what do i need except co2 yeast bottle
to plant plants in 10 gal tank plus how much plants
much i plant
thx

do yourself a favor and go to wal mart or home depot and buy yourself a
sunshine bulb (not the exact name) the packaging is bright orange and the
bulb should say "chroma 50". That will be the bast improvement you can make
for the money. without good lighting co2 is absolutely useless. Next, and
a little more $ buy one bag of Seachem Flourite gravel ($15). I swear by
this stuff.Be sure to rinse it well. Throw away your old gravel. If you
can't find it order it online. For this $20 you will make life much much
much easier for yourself. With this equpment you should be able to grow
alot of different plants and if you do things right in a month you should
have a mini forest. do some reading about aquascaping to help you decide
which plants to buy. plant fairly heavy from the start but avoid this
mistake: when you buy your plants many types will be bunched together
seperate them and plant each plant seperately.
Ben
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wynand"
Newsgroups: rec.aquaria.freshwater.plants
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2002 3:18 PM
Subject: newbie with plants


what do i need except co2 yeast bottle
to plant plants in 10 gal tank plus how much plants
much i plant
thx



"Wynand" wrote in message
...
what do i need except co2 yeast bottle
to plant plants in 10 gal tank plus how much plants
much i plant
thx

"Ben" wrote in message ...
do yourself a favor and go to wal mart or home depot and buy yourself a
sunshine bulb (not the exact name) the packaging is bright orange and the
bulb should say "chroma 50". That will be the bast improvement you can make
for the money. without good lighting co2 is absolutely useless. Next, and
a little more $ buy one bag of Seachem Flourite gravel ($15). I swear by
this stuff.Be sure to rinse it well. Throw away your old gravel. If you
can't find it order it online. For this $20 you will make life much much
much easier for yourself. With this equpment you should be able to grow
alot of different plants and if you do things right in a month you should
have a mini forest. do some reading about aquascaping to help you decide
which plants to buy. plant fairly heavy from the start but avoid this
mistake: when you buy your plants many types will be bunched together
seperate them and plant each plant seperately.
Ben


Well, he has a 20 watt single bulb strip. I dont think the chroma 50
comes that small, but even so, replacing one bulb with another bulb
won't make any difference at all. The color of the light may improve,
but it wont help the plants any. What he needs is more light,
preferably three 20 watt bulbs, but at the least two bulbs. Do this
and you will have intesive enough light.

Read some of the articles on my WEB site, it may help you,


Robert H
http://www.aquabotanic.com

On Sun, 1 Dec 2002 22:18:01 +0200, "Wynand" wrote:

what do i need except co2 yeast bottle
to plant plants in 10 gal tank plus how much plants
much i plant
thx



Is it just me? Over the years I have found that I don't need 4 watts
per gal, lots of CO2 or lots of nutrients.

I've gone that route 6 or 7 times now and all I got was HIGH
maintenance and very expensive tanks. I was either constantly
battling algea or nutrient levels and always pruning and picking out
lots of dying plants.

I have since reduced the watts per gallon to approx 2 watts/g and soon
realised that I was trying to overdrive my plants. That ain't
natural. Unless we're all in a competition for fastest growning
plants. After an initial "slow down" (due to the reduction in light)
my plants are back to normal and growing happily.

Currently I have a 10 gallon with an 18watt JBJ fixture, DYI CO2
injected into a Duetto DJ-50 and a 50/50 Flourite substrate and I have
been able to grow almost anything in there that I want to. I do tend
toward medium to lower light plants (for maintenance purposes). But I
do have some high light plants in there as well and they are doing
just fine. I also keep a very low fish load. Currently only one
Betta. But have had up to a dozen + Cardinals with a couple of
Cories and a dozen or so shrimp in there.

The water here in Los Angeles is pretty hard so I think that helps a
bit.

I add KNO3, KCL, TMG one/twice a week and Potassium Phosphate once
every 2 - 3 weeks.

Sure I ain't pruning my 10 every other day but I also have 5 other
planted tanks to mind. : )

Start with the lower wattage and work your way up PATIENTLY. I think
you'll avoid many a pitfall if you do.

YMMV

Ed

Wynand wrote:

what do i need except co2 yeast bottle
to plant plants in 10 gal tank plus how much plants
much i plant
thx

I also have a 10G with an incandescent bulb fixture. I took the cheap
bulb out and bought a 7 watt Fluorescent bulb that screws into
incandescent fixtures. Let me tell you that my plants have woken up! I
just need to make my own CO2 system. I didn't want to spend too much
money in changing the light fixture, so I tried that and it works for
me.

These bulbs have their own ballast built in and I the wattage they
produce is alot higher than what they consume. For example, my 7 watt
bulb emits a candle power of 30-40watts (aprox).

Regards,

Marc

These bulbs have their own ballast built in and I the wattage they
produce is alot higher than what they consume. For example, my 7 watt
bulb emits a candle power of 30-40watts (aprox).

Note that when talking wattage in the aquarium world, we're talking
fluorescent wattage. So your tank has 0.7 watts/gallon of light on it.

--
Victor M. Martinez | The University of Texas at Austin
| Department of Chemical Engineering
http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv | Austin, TX 78712
If we knew what we were doing it would not be called research, would it?

"Victor M. Martinez" wrote:

These bulbs have their own ballast built in and I the wattage they
produce is alot higher than what they consume. For example, my 7 watt
bulb emits a candle power of 30-40watts (aprox).

Note that when talking wattage in the aquarium world, we're talking
fluorescent wattage. So your tank has 0.7 watts/gallon of light on it.

--
Victor M. Martinez | The University of Texas at Austin
| Department of Chemical Engineering
http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv | Austin, TX 78712
If we knew what we were doing it would not be called research, would it?

Victor,

I have to disagree. 7 watts is the amount that the bulb consumes in energy,
what
it is set to dish out is equivalent to a 40 watt bulb. This bulb is as
bright as a 40 watt
incandescent bulb with the same spectrum as a fluorescent light. One of
these bulbs
gives me more light than 2 of those cheap lights they send with the tank.
Since I have
changed, my plants have grown 3 inches in less than 2 weeks.

Wattage (WATTS) is an energy consumpsion and not the amount of light it
emits.

Marc

I have to disagree. 7 watts is the amount that the bulb consumes in energy,

That's not my point. As I said, in AQUARIUM-speak, when people say "you need
2 watts/gallon to grow plants" what they mean is fluorescent watts.
You might not agree with the terminology, but that's the way things are.

--
Victor M. Martinez | The University of Texas at Austin
| Department of Chemical Engineering
http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv | Austin, TX 78712
If we knew what we were doing it would not be called research, would it?

"Victor M. Martinez" wrote:

I have to disagree. 7 watts is the amount that the bulb consumes in energy,

That's not my point. As I said, in AQUARIUM-speak, when people say "you need
2 watts/gallon to grow plants" what they mean is fluorescent watts.
You might not agree with the terminology, but that's the way things are.

--
Victor M. Martinez | The University of Texas at Austin
| Department of Chemical Engineering
http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv | Austin, TX 78712
If we knew what we were doing it would not be called research, would it?

I get your point. What we have to clear up here is that it's not a strip (tube)
light like a fluorescent fixture. The bulb I have is an energy save bulb. It
takes 7 watts of power but emits light like a 30 watt fluorescent light. This is
why we cannot compare them to fluorescent tubes. I think the biggest they have
in those energy savers is a 25 watt bulb, but it emits like a 100 watt bulb. I
also have a 14 watt and it's WAY too bright, my fish hide because it's too
bright.

Regards,

Marc

I get your point. What we have to clear up here is that it's not a strip (tube)
light like a fluorescent fixture. The bulb I have is an energy save bulb. It
takes 7 watts of power but emits light like a 30 watt fluorescent light. This is

I'm afraid you are incorrect. Energy savings bulbs *are* fluorescent bulbs
and the comparison wattage they list on the package is for incandescent
bulbs, which is what they are trying to replace.


--
Victor M. Martinez | The University of Texas at Austin
| Department of Chemical Engineering
http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv | Austin, TX 78712
If we knew what we were doing it would not be called research, would it?

"Victor M. Martinez" wrote:

I get your point. What we have to clear up here is that it's not a strip (tube)
light like a fluorescent fixture. The bulb I have is an energy save bulb. It
takes 7 watts of power but emits light like a 30 watt fluorescent light. This is

I'm afraid you are incorrect. Energy savings bulbs *are* fluorescent bulbs
and the comparison wattage they list on the package is for incandescent
bulbs, which is what they are trying to replace.

--
Victor M. Martinez | The University of Texas at Austin
| Department of Chemical Engineering
http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv | Austin, TX 78712
If we knew what we were doing it would not be called research, would it?

Just to prove my point. I will take a pic of my setup and you decide what emits
more light. I understand they compare to incandescent lighting, my point is that
my 14 watt emits more light than a 14 watt fluorescent tube. Big time.
I have a 3' 25 watt in my office and it doesn't emit as much light as my 14 watt.

more light. I understand they compare to incandescent lighting, my point is that
my 14 watt emits more light than a 14 watt fluorescent tube. Big time.

I doubt that. Would it be perhaps that it seems it emits more light simply
because it's in a more compact form?

--
Victor M. Martinez | The University of Texas at Austin
| Department of Chemical Engineering
http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv | Austin, TX 78712
If we knew what we were doing it would not be called research, would it?

On Mon, 02 Dec 2002 12:01:00 -0500, Bigs
wrote:

These bulbs have their own ballast built in and I the wattage they
produce is alot higher than what they consume. For example, my 7 watt
bulb emits a candle power of 30-40watts (aprox).

Your 7 watt produces 7 watts of fluorescent light.

It produces the equivilent of 30-40 watts of incandescent, but most of
the energy in an incandescent is just wasted as heat.

For the infamous "watts per gallon", you've got 7 watts.


Chuck Gadd
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua

On Mon, 02 Dec 2002 13:44:31 -0500, Bigs
wrote:
light like a fluorescent fixture. The bulb I have is an energy save bulb. It
takes 7 watts of power but emits light like a 30 watt fluorescent light.

NO. It emits as much light as a "30 watt incandescent".

That's the way ALL of those screw-in fluorescents are labelled, since
people are replacing incandescents with them.


This is
why we cannot compare them to fluorescent tubes. I think the biggest they have
in those energy savers is a 25 watt bulb, but it emits like a 100 watt bulb.

Yes, it uses 25 watts of energy, and puts out the same amount of light
as a 100w incandescent.

also have a 14 watt and it's WAY too bright, my fish hide because it's too
bright.

It looks too bright because you've probably not seen a true "high
light tank".

And the fish might hide at first, but they'll quickly get use to the
light levels. And for fish that like it a little dimmer, they can
hide in the plants.



Chuck Gadd
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua

On Mon, 02 Dec 2002 14:51:24 -0500, Bigs
wrote:
Just to prove my point. I will take a pic of my setup and you decide what emits
more light. I understand they compare to incandescent lighting, my point is that
my 14 watt emits more light than a 14 watt fluorescent tube. Big time.
I have a 3' 25 watt in my office and it doesn't emit as much light as my 14 watt.

Yes, it probably does, but the 3' 25w light is spread out over 3 feet,
so it doesn't look as intense as the screw-in fluorescent.

Spread out the twisted screw-in, and it will be putting out the same
as any other 14w fluorecent tube.

It only looks brighter because the light is condensed.

In fact, a good bit of the light in the twisted up screw-in bulb is
being wasted, since it just hits another bent part of the tube, and
never reaches the tank. So it's probably a little less efficient
than it would be if it were a straight tube.

Sorry if this doesn't make sense to you, but these bulbs have been on
the market a long long time, and they've been tested repeatedly by
many people on this and other plant lists.


Chuck Gadd
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua