Appropriate lighting

[TOMatt]

I've had my planted tank for about 10 months now. With Amazon Sword, Cryptocoryne, and recently Dwarf Hairgrass planted in silica sand. I've been using root tabs to help fertilize them.

The AS grows reasonably well, the Crypto is mediocre, and the grass is new. I'm thinking that I should upgrade my lighting.

Any recommendations?

Tank dimensions:
48 1/4"L x 12 3/4"W x 20"H

 

[Zimmanski]

I've had my planted tank for about 10 months now. With Amazon Sword, Cryptocoryne, and recently Dwarf Hairgrass planted in silica sand. I've been using root tabs to help fertilize them. The AS grows reasonably well, the Crypto is mediocre, and the grass is new. I'm thinking that I should upgrade my lighting. Any recommendations? Tank dimensions: 48 1/4"L x 12 3/4"W x 20"H

What light do you currently have and what level of lighting are you looking for? Don't forget, the higher the lighting the more attention the tank will need

 

[Khuligirl93]

The hairgrass is very high maintence. I recommend just taking that out and sticking with the low light plants. Dwarf hairgrass needs very high light, which means you need pressurized CO2 as well, and also dry fertilizers, and things just get really complicated because all of that has to be in perfect balance in order to not have an algae outbreak. Dwarf sag is a grassy looking plant that is far less maintence if you want to try that instead unless of course you are willing to take on the challenge of a high tech tank!

 

[TOMatt]

High maintenance hairgrass? I wanted something fairly easly... Ah well, i'll just see how it goes.

My lights are the standard "whatevercamewiththePetsmartkit" ones. I meant to check last night, but forgot. I'm sure they're underpowered.

How does higher lighting increase maintenance? Algae control?

 

[NinjaTetra]

I used to have a chart to explain that. The more of one nutrient a plant gets(in this case sunlight) the more it needs of the others. If you have excessive of one nutrient, it needs to be balanced and it will die if you dont. Also, they cant use the full amount of that nutrient and algae takes advantage of that to completely ruin your planted tank's nice look. Hope that was a good explenation, and good luck

 

[TOMatt]

Thanks, that makes sense.

 

[Rivercats]

The higher the light the more a plant grows which means it needs higher levels of CO2 and higher levels of both macro and micro ferts. When the 3 component's aren't balanced algae issues can arise.

Your sword and crypts need to have root tabs put in the substrate by them as both are heavy root feeders. Add new root tabs every 45 days to about 3 months as Swords especially will use them up quickly. You'll find those plants will do much better once you give them the nutrients they need.

 

[Jkeating8]

You would be surprised at how much work is needed. It doesn't take much work to maintain a high tech tank, but it is expensive.

 

[Mebbid]

You know, people keep saying that planted tanks require a lot of maintenance but I completely disagree with that. I have a medium light planted tank and I use excel for my carbon source and dry ferts. Every day when I feed my 2 planted tanks I add my ferts and excel in. It takes me about 30 seconds a day to properly fertilize a tank.

 

[Rivercats]

It depends on a lot of things as far as work is concerned... tank size, the amount of plants, the amount of fast growing plants, how often you trim or don't trim, is CO2 being used, etc.

It's not too time consuming to keep up with my medium light, CO2, 55g tank but the plants are to the point I'm pretty much having to do trimming and even some thinning weekly now. I can do most plant trimming and such during the weekly WC.

But my very high light 220g 100% planted is a different ball game. Sheer size and number of stem plants often takes daily maintenance, more than just adding the ferts and liquid carbon, especially since adding CO2. The plants could overtake the tank in 2 weeks easy. I know, been there, done that, and it's not pretty, nor fun to fix, which can take hours.

Many people don't even want to have to take the time to add ferts and liquid carbon daily so it really boils down to what a person is willing to do or not do. Even 30 seconds is too much for many people. So when you look at the overall picture there is more time required overall the more high tech a planted tank is. Even a 10g high tech planted can quickly get overgrown if it's not being trimmed, thinned, and replanted in no time. How many times have you seen small high tech- high light set ups turn into overgrown jungles because the time wasn't spent for whatever reason not to keep them maintained the way they should be.

 

[TOMatt]

I add the root tabs probably monthly. Trim the plants weekly when I do my PWC...

I'll look at liquid CO2 and better lighting. Do you think that will pick things up?

I'm not too worried about cost (the aquarium is much cheaper than my other hobbies), more the TIME involved. During the week, I barely to have time to FEED them! lol

For reference my avatar is still pretty much how the tank looks, but with the tall "non-AS plants" gone (I was told it was wysteria, but it's not...) and hairgrass on the left side.

 

[Rivercats]

If you would do something like a 2 bulb T5HO fixture (I use Aquatic Life fixtures with Geiseman bulbs) you would have a pretty soild medium light. You could do a fairly good variety of plants without it going crazy on you. But you would need to use liquid carbon daily at a rate of at least 1ml liquid carbon to every 5 gallons of tank water.