Noob to lighting - getting ready to bring my tank to life

[PurpleKoolaid85]

Hello all,

I just set up my 29 gallon 2 weeks ago - currently only have standard gravel and some driftwood. I want to grow live plants and will need to upgrade lighting. I know I do not want to get into CO2, and am open to a wide range of plants. I would like to get close to as much lighting as I can without getting into CO2.

From reading other threads, it seems as if I could get a 2x24 T5HO and not get into CO2. However, I get the impression that this is on the low lighting end. I did see this fixture on eBay 24" -30" T5 HO Aquarium Light Hood Freshwater Plant 96W | eBay. This seems to leave a lot of options as I could run 2x24 OR 4X24, it has moonlighting LEDs, and four separate power cords.

Please excuse my noobness, but here are some questions:

1) Would I need to get into CO2 if I ran all four bulbs? What about just two?

2) Am I ok to use just standard gravel?

3) As far as fertilizers go, the impression I got was that I would just be dropping in a supplement from a bottle?

4) Is there a better option out there that I may be missing?

 

[Ziggs180]

The Plants need a source of C02 to survive, Fish can provide some of the C02. Are you going to be getting Eco-complete or Flourite to provide a substrate for the plants to root in?

 

[jetajockey]

you'd definitely need co2 to run all 4, that's a ton of light.

Since you have such a high powered light, it'd be worth it to invest in a substrate beneficial to plants. You can use plain gravel if you really want, but I suggest going with something like ecocomplete or floramax.

With fertilizing, if you want to keep it simple, just stick with flourish comprehensive for now, depending on the amount of light you end up using, you may want to learn more about fertilizing routines.

I suggest reading some articles on plantedtank.net to get an idea of what you are getting into. Best of luck!