Tropical Fish Forums

[skokie]

Hello

I currently have a 29 gallon fresh water tank that I would like to add more plants to. Here is the current setup.

Soft sandy bottom 1 inch thick
10 cories, 3 panda, 4 sterbai, 3 Venezuela red
6 amano shrimp
5 java ferns
2 pieces of driftwood that almost span the length of the tank minus 6 inches and are about 8-12 inches tall at the highest point.
20 watt life glow bulb 6700 K range

What I would like to do is add Dwarf hair grass to the tank to achieve a grass carpet affect. What fertilizers or other items would I need to achieve this?
Is there another type of plant that would do the same? Do I have enough lighting with the current buln

Thanks in advance for the help

[nikelodeon79]

Your lighting is nowhere near adequate... you'll need a lot more than that to achieve a carpet, along with CO2 and ferts.
_________________
Dumpster Tank
Nano Fish
Mbuna

[skokie]

[Marcos Avila]

To answer your question: for dwarf hairgrass I'd say 2-3 Watts per gallon would suffice. So in your case it means adding at least two more 20 W fluorescent tubes, totalling 60 W for 29 G.

That said, I wouldn't recommend you do it for this particular setup. You have a lot of cories in there and they don't enjoy living in carpet-covered tanks because their natural behavior is to sniff around the gravel for food.

Also, if you just increase the lighting and keep only Java fern and hairgrass in there you'd very likely have severe algae problems, since there wouldn't be any fast-growing plants to compete with the algae.
_________________

Success with a fish/tank is measured in YEARS, not months or weeks...