Real or fake plants?

[TigerBarbs]

Have a 29 gallon tank with sand substrate. The fish are 7 tiger barbs, senegal bichir, rainbow shark, a emerald Cory and a red eye tetra

 

[bruinsbro1997]

It all depends on what you'd want to do. If you wanted real plants, what plants were you thinking and what lighting do you have?

 

[TigerBarbs]

An aqueon 8000k full spectrum daylight, it's the one that came with my hood

 

[bruinsbro1997]

Okay, is it one bulb or two bulbs? Is it a T8, T5, T5 HO, LED, etc?

 

[TigerBarbs]

Just one bulb and t8

 

[bruinsbro1997]

It's not that great of lighting and probably won't do good for most plants, but if you wanted to try java fern and moss and MAYBE anubias, it can be done.

 

[jcolon]

An aqueon 8000k full spectrum daylight, it's the one that came with my hood

Ok .. the color temp is in the right spectrum for plants.

Assuming it's either T8/T12 fluorescent or an incandescent bulb(s) .... what's the wattage of the bulb(s)? The wattage will determine the type of plants you can support. If it's a T5 bulb ... check out the link below.

PAR vs Distance, T5, T12, PC - Updated Again Charts

 

[TigerBarbs]

It's a 17 watt bulb

 

[daileene]

you can have low light plants in that wattage...if you want to go up to a medium light plants so you can have more choices, try to upgrade the wattage of your bulb...

 

[Oscarr19]

you can have low light plants in that wattage...if you want to go up to a medium light plants so you can have more choices, try to upgrade the wattage of your bulb...

To upgrade the wattage he'd need a whole new fixture.

 

[TigerBarbs]

O well I'm not gonna do that then

 

[Oscarr19]

So you should stick with low light plants. Java fern, java moss, anubias...

 

[daileene]

To upgrade the wattage he'd need a whole new fixture.

Oh yes, I meant that. Of course. But he can have low light plants. There are plenty of low light plants that he can work out. Java ferns, java moss, anubias, some crypts, and other...

 

[daileene]

oppsss you just mentioned the plants...

 

[tulip55555]

If you can't decide between real or fake then I would think you don't want to spend extra $$ upgrading lights or dosing ferts to keep real plants. You can keep both. I have seen some really nice "fake" planted tanks. They make them so good now that once they are in the water you can't even tell.
Then along with the fake ones I would add some anacharis or java fern...they are very hardy, low effort plants. Plus anacharis grows pretty fast and in a couple of months you could make a couple of plant bunches out of that one plant by cutting the tops off and replanting. It grows extremely well as a floating plant, too.

 

[Batesy82]

I started with fake plants and regretted it fairly quickly. The fake ones, even the expensive ones, don't do a tank justice.

I had plastic Vals, they stood bone straight and didn't move with the water flow at all. Even if the looked real, they didn't move real.

IMO if you don't want to upgrade lighting, but your existing lighting will be enough for java fern, anubias etc I'd definitely still go for it.

 

[Gboy66]

How many volts or hertz are needed for most fw plants??

 

[daileene]

It is not the volts or hertz that is needed for freshwater plants. it is all about the color temperature (K rating of the bulb) and the wattage per gallon.

 

[daileene]

You might like to check this link about lighting:

A beginner's guide to lighting

 

[Gboy66]

Whew thats alot to take in