On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 01:23:55 -0600, Janice
wrote:

Now, I have four modern all glass 55 gallon aquariums and one 20
gallon and under gravel filters, natural river gravel, but.. what I
fear the culprits were.. power heads rated for the size of the tanks.
(Can't recall what they were now as they have been unused for some
years now due to my disabilities and inability to care for them at
that time).

I tried to grow plants for some time in there with the two 15 watt
florescent grow lights on the upper tanks, and two 40 watt grow light
4' tubes on the lower tanks. The 20 gallon had One 15 watt grow tube,
and it wasn't a show tank, just standard kind of blocky 20 gallons.
The plants grew best in that 20 gallon than in the 55s, but everything
else was rather pitiful, only able to occasionally keep a potted plant
alive. I love the plants as much as I love the fish.. mostly I like
the little tetras, khuli loaches and cory cats and pygmy cats and
otocinclus algae eaters, things that don't disturb plants much if at
all.

So, what would y'all recommend I read, look at, or can you tell me
what I'd need to get to illuminate standard 55 gallon tanks
sufficiently to keep plants alive, and I have "got it" that pretty
much power heads are bad, and probably undergravel filters are bad..
or.. if they aren't they're limited to the front shallow areas of the
tank that are generally left "open".

I have a Banche Reihl sp? Encyclopedia of Tropical fish that
somewhat addresses substrates and plant tanks, but I looked for the
substrates online and they were like $15 for tiny bags of it, I'd need
hundreds of dollars worth to put into just one or one and part of
another from what I'd figured, and so got depressed and quit looking.

Are plant tanks something only the rich can afford? I live on a bit
over $860 a month.. disabled.. has to get tanks moved before setting
up, so I figured I should start checking around a bit now.

I know.. lot of questions long post.. whip me now hanging head in
shame but I wanna knoooooooow and I know I don't know enough anymore
to phrase a short question.

Janic

I am retired and a few years older. I too returned to a childhood
hobby and now have 5 tanks, the largest a 75 gallon. First a comment
about your budget. Fish can be expensive. I don't know how you get
by on $860 a month.


Steer away from expensive plants. I learned, after much expense, to
buy only low light plants.

Plants are rated by how may watts per gallon of light they want.
Divide the fluorescent bulbs watts by the number of gallons in the
tank. Low light is less than 2 watts per gallon, but only new bulbs
will have the full light output, so as a practical matter, figure you
will not have as much light as the formula says.

I have found many species of low light plants. Your local fish store
will probably be able and willing to help you select them. A Google
search for either "low light plants" or "aquarium plants" will give
you a lot of information. Here is one site:
http://www.aquabotanic.com/lowlightlist.htm

I do not use fertilizers nor co2. I rely on my fish to fertilize the
plants and it works well for me. I use gravel of different kinds,
none of the expensive stuff. I even have a tank with no gravel that I
anchor plants to keep them on the bottom. I like plants in my
aquariums!

Keep everything simple. Don't worry about the expensive stuff. Buy
the least expensive gravel. Use only low light plants, they will
multiply with time, so plant sparse to start. Don't waste money on
fertilizers. You may have some plants that don't survive, so don't
replace them with the same species. If you can afford them,
scavengers are interesting and help keep a tank clean. One I have
read about recently that sounds useful and colorful and will fit in
most tanks is the "American Flag" fish. When my tank population drops
by attrition, I have a note to myself to buy some. Do a search in
Google and you can judge for yourself. I don't think they are
expensive.

Good luck, I find my fish good quiet company, they don't bark at me
when it is time to be fed! g