New to planted tank.. some questions on lighting and such

[neurotik]

Hello plant people! I bought a 55 gallon aquarium kit a couple of months ago because I wanted to get back into fish keeping on a more serious level. I hadn't had fish since I was a kid, and back then I didn't know half of what I know today (thanks to these forums!).

Anyway, so I've got my tank cycled and my water parameters are all fine, I've upgraded from the HOB filter that came with the kit to an Eheim Ecco 2236 canister filter (still considering purchasing a second canister as well), I've been stocking my tank over the past couple of weeks and I've got a nice freshwater community setup going right now with no problems so far, and lately I've been wanting to get more serious with the live plants in my tank to make it more visually appealing. My primary question right now is in regards to what type of lighting I should upgrade to so that I can provide adequate light for live plants. All I have had in my tank so far is some Anacharis, which has surprisingly been growing pretty well for just using the two 18" 15W stock fluorescent bulbs that originally came with my 55 gallon kit when I bought it. I'd obviously like to begin adding some other plants to my tank though, so I figured this is a good time to ask you guys what type of lighting I should be upgrading to and stuff.

I've been reading around and looking at several sites to check pricing and such, because I'd like to try and avoid spending more than a couple hundred dollars for now until I get some hands on experience with more plants and everything that goes along with it. So far I've had someone suggest that I get two 24" Current single satellite compact fluorescent fixtures and replace the bulbs that come in them with two SunPaq dual daylight 65W 6700K/10000K bulbs. Would this be a decent lighting solution for me to start out with while I am still getting my feet wet with planted tank stuff? I would also like something that will not require me to have pressurized CO2 yet, as I will probably not be doing anything like that until later this year, assuming everything goes well for me between now and then with the plants. Also, I've read several places that Flourish is a good fertilizer to dose a planted tank with, but I've noticed there are several different 'flavors' of the product and I'm not sure exactly which one(s) I will be needing when I get started. I am also a bit confused with exactly how much and how often to dose a tank with each of the products, so perhaps someone can shed a bit more light onto that for me as well.

I'm open to all suggestions, as long as they are not way over my head and will not cost me several hundreds of dollars just to get started. If you need any more information about my tank, feel free to ask. Thanks in advance!

 

[WhiteDevil]

Did you just get the 2236 off ebay? someone got me at the last final seconds on a NIB one.

do you want pressurized CO2 and high light or do you want no or small DIY co2 and low bulbs?

It does depend on what plants you get as to what lights you get ultimately.

I am back in the light search boat now too.

I have a 55 with a single bi pin 48" bulb in it, and I think they only go up to 40 watts with the single bulb fixture. I have a 27w floor lamp I am using( its 6500K) as a second bulb its a 4 pin power compact but I am only going for 1-1.5 wpg down from my 2.2 wpg I was using.

You can get your bulbs cheap, just dont buy them at pet stores, home depot/lowes/menards/walmart/meijer ect all have the GE bulbs you need usually under 8 bucks a bulb. you can get 2 24" bublbs that will fit your initial wattage.

I do have a 6700K 24" bulb here its a special aquarium plant bulb, if you are interested let me know Ill get pics and stuff, I am not selling em yet but everything has a price tag in life. some have the price of shipping only.
it is a sunpaq I believe.

you might want to get screw in CFL fixtures or if you are a good handyman retrofit your own with parts from a hardware store. screw ins are easier to deal with IMO.

got pics of your set up? alot of people use hanging fixtures now too.


I am a budget person, well forced through marriage to be budget minded( im uber bad with money figure i cant use it when im dead, enjoy it now but she says we got kids, I said we gave em our debt,duh what more do they need, me to pay it for em too?) anyways, yes I understand where you are coming from and the cheaper the better.

 

[neurotik]

No, I did not just get my Eheim off of eBay, hehe. I have had it since the first week I began setting up and cycling my 55 gallon.

As for what type of lighting I want -- I'd like to be able to put as much lighting over my tank as possible before I start reaching the point where I absolutely need pressurized CO2, as I'm not planning on getting anything like that until later this year or the end of this year, once I have some more experience with the whole planted tank stuff, as I said in my original post. I wouldn't mind setting up a DIY system later this summer if I need some source of CO2 in the meantime, but for now I'm just looking for a nice lighting setup that I can use to grow some moderately easy plants, just so I can get some experience under my belt before I tackle some of the more difficult and demanding plants.

I'm not really sure what would be considered "high" or "low" lighting for my 55 gallon. As for what plants I want to get though, I've been looking around on liveaquaria.com at some of their live plant packages which come with an assortment of plants, and I was thinking of just ordering one of those for a 55 gallon just to get some experience setting up plants and seeing what grows best in my tank and what looks the most visually appealing to me with my current setup.

Hopefully that info helps you guys give me some more suggestions for lighting solutions, thanks again!

 

[WhiteDevil]

I think at around 2wpg you need CO2.

I found the best places to get live plant packages are message forums, I got mine from FORT on here and they are doing great, new leaf growth and a ton of root growth.

Alot of em give them away for the cost of shipping too. I have been on aquaticplantcentral.com for alot of plant questions and they got a plantfinder on there to go with what you want, all by latin scientific names, none of which I understand.

 

[brutus]

A 55 gallon tank 4 ft long? You can check out the current nova extreme t5 light fixture you might like it.It comes with the right bulbs already for a planted tank.OH i see has been suggested.How about the coralife 2x65 watt pc light.Both are good and around $125.00 down there more up here.

 

[mgamer20o0]

T5-HO Light

 

[neurotik]

Thanks for the suggestions -- I think I'm going to go with the Current fixtures for now and see how they do, perhaps I'll purchase different bulbs for them later on if I feel the need to change anything up, but for now I'll see how these look and how well I can grow some plants with them.

Also, I'll check around on the forums to see if I can purchase a package of assorted plants from someone, that's actually a really good idea

 

[neurotik]

Thanks for clearing that up, it makes a lot of sense to me now. I guess for now then I'll be sticking around the low-medium light range. I suppose my next step will be looking into a DIY CO2 setup until I'm ready for a pressurized one.

Based off of the reading I've done about DIY setups so far, I'm a bit concerned about the inability to control the amount of CO2 that is released into the tank with setups like that, as I don't want my pH to dump extremely low at night and stuff. Is there any solution to this other than going with a pressurized setup?

 

[FishEggs]

I would just get this or this. that way you can just use one or two bulbs for now until you decide to go CO2 then pop on the other bulbs and you're set. In my experience it is definitely worth it to buy a fixture with the end result in mind rather than trying to go small now and bigger later. i'm an avid do it myselfer so i ordered all the separate parts to build my own and i ended up only about $30 cheaper than that unit. of course i still have to build a fixture to put it all in and wire it up with the swicthes and it wont have the nice contoured reflectors. Here's a good article to read since you're just starting plants.

 

[ingg]

I've never had any significant changes in pH on my 3 tanks, all of which use DIY CO2. If your plants are growing well, the oxygen they produce will make your fish very happy. Keep in mind that CO2 does not DISPLACE oxygen, so there is little to worry about at night. If you are concerned, just run an airline tube with an airstone at night (put it and the lights on timers and just time them so that when the lights go out, the air pump goes on).

The only time I've heard of problems with a crash in pH is when someone who is inexprienced using pressurized CO2 and is not using it properly.

Right on. A DIY rig doesn't produce enough to be dangerous, night or day.

I suppose you could get there, rigging 5 big DIY bottles into a super rig or something....or going nuts and dropping in a few tablespoons of yeast....technically you could , but in a normal DIY rig, no real possibilities of danger.

The more typical concern about being able to control DIY has to do with keeping levels constant - fluctuating CO2 levels during the day can often spell algae troubles. Lazy people like me get tired of changing the bottles and go to pressurized for that reason, not for any concern on levels.