Newbie Here

Carnage

Hey all

Im new to the forum

and sorta new to this fish stuff
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I bought a 10 gallon starter kit

and wanted to put some plants in it

I do intend to throw a few fish in there later

but for right now I really would like to get this plant stuff figured out
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I wanted to know about this C02 generator

and also about the lighting

I have a hood for the 10g but it only accepts type A bulbs

not those long flouresent T8 T12 types
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What do I do

Any help will be greatly appreciated

Little-Fizz

You should get a new light fixture. I bought a used aquarium and the lights were like that too. If you go out and spend say... 60 bucks probably max on a light fixture then you won't have to worry about the types of plants you have either. Do you know the 3 watt per gallon rule? Thats the general rule for planted tanks, with this much light you could have a lot of different types of plants (and with co2 even more still). What are you using for substrate?

kritas

Ok for starters, welcome to the forum

And if your referring to a pressurized Co2 system, I can help out abit there.
First of all, Co2 injection is unnecassary for low lighted tanks eg. t8/t12. This is because the plants aren't receiving much light, causing photosynthesis to occur. When photosynthesis starts to occur, then the plant starts to grow, needing our equivalent of oxygen, being Co2... With high lighting, and no Co2, your plants will start to choke to death, from lack of air.
Low lighting certainly limits the types of plants you can get quite significantly, although there are plants that will thrive in these conditions. eg. Java Moss, Java Fern, Duckweed, Cardamine, just to name a few...
It would be better if you had at least t8 for these plants, and I reccomend you get it, i'm not so sure your "type A" bulb will suffice.

Always best so you know, to get the plants organised first before putting the fish in, because it means that you won't be messing around with their environment very often, which they wouldn't like you doing anyway, so good choice...

Hope my information helped

iamntbatman

Is a Type A bulb just a screw-in incandescent bulb? If so, don't throw out your fixture! You can get screw-in compact fluorescent bulbs.

Here's the type I'm talking about:
Small Aquarium Lighting: Mini Compact Bulbs

You want the Colormax bulbs for freshwater, not the 50/50 bulbs. I use a bunch of these bulbs and they work great. At 10 watts a piece, they'll put out 33% more light than a single tube T12/T8 fixture and they'll cost you less.

Oldman47

Another option for lighting is the spiral type compact fluorescents that the sell as light bulb replacements to save energy. I find the smaller 13W fluorescents work great in a 10 gallon tank hood. Depending on the manufacturer, some of the spiral are a bit too big so look at the bulb before you take it home. For plants you will want the daylight type rather than the cool white or warm white. The daylight spectrum works fine for plants and is typically a 6000K or higher spectrum. Since noon sunlight is only 5500K, that 6000K is a high enough spectrum for plants that would normally get their light from the sun.