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Planted tank help - Nutrafin CO2 Natural Plant System (Hagen) ??
"Shawn P. Good" wrote in message ... I'm trying to develop a planted tank in my 55-gal community tank, but my plants don't seem to be flourishing like I want. Right now I have 4 clumps of microsword (still alive but not spreading) for foreground plants, hornwort (I tried anchoring clumps in the gravel, but it rotted, so now it's just floating around the tank, making a mess by fragmenting everywhere), 2 bunches of red ludwigia (one rotted to nothing and the other seems to be heading that way), 2 banana plants (the leaves are turning black and breaking), and one java fern (seems to holding it's own, but 2 leaves are black, not green). I add liquid plant fertilizer after each weekly water change, but it doesn't seem to be helping. INFO: My tank size is a 55 gal. I have one-bulb hood with a 40-watt 4-foot fluorescent light bulb. My substrate is just small (pea-sized) gravel. I do not have CO2. I'm planning on mixing in some type of plant substrate like Floramax for Planted Aquariums (Question: how much for my size aquarium ? www.thatfishplace.com sells a 40-lb bag for $28). My water source is well-water, which is run through a water softener because of extreme hardness (iron) in our well. My main question however is about CO2. First, should I have it ? Second, if yes, why are they so expensive ? The CO2 systems I see online and in catalogues seem to be very expensive. However, I saw one online (again at www.thatfishplace.com) by Hagen that seems very inexpensive and I was wondering what other people's opinions on it are. The product is Nutrafin CO2 Natural Plant System (Hagen) and can be seen at http://www.thatpetplace.com/MainPro/...71+0966&PgNo=1 Any help would be appreciated for this planted-tank newbie. I'm so inspired by people's planted aquarium tank pictures on different websites. I'd love to get my tank to even half that ! Thanks - Shawn You have a bit of a battle ahead of you Shawn. The ingredients for good plant growth are adequate to high light, soft to neutral water and lots of nutrients. Your light level (40w/55g = 0.72w/g) is low, and distance from light to substrate is not short, so results will be modest when/if the plants start growing. If everything else was good, many of your plants would adapt and show reasonable growth eventually, but everything else is not good. Well-water has too many minerals in it and it interferes with plant growth. Zero minerals is no good either, so you want some. Your water softener adds salt, at a ratio which depends on the amount of calcium being removed. Since you mentioned that your water is very hard, then the quantity of salt being added might be significant, and plants do not like salt. If your softener is working well, it might be removing too much minerals they need. As well your pH is probably quite high (this is unchanged by the softener), and not all plants do well in high pH. Summary: post your well water parameters (pH, gH and kH), increase your light levels (a must), and research plants which do well in high pH. Do you have any convenient sources for soft water? In regards to CO2 injection, I think this would certainly help your situation. It will lower your pH a bit, but it will not give you the results you see, with tanks running with soft water and lower kH levels. The Nutrafin CO2 injector system is rated for 10 to 20g. If your other parameters were all good, you would see some difference running your 55g on 1 injector, but given your other challenges, I'd definitely get 2, and alternate their filling. Alternately, look into the DIYs. There are many designs on the web, and I think you will need a fairly 'industrial' strength setting to kick your tank into the high gear that you sound like you want. If your plant expectations are modest, adding another 4' polo light and CO2 might do the trick. Go with a shop light fixture (2x40W) to get a cheap lighting upgrade. I see you cross-posted to r.a.f.p. That's probably the best place for the advice you need. Best wishes. NetMax |
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