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Aquarium Advice Activist
Hello everyone. I'm obviously new to this site, but so far it seems like there are some knowledgeable people who could help me. Here's what I'm planning on doing:
I'm looking at setting up a 55 gallon planted tank. About the only thing I know for sure is that I'll need about 120 watts of lighting. Beyond that, I'm a little lost. I plan on having a pretty good amount of plants, so I'll need some sort of CO2 injection, but I don't know the best route to go. It seems I've got 3 options:
1: Automated CO2 injection with a controller. This seems like a very hands off setup, once it's up and running, but I don't know if I'm ready to spend the $250+ for a controller, regulator, ect. I do like the fact that the controller will handle the PH balance for me, as I understand.
2: Semi-automatic CO2 seems like a lower cost option, but I'm not sure about the reliability. I'd hate to loose a bunch of plants/fish just to save a few bucks on equipment. I don't mind chasing the right settings during the initial setup, but I don't want to have to constantly do that.
3: Some sort of yeast based fermentation seems like the lowest cost option, but before the year is out, I probably could have bought a top of the line CO2 setup for what the replacement costs of the fermentation system would be.
So, could someone please shed some light on this for me? I really don't know enough about any one method to have a well-informed opinion. Is there a way to make a good do-it-yourself setup that's still reliable? I'm pretty handy, so I don't mind doing a little building/tinkering on my own.
Thanks in advance!!
I'm looking at setting up a 55 gallon planted tank. About the only thing I know for sure is that I'll need about 120 watts of lighting. Beyond that, I'm a little lost. I plan on having a pretty good amount of plants, so I'll need some sort of CO2 injection, but I don't know the best route to go. It seems I've got 3 options:
1: Automated CO2 injection with a controller. This seems like a very hands off setup, once it's up and running, but I don't know if I'm ready to spend the $250+ for a controller, regulator, ect. I do like the fact that the controller will handle the PH balance for me, as I understand.
2: Semi-automatic CO2 seems like a lower cost option, but I'm not sure about the reliability. I'd hate to loose a bunch of plants/fish just to save a few bucks on equipment. I don't mind chasing the right settings during the initial setup, but I don't want to have to constantly do that.
3: Some sort of yeast based fermentation seems like the lowest cost option, but before the year is out, I probably could have bought a top of the line CO2 setup for what the replacement costs of the fermentation system would be.
So, could someone please shed some light on this for me? I really don't know enough about any one method to have a well-informed opinion. Is there a way to make a good do-it-yourself setup that's still reliable? I'm pretty handy, so I don't mind doing a little building/tinkering on my own.
Thanks in advance!!