Decisions

JRitter23

Hello I am doing a remodel on my 75 gallon. I want to put live plants in the tank instead of fake. I was wondering what the limit was for plants in that size of tank, and what kind of fertilizer do you recommend? I am going low tech with no CO2 injections. Anyone with experience in this way I would appreciate any information. Thanks again

Byron

You can plant sparingly, or thickly, that part is up to you. No mention is made of light, and this is important as some plants manage under less light than some others. Also, the more plant species, the trickier this might become, for reasons I won't get into here.

In a 75g, some of the larger swords are usually ideal. Check Echinodorus bleherae in our profiles [click shaded name], this is the most common "sword" plant one finds. I like the Pygmy chain sword or Chain Sword for low plants. Or there are crypts, a few species are in our profiles. I always have some floating plants, check the ones in our profiles.

Liquid fertilizer is the first you need to add as it provides all plants with everything. Substrate tabs are helpful for the larger swords, but not essential. For liquid, I use Seachem's Flourish Comprehensive Supplement [make sure of the exact name, there are several products in the Flourish line]; Brightwell Aquatics make FlorinMulti which is basically the same. Either can be used once or twice weekly, depending upon the plants (number, and type).

Byron.

JRitter23

Thanks again Bryon. On the lighting situation I am going with a full spectrum light at 48" long, 6500 K. I also wanted to do a "cool blue" light. I was thinking about getting another lamp hood around the same length. Or would 24" suffice if i place it in the middle? I will also take my Tetra whisper 20 off of my 75 gallon, because when doing a planted tank you minimal surface disturbance correct? Yea I read all four of your post regarding planted tanks i forget the name of the post.

Byron

On the light, if the 75g is a basic 4-foot tank, I would go with two 48-inch T8 tubes (in one fixture is much easier and neater). A single-tube T5 with HO tube would also work. I would not mess with 24-inch tubes assuming this is a 4-foot tank, as the light will look odd if this has a different spectrum.

I should probably revise the lighting section of my plant guide, as "cool" is becoming a bit misleading. The "daylight" tubes with around 6500K are actually providing this "cool" feature. True "full spectrum" will be a tad warmer. The mix of "full spectrum and cool white" used in the tests actually is the same as the spectrum of the "daylight" tubes with a K between 6000K and 7000K.

Byron.

Nemo the Clownfish

Byron,

I know that this is really picky, but Seachem Flourish Comprehensive, as I understand it, only has micronutrients, not "everything" I guess a lot of people don't need macronutrients, but I'm going to look for Seachem macros liquid, although I'll be paying a lot for water, to rule that out from slow growth. Put this down to my education.

Byron

Flourish Comprehensive has all nutrients required by plants--except for three: oxygen, hydrogen and carbon. These three occur naturally in any aquarium. So, yes, Flourish Comp does have everything else (14 nutrients).

Second, the 14 nutrients included are in proportion according to the needs of aquatic plants. This means there is not too much of this or that, which can cause problems for plants.

But, having said that, some of the macro-nutrients are not in exact proportion because again they will naturally occur in a fish tank. Nitrogen for instance, which is in Flourish in both ammonium and nitrate form, is only needed minimally since most of this occurs naturally. And calcium, magnesium and potassium are not in major supply, because it is assumed that most aquarists have source water that contains these. I don't, so it is necessary for me to use Equilibrium to increase the hard minerals.

But under the average conditions, Flourish Comprehensive will provide all that is needed. So too does Brightwell Aquatics' FlorinMulti, it is near identical.

Now, to the issue of adding additional macros. This should not be necessary unless you are adding diffused CO2 and have brighter light in balance. If you start adding macros without both of these, you will only feed algae.

Even in my "spare" 20g tank which is planted but contains no fish (I use this tank for new fish, so it can sit empty of any fish for several months) there is sufficient nitrogen for the plants (I dose Flourish Comp twice weekly, same as all tanks).

Byron.

Nemo the Clownfish

Thank you Byron, for providing the answer to a question that I've been looking for for a few weeks - do I need to dose macro nutrients. An important question to newbies.

Thank you.