to put this under gravel or sand. Flourite is $30, and the one bag would only cover a 10gal tank, but again, since your not heavily planted you could mix it with normal black gravel. I don't know anything about eco-complete, and their description is very minimal.

There really isnt much else that you need for a low tech tank. You could add an extra light if you can mod the hood to add another tube in there.

Once you have the tank set up with water and the substrate in then you will want some fast growing plants to combat algae. some hygo polysperma is great for this. Most stem plants are perfect at fighting algae at the start. Just stay away from red plants as they need lots of light. Then you can get some val or anubias or some crypts.

 

[juelz]

hey jen i go to Big Al's too lol

nd thanks when i go to the LFS im gonnna pick up these things

 

[Jen]

have you decided which substrate to go with?

oh. and dont forget to get a liquid fertalizer of some sort. I used seachem flourish when I first started out, and had great results. Since you arent going to inject co2, you might want to pick up secahem excel, which is a carbon supplement for the tank. It works great too.

 

[juelz]

well im definetely using sand
unless thats not a good idea

and do i get both seacham flourish and excel

or just one of them?

 

[Jen]

sand is great. I use that in my tank. I got it really cheap from a swimming pool supply store.. it was 7.50 for a 50 pound bag. I had that in my old 35 as well. If you are going with sand, then I would reccomend the laterite. You mix that with a small amount of sand, spread it on the bottom, then add the rest of the sand. The other 2 types of nutrient substrate (flourite and eco-complete) wont mix well with sand, and it will all divide on you... sand on the bottom, and the others on top. This is probably a goo thing, because the laterite will be cheaper, since you only need 1 20oz box. If you think that you might want to up you plants and lights later to have a more heavily planted tank, then it would be worth it to spend the extra 15 bucks now and get 2 boxes, as adding it later will mean taking all your plants out, tearing up the sand and laterite, and getting all new stuff.

 

[juelz]

1) how much are the boxes of laterite?

2)would u recommend getting another box and adding it in so i dont got to do it later?

 

[Jen]

Laterite is 14.00 for the 20oz box -laterite.

I cant say yes or no to that question. I know how quickly I went from semi planted to totally planted, so if you think later on you might want to add more light and co2 and all that stuff, then i would reccomend it... 14 now instead of 2 boxes and new sand later.

 

[juelz]

yea ur right im gonna go with the 20 oz. box

nd one last thing

could u make me a brief checklist of the stuff ill need?

thanks in advance