Making a "plant only" tank

[Newbneedshelp]

Well now that im back in the fishy groove (lol) and have my 20gal tank i want to make my 10 a plant only tank. I plan on getting some small rocks and/or driftwood and heavily planting it. I will have a few otos in there to keep the algea under control. Also i was wondering if i should completely restart or just get the fish out (im taking what i have now back to the lfs cause i dont want them in my 20gal) and plant. I already have CO2 and lights that do about 3.5wpg and what i think is flourite gravel(?). Along with the questions above i was wondering what i should get for fertilizers and such. TIA!!

 

[hashbaz]

Personally I think fish poop makes a great fertilizer and would not exclude (or close to) them from the tank.

I would try to "restart" as little as possible. "seasoned" aquariums usually do better.

 

[Newbneedshelp]

yeah i figured restarting would be foolish, I will be taking out what plants are in there now and pickin all the deads off and whats not. Also a good gravel vacumming and some major algea removal. thanks so far

 

[malkore]

Your plan is fine, but keep this in mind:

1. without fish to create nitrate, you'll need to dose a nitrogen fert separately
2. no fish can contain algae...keeping your nitrates and phosphates balanced is what controls algae...any tiny patches would then be controlled by algae eaters
3. ottos tend to only eat brown diatom algae
4. make sure you choose plants suitable to the light levels over the tank

 

[Newbneedshelp]

ok so what what do you recommend for a nitrogen fert? also i realize fish cant control algea but they can help with it. I was also thinking and i may make the tank a cory tank cause im always wanted to try that. Would that solve my Nitrate problem? Also i have pretty power lighting and CO2 so does that allow me to get almost any plant or are there some i should avoid because its to much light. BTW thanks Malkore for making me think this over some more.

 

[malkore]

what lighting setup are you using? NO? CF/PC? how many watts? just wanna make sure you've got enough.

low light plants will be ok under high light, they just grow faster

for a tank that small, you could use Flourish nitrogen, but ordering raw KNO3 from gregwatson.com will be a lot cheaper in the long run.

 

[Newbneedshelp]

Ive got a Coralife fixture which im guessing in PC which is 36watts. Ill look into the raw KNO3. Again thanks Malkore

Also i was wondering if there were any other fertilizers i might want/need.