Loaches Online Forum

hghg

im not touching this one

okay. thanks for the help newshound. anyone else feel like "touching" this one for me. thanks.

An 18 watt bulb won't grow anything in a clown loach tank. I assume that the tank is atleast 55 gallons if you are keeping clowns. IMO, You'd need a bulb with atleast 55 watts for low light plants. CO2 injection is usually just for tanks with 2+ watts per gallon of light and fast growing, medium to high light plants.

The little CO2 kits that you find in pet stores are OK for 10 gallon, maybe 20 gallon tanks, but do not give a larger tank enough CO2 to really grow the plants well. If you have a little quarantine tank then this might be just the answer, though.

Growing plants is sort of like keeping a teeter totter balanced.

Plants need light. If you can get at least 2 watts per gallon of light with a K rating between 6500 and 10,000, or a combination of different bulbs in this range, then you can get by with Excel as a source of carbon, and the lowest end of Estimative Index fertilizing. This is rather low light, but adequate, so low doses of carbon and low doses of fertilizer.

If you get more light than this start looking into pressurized CO2; DIY yeast methods (like the kit you could buy) are not going to give you enough.
You will also need to be right on top of the fertilizer, and dosing something like the higher end of the EI method's suggested range.
Higher light requires higher carbon and fertilizer levels.

If you improve one aspect without adjusting the others you are inviting algae.

well now that's the answer i was hopeing for. i appreciate all your information Diana.

is the post supposed to say hghg?

if it is, i would touch it either, but i would like to know what Diana was able to see.

The original post was about what sort of light would grow what sort of plants.
Tank size was not specified, but it sounded like the OP was using either a little fluorescent bulb or incandescent that is usually found in 'kit' sort of hoods. Worthless for growing plants, especially if the tank is the proper size for any of the Loaches larger than Shisturas.
My answer was aimed in the direction of: Get the proper light, but make sure you keep up with the fertilizer and carbon needs of the plants.

the original question was about how much CO2 was needed to grow plants in a clown loach tank using an 18 watt light bulb.

Ah! OK

The light is so wrong that nothing will make the plants grow, so improving the lighting and THEN working on the other aspects is the way to go.