Starting a Planted Tank

[Darkblade48]

Sorry for the late response; I rarely notice new posts in the stickies

What kind of light do you have over your 35g tank? If it is the stock light, it likely will be very low light, and thus, you will only be able to grow the most low light tolerant plants (if even that).

[brigitteisveryspecial]

the bulb is a 24inch coralife daymax that is a 20watt fluorescent.

maybe the plants are some kind of crypt?

no worry for the delay! i'm not online super regularly myself.

[romsan]

I did set up 50gal new fresh water tank.
I added some water 2 weeks ago. Planted a little bit of plants last week.

I have another small 10 gal tank which has 4 neons, 1 betta, 1 plecco and bunch of red cherry shrimps.

My cherry shrimp population was slowly declining, thanks to betta and pleco...

Yesterday I saw that couple of pregnant cherry shrimps and decided to move all the fish to the new 50gal tank.

So today i did the move. I added about 20l of water from my other aquarium to speed up the cycle...

Did I introduced the fish too yearly to my new tank??

I am going to do a test tomorrow to see the levels of ammonia and nitrates.

[Darkblade48]

Please see my answer in the other thread you started:

https://gtaaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17140

[internalfugue]

This is a great guide! I'm wondering though, will I need to feed the plants and add co2 if my tank won't have very many plants and will have some fish? I would love to have real plants but I dont want to try anything too complicated at first.

[Playing God]

Originally Posted by Prodicus

One comment on this nicely written thread:

You mention the low-maintenance (low to moderate light) option on the
first post, but the rest of your posts are mostly applicable to the high-
tech or medium tech option.

You won't get 30 ppm CO2 in a low-tech set-up, and you really don't need
to add supplements to a low tech set-up.

For a low-tech set-up, all you really need apart from your light is proper plant choice and lots of patience.

Second this. Is it possible to start a thread on low light set up? I'd love to hear a talk on this but my current tank has only been running for a few months and I'd prefer not to appear an expert on this subject yet.
There's tonnes of advice out there on how to crank the lumens, CO2 and ferts but what about people who are stuck with the notion of obtaining equilibrium in a tank without outside intervention (read: maintenance)?

I have an old 17W bulb in my 33 gal tall -extremely low light apparently although it gets a bit of indirect sunlight as well.
I have pretty minimal problems with algae-just enough to keep my snails/grazers happy, and my corkscrew and jungle vals grow like weeds in there, as does my taiwan moss carpet (I wouldn't mind them growing a little LESS often, haha).
I do nothing for my plants (not even significant water changes) except trim off any dead/decaying leaves...but as i said after only 3 months on it, I'm not yet comfortable enough to post something saying "low light, no maintenance CAN be done in a planted tank". But would love to hear others' adventures in low light....

[pyrrolin]

Low light is just picking the right plants from my experience.

when you go from low light to high light with the same plants and toss in co2, omg, those plants can grow like weeds, Ive seen plants grow about 2 inches in one day.

[Playing God]

@pyrolin
I've heard that the best plants for low light actually grow best in low light (I hope that doesn't sound too redundant). E.g. taiwan moss photosynthesizes at a slow rate and gets tired after ~8 hours so any extra light is useless for the moss and just feeds algae.
The plants that "shoot up" when dosed with ferts/co2 and higher lumens are probably not true "low light" plants (like vallis that are likely hardy enough to grow in ANY light).

Of course we all know that you can't really categorically separate plants. it's always more of a spectrum than pigeon holes so that many plants that can survive in low light will actually do better in medium, while others like taiwan moss are true low light varieties.

I'm looking for someone with more experience than me to say things like
-"here are your best low light varieties",
-"be careful you don't put too much light in the tank so algae doesn't over compete",
-"here's things to watch for, that are signs that your dissolved solids are too high/low, light is too high/low, nitrates too high/low, CO2 too high/low" (in a low light environment)
-"here are some common mistakes/assumptions newbies make when starting a low light tank", etc.

[Playing God]

But maybe all the experienced plant lovers get tired of lowlight quickly and move on to the more exciting tanks for more challenge/reward?
I acknowledge my main reason for sticking with lowlight is that my fish seem to prefer less light and i prefer less work/maintenance....

[Playing God]

Originally Posted by internalfugue

This is a great guide! I'm wondering though, will I need to feed the plants and add co2 if my tank won't have very many plants and will have some fish? I would love to have real plants but I dont want to try anything too complicated at first.

Depends what plants you want.

Some plants grow best in low light without artificial dosing. Plants like taiwan moss have slow uptake rates of co2, nutrients, and light for Photosynthesis. Overdosing these types is kind of like trying to eat buffet at the Mandarin, sure you could probably stuff your face a little more, but it doesn't make you more healthy to do so (NOTE: I have nothing against the Mandarin, only against buffets).
Of course, the flip side is that these plants grow slowly as well (read: less maintenance, haha).

Other plants, like Vals (vallisneria) seem to do very well in low light, but may grow even FASTER if you start adding more of the requirements for growth (co2,light,nutrients).

My tank currently is pretty full of taiwan moss/java moss and vals (for example) --I have other plants in there but they aren't doing so hot in low light so I won't even mention them. I don't do ANYTHING for my plants other than trim a leaf if it starts to decay.

So it's definitely doable! But you will limit yourself in plant options.
The plant itself will determine what kind of light it needs.

Unfortunately plants only use the light that hits them (and only photosynthesize light at certain speeds) so having less plants in low light doesn't equal having many of those same plants in high light. The key is always to find the bottleneck (or limiting factor) for your plant. If it's light, up the wattage.
My suspicion is that some people "over-stuff" their plants for maximum growth when it may not be necessary to merely keep them healthy. As with all things there is a law of diminishing returns on this.

I think I've answered your question, but as a final note, if you're looking for cool "red" plants or more exotic varieties you'll need to go for a high lighting set up. If you're just looking for some natural green, there are plenty of options for people who don't want to babysit fish AND plants...