william kossack wrote in message ...
Is it really necessary to have a CO2 generator?

So you don't want to use CO2 now?

You cannot mix non methods with CO2 methods.

You should have nearly as much light with a non CO2 method.
Most new folks fail with non CO2 systems very bad.

Yes, you can do it. But.................there are sizable trade offs.

Limited plant choice, smaller leaves, much slower growth, a big dose
of patience, something lacking in 95% of aquarist, some fiddling to
balance things right. Good deep substrate, some floating plants etc.
You will not get a Amano looking pearly tank without CO2. Virtually
every single nice planted tank you see on the web is CO2 enriched.

40+% of the plant's dry weight is Carbon.
So you are severaly limiting things by not supplying it and small
little tank with high plant mass.

Most folks do much better by adding it and few folks ever sell their
gas CO2 systems with good reason.

Ideally if you decide on non CO2, make sure the substrate is something
like a soil based substrate or what I think is better is flourite with
about a 1/2" of peat in the bottom and 4inch of depth or more and add
some mulm from an old established tank to seed the gravel good.
I am not trying to talk you out of non CO2 but most eveyone finds it
much easier to grow the plants using it. I have both types myself. But
they have quite different approaches to work well.

Algae eaters will be needed in both CO2 and non CO2 tanks.

Regards,
Tom Barr

william kossack wrote in message ...
Is it really necessary to have a CO2 generator?

So you don't want to use CO2 now?

You cannot mix non methods with CO2 methods.

You should have nearly as much light with a non CO2 method.
Most new folks fail with non CO2 systems very bad.

Yes, you can do it. But.................there are sizable trade offs.

Limited plant choice, smaller leaves, much slower growth, a big dose
of patience, something lacking in 95% of aquarist, some fiddling to
balance things right. Good deep substrate, some floating plants etc.
You will not get a Amano looking pearly tank without CO2. Virtually
every single nice planted tank you see on the web is CO2 enriched.

40+% of the plant's dry weight is Carbon.
So you are severaly limiting things by not supplying it and small
little tank with high plant mass.

Most folks do much better by adding it and few folks ever sell their
gas CO2 systems with good reason.

Ideally if you decide on non CO2, make sure the substrate is something
like a soil based substrate or what I think is better is flourite with
about a 1/2" of peat in the bottom and 4inch of depth or more and add
some mulm from an old established tank to seed the gravel good.
I am not trying to talk you out of non CO2 but most eveyone finds it
much easier to grow the plants using it. I have both types myself. But
they have quite different approaches to work well.

Algae eaters will be needed in both CO2 and non CO2 tanks.

Regards,
Tom Barr

"william kossack" wrote in message
...
I have a powerhead with an underground filter along with a penguin 330

Growing plants with a UGF is never easy - Oxygen rich water flowing over
their roots, most don't like it much.

You could think about using some small pots to get around this or ditching
the UGF - don't just turn this off though - all kinds of bad things an
happen! You'd need to pretty much tear the tank down, clean it out & start
again.

"william kossack" wrote in message
...
I have a powerhead with an underground filter along with a penguin 330

Growing plants with a UGF is never easy - Oxygen rich water flowing over
their roots, most don't like it much.

You could think about using some small pots to get around this or ditching
the UGF - don't just turn this off though - all kinds of bad things an
happen! You'd need to pretty much tear the tank down, clean it out & start
again.

It has been maybe 3-4 weeks since I put the stronger lights in.

I'm getting what I would consider good root growth compared to with the previous setup. The
anachorous is putting out roots. Previously when I put anachorous into the tank it would not do
anything.

There is also more leaf growth but my problem is getting the algae under control.

What pushed me to change my setup was that I was getting tired of replacing most of my plants
every 3 or 4 months. We would buy a bunch of plants and they would not grow much and eventually
the old leaves would look bad and we would have to replace the plants. I don't need a lush
tank just one where I'm not replacing plants several times a year.

Now I can see new leaves coming in on my swords and other plants. However all the old leaves
are covered in algae. There is noticably less algae on some of the plants at this stage. It is
hard to say if this is a case of new leaves where the algae has not gotten established or a
disapearance of algae because time span. However, there is one little piece of anachorous that
I have watched from being covered with algae to having much less algae with roots growing down
to the gravel and new growth on the little piece that has little or no algae.

" wrote:

william kossack wrote in message ...
Is it really necessary to have a CO2 generator?

So you don't want to use CO2 now?

You cannot mix non methods with CO2 methods.

You should have nearly as much light with a non CO2 method.
Most new folks fail with non CO2 systems very bad.

Yes, you can do it. But.................there are sizable trade offs.

Limited plant choice, smaller leaves, much slower growth, a big dose
of patience, something lacking in 95% of aquarist, some fiddling to
balance things right. Good deep substrate, some floating plants etc.
You will not get a Amano looking pearly tank without CO2. Virtually
every single nice planted tank you see on the web is CO2 enriched.

40+% of the plant's dry weight is Carbon.
So you are severaly limiting things by not supplying it and small
little tank with high plant mass.

Most folks do much better by adding it and few folks ever sell their
gas CO2 systems with good reason.

Ideally if you decide on non CO2, make sure the substrate is something
like a soil based substrate or what I think is better is flourite with
about a 1/2" of peat in the bottom and 4inch of depth or more and add
some mulm from an old established tank to seed the gravel good.
I am not trying to talk you out of non CO2 but most eveyone finds it
much easier to grow the plants using it. I have both types myself. But
they have quite different approaches to work well.

Algae eaters will be needed in both CO2 and non CO2 tanks.

Regards,
Tom Barr

It has been maybe 3-4 weeks since I put the stronger lights in.

I'm getting what I would consider good root growth compared to with the previous setup. The
anachorous is putting out roots. Previously when I put anachorous into the tank it would not do
anything.

There is also more leaf growth but my problem is getting the algae under control.

What pushed me to change my setup was that I was getting tired of replacing most of my plants
every 3 or 4 months. We would buy a bunch of plants and they would not grow much and eventually
the old leaves would look bad and we would have to replace the plants. I don't need a lush
tank just one where I'm not replacing plants several times a year.

Now I can see new leaves coming in on my swords and other plants. However all the old leaves
are covered in algae. There is noticably less algae on some of the plants at this stage. It is
hard to say if this is a case of new leaves where the algae has not gotten established or a
disapearance of algae because time span. However, there is one little piece of anachorous that
I have watched from being covered with algae to having much less algae with roots growing down
to the gravel and new growth on the little piece that has little or no algae.

" wrote:

william kossack wrote in message ...
Is it really necessary to have a CO2 generator?

So you don't want to use CO2 now?

You cannot mix non methods with CO2 methods.

You should have nearly as much light with a non CO2 method.
Most new folks fail with non CO2 systems very bad.

Yes, you can do it. But.................there are sizable trade offs.

Limited plant choice, smaller leaves, much slower growth, a big dose
of patience, something lacking in 95% of aquarist, some fiddling to
balance things right. Good deep substrate, some floating plants etc.
You will not get a Amano looking pearly tank without CO2. Virtually
every single nice planted tank you see on the web is CO2 enriched.

40+% of the plant's dry weight is Carbon.
So you are severaly limiting things by not supplying it and small
little tank with high plant mass.

Most folks do much better by adding it and few folks ever sell their
gas CO2 systems with good reason.

Ideally if you decide on non CO2, make sure the substrate is something
like a soil based substrate or what I think is better is flourite with
about a 1/2" of peat in the bottom and 4inch of depth or more and add
some mulm from an old established tank to seed the gravel good.
I am not trying to talk you out of non CO2 but most eveyone finds it
much easier to grow the plants using it. I have both types myself. But
they have quite different approaches to work well.

Algae eaters will be needed in both CO2 and non CO2 tanks.

Regards,
Tom Barr

wrote:
Limited plant choice, smaller leaves, much slower growth, a big dose
of patience, something lacking in 95% of aquarist, some fiddling to
balance things right. Good deep substrate, some floating plants etc.

Here's my 1 watt per gallon, non CO2 injected tank:
http://home.austin.rr.com/lunamayaxoxo/fish/tank1.jpg
Lush growth in most plants, to the point that some require weekly pruning.
Substrate is gravel mixed with a bag of fluorite. I add Fluorish, Fluorish
Excel, and Fluorish Iron every week (if I remember).

The moral of the story is, YMMV.

--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

wrote:
Limited plant choice, smaller leaves, much slower growth, a big dose
of patience, something lacking in 95% of aquarist, some fiddling to
balance things right. Good deep substrate, some floating plants etc.

Here's my 1 watt per gallon, non CO2 injected tank:
http://home.austin.rr.com/lunamayaxoxo/fish/tank1.jpg
Lush growth in most plants, to the point that some require weekly pruning.
Substrate is gravel mixed with a bag of fluorite. I add Fluorish, Fluorish
Excel, and Fluorish Iron every week (if I remember).

The moral of the story is, YMMV.

--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

(Victor M. Martinez) wrote in message ...
wrote:
Limited plant choice, smaller leaves, much slower growth, a big dose
of patience, something lacking in 95% of aquarist, some fiddling to
balance things right. Good deep substrate, some floating plants etc.

Here's my 1 watt per gallon, non CO2 injected tank:
http://home.austin.rr.com/lunamayaxoxo/fish/tank1.jpg
Lush growth in most plants, to the point that some require weekly pruning.
Substrate is gravel mixed with a bag of fluorite. I add Fluorish, Fluorish
Excel, and Fluorish Iron every week (if I remember).

The moral of the story is, YMMV.

Adding Excel _is_ adding a carbon source. That's not a non CO2 tank.

Regards,
Tom Barr

(Victor M. Martinez) wrote in message ...
wrote:
Limited plant choice, smaller leaves, much slower growth, a big dose
of patience, something lacking in 95% of aquarist, some fiddling to
balance things right. Good deep substrate, some floating plants etc.

Here's my 1 watt per gallon, non CO2 injected tank:
http://home.austin.rr.com/lunamayaxoxo/fish/tank1.jpg
Lush growth in most plants, to the point that some require weekly pruning.
Substrate is gravel mixed with a bag of fluorite. I add Fluorish, Fluorish
Excel, and Fluorish Iron every week (if I remember).

The moral of the story is, YMMV.

Adding Excel _is_ adding a carbon source. That's not a non CO2 tank.

Regards,
Tom Barr

wrote:
Adding Excel _is_ adding a carbon source. That's not a non CO2 tank.

It is a carbon source, but it's not CO2. IIRC, it's some sort of sugar
molecule. Instructions are to use it daily, but I use it once a week.
It *is* a non-CO2 tank.

--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

wrote:
Adding Excel _is_ adding a carbon source. That's not a non CO2 tank.

It is a carbon source, but it's not CO2. IIRC, it's some sort of sugar
molecule. Instructions are to use it daily, but I use it once a week.
It *is* a non-CO2 tank.

--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

Get a sterilizer. Once I had the flow right the alga cut way back

william kossack wrote:

Is it really necessary to have a CO2 generator?

" wrote:

You might want to focus on the plant's needs.
You started down the path there with adding more/enough light.

Now if you add CO2 and nutrients then you'll get plant growth and no
algae.

If the plants don't grow, algae will. When the plants grow, algae does
not.

Plants need three basic things:light, CO2 and nutrients. Give them
these and the tank will do well.

Any plant will do. But as Leigh mention's, more is better and a nice
dense plant tank looks good also.

Don't expect algae eaters to do much more than minor detail of algae
control. Apple snails will eat plants and most snails will eat dying
or dead plant material.

You might want to start on www.thekrib.com and read over some general
planted tank tenents or various archives on forums etc.

Most folks are totally amazed when they learn how to grow plants.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Get a sterilizer. Once I had the flow right the alga cut way back

william kossack wrote:

Is it really necessary to have a CO2 generator?

" wrote:

You might want to focus on the plant's needs.
You started down the path there with adding more/enough light.

Now if you add CO2 and nutrients then you'll get plant growth and no
algae.

If the plants don't grow, algae will. When the plants grow, algae does
not.

Plants need three basic things:light, CO2 and nutrients. Give them
these and the tank will do well.

Any plant will do. But as Leigh mention's, more is better and a nice
dense plant tank looks good also.

Don't expect algae eaters to do much more than minor detail of algae
control. Apple snails will eat plants and most snails will eat dying
or dead plant material.

You might want to start on www.thekrib.com and read over some general
planted tank tenents or various archives on forums etc.

Most folks are totally amazed when they learn how to grow plants.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Well, not necessarily -

I shut off the UVG in my 55g about 3-4 months ago. I had 4 risers on
it, 2 are now capped, and the other two are still there. I'll be
capping them once I get around to acquiring a couple corks or plugs. So
far no problems at all. The UGF had been in the tank running for around
2 years. I've got about 3-4" of substrate on top of it. I shut down an
external Whisper filter at the same time.

The new filtration is an Eheim 2026.

YMMV -
pete

Iain Miller wrote:
"william kossack" wrote in message
...

I have a powerhead with an underground filter along with a penguin 330


Growing plants with a UGF is never easy - Oxygen rich water flowing over
their roots, most don't like it much.

You could think about using some small pots to get around this or ditching
the UGF - don't just turn this off though - all kinds of bad things an
happen! You'd need to pretty much tear the tank down, clean it out & start
again.




--
--
pete

"It is unwise to insult a doughnut be refusing to eat it."