New 55 and Hairgrass

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Zimmanski

Zimmanski

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Aug 7, 2012
Messages
2,152
Location
Dallas, Tx
Im going to be getting a new 55 gallon tank in two weeks and I have been running through ALL of my options and ambitions for iit lately. I was just wondering if it would be possible to do like a third of the tank(and not any more) carpeted with dwarf hairgrass, I love the way it looks. This would be my only live plant in there and Ive never done living plants before so Im also curious as what I would need to have it, what you guys think about it, and if liquid ferts(if I need any) would mess with my clown loach or any other fish. Loach is only scaleless. Thanks guys!
 
I dont think you should start with dwarf hairgrass. They reqire moderate to high light and i have found they take a long time to actually become a carpet. you would have to buy a whole lot of it at the start if you really watnted to see a carpet in the next few months. What type of lighting are you running? There are lots of nice plants that do well in low light. Also, do u have a specialized substrate? This is not needed but it will certainly help your plants grow. And one last ling. You said you have a clown loach? Im not a 100% sure but i think the clown loach would eat the dwarf hairgrass. When i had some in my 40gal, my barbs picked at it until it was gone.
 
Im just buying a topfin kit to start and then I'll buy some upgrades if absolutely necessary, buying a different light bulb wouldnt be a problem. Really? I didnt think our loaches did that, I was only thinking about his scaleless-ness haha. The substrate I have is from petco, its their store brand "sand" like stuff, which is actually more like tiny gravel. Like I said, I havent even bought the tank yet so some of these things are easily changeable and Im okay with buying more plants at the start but Im also not expecting anything to carpet a tank in a really short amount of time. What about micro sword? would I run into the same issues?
 
I dont have any experience with the micro swords but i expect they also like higher lighting. The stalk lights that come with the kit could grow low light plants such as anubias, crypts, and others. Can you link me to this kit?
 
Yeah thats the kit i thought it might be. The problem with that is you cant really upgrade the lighting unless you remove the hood. At least i think. The only other way would be to get a submersible lighting option which the marineland led is! So you're on the right track there. But idk how many LED's it would take. If you were to upgrade to a T5-HO fixture, id say go no less than 2 watts per gallon. But thats just my opinion. As for ferts: You dont really need any if you get a good substrate like Eco-Complete. You can do half Eco-Complete and half Gravel and that could last you about a year before you would even have to use any ferts. But the down side is that Eco complete is kinda expensive.
 
I'm giving hair grass a try and I think it's going work. Planted nine days ago and it has turned green(was yellow from the store) it's also putting out new white roots. It's in sand with Flourish root tabs. The lighting is LED's only, but brighter than what you're looking at. Try it!
It's not going to hurt anything.
 
Keep in mind it would be 2 of the LED hang on lightings PLUS the stock two bulbs that come with the tank, I think I will try it, if it doesnt work its better than not trying at all.
Awesome! Im glad to hear that. What lighting do you have?

I was also thinking if I can get it to grow I may do half the tank with hairgrass then make some of those marimo mini trees and find a tiny park bench, haha I think it would be neat like the fish are flying over a park
 
Last edited:
Zimmanski said:
Keep in mind it would be 2 of the LED hang on lightings PLUS the stock two bulbs that come with the tank, I think I will try it, if it doesnt work its better than not trying at all.
Awesome! Im glad to hear that. What lighting do you have?

I was also thinking if I can get it to grow I may do have the tank with hairgrass then make some of those marimo mini trees and find a tiny park bench, haha I think it would be neat like the fish are flying over a park
Click to expand...

I didn't read the whole post.
I thought you were going to use the Marineland LED's only. This stuff should grow under your lighting. I got the Dwarf HG in a little packet from Petsmart (50/50 chance of it living).
Lighting wise I went with the GroBeam 500's. Their nice but I'm broke.
Hey, what are you going to name your park?
 
The Marineland LEDs are incomparable to GLA's LEDs. One uses high quality 1W+ LEDs and the other simply doesn't have the umph. GLA's simply outclasses Marineland's Double and FW LEDs by a significant margin. GW didn't say how big is tank was, but 55g are very tall tanks, so they need higher light still.

With DHG, if you're going to get it to grow into a carpet (or at all), you're going to need A) good light and B) good CO2. It will stay alive with good light, but without CO2 you're going to be disappointed with your growth. In all honesty, I don't see DHG, or any foreground really, surviving long term in a 55g with sand, no-CO2, and stock T8 bulbs. If you want to see that amazing foliage that you see online, you need to look at upgrading your light (probably T5HO in your case) and looking into CO2/Excel.
 
greenwater said:
Hey, what are you going to name your park?
Click to expand...
haha I havent thought about a name yet, I didnt want to get too attached to the idea because its sounding more and more that I would have to be spending more and more. What is excel exactly and how much would I have to use/spend on it? Keep in mind that this would be my only and FIRST live plant so treat me like a retarded 3rd grader when youre talking about this stuff haha (maybe an exaggeration)
So even with the stock lighting AND two marineland LED strip I would still have to replace the stock lighting? How much does that usually cost?
 
Update:
WOAH just looked up GLA lighting. Im not doing that.
There has to be a way to grow DHG without spending hundreds on a light.
 
Zimmanski said:
Update:
WOAH just looked up GLA lighting. Im not doing that.
There has to be a way to grow DHG without spending hundreds on a light.
Click to expand...

More bad news. I am running CO2 it does play a major role in growing plants. (Forgot)
 
LEDs are, in many regards, impractical currently, at least for FW, due to an overwhelming lack of affordable preconstructed fixtures. Decent light can be had for around $100 dollars with fluorescent lights (T5HO), but the co2 is going to easily cost more than your lighting, easily double.

Higher end tanks like where you probably saw the DHG take more money than people usually realize. Like pretty much anything in life, you get out what you out into this hobby.
 
I talked with a guy at a really amazing LFS today about my 55, new fish, and talked about this DHG debacle. He said with the hood that comes stock I can replace the Florescent buld with a plant growth type bulb they had that was 6,700 and he said it wouldnt burn out or anything and I could get my carpet with a little fert/excel/root tabs every now and then. The bulb only cost $17 for a 24" and thats all the length I would need since the 55 has split hoods. He seemed to know exactly what he was talking about, does this sound right to you guys? What would be the difference between this forescent 6,700 bulb and the $300 light and hoods I saw online and at GLA.com???
 
One you could grow DHG with... and the other you probably can't grow very much at all, short of a very limit number of extreme low light species. Unless your hood comes with high output fluorescents (T5HO, etc), then you wont be able to grow DHG. You need a different setup to put out more light, and changing the color of the light (that's what the 6700K means) won't increase the amount of light.
 
When I went from T8's to T5's I went to Home Depot and bought a narrow T5HOx2 shoplight. Bought two Life-Glo 6700k 4ft. bulbs and installed them in my wooden hood. They work very good.
Later I bought another set to run 4 T5's but that was just asking for algae to grow. I won't do the algae thing. The shoplight was $40 and bulbs were $27 each.
 
Zimmanski said:
So what would be the minimum lighting I would need? and what ferts?

This is the tank I'm getting, I'm upgrading from my 29g so I'll be adding the aqueon HOB filter to the 55 also. Oh, and Im also going to get a LED strip light from marineland too, not sure if that helps at all

Heres the link
55 Gallon Fish Tank » Top Fin® 55 Gallon Starter Kit | PetSmart
Click to expand...

That is what I have in my 10 gallon planted tank, the marineland led light and also the petco sand lol. I haven't had the light long enough to tell if it is supporting the plants well but my water wisteria has new shoots so that's a good sign. Lady at the store said it was suitable for moderate and low light plants as well as people on here.
 
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