Here's a picture of one of my setups:



Here's the diffusers I use:

Thanks I have it up and running now. This is what I have so far, I'm still waiting on the hood. And I still have a few thing to add yet.

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I was looking to add a diffusers like this in the next day or two.

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How is the tank going? I just read through most of the posts and I am not sure what all you settled on (gravel, lights, plants) but wanted to chime in with a few things that may help.

Lighting: You are using T5 in a 20g. These are high output, hig penetration lights 1 28w bulb will be enough for awhile. Perhaps when your tank is really growing can you add a second bulb. The 6700k bulb is slightly yellowish in tint and is the wavelength most plants like. A 10,000k bulb is usually full spectrum pure white and will work just fine for plants.

Gravel: Probably too late, but if you are going with high lights and CO2 I would recommend some clay-like substrates such as flourite, eco-complete...etc. Rinse these out well so you don't have too much mineral leeching into the water. Peat will drop the pH of the water and is unnessary for most fish, especially if you are adding CO2 that will drop the pH even more.

Your cloudiness: Unless it is green, is probably a bacteria bloom, not algae bloom, but it could also be nutrients/clay particles if you used one of the above substrate.

DiY CO2: Keep an eye out on your pH for a couple of days. See what it is prior to adding it to the tank and see what it drops down to in your tank. You can adjust the bubble rate a bit by sinking the bubbler lower into your tank (more water pressure). You can also fine tune it by adding or subtracting more bottles, bottle size, more/less sugar...etc. If you do not have a high enough kH and GH you may see bigger fluctuations in the pH. RO/DI water is too pure, I would mix it 50/50 with your tap or you will have to add GH booster, pH buffers, on top of your plant nutrients.

At night you may want to turn on an airstone if you do not have a lot of surface tension. Plants flip flop at night and give off CO2 while taking in oxygen. You want to make sure your tank has enough oxygen via aeration and gassing off CO2 via some surface tension.

Lastly, I noticed you are trying to have a planted tank with goldfish? These fish may start eating some of your plants and that pleco may get to big and start uprooting some of your plants as well.

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--->Pictures of my 75g Amazon tank<----

I will be using T5 ho bulbs but I'm waiting for my hood to get finished. So right now I'm using about 30watts of light. On the bottom I have a thin layer of peat moss a thin layer of sand and gravel on top of that. The air stone for the co2 right now is on the bottom of the tank. I just ordered a glass diffuser and when I add that, it will be right next to the intake of my canister filter. I do have a bubble wand under the sand so there is always oxygen being added as-well. I have not tested for Gh/Kh yet but I do have a test kit and PH at last test was 7.2. And as far as the gold fish and the pleco goes they are a must keep. If it wasn't for them my wife wouldn't have given me the go ahead to redo her tank. All and all tank's is doing well no cloudiness no algae and for the most part the pleco stays out of the planted area and have not seen the gold fish nipping at all. I will be using ro water because I don't trust our city water around here. One plant has some yellowing on some of the leaves do to some mishaps in the beginning, but everything else is nice and green.

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What is the pH of the water before adding it to the tank? You have to know how much the pH changes with each water change. This is what will affect the fish. For instance I add water that is at pH 7.0-7.2, the CO2 drops that pH down to around 6.5 or lower daily. My CO2 is off at night, but yours will be constantly on, so you want to watch that it does not drop too much.

If you are using just RO/DI water then your hardness is probably around ~1-2, which is low.

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--->Pictures of my 75g Amazon tank<----

I'll test my water before I do a water change.

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I finely finished the hood


Its funny the gold fish haven't touched the plants at all not to say they won't but so far so good. I jacked the lights up this high because there are 2x10k's and there's egg create on the top to cut some of the light out. I didn't know a fresh water tank could be so clear. So far I have no algae growth from the lights and I've had them on there for more then a week. So I guess it's time to add more plants. I have to say I went on and put these lights on because in the back of my mind, if it didn't work out with the planted tank it would have given me a reason to start another reef tank.

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