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i have a 20g tank which i want to add more plants to.
I have a 20w globe on it and no co2.

so far i have nana anubius, a crypt? , and some val
ive been adding seachem flourish but the growth hasnt been that great.

What should be using and how often?

thanks!

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

You may just need to increase your light. It would promote better growth. What type of light you using?? One thing to watch out for if you increase your watt/gal is your algae growth will also increase too. Enough other plants does tend to fix this prob too. Other then your watt/gal dont see anything wrong with setup,( although if your tank is a strange shape ie really tall and deep could be a prob too wich increasing light would help)

I am pretty sure that anubius is a very slow growing plant. I read that vals will live in 1 wpg, but would like a little more for more growth. I don't know much about crypts, but a little CO2 could always help. You might try this: http://www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/FlourishExcel.html

Flourish Excel is mainly a carbon based substance (I think), i would think this would increase growth in your tank.

I think Flourish is mainly dosing of micro nutrients and stuff like that.

There are a few plants that don't withstand excel very well and vals are one of them. I melted off some jungle vals and almost a red lilly using excel on the tank so I would not recommend trying it with any vals. You also won't see much benefit using any excess carbon source with that low of light. Anubias and crypts don't set any records for growth anyway but it would be more noticeable and the vals would probably grow much better if you managed to add another 10watts or so. Vals would much prefer light more around 2-3wpg but if they are surviving now then you probably don't need to increase the light to that level. About 1.5wpg would probably be sufficient to see some growth.

thanks for your replies.

regarding the lighting- i dont know if yuo can get a stronger one but correct me if im wrong!
is a 24inch flourescent tube that fits into a hood...
can you find stronger than 20w in that length ?

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

No, you can't (easily) increase the wattage of the fixture you already have. You just have to add another fixture to the tank.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

I had the same issue with the light hood provided by my LFS, it only came with one light fixture of 30W, for a planted 50G tank it does not suffice, I went overboard (for Costa Rican standards) and hooked up two extra bulbs for a total of 90Watts, still not much but it certainly was the easiest way to boost up wattage. Other options provided by FP members on a previous post suggested looking into Compact Fluorescent Bulbs, they will provide more watts per bulb than regular FB's.

If you increase luminosity watch out for algae blooms and/or rise of water temperature, they may be affected by the extra bulb or bulbs and are things that you will need to control.

Hope it helps!

James

Thanks for your advice. Looks like in gng to have to look further into lighting which i really dont know a whole lot about but its sounding quite pricey!

if someone wants to advise what would be the most cost effective way of boosting the lighting that would be great too!

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Truth doesn't always win friends but it influences them

Add another fixture its not that expensive. You have a 20G with 20watts, one more bulb will put you in the medium light range(2 watts per gallon), add a third and you'll be smooth sailing into the high light range (3 watts per gallon). Shouldnt come out to be too bad costwise, depending on what type of light set up you have.

J.

If you want to go really cheap you can grab shoplight fixtures from hardware stores or walmart and just lay them on the top of your tank(replace any bulbs with daylight/plant bulbs). It doesn't look very fancy and it doesn't have the greatest reflector but it will double the light level cheaply and easily. That's what I did to reach 3wpg on my 55 until I could afford a compact flourescent fixture. The amount of light a bulb produces is determined by it's length. Compact bulbs are bent in half so they put out more light in the same length of space but they are quite a bit more expensive. You'd do fine if you just added another regular flourescent bulb to your tank.

Using Shop lights would probably be your cheapest way to get more light. Maybe try something like this:

http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS/EN_US/diy_main/pg_diy.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1239624864.1171078052@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdeaddkedegilmcgelceffdfgidgki.0&CNTTYPE=PROD_meta&CNTKEY=misc/searchResults.jsp&MID=9876&N=2984+4233&pos=n12

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