My first 34g planted tank journal thingy...

[mahoro]

my 34g tank, new to the aquarium world... please do comment on it so that way i know what i did wrong

[mahoro]

play around with the setting...

[mahoro]

added some lava rocks to help hold the slope better...

[mahoro]

[mahoro]

added some aquasoil on both sides

[mahoro]

added white/yellow-ish sand in the middle

[mahoro]

added more sand and soil

[mahoro]

added some water... aka making some chocolatemilk...

[mahoro]

added some plants, a driftwood and more water, hook up the ehiem ecco filter

[mahoro]

few hours later, water still bad looking, play around with the light setting and opps, realized the incoming and outgoing tube wasn't hooked up to the tank.. still in a bucket

[mahoro]

hook the tubes up and added more water then check on it again in few hours only to find out forgot to load the media basket which was in the kitchen sink...

[mahoro]

play with the light again, water is a tid bit better.. or maybe its because the 50/50 light that came with the tank... will be gone til after wed. afternoon, hope the water will clear up by then.
order some spraybar, hagen co2 and a sponge filter last week.. hope i get it by end of the week

[mahoro]

i know i'll probly need new lights... it has 2 sets of lights... one is one of those 50-50 65watts in a corallife light stand the other is a smaller stand with a 18watts 30inch true actinic 03 blue lamp.... whatever its for... what kind of lights should i be getting? most of the plants i plan to keep are low lights to med. lights and i plan on running it 8 - 10 hrs a day...

[leelee]

you most likely can get away with the lighting you have. It's better to have moderate light versus too much! Trust me on this, you dont want to deal with algae! the general rule is 2wpg with stock lights, t8 bulbs with a poor reflector or no reflector. 1 to 1.5wpg with a good reflector. I personally use 1wpg but I have a very good reflector that I paid a pretty peny for. I dont get algae and my plants grow well. I think its better to have an algae free tank and have the plants grow healthy than try to tweak the wattage for max growth.

[mahoro]

i change out one of the blue light back to its org. light.. coralife t5 10,000k... i am thinking about keeping that 65watts 50-50... and was thinking about running that 10k light for 6 hrs... then run the 50-50 for 4 - 6 hrs...