First time with real plants...

[Thaiboxer]

Hi all,

I read Rex's FAQ, and want to run this by you. I'm new to planted tanks, and have a black thumb (I can kill any plant out of water... I'll try my luck in it).

I've been running aquariums for about 18 months with very good luck, and I'm confident on cycling, disease prevention, etc... so my questions here are strictly about the plants. I just got a tall 15 gallon tank for free. I'm planning to use it as a guppy breeder and QT tank if necessary. My questions...

Lighting: It has a hood with an 18" light. I just bought a 15w Nutrigrow light. Is this suitable for plants? The wattage seems low compared to Rex's suggestion. I can run it as many hours a day as I need to.

CO2: I don't want to buy it... at least not yet.

The plant I'm looking at (I'll get the name) is a floater, it's about 3/4" wide and stringy. The guy at the LFS said it's super easy to grow, and that his guppies love it and breed a ton. For now I'm thinking of having short, dense, fake plants on the bottom for the fry to hide in.

Any low cost suggestions? I just blew a ton of $$$ on a new 125 gallon tank, so I can't spend much for a while. If I had a wife, I'd be dead already.

TIA!

 

[Bearfan]

You're about 1 WPG, which is too low for almost any plant. CO2 is not required for sure at this light level.

I don't know much about the floating plant without a name, so it's hard to tell how well it would do. The nice part is it will be close to the light source.

As far as hours, 12-14 is what I always recommend. I run about 13 hours.

 

[Fruitbat]

At 1 watt per gallon you can probably get away with growing Java Fern, some Cryptocoryne species and Hornwort (which is probably the one the guy at the lfs was talking about).

CO2 injection won't do you much good at your light level and will probably drop your pH excessively.

 

[malkore]

I agree, the floating plant sounds just like hornwort, and it should grow well under that lighting. This will be a low light tank, and the plants Fruitbat suggested (plus most Anubias species) should grow fine under a 15 watt bulb. At that light level, CO2 won't be enough of a benefit to worry about.

Run the light for 12 hours a day, that should be plenty. Good luck!

 

[Guest]

Length of lighting period doesn't make up for lack of light.

 

[trenac]

Sounds like Hornwort which is a low light plant (1 WPG). So that would work floating on the top. However if you plan on getting other plants in the future for planting in the substarte than you would need a lot more light for a 15G high.

 

[Thaiboxer]

I will check if it's Hornwort - and plan on getting more lights if I'm going to add anything else.

Thanks for the advice!