Heavy Planted 20 Gallon

[FawnN]

Hi everyone!

I've gotten rid of all my tanks except my 20 gallon(high) tank. I've decided to make this a show tank and wanted to go heavy planted.

Sand subtrate with a penquin 150 HOB filter. I don't want to go with the CO2.

Can anyone recommend some good lighting? I'm considering the Odyssea compact fluorescent 24" (1x65w). Will this be sufficient? Any suggestions are welcomed. Thank you!

 

[7Enigma]

If you want that level of lighting, and do not want to use DIY or pressurized CO2, I would highly recommend using Flourish Excel. IMO with that level of light (I have the same level and tank), you would be hard pressed to not have algae problems, even if the rest of your ferts are perfectly balanced. Excel is pretty cheap for our size tanks, but you would be going through it pretty quickly if heavily planted.

You MIGHT be able to get by with a 50/50 bulb without any added carbon source, but why chance it when you can just dump in some excel every day?

 

[Thebluyak]

honestly if you want that SHOW tank look then your not going to be able to find the nice pretty plants for a low light, no co2 tank. and with that 65watt bulb over the 20 gallon tank your looking at about 3.25wpg not counting restrike and the depth. Which means your going to need CO2 or spend money on excel. Is there a reason you did not want co2? Have you ever done it before?

 

[exactionfigure]

I have a heavily planted 20gallon high with a 65watt coralife PW on it
you really should do c02, I didn't plan on doing it at first either because it seemed like a big pain in the ass but it's really not I did a two 2 liter bottle DIY c02 unit and it works very well
It’s running into a thing I have hooked up to my powerhead which chops up the bubbles and shoots them all around the tank.
Here is a link:
http://www.qsl.net/w2wdx/aquaria/diyco2.html#5
sometimes that link doesn't work I assume they can't handle alot of traffic but keep trying it also just search for DIY c02 in google and there are a bunch of articles, mine didn't cost me anything because I had everything laying around the house.

here's a pic of my tank:

It’s pretty newly planted so hopefully everything will fill in.

 

[Thebluyak]

Nice tank

 

[exactionfigure]

Thanks!

Hopefully it will look a whole lot nicer when the Java ferns on the left back side grow in and the ground is covered with Java moss and microswords.

 

[FawnN]

CO2 is something new to me and I figured if I could get away with not using it, then I would.

Cool, thanks for the suggestions.

 

[czcz]

FawnN, join SCAPE and we'll hook you up with lots of plants at the next meet. You could have a low light planted tank with lots of light appropriate plants if that's what you prefer. I'll give you DIY CO2 bottle caps if you want.

 

[FawnN]

Cool, I will join right now. I would love some low light plants!! As for the bottle caps, I have no idea what that is.