Low light plant set up

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leek86

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
May 10, 2011
Messages
152
Right I recently took down my fluval flora shrimp tank, and in a few weeks will be setting up my old 64litre (17g) tank as a small community tank.

I plan on
Sand substrate
Drift wood pieces
Maybe a couple of smooth rocks

Now, the light in the tank isnt very good at all, it houses two 15 watt compact 'energy saver' style bulbs(Interpet Replacement Lamps Bright Day White 15W Aquarium Lighting Accessories for Sale these ones), one is daylight one is moonlight, I plan on switching the moon for a second daylight bulb.

Id like to upgrade the light properly but the hood is moulded and attatched to the tank, so I dont know what else I can do except add the extra day bulb.

Given the low lighting, I'm thinking of the following plants,
Java fern, some type of anubias, some crypts, a Aponogeton, maybe a val or two, and maybe a couple of marimino moss balls.

Id also like some type of grassy plant like dwarf sag but I dont think my light will be sufficient for it.

I dont mind dosing ferts and excel, I also have a Aquagro CO2 Hobby Set, though im not sure it'd be needed due to the light.

How does this sound, any advice or critiques are welcome.
 
Those are fine lights for that tank and good plant choices. Add some root tabs to the sand, some liquid ferts, and co2... you'll have a wonderful system.
 
I've read that adding co2 to a lower light tank makes more utilization of the light you have available.
 
So would dwarf sag be viable with these lights, ferts and co2?
 
leek86 said:
So would dwarf sag be viable with these lights, ferts and co2?

It might, it probably won't be as short as you'd like but I think it could.
 
Also I was just reading the stickys and one states you should not exceed 5x tank volume in flow rate on planted tanks.
So should I downgrade my filter? 5x tank volume is 320litres but my fluval u3 has a flow rate of 600litre an hour.

Are there any other grassy type plants you could suggest that would work in my set up and stay quite short?

EDIT:

I just read an aquahobby plant profile on dwarf hair grass which states it's care as easy and can be grown under "any" light intensity.
Is this true? If so I'd happily use dwarf hair grass.
 
I've no experience with dwarf hair grass, maybe Pygmy chain sword. I know it stay small and is pretty resilient. I've had runners of the chain sword in between my stem plants where almost no light hits.
 
I would probably stick with dwarf sag. Micro chain swords are sooo slow growing even under high light and co2. I haven't grown dwarf hair grass either so couldn't say.

You're not going to over filter your tank with that U3. Most people have an 8-10 x LPH to liter turnover rate for their planted tanks, some have more. You're fine.
 
Just been looking on ebay pricing up different plants for a rough idea, and when researching i found both Eleocharis parvula and eleocharis acicularis listed as dwarf hairgrass, which is the right one?
 
Ive heard of people using pool filter sand, playsand, blasting sand and sands made for aquariums like flourite.

I plan on keeping 2 varietys of bottom dwellers, a bn pleco and a few small cory's e.g panda or hasbrosus.
Obviously Ideally I want my sand substrate to be good for both of them, so I was wondering which you guys recommend.

I know corys can rub thier barbells off on gravel and I know pool filter sand is a larger grain than say play sand. But would the grain size of pool filter sand hurt the corys or pleco?

In the past Ive had one planted fluval flora and a "community tank" with gravel, so its my first time with sand, and I dont really know anything about it.
 
If I were to use the aquagro co2 I have instead of liquid carbon like excel, how many bubbles per second would I want?
Incase people skipped the first post the tank is 64litre/17 us gallons
 
The easiest way to tell if you have the right bps of co2 for your tank is to use a drop checker and 4dkh solution. if it turns green to yellow-green you're good, if it stays blue you need to increase the bubble rate.
 
Ah right, forgot about those things, any clue about my sand questions?
 
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