10 gal planted

[Gillie]

I am thinking about starting a 10 gal planted tank and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as far as plants that I could put into it. So far all I know is that I will be putting Glosso in the set up, any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[rkilling1]

The type of plants depends on your setup. If you want to grow glosso (assuming as a carpet) you will need atleast 40 watts of light and inject CO2 and dose ferts.

Is this your plan?

 

[Purrbox]

For a carpet of Glosso, you'd probably need even more light than that. I'd say at least 60 watts. Don't forget that the WPG rule breaks down on these small tanks. There are lots of plant options, we just need to know your goals for the tank and how you're planning to set it up.

 

[Gillie]

I'll ditch the Glosso idea then.I'm looking to have plants that don't get too large with quite a bit of red, something kind of like Alternanthera a few grassy looking plants and maybe now that I think about it a Rosette sword, and maybe Baby Tears.

 

[Peyton]

What kind of lighting do you have?

 

[Gillie]

I was thinking about one 10,000k daylight/460nm actinic power compact.

 

[Purrbox]

Would this be a 40 watt fixture? If so that would only give you about 20 watts of usable light, and pretty much limit you to low light plants.

 

[Gillie]

What if I went with a 15gal with two 24" 75 watt bulbs, how moch would the 150 watts break down, and would it help if I painted the back and sides of the tank to try to keep as much light as possible in the tank?

 

[rkilling1]

Do you have a link to the 75 watt bulb?

 

[Gillie]

No I don't I found them at petsolutions.com I was thinking about a 50/50 (7100k actinic 03, 6000k daylight) and a 100% actinic both are 75 watt VHO.

 

[Purrbox]

Actinic lighting is intended for Saltwater use and not Freshwater. The Actinic Light is practically useless for Plants. It's why the 50/50 bulb you listed earlier would half the amount of usable light. The lights you're looking at would only provide about 37 watts of usable light. You need to be looking at strictly daylight bulbs instead.

 

[Gillie]

Ok, the description for the actinic bulbs mentioned chlorophyll absorbtion I was a little mislead then. So would two VHO daylight bulbs suffice if I can get them both at 75watts? Also would the painting of three sides help cut down on light loss in case I can't find sufficient bulbs?

 

[Purrbox]

I suspect that you'd only need one of the 75 watt bulbs over a 15 gallon as long as it's a daylight bulb.

As an example I'm running a 2x40watt fixture over my 10gallon. One daylight and one 50/50 for a total of about 60watts usable light. I can grow most anything I want, and many of the plants turn shades of pink and red as they reach the surface of the tank. I've also got Pressurized CO2 on the tank and dose EI to keep up with the plant needs. I've had problems with foreground carpets growing up instead forming a carpet in this tank mostly because the stem plants grow quickly and shadow the rest. I don't intend to ever use more than 60watts.

With a 15 gallon tank, the WPG rule isn't going to break down as badly, so you don't need quite as much more light as with smaller tanks. Further the VHO bulbs are extremely efficent so a lot more of the watts are actually going to be used as light instead of heat. Unfortunately it is a bit of a guessing game with these smaller tanks, so until you actually try it you're not going to know for sure if you have enough light to do what you want.

 

[Gillie]

Great thanks for the help.