I have a 75 gallon deep tank that has contained only Koi fish for the past 2 years. As they are moving to a new and better home this weekend, I have been thinking about starting a planted tank. Over the past 5 years or so, I have tried adding a variety of small plants to my 10 gallon Tetra tank and they have all died; plants not Tetra's.
I guess my initial question is can I jump right in, or do I need to thoroughly clean and start from scratch. Currently the tank has about 3 inches of small aquarium rock with no substrate. I'm assuming I should start from scratch and have plenty of substrate, but sense I don't know I thought I'd put that out there.
The second question is how critically important is a CO2 setup for planted tanks?
As for lighting, I have a 2 bulb 48" T5 set-up I had for a saltwater tank that I was planning on adding in place of the basic hood that came with the tank. Is that sufficient or should that be upgraded as well?
I guess my initial question is can I jump right in, or do I need to thoroughly clean and start from scratch. Currently the tank has about 3 inches of small aquarium rock with no substrate. I'm assuming I should start from scratch and have plenty of substrate, but sense I don't know I thought I'd put that out there.
The second question is how critically important is a CO2 setup for planted tanks?
As for lighting, I have a 2 bulb 48" T5 set-up I had for a saltwater tank that I was planning on adding in place of the basic hood that came with the tank. Is that sufficient or should that be upgraded as well?