Hello All,
Well I'm very excited to have picked up my first aquarium plants and have been reading up quite a bit on the subject but was hoping to get some advice specific to my environment.
I have a 55 gallon long with (2) Fluval 204's, a PennPlax Cascade 1000 canister filter, UV sterilizer, 32 watt Aqua-something bulb that runs for 12 hours then my moonlight kicks in for the other 12. I have 3 nice pieces of driftwood that I've attached Java Fern and Anubias Minima to. I stay on top of water quality and regularly test levels with consistant readings of no ammonia or nitrite and usually around 40ppm on the nitrates.
The tanks is a little crowded right now with an Oscar, 3 Silver Dollars, a Salvini Cichlid, Ripsaw catfish & Tiretrack eel but I have lots of filtration and as I said I keep on my water changes. None of my inhabs are bothering the plants in any way so far.
Now my questions...
1. What are some of my other plant options considering my equipment, environment and inhabs? I'm looking for species that are at or around the difficulty level of Java Fern and the Anubias. Should I be looking at a better light or am I good considering I'm working with plants with low or moderate light needs? I want to give them the best but don't want to terrorize my inhabs with more light than they'll be comfy with.
2. So far I'm just using a fairly fine gravel as a substrate...should I be layering with some sort of plant friendly substrate?
3. Considering I have 3 canister filters and 2 submersible airpumps working in the tank am I providing too much aeration that is robbing the plants of the carbon dioxide they need?
4. Any other advice for improving this environment.
Thanks very much in advance!
Well I'm very excited to have picked up my first aquarium plants and have been reading up quite a bit on the subject but was hoping to get some advice specific to my environment.
I have a 55 gallon long with (2) Fluval 204's, a PennPlax Cascade 1000 canister filter, UV sterilizer, 32 watt Aqua-something bulb that runs for 12 hours then my moonlight kicks in for the other 12. I have 3 nice pieces of driftwood that I've attached Java Fern and Anubias Minima to. I stay on top of water quality and regularly test levels with consistant readings of no ammonia or nitrite and usually around 40ppm on the nitrates.
The tanks is a little crowded right now with an Oscar, 3 Silver Dollars, a Salvini Cichlid, Ripsaw catfish & Tiretrack eel but I have lots of filtration and as I said I keep on my water changes. None of my inhabs are bothering the plants in any way so far.
Now my questions...
1. What are some of my other plant options considering my equipment, environment and inhabs? I'm looking for species that are at or around the difficulty level of Java Fern and the Anubias. Should I be looking at a better light or am I good considering I'm working with plants with low or moderate light needs? I want to give them the best but don't want to terrorize my inhabs with more light than they'll be comfy with.
2. So far I'm just using a fairly fine gravel as a substrate...should I be layering with some sort of plant friendly substrate?
3. Considering I have 3 canister filters and 2 submersible airpumps working in the tank am I providing too much aeration that is robbing the plants of the carbon dioxide they need?
4. Any other advice for improving this environment.
Thanks very much in advance!