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49 Posts
Having failed miserably with ODNO lighting over my 55g, when I migrated to a 75g, I just decided to put 30w over the 75g and forget plants in there...for now.
I also have 30w over my 20g shrimp tank, so I figured it would make sense to try to grow some plants in there, especially since the tank is small enough that DIY CO2 could be viable. So I changed out the substrate from 1 inch deep of play sand/estes marine sand to ~2.5 inches of red fluorite. What a mess. The shrimp pulled through OK though.
I planted the tank up with what was in my old 55g which included:
I also set up a DIY CO2 system with a 3L bottle, 1/2 tsp. of yeast, 2c. sugar and 1tsp. of baking soda. My water has very low kH...the kH is less than 1 degree in both of my tanks. I dripped some baking soda water into it to get a couple of degrees (as measured with my test kit) of kH for some buffering capacity, but I still chickened out and removed the CO2 tube from the tank overnight. I've got ~ 200 shrimp in there (need to donate some to LFS) so I didn't want to wake up to dead shrimp and a pH of 5.5.
What's the best way to semi-permanently raise my kH? Get some crushed coral and run it in my filter (AC70)?
When I went to bed last night, my CO2 level was 7ppm (red sea test kit) which is up from ~2ppm. At this point I am just running the CO2 bubbles directly into the pre-filter sponge of the AC70.
Any comments or suggestions?
I also have 30w over my 20g shrimp tank, so I figured it would make sense to try to grow some plants in there, especially since the tank is small enough that DIY CO2 could be viable. So I changed out the substrate from 1 inch deep of play sand/estes marine sand to ~2.5 inches of red fluorite. What a mess. The shrimp pulled through OK though.
I planted the tank up with what was in my old 55g which included:
- A couple stalks of Moneywort
- Banana Plant
- A sword of some sort
- Hornwort
- Java Moss
- Java ferns
- S. Subulata
I also set up a DIY CO2 system with a 3L bottle, 1/2 tsp. of yeast, 2c. sugar and 1tsp. of baking soda. My water has very low kH...the kH is less than 1 degree in both of my tanks. I dripped some baking soda water into it to get a couple of degrees (as measured with my test kit) of kH for some buffering capacity, but I still chickened out and removed the CO2 tube from the tank overnight. I've got ~ 200 shrimp in there (need to donate some to LFS) so I didn't want to wake up to dead shrimp and a pH of 5.5.
What's the best way to semi-permanently raise my kH? Get some crushed coral and run it in my filter (AC70)?
When I went to bed last night, my CO2 level was 7ppm (red sea test kit) which is up from ~2ppm. At this point I am just running the CO2 bubbles directly into the pre-filter sponge of the AC70.
Any comments or suggestions?
