Thank youguys for the advice. I went ahead and bought a light fixture from topdogsellers on eBay. It's a 36" t5 quad with 4 6500k for $90. I also bought two of these co2 injectors.. They're called "co2 natural plant system" from nutrafin. It's like a diy system except it will look better than those two litter bottles.. It comes a bubble counter and all I need is sugar and water. It has an activator packet and a stabilizer which I believe are the yeast and baking soda? I'm not sure what I read in the reviews. Anyway most people who bought them on amazon say that they use the packets and then they make their own recipe instead of buying the refills.
It says on there that one is good for up to 20 gallons and if I have a bigger tank I'll need two.
Anyways my questions are, has anyone tried these before?
should I wait for the lights to get here?
They won't get here till another two days.. If I install this now will it kill my fish? Or will they be fine if I run a bubbler till the lights get here. I know I'll have to turn on the aeration system while the lights are off at night anyway so I'm setting that up as well.
And lastly, my tank is way overstocked.. I do scheduled 30% water changes every Monday and so far they're fine. It's a thirty gallon tank I think.. 36" 18" 12" and I have the following in there..
2 kuhli loaches
5 Corys (3 bronze, 1 pygmy & one julii)
6 harlequin rasboras
5 neons
3 cherry barbs
3 glow light tetras
4 long finned leopard danios
1 blue ram
1 honey dwarf gourami
1 mystery snail
A few mts
And maybe some cherry shrimp if they haven't been eaten..
Ammonia is at 0 right now and nitrite is at .25 or whatever is right above zero.
(I know that's way overstocked but aqadvisor says it's fine for some reason. I also have two aqueon filters a 30 and a 10)
Anyway would youguys recommend I set up both of these co2 injectors? The canister is about the size of a 20oz water bottle and one is recommended for 20 gallons.. Or do all these fish produce enough co2 to replace the second canister?
Again I appreciate any advise and sorry for all this writing but I really want to solve all these dilemmas I have with my tank that I'm falling in love with
after all it's cost me some big bucks now