planted river tank setup questions...........

[kimura]

so i was at my towns rather large mom and pop shop and fell in love with a tank they were using for a terrarium. i belive its 60 gallons( 4 ft long, 2 feet wide and 1 foot tall. i figured it would make a great river tank. i was thinking putting my yoyos in there with maybe some histironicas. anyways.......

getting to my main question. in most of my tanks i use java moss, java ferns, anubius, water sprite, wisteria and anachris. usuually really low light, low tech planted tanks. i usually use canister filters so there is little surface agiataion so no c02 is lost. SO...... can i make a river tank this shallow that doesnt cause a lot of C02 loss. OR if not what are some good plants that can thrive in a river tank with low c02. i know java moss would do ok but most of my other plants dont like surface agitation.

would putting the filter output low enough lessen the surface agiation even in a 12 inch tall tank?

thanks,

[shari2]

In mine the output is low and I have java fern on wood, cabomba, cryptocorne, and anubias. There is significant surface agitation because it's only a 20g and 12 inches high, but they seem to be doing fine.

[newshound]

if your tank is low light you don't need alot of Co2 at all.

[Mad Duff]

I have java fern, java moss, anubias, hairgrass and vallis in my river tank and they are all thriving and I don't use any Co2 at all.

Quite a bit of the time the lighting is very subdued because I also have duckweed growing on the surface and that is going wild, I have to remove a couple of netfulls of the stuff a week to keep it thinned out.

[crazy loaches]

There was a discussion about this just a couple days ago, look at http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=10698

If your not injecting co2 (you didnt say?) then there is no reason to avoid surface agitation. There is usually only around 3ppm of co2 in aquariums and I dont think youll get a significant gain from fish respiration and low surface disturbance - especially in a river tank. And as previously mentioned most of the plants are low tech so not much to worry about co2. Some think agitation will help low tech tanks by atleast keeping the co2 up to equilibrium levels rather than letting the plants suck it to zero. Good luck!