The Three Main items needed for a successful planted tank

I've seen a lot of people in this hobby try to start a live plant tank, only to see it fail. Here we will discuss the essential equipment needed for a successful live plant system.

First off there are 3 main things for a planted tank, they are lighting, CO2, and the right substrate. So let's discuss each of these and the role they will play in a live planted tank.


1) Lighting - First you'll find out that there's 3 levels of lighting for a planted tank, low-medium-bright lighting. It's pretty easy to figure out which one you will need by the plants you wish to keep in your tank. Plants inside an aquarium are broken up into the same 3 groups of the lighting they will require in order to grow. General Rule of Thumb is to provide 2-3 watts of lighting per gallon of the tank, so if you have a 55 gallon setup you will need close to 110 watts of lighting. How ever when it comes to smaller tanks between 5-30 gallons the rule of 2 watts per gallon is thrown out the window. This is due to the limited amount of space the tank size provides, and would need a regular standard size T8 bulb. Now lighting is broken up into a bunch of categories such as T5, T5 HO, T8, Metal Halide, and Kelvin. Kelvin lighting is available on T5, T5 HO, etc... Light spectrum is measured by the Kelvin scale. Natural sunlight on a clear day registers at 5500 Kelvin degrees. Kelvin temperatures less than 5500 become more red and yellow and the higher the Kelvin temperature the more blue the light is. Photosynthetic invertebrates should be kept under lamps rated at or near the Kelvin temperature where the invertebrate was collected. Shallow water species should be kept under 10000K lamps while deep water species would prefer 20000K lighting. Longer photoperiods can not compensate for incorrect light spectrum or intensity.



2) CO2 - Naturally plants breathe Carbon dioxide in order to survive in nature, by breathing CO2 plants release oxygen in return. This is the same for all plants, whether they are in nature or in the aquarium.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) plays a really important role in photosynthesis. Where does carbon dioxide used in photosynthesis come from you say? It comes from the environment around the plant. The plant gets carbon dioxide for photosynthesis from the stomata. Stomata are the holes in cells of leaves that let in water and let out water through transpiration. If you don't know what transpiration is, it is the water from the plant. To make food, plants take in carbon dioxide from the CO2 and it takes it in from the roots, stem, and leaves.

Generally CO2 is not needed for smaller tanks under 30 gallons, because they will use the CO2 released from the fish in the tank to survive. There are many CO2 systems in the market today for planted tanks, and many DIY (do it yourself) projects that are more cost efficient. However you decide to go, you'll want to do more research on CO2 systems before you decide which way to go.



3) Substrate - This plays the biggest role in a planted tank, because plants use their roots to get the nutrients they need. There are many different substrates on the market today, Eco-Complete, SeaChem Flourite, etc..... These are clay based substrates that contain a lot of the minerals that plants need to survive. There is also a product called API First Layer Pure Laterite, this is another clay based product but is meant to be use with regular aquarium gravel in the places that you intend placing the plants. Then there's what called Root Tabs, it's a small slow dissolving tablet about the size of the a quarter that's intended to be placed in the exact spot that you are putting the plants.

You will see a lot of people using the Eco-Complete or SeaChem Flourite for the bottom layer in the tank and then covering it with a layer of sand to give it a more natural appearance. When doing so you want to insure that the plant roots are buried enough so that the roots are touching the bottom layer, you also will need to make sure that the plant isn't buried so deep that the growing area of the plant is starting to get covered by the sand.


These are the 3 main things that are needed to give you success when starting a live plant system.

For my 75 gallon planted tank I will list the essential things that I use.

Lighting - Coralife 48" Freshwater Deluxe Series. (4x65 watt bulbs/6700k each bulb/260 watts total lighting) this gives me 3.4 watts of lighting per gallon

CO2 - Two DIY (do-it-yourself) 2 ltr bottles with 16oz. bottle gas chambers for any over flow liquid, and 2 DIY diffusers made with powerheads and PVC piping. Made by using the bakers yeast method, you can Google DIY CO2 and will find the recipe for making it.

Substrate - 40 lbs SeaChem Flourite bottom layer (1" deep), 1 API pure laterite mixed in with the Flourite, and 50 lbs of play sand from HomeDepot.

Now I also use SeaChem Flourish liquid fertilizer twice a week. This gives the plants some of the nutrients that the substrate may be missing.

Notice how lush and green my plants are (my tank is a work in progress lol) I have 2 Amazon Swords that are now twice the size they were when I got them, 1 Aquatic Banana Plant which is only 2 weeks old and starting to release it's roots into the substrate, 2 Brazilian Swords (not true aquatic) but leaving them in the tank til they start rotting, then I have 2 Anubias Nanas in a piece of driftwood with Java Moss on it, the Java Moss was barely noticeable on the driftwood when I first got it, and now is lush and green coving almost all of the driftwood now.

thanks for all the great info it will help a lot of us, your tank is a stunner too.