Building new 29G Planted - Need Advice

[jmcclain]

All -

My wife gave me the order to 'start over' with my aquarium and create a nice lush planted aquarium (29g) (I want people to see green first then see the fish living in a nice tank).

For the record, I'm planning on getting an Eheim Pro II filter w/heater.

I've read the stickys which are great, but I do have some questions.

I think I can get some really great plant ideas from here, but I'm a bit stuck on few things and could use some advice:

It sounds like I should use 24" Coralife strip with a single 65w bulb? Is this sufficient?

Also, for a 29g can I get away with a DIY CO2? Or do I need something more complicated?

Finally, since I already have some gravel from my current aquarium, I was just going to mix this with some substrate to help the cycling? Does this make sense?

Any ideas or experiences with similar set ups would be appreciated.

 

[rich311k]

The 65w bulb will give you planty onf liight for low light - medium light plants. I have a 36 gallon tank and have a DIY self Co2 system. I am able to maintan 25ppm levels of CO2.

I actually bought the twin 65w light for my tank from Big Als. It is a USA Current, but I wanted to play with higher light plants.

Adding some gravel will help with the cycle. You may want to use Eco-Complete for the substrate, will make growing your plants easier.

Rich

 

[Jchillin]

With the wattage and tank size you posted, you are at @2.24 wpg, just at the threshold for CO2.

You can use regular pea-sized gravel (Estes type brand) but, you may need to provide root tabs for nutrient addition to the substrate if you don't want to go with Eco-Complete.

If you want, take a look at my tank clicky. It is a low-light tank with reg pea-sized gravel. Plants include: Anacharis, java fern (both broad and narrow leaf), amazon swords and a ludwigia repens (as an experiement). I use root tabs once a month and does nitrogen only if levels go under 20ppm.

HTH.

 

[gheitman]

Correct me if I am wrong, but for a 29 gallon tank wouldn't you want to get a 30" fixture instead? My 29 gallon tank is 30" long.

If you want to look at plant options based on the amount of light they require click on the link below. I have found it very useful.

http://www.plantgeek.net/plantguide_cat.php?category=1

There are several different ways you could go with lighting on a 29 gallon tank. I have some African fern and various Anubias growing perfectly fine under a single 20W bulb on my 29 gallon African biotope tank. The substrate I use is potting soil covered by pea gravel. I dose the tank with Flourish twice a week. These plants don't demand a lot of light and grow very slowly but the tank is doing well.

At the extreme other end I have 96W of light on my 30 gallon South American community tank and the plants are growing like crazy. I use Flourite as the sole substrate and dose with Flourish, Flourish Iron, Flourish Potassium and have a Hagen yeast CO2 system (soon to be replaced with pressurized CO2).

 

[jmcclain]

Am I correct to say that a Coralife 2x65w is overkill for a 29G?

I like the idea of lunar lights - and it seems only the 2x kits contain them??

Thoughts?

 

[gheitman]

A 2x65W fixture would give you almost 4.5wpg. While lunar lights may be nice, I would recommend getting less lighting and then look at buying a lunar light separately if you still want one.

 

[rich311k]

It it has two switches like mine does. You could just turn one on untill you want to go high light. You would also have an instant backup light.

 

[hashbaz]

What budget has your wife given you? This will answer a lot of questions. I would not recomend mixing gravels (you can't "undo" it later). I suggest buying 60lb of Eco Complete.

 

[crazycat]

mixing gravel is not such a bad thing...it sort of depends on aesthetics. i wanted to use eco-complete (flourite is WAY too dusty for my taste), but had decided that i didn't want that matte solid black look for my substrate. i used about 2 inches of eco-complete, and then layered another inch of 2 different colors of estes natural pea sized gravel on top--one was lighter, and one was darker. it gives a nice variegated look to the substrate and has that "natural" look to it. so i get the benefits of the eco-complete (which stays underneath the gravel), as well as having (what i consider to be) an aesthetically pleasing substrate

but hashbaz is right--it's a real pain to change substrate, so once it goes in, it's pretty hard to modify...i agonized for WEEKS over my substrate...

 

[gfink]

You can hang some gravel in a filter bag, then pull it out later. I did that and I moved a 5" piece of driftwood from my 29 gal into my 10 to cycle the 10. It took about two weeks to cycle.