75 Gallon Planted, Need Plant Help

[CleverBs]

I am going to set up my 75 Gallon planted tank soon and need some advice. I have read that in order to controle algea from growing you need to heavely plant your tank from the start making it so if you look down at the tank from above you can only see about 10-15% of the bottom. I am a big confused on how i am suppose to do this at one time with such a large tank. i know that none of my lfs carry that many plants and I dont want to just have a bunch of different random plants all in the same tank i want to keep it clean looking so I need large amounts of like 4-5 plants.

I am going Low-Tech system with 1.44wpg T5HO Lighting, flurish substrate, and regular dosing.

 

[BBradbury]

75 G Planted

Good morning Clever...

Good choice to go low tech in my humble opinion. It's much less expensive, expecially with large tanks. Plants will control algae as they grow and use up tank nutrients.

Your lighting is good. 1 to 2 watts of light per gallon of tank size will grow most aquatic plants. You just need to get a good plant book and see what appeals to you. A nice combination of foreground, midground and background plants spaced about three inches apart will allow for growth and in time, you'll have a well planted tank.

Ferts are always good. I prefer liquids, but there are others too. That will be another research project for you. Proper fertilizing is really fairly easy. You have two types of nutrients, macro and micro. The macro are the easy ones, the plants get those from routine water changes and the fish waste. The micro are a little challenging. Those are iron, manganese, zinc and some others. You'll need to get these online or from the local hydroponics store. A good liquid I use is Earth Juice Microblast. My plants really like it.

If you have any questions, just let me know.

B

 

[CleverBs]

Good morning Clever...

Good choice to go low tech in my humble opinion. It's much less expensive, expecially with large tanks. Plants will control algae as they grow and use up tank nutrients.

Your lighting is good. 1 to 2 watts of light per gallon of tank size will grow most aquatic plants. You just need to get a good plant book and see what appeals to you. A nice combination of foreground, midground and background plants spaced about three inches apart will allow for growth and in time, you'll have a well planted tank.

Ferts are always good. I prefer liquids, but there are others too. That will be another research project for you. Proper fertilizing is really fairly easy. You have two types of nutrients, macro and micro. The macro are the easy ones, the plants get those from routine water changes and the fish waste. The micro are a little challenging. Those are iron, manganese, zinc and some others. You'll need to get these online or from the local hydroponics store. A good liquid I use is Earth Juice Microblast. My plants really like it.

If you have any questions, just let me know.

B

is the "Earth JuiceMicroblast" the Iron, Mang, Zinc, ect. I am still doing research on fertalizing but so many things I read conflict with one another, some say to never take water out of the tank and only to repace evaperated water and others say to do your typical 20-25% water change every 2-4 weeks. so if you could tell me any more helpful information that would be very usefull to me or maybe direct me to a book i can buy that is a good source of information for aquatic plants.

 

[BBradbury]

Plant Fert

Hello again Clever...

Yes, the Earth Juice Microblast is the Micro nutrients. This liquid makes fertilizing your plants extremely easy.

The water in your aquarium will evaporate, especially this time of year, so when I notice the water level drop a little, that's when I add about 5 ml of the fert to a quart or so of my water change water and pour that directly into the tank.

I also add these nutrients to the water when I do my water changes. I have several 55 G tanks and do 50 percent water changes about every three weeks. 25 to 30 percent every two weeks is the standard most people follow, but every tank is a little different and so are people's schedules.

Any fresh water aquarium plant book should do. Amazon.com has several used for sale, I'd check them out for starters.

B