New to planted freshwater setups (questions)

Hong Kongan · 11-04-2005, 07:28 AM

Hi all,

okay so heres the scoop. Ive just started my very first freshwater planted tank. I got some r/o water in today and put the gravel in. Even though i washed the gravel at least 10 times when i put it in the water was still very murky to the point of which couldnt see a thing. Is this normal and will the filter strain it out? I bought some freshwater plants today, although the tank wasnt ready so i put them in a tank full of clean water is this okay? For my third question i was wondering do i have to clean the substarte despite the presence of the plants and are their any cleanin critter you reccomend i get?

thanks in advance.

GeekGirlUnveiled · 11-04-2005, 10:28 AM

Can you tell a little more about your system? Lighting, substrate, filtration...

Water will be murky. Did you use flourite or eco-complete? These stay dusty for several days. You should just let it settle. If you use any filterfloss to pull it out, remember to rinse it daily.

The plants can go in right now, shouldn't hurt them. The only thing I know of to work the gravel in a heavily planted tank is Malaysian Trumpet snails and... well, YOU.

If you keep very many fish, you should still clean the substrate to keep your tank healthy. While it is lightly planted, you should just go between the plants with your gravel vac. Once it gets more densely grown, you need to uproot about 1/4 of the tank about once a month and vac it.

Otherwise, if you keep it lightly populated, you could get away with very little substrate cleaning, but it stil needs to be done. Lots of aquatic gardeners claim that you never have to clean the substrate, that the roots will take care of things, but to those that say that, I invite you to look at the substrate in my planted tank... you can clearly see the areas that I DON'T gravel vac look terrible, in spite of plants feeding there. That being said, having a well-planted tank means better health for the system and less maintenance (other than pruning,) IMO.

Hong Kongan · 11-04-2005, 08:54 PM

okay thanks. Rite now i dont have any lighting my funds are going low and ill have to ask for another grant. Im gonna go check on the tank today and put the plants in. My filtration system is basic some bio balls a power head and some filterfloss. I dunoo what type of substrate it is but it is brown and graveley. Very dirty. thanks for all the help

xaoss23 · 11-04-2005, 11:29 PM

in addition to what geekgirl listed.. I would recommend adding some root tabs. I also dose with seachem's flourish excel. In the begining before the tank was established I also dosed with trace elements and iron but dont typically need to anymore (running over two years).
Try not to skimp on the lighting... remember, light is your main food source!
To avoid snail overpopulation you might want to consider some type of botia (striata or kubotai arent too difficult to find and dont get nearly as large like the clowns or yo-yos do)
My tank is s bit overpopulated so I usualy do waterchanges atleast every two weeks.
The water in your tank will clear up soon... after a couple of water changes you wont have to worry about a cloudstorm everything you go in there.
Planted tanks are very nice... its going to take a lot for me to ever break mine down (not happening!) Feel free to ask any other questions...

flashardy · 11-04-2005, 11:45 PM

Lighting really dose not matter in FW tank! For the murky it is normal when setting up a FW tank the 1st time! hope you dont have it by a window! When setting up my tank 7 YRS ago It was clowdy for about 2days then cleared up! All I use for the plants are plant gro and about 2 other types,

MY 2 CENTS

well I have a planted tank, It has amazon swords (large) and tons and tons of java fern, and some other types of swords ( been in the tank for over a 1yr now) ( and of course tons of BOG Wood) It is a 55G and it has the regular 48W on it. Filter is a Rena, heater is 2 300W Rena and one Titium one.

Hong Kongan · 11-05-2005, 09:23 PM

okay thanks for all the help guys. I dunno what fish im going to stock though, but one thing is for certain i need to buy more plants and maybe some bogwood with plants growing out of it. That id be good. Mebe in a few months time ill even post a pretty picfor all to see.

xaoss23 · 11-06-2005, 08:38 PM

to say that lighting doesnt matter is slightly leaning toward ill advice... basically it works the same as corals... some plants will require more light than others. Some like direct light, others like strong spectrum in shaded areas... and so on and so forth. It's completely dependent on the species of plant. For example, Hygrophila polysperma will grow and survive just fine under low lighting... but a stronger light is required for the red color to show. Many of your "red" plants react the same way... some cant survive without the correct spectrum and intensity.

So basically put... yes, light absolutely can matter depending on what species you want to keep. Make sure you research your plants just like you would any coral.
HTH

tabwyo · 11-22-2005, 07:39 PM

You can cheaply light a planted tank, though some "Purists' might stone me for suggesting it, with a shop light. You'll probably want to stay in the 3-4 watts per gallon range. And higher and your plants will need additional carbon in the form of CO2, wich can be costly. But I have made many cheap DIY CO2 units as well. I clean my tanks religiously once a week but have never had the need nor urge to constanly uproot my tanks. I clean everything I can get to and let nature and snails do the rest. If the substrate looks like chiped red clay then it's flourite. If it just gravel then you probably purchased un washed garden gravel wich is fine.

GeekGirlUnveiled · 11-23-2005, 09:31 PM

I second the shop lights for planted. You can put 4-5 T-8 NO tubes on there for dirt cheap, and get the proper spectrum too, plenty of light for a 55gal planted tank.

Plants are like corals. There will always be someone who can grow Amazon Swords like crazy under less than one watt per gallon. But typically, you need 2-3 wpg to grow most plants well, and a few of the "carpet" plants will require 4-5 wpg. More than that, however, and you run into serious balance issue.

Higher light requires more fertilizer, and ideally, the addition of a pressurized CO2 system, although, as mentioned, you can DIY them pretty easily if you don't mind messing with it every week.

xaoss23 · 11-23-2005, 11:31 PM

I like the idea of the shop lights... the tank that got me interested in planted was set up that way. Several different spectrum lights to cover a good range. inexpensive way of lighting and works very well...

Disco_Jr · 11-27-2005, 10:33 PM

im just using 2 vho coral life 50/50 110 wat lights on my 120gal but just started planting it......

hopeing for the best from this setup

hope your tank will do well

tabwyo · 11-28-2005, 07:30 AM

I'd ditch the 50/50's dicso. Straight 6500K or daylight lamps are all the plants want. Actinic light is of no benifit to plants.

Disco_Jr · 11-28-2005, 07:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tabwyo

I'd ditch the 50/50's dicso. Straight 6500K or daylight lamps are all the plants want. Actinic light is of no benifit to plants.

i had goten the 50/50 b/c i liked the blue they give off ....
not knowing if i wanted to just use this tank as freshwater fish only , planted freshwater , or do a reef (need much more light for that)

as long as the plants do ok with the 50/50 im going to use them unless the 50/50 light will hurt the plants in which case i will get rid of them asap

but if they just need more 6500k light i will add a light kit with 2 t12 6500k lights

i do however have a 300watt halogen light i could setup in there dont know if that is too much light,or if i need that much light ,..... the heat would be no problem i can install a few fans no trubble....

if the 50/50 are bad for the plants plz let me know ... i just dont like the way most fw tanks look with the yellow white light ....

thx