Empty wrote:

How big of a tank are you working with? What a lot of people don't mention
is that you should aim for medium at first- learning with high light can
be frustrating.

Right now I have an Eclipse 6 tank with a ton of flourite in it and
maybe 4 gallons is left for water. It comes with an 8W florescent
tube and I don't see an easy way to change this... You can see it
he

http://www.lizmcguireonline.com/6g.jpg

....I've recently discovered that it has hornwort and cabomba (wasn't
labeled at the store - research indicates I probably don't have enough
light for it - we'll see) and something I can't identify (the store
didn't have good labeling and the plant expert wasn't around, but I
liked them, so I took a gamble).

Assuming you don't use peat or blackwater mixes, there's a better way.
Measure pH and KH and look it up he

http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_co2chart.htm

:-) Just did this yesterday or Thursday and yesterday I got Flourish
Excel to compensate - CO2 was a little on the low side.

Phosphate may come from your water; depending on how much your water
has, you may need to add some. There are test kits for this.

Fish food is also high in phosphate.

Ah, this is new! I'm still looking for a test kit - guess I'll have
to get it online. Hopefully between fish food and what's in the
water, I'm OK (but we'll see).

Iron before pottassium, definitely.

Ah, this too is new - thank you. Perhaps I'll get an iron test too
(as I'm not familiar with any of this, it'll help me understand what
my water (and substrate?) have already until I get comfortable with
all this).

Calcium magnesium and sulphate are present in tapwater. If your GH is
medium range out of the tap you will be fine.

Thank you - good to know. My tap water is in the medium-high range,
so I won't worry a lot about these.

There's one other thing to mention: water changes. Doing them frequently
(I do 25-30% weekly) helps keep your water fresh. It removes DOCs
(dissolved organic compounds), replenishes KH and GH, and keeps your water
from getting buildups of fertilizers or other stuff. Plus it's a good
excuse to remove dead plant matter and perform other tasks. In a planted
tank you only want to vac the top 1/2" of substrate. Anything deeper can
become plant fertilizer.

I do perform weekly water changes as my research on fish (from before
the plant research) made it clear that this was best for them - so
doing it for the plants too is no problem. Thanks for the advice on
gravel vacuuming - this is another thing I've been wondering and
reading about.

Go visit fishgeek.net- it's a very good resource.

Thank you - I'm not sure I've been there, so I'll bookmark it and add
it to my reading.

Thanks,

Liz