looking for some plant advice

[aveldina]

Hey everyone, I've been doing a lot of reading lately but I still have a few questions I haven't been able to fully answer. LPS's in the area have not been helpful in any way.. But I've been having lots of fun with my plants (maybe more than I'll even have with fish!). Maybe because I've finally got some plants I can grow in my dark apartment style condo.

First off current set up:
36G bowfront (30" wide, 15" length)
1x65W Coralife freshwater aqualight giving me 1.8W/G (Medium using this guide, New Lights? sound correct?)
No fish, nitrites going up (hopefully peaking soon, any ammonia I add disappears in 24h).
Been up and running for 4 weeks. (Major water change 2 weeks ago because a piece of driftwood was making my water simply gross. I realized it would restart my cycle but it grew white slime and smelled awful. It didn't go back in.)
Got a few uninvited snails who are happily cleaning.
Readings as of last night: ph: steady @ 7.9, A: 0ppm, Nitrite: 2.0ppm, Nitrate: 10ppm

My issue is basically as follows:
Added a few plants to aquarium from LPS, and am keeping some pond plants over winter. My lighting was too low so I switched to the Coralife 65W (highest wattage I could find locally & afford) 6700K. Plants started much better and showed some growth. Added a few more plants from a different LPS and progressed far enough in the cycle to start seeing nitrate readings around 10ppm. Plants which seemed to be doing good suddenly start turning faded/yellow but my floating water lettuce is growing like crazy.
So my questions:
1. Did some research and I seem to think that my plants need a plant supplement of some kind. Is the water lettuce out competing my other plants for food..? I've posted some pictures, is my guess correct?
2. I've only been able to figure out exactly what type one of the underwater plants is, can anyone with more experience give me an idea what type all of the plants are? The plant sitting on the bridge belongs to my roommate who's waiting for an upgraded light to arrive.
3. Getting light requirements for plants has been kind of difficult since everyone's answer seems to be "they'll be fine", am I going to have a serious issue keeping any of these plants with my current light levels?
4. I'm willing to run CO2 if I need to, the only kits I've seen locally are these ones: http://www.bigalsonline.ca/BigAlsCA/ctl3664/cp18056/si1315084/cl0/plantgroco2naturalsystem Would something like this be helpful for this tank/plant level?
5. Has anyone had floating plants and an issue with the floating plants constantly running into the filter? How have you solved this issue? My water movement is fairly high right now to encourage the tank to cycle.
6. Plant selection at LPS seems to be high light, high light and more high light plants. I'm in Canada, what's the best way to get plants for my aquarium? Can I get them online?

And for fun.. any fish recommendations? I'm still so undecided..
Thanks so much!!!

 

[Purrbox]

I'd agree that you've got a nice medium light setup. You should be able to grow most any low to medium light plant, and possibly some medium high to high light plants. With that amount of light you can also keep it fairly low maintenance. While CO2 would be beneficial, it's unlikely that you'll have to use it. You will probably need to do some limited fertilizing.

From what I can see in the pictures, your plants seem mostly healthy. Your description of the new leaves yellowing would be in line with either a Nitrate or Iron deficiency. If you aren't dosing at all, I would suspect a little of both.

I would recommend dosing as follows:
Dose to 20ppm Nitrate 1-2x per week
Dose to 2-4ppm Phosphate 1-2x per week
Dose 20ppm Potassium once a week (may be split in two doses)
Dose 0.1-0.2ppm Iron of the Trace Fert

Dry ferts are the most economical and Rex Grigg does ship to Canada. The Combo Pack would include everything you need to get to get started. Another alternative is to go with the Flourish line of ferts which are good quality but the Macro ferts are rather dilute and will therefore be very expensive. If you go the Flourish route, make sure to get Flourish "Comprehensive" instead of Flourish Trace, as it is actually a better Trace Fert. Another good trace fert is Tropica Plant Nutrition.

PlantGeek.net is a great site for identifying your plants and determining lighting requirements. I also use Tropica's site quite a bit.

Water Lettuce is a good nutrient sponge and will help prevent many algae problems, but if it's too efficient will mean more dosing so that all your plants are able to get sufficient amounts.

The CO2 kit you're looking at is basically DIY CO2 in a pretty package. You'd need about 7 of them to get sufficient CO2 levels in your aquarium. At that price tag you'd be much better off actually building a DIY setup or going with Pressurized CO2.

 

[aveldina]

Oh, the other thing I was going to add is that I am planning to put a glass cover on the aquarium (instead of black plastic) and lift the light up a bit so that my surface plants which get pushed to the corners are not in total shade. Has anyone made this change before and noticed a big difference in light at the bottom of the aquarium? Would lifting my light a small amount significantly decrease the amount of light to my lower plants despite the higher amount of clear top surface area? It might seem like a silly question, I just don't want to find out the lesson the hard way..

 

[Purrbox]

You've got enough light with that fixture that I think you'll be better of replacing the deluxe plastic hood with a glass canopy. Even with raising the fixture slightly, the plants will probably get more light overall.

 

[aveldina]

Thanks soo much Purrbox, you're awesome! I'm switching to glass as soon as mine shows up and I'll reply with how it goes. Plants are already looking better with the fertilizer added, they're a bit less yellow.
I don't know if I'd get a bowfront again, I have to special order everything for it here..

 

[newfound77951]

I have a 36 corner and they are also a bit of a pain as everything is designed for rectangular tanks. But it looks like you are on the right track now with your plants.