staring at a new empty 60 gallon aquarium

[nanamae]

Want to use live plants but I'am very old school and scared to death of co2. I have been looking at substrate and per advice looked for power sand,amozonian aqua soil, and river sand at my local pet supply and fish store up here in the northern wasteland. Nothing. I worry about the cost of shipping. want to do it right. I drove 10 hours today round trip just to pick up my aquarium. Should you ship it in increments to save money? Are there more readily available options that will work. phishy and world of fish are another 10 hour drive away. but on their online shop I saw nothing like these products.
HELP!!!!!!!
nanamae

 

[CA_BroncoFan]

I don't know a whole lot about co2 but I can tell you I have plants in two of my tanks without co2 and they have been thriving for over a year now. I just provide them with light.

 

[jimmy c]

i and others posted this on another post about co2 here on the site. u can make ur own co2 bottles out of yeast, 2Litre pop bottles (plastic ones) and some airline tubing. i did it this way and worked great. i bought a homemade co2 and didnt use it much. google "rex griggs" and he has a page about co2.... better yet here! Welcome to Rex's Guide to Planted Tanks whow, been a while since i been on that site, looks good now.

as for shipping substrate etc. you have to put a $ amount on what u think your time/gas/wear on your vehicle is worth. then find out what shipping would cost you. if your worried about getting good quality stuff, email the fishstores if u can and tell them exactly what you want and have them ship it. that way if its not exactly what u ordered, you have the emails to fall back on if they dont send the right stuff.

for me, driving from Toronto to Montreal is 5hrs 1 way, the **** if im gonna drive that far for fish stuff!! not realistic IMO.

hope it helps.

 

[mfdrookie516]

just go with pool filter sand for your substrate. those planted tank substrates only provide nutrients for so long anyways. Just throw some root tabs in the sand and its basically the same thing. I dont run co2 in my tank, i just have a low-medium light setup and dose ferts about once a week. Unless you're running a medium-high light setup, you dont have to have co2, but its always a nice addition. What types of plants are you wanting to go with? Have you figured out what light you're going to have on it?

 

[nanamae]

thank you.
are root tabs the same as substrate gold balls? I want to try some low light plants, java fern,anubis nana,some cryptocoryns, ozelot. I keep reading about it all and my head is swimming. Do you use an under gravel heater? Is liquid co2 an alright alternative? Pool sand is avaiable only 45 min away. yay

 

[Purrbox]

You could use Flourish Excel (liquid carbon, carbon is what the CO2 also provides) but in a 60 gallon aquarium that would get awfully expensive fast. Based on most of the plants that you are looking at, I would recommend shooting for 1.5 to 2 WPG, which would not require carbon supplementation.

Most people don't bother with undergravel heaters. There are a few that swear by them, but most that have given them a try didn't find that they provided any extra benefit just extra cost.

Root tabs are fertilizer pellets/balls that are meant to be placed in the substrate and replenished as needed. You can buy commercial products or make your own.

I'm moving this thread over to to the Planted Tank Forum, since it's about general questions that don't include aquascaping.

 

[nanamae]

I started soaking a piece of african root wood today, in aprox 5 gal water with 4 tbls aquarium salt and 4 capfuls of stresscoat. I bought medium filter and industrial gravel 50 lbs, and 30.8 lbs of red flourite. recommended by something phishy locally. I am still at least 3 weeks from actually setting up. Purchasing cannister filter next week, and thinking about using a penguin bio wheel as well. 2 smaller hanging heaters rather than one big one. I would also like to have a bubble wall. Not sure how they work with plants.
thanks to all for your help
nanamae

 

[Purrbox]

As long as you aren't planning to inject CO2, the BioWheel and Bubble Wall will help ensure that there is plenty of O2 in the aquarium. If you are thinking of injecting CO2 at any point in the future, you will want to skip both of these as they will be counter productive and the canister filter should provide more than enough O2 on it's own as long as it is setup and maintained properly.

 

[BigJim]

CO2 and fertilizers aren't necessary until you get into higher light tanks. The tradeoff is your plants will grow much more slowly. A 60g would be a real challenge to do DIY CO2 on. You'd be much better off with a pressurized CO2 system if you want to go that way. Undergravel heaters aren't necessary and it's debatable if they really provide any benefits.

 

[vromanowski]

just go with pool filter sand for your substrate. those planted tank substrates only provide nutrients for so long anyways. Just throw some root tabs in the sand and its basically the same thing. I dont run co2 in my tank, i just have a low-medium light setup and dose ferts about once a week. Unless you're running a medium-high light setup, you dont have to have co2, but its always a nice addition. What types of plants are you wanting to go with? Have you figured out what light you're going to have on it?

Hey thanks for the idea of just using pool filter sand, as I'm planning on converting my 10gal to planted... if I want to do a low light setup like yours do I still need to replace the hood lighting my aquarium came with? The hood says it's 50 watt incandescent, has two bulbs in it. I know incandescent isn't great for plants but if it's low light plants will it be enough?

 

[BigJim]

If you've got an incandescent hood, get a couple of the spiral compact fluorescents. They're far superior to incandescent bulbs. If you get big bulbs, it might be enough for a low light setup on a 60g.

 

[mfdrookie516]

Hey thanks for the idea of just using pool filter sand, as I'm planning on converting my 10gal to planted... if I want to do a low light setup like yours do I still need to replace the hood lighting my aquarium came with? The hood says it's 50 watt incandescent, has two bulbs in it. I know incandescent isn't great for plants but if it's low light plants will it be enough?

i have one 10g planted tank that has an incandescent hood like you're talking about. i've got two 60w rated, 13w actual cfl bulbs in it. plants are doing great. in a 10g tank, you dont have to have near the lighting that you do in deeper tanks. i successfully kept medium light plants in another 10g with a 15w t8 bulb for several months until i upgraded to a 4' shop light over two of them.

 

[vromanowski]

sweeeeeeet ty

 

[nanamae]

thanks again to all for the info. I want a spraybar with my canister filter. I was looking at enheim 2234 self priming. I can only find hagen fluval spray bar kits for canister filter 403. Can I use this spraybar on the enheim filter?