I currently have a 40 gal. cube tank with amazon sword, java fern mat, jungle val, moss ball, water grass?, and another plant that looks like either my angles are eating or the plecos. The light on it is a 200w incandescent heat bulb that i used to use on a turtle terrarium. It makes the water look a little brown but gives it that natural look. I was wondering if this bulb is ok for the tank? If not, what is prefered?

Secondly I was wondering what people were talking about when they have CO2 planted tanks and how do they work? do these tanks contain fish and do you need a air pump for the fish at the same time? I have been in the hobby for a long time but just decided to start doing some nice planted tanks.Please help!!!

Are you sure you're not overheating the water with that bulb? I'd be careful about that, the light could cause massing temp shifts from on and off. More important is the kelvin rating, a rating of which spectrum the light is in. Corals and other marine life requires a much higher kelvin, for instance 10,000k I hear is fairly common, while a 6,500k (daylight) is perfectly fine in a freshwater planted tank. That's because the higher kelvin rating has more blue light that marine plants need, because all other parts of the light spectrum are filtered out by the dense water.

In freshwater though, there's not as much of a need for such a high kelvin rating. As I said, 6,500k is perfectly fine. There's a sticky in the plant forum about lighting. Here's another thread that might help: Light bulb ratings for plants?

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That lighting might make it look good but its actually useless for plants, The spectrum is all wrong. There is a sticky in the planted section that explains lighting and what to choose for plants.

They work by injecting co2 into the water column for the plants to take in during lighting period. At night the plants release o2. Yes the tanks contains fish. You want to make sure that the co2 don't go over certain levels or it can be harmful to the fish. A airpump is only used at night to outgas the co2 that hasn't been used.

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Plants need many elements, and carbon is one they need in large quantities. They can get carbon through their root systems in the substrate, or through their leaves from things like bicarbonate and carbon dioxide in the water. CO2 is the easiest way for them to get carbon, but in a normal tank the natural levels of CO2 in the water are around 3 ppm or lower. People artificially inject CO2 into the water to boost these levels and promote more photosynthesis.

With that being said, artificially injecting CO2 into a tank is useless without elevated levels of light. Your incandescent heat lamp is not suitable for this, as mentioned above. It's great at heating things, but not great for the type of light aquatic plants need. CO2 is also useless if you use an air bubbler, as the increased aeration of the water and surface agitation will "gas out" the CO2 and release it from the water into the air, defeating the purpose of injecting the CO2 to begin with.

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New and amazing things being done lately with lower light than what the traditional thought of needing a ton of light in a tank to have a nice tank filled with plants thought to need higher light to grow properly. Although the need for CO2 may not be in high content, what is being done probably couldn't be done without it.

The light is elevated to a point that its too high to heat the tank but yet let's in a ton of light. So are co2 systems something you have to buy seperate? I have a air pump constantly going for the fish....should I shut that off and only run it at night?

CO2 systems are sold separately. Usually, the parts for the CO2 systems are sold separately as well. You'll need a pressurized CO2 cylinder (usually a 5lb or 10lb cylinder will do), a high-pressure regulator which screws directly onto the cylinder to regulate the pressure and let you know how much pressure is in the cylinder and how much you're putting out, a needle valve to drop the pressure at the outlet even further for delivery to the fish tank, a bubble counter to keep track of how much you're adding to your fish tank, a one-way check valve to prevent water from the tank from backing up the tube and ruining your needle valve or regulator, and a method of diffusion in the tank, be it a ceramic plate diffuser or a reactor.

You'll need to turn off the air pump and either not run it at all, or run it only at night.

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Hello Fish...

A 200 watt bulb is a lot of light and if it's not specifically for aquarium use, then you can do better.

There's no mystery to having a planted tank. You just need to match the right plants to the right lighting, have a lot of fish and a lot of clean, treated water flushed through your tank weekly.

I use 6500 K bulbs. At some point, several years ago, I read this bulb has the light blue color needed to grow aquatic plants. They work well in my tanks. Local hardware stores carry this type of bulb in various sizes for a few dollars. There's really no need for high end lighting or CO2.

If you don't have a large fish population, then it would be good to dose some type of fertilizer in dry, liquid or granule form. Just dose according to instructions. I periodically dose liquids, but that's your choice.

IMO, changing a minimum of half the tank water every week is critical. If you do this, you guarantee a healthy tank environment for plants and fish. For me, this water change routine means I can under filter my tanks and don't have to test the water. Again, just my opinion.

That's pretty much it. Not really "rocket science".

B

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