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I do not have alot of options at my LFS for plants, so I need a plant that is readily available, yet does well in partial light. The fish I have in my 29 gallon do not like bright light, they prefer the natural light that comes from the window next to the tank and from a 5w bulb I have on a timer. Last batch of plants I tried were for high light, and I left a 20 flouresent light on for 8 hours a day. In 3 weeks my lack of a green thumb killed the plants, and during that 3 weeks my tetras and ram were in hiding and refused to come out.

Acidrain suggested hornwart, is this a good low light beginners plant?

duck weed is pritty strong and hardy had it in my tank and in my pond. Dont think it bothers to much about light but i dont know what temp it likes.

Duckweed - once its in your tank it will never come out. But its a great surface plant does well in any light.
Moneywort, also great floating plant.
Hornwort, that works good.
So does Anachris, and Ambulia (at least 2wpg for ambulia).
Wisteria is also a nice floating plant.


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Water Sprite left free floating really looks nice and give fry a bush to hide in.

Lemna minor - Duckweed is also a good choice - but someone said it hard to remove from the tank. I never had that problem with a closed system but in a pond it could get out of hand. Its very fast growing so you will have extra in a couple of weeks you just scoop it out, you sell it to LFS if they want it or just trash it. It's pH tolerant from 5.0 to 8.0. Light requirement are wide 1.0 - 5.0+ watts/gal. however, cation it will block out light to the plants in the substrate. Just don't let it carpet the top of the tank. It can also cause oxygen deprivation as well. It temperature requirement are 41 to 81 degrees F.

I hope this info helps you out

Djrichie
"Don't Panic"

Djrichie
"So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish" Douglas Adams

thanks for all the help everyone! I am waiting for my LFS to get its bi weekly plant order, and see what I can pick up!

If it is seriously lit with a 5w bulb, then i dont suggest any plants unless the light from your window is strong and steady. If not, the afforementioned plants will recieve lack of light, drop their leaves, and maybe even encourage algae growth! I would at least go with a 15w bulb to have some kind of growth. Duckweed is good though, as it gets a lot of light on the surface..............

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reun,

Reading your initial entry in this thread got me thinking, but not so much about what kind of plant would survive in almost no light (my opinion on 5W over 29G), neither about the 20W that you had on there for a few weeks and and attempted to grow plants "for high light" as that value barely makes it into the low light category.

I actually started thinking about other parts of your statement, namely the "fish I have ... do not like bright light" and "my tetras and ram were in hiding and refused to come out" statements. Are these tetras and the Ram the fish you refer to as not liking bright light? And bright means 20W over 29G? There is something way off. Tetras are some of the fish of choice for very high light (and that refers to over 5wpg over a 29G) tank. Rams do very well in tanks with medium (and that would be maybe around 2 to 3 wpg over a 29G) light. In your tank, or its surroundings, there must be other things going on that provoke the fish to hide.

In addition, but that would only be accurate if direct sunlight falls into the tank, the sun has a much higher intensity of light on a tank than a fixture that you place over it. If your fish like that light then there is even less of a reason why they should hide at 20W over the 29G.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

the tank sits right by a window, between that and the 5w light it is quite well lit. At any rate, the fish come out and play with the lower light, and with brighter light they tend to hide. This is my tank:

http://home.comcast.net/~fitzworld/29.JPG

I dunno, I am still relatively new to fish keeping, so I won't pretend to know what I am talking about

reun,

For someone who commits to not knowing too much about that fish thing (who knows all of it anyway?) I have to say that your tank looks very nice

So, the light that I see in the picture, is that the 5W? Seems rather bright to me, but that may be the effect of the camera (although it doesn't look like you used a slow shutter speed as the fish are rather sharp in the shot).

I can only emphasize that the direct light from the sun is manyfold the output from a 5W bulb, so it would make no sense that they would come out under the sun but not the light, it is weird.

Can you give me the detail on the light, like K rating, type, and anything you can think of. And make sure that it is really only 5W.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

that picture was taken with the 20w on last night after the sun went down...my camera isn't good enough to take a good picture in high lighting.

I also found a compromise...I had a 15w hood from a previous tank, it is fluorescent...and is a differant color than the 20w, its a very natural blue-ish light.
I used it today, and I am not sure if it is the light or one of the things I did, but all of my fish with the exception of the ram do not seem to be bothered at all by it.

Yesterday I added more to my school of lemon tetras, I think this was the biggest factor, because, as you can see by the photo, the lemons had no fear of the light and didn't hide.

Also, I used some left over plastic plants I had and suspended them by string so they floated, now the gourami and the lemon tetras go to the surface, the gourami now stays up mostly right at the surface of the water.

So, with a 15w natural light fluorescent light and some sunlight from a nearby window be enough light for any floating plants or am I stuck with out real plants?

You can with water sprite or duckweed but remember that it will block some light from the lower plants. By the way you should replace the fluorescent bulb if it over a year old, they loss life even if they are not being used. Get good bulb that is used for planting aquariums. I use 6,700k 15w call Life-glo2 in my 26us gal tanks and have no problems with low to mid plants. They will grow better if you include a CO2 system, with a 29gal you should be able to get away with a yeast system. You can DIY it or purchase them. The layout does look great I like how you used the rocks.

DjRichie
"Don't Panic"

Djrichie
"So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish" Douglas Adams

ahhh...that would explain why my old 20w was such a differant color. the 15w bulb is 3 months old. I am going to wait untill my LFS gets some more plants in, at that time I may look into a better bulb.

I just did some measurements...my tank is not a 29 gallon tall...its a oddball 26 gallon tall! good thing I understocked it! I have extra filtration on it (2 auquaclear 50 over-the-back filters and I am now using a powerjet filter I have as well, the little sucker is meant for a 5 gallon tank, it mixes air into the water stream and shoots it out, does a better job with gas exchange than my two airstones,lol)...I am hoping with that and my 30% a week water changes it will compensate for my lack of plants and being right at the 1 inch per gallon rule.

P.S. I heard it was a good idea to remove carbon from the filters when adding plants...so I have been running with no carbon, but my other question is, will ammonia removing resin that they sell work in the filters without screwing the plants up? Or does that stuff make so little a differance I shouldn't even bother with it?

Hi,
Carbon will remove some of the metals and compounds that
are contained in the fertilizers that we add to our tanks
for our plants. In a way it makes no sense to add
nutrients to the tank for the plants only to have the
carbon take them out of circulation. Carbon acts as a
Chemical Filter, binding metals (iron, copper, etc.) as
well as some organic compounds. Once the surface area is
saturated with these, the carbon can no longer absorb
them and it becomes just another debris trap. In some
cases, after saturation, the carbon will release the
chemicals back into the water
Depending upon your bio load (how many and how massive
are your fish) and what you regularly feed your fish, the
carbon will only actively work for a week, sometimes two
before it saturates. Then you have to toss it and
buy/add more carbon.

The only time I'd use Carbon in a tank would be to remove
tannins from driftwood that is tinting the water.
Or, to remove the last vestiges of some medication after
treating and curing the tank of some disease. With the
advancements in todays filters, it is just another
unnecessary expense.

The same hold true for the ammonia removing resin. Your
bacteria colonies that support the Nitrogen Cycle will do
that for you. The end result of that cycle is nitrate and
live plants, regular water changes, and regular gravel
vacuuming will take care of the excess nitrate.

Frank


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Thank you! Ok I won't bother with it. When I was using carbon I changed it weekly, as I had heard that it was worthless after a week or two.

I am concerned about the bio load as untill I get some plants, I have no plants in the tank...bio load is:

1 bolivian ram
1 dwarf gouarimi
7 lemon tetras
3 cherry barbs
2 corys

Hi,
In skimming through your posts here, I did not notice the
readings for the Nitrate. Keep an eye on your water
chemistries (pH,Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, etc.)
As long as your nitrate is not at 40+, you should be fine.
If you reach 40+ then you should slow down on the feeding
(you are probably over feeding) and do water changes that
include gravel vacuuming. Mentally divide the non-planted
portions of the tank into 4 sections and with each weeks
water change, vacuum a different section. That way, over a
month, you will have cleaned the entire tank.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--