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Im going to get piranhas for my 75g and I want to plant the tank to make them feel secure. I have 40wt fixture now and Im going to get a home depot strip light and add 64 wts. I figure Ill have about 1 to 1.3 wpg. Would amazon sword plants work in that lighting and what else are some big fast growing plants that would work. Also whats a good plant tab fertilizer.

Whimple piranha would be ideal, rare, interesting, don't get too big and beat themselves up.

I would suggest just getting a pair of 2x40w shop lights if you want to do it cheap and build a nice box for them.
6500K daylight bulbs and you are pretty much set.

That's 160w, 2.1w, nothing you cannot grow at that light level and you can also turn one set off or better yet, turn both sets on for 4-5 hours and then leave one on for 10 hours.

The best thing you can add for better plant growth would CO2 after that. SeaChem Excel would work well also.

But you can go non CO2 methods also, not an easy method for large hungry fish though.

Large fish will disturb the substrate, red bellies will for sure. You can use SeaChem tabs.
Swords are a good choice, they are tough and get big.
The other option is using pots for the plants if they are destructive or stones around the base.

Regards,
Tom Barr

www.BarrReport.com