I have a few plants (water sprite, pothos,onion plants, corkscrews,amazon sword, anacharis)in my 150G sump. I have a shop lite with two four feet (38W) bulbs T-5. Half of my plants are doing ok while the others wilted away slowly. I keep my temp in the mid 70s with 30% weekly WC. My LFS guy said i need to add supplement so he sold me a bottle of Nitrogen for $8. I also noticed they have other supplement for sale. Do i need any of this ? Thanks
Do I need to feed my plants?
- Thread starter spongebob281
- Start date
You say these are in your sump, so with out a picture this is all a guess.
But being a 150g tank and having 76 watts of t5 lighting I think your main problem is not enough light.
If the plants are housed in a smaller area in your sump, like a fresh water refuge. Then you may look into a pendant light.
If it were me since I am cheap. i would go to a local hardware store and purchase a few clip on light fixtures that hold a screw iin bulb and add a few spiral compact flourescent 26watt/100watt bulbs in day light 6500k. And etheir hang them over the sump or clip them onto the sides and point the light downwards.
99% of the time with low light set ups you do not need to add any fertilizers to get decent plant growth. Any fertilizers added only cause algae problems.
Algae grows 100 times easier than plants. So any extra food/fertilizer is easily consumed by algae. This is the main reason people build algae scubbers for fresh water instead of fuge's.
Hope that helps
But being a 150g tank and having 76 watts of t5 lighting I think your main problem is not enough light.
If the plants are housed in a smaller area in your sump, like a fresh water refuge. Then you may look into a pendant light.
If it were me since I am cheap. i would go to a local hardware store and purchase a few clip on light fixtures that hold a screw iin bulb and add a few spiral compact flourescent 26watt/100watt bulbs in day light 6500k. And etheir hang them over the sump or clip them onto the sides and point the light downwards.
99% of the time with low light set ups you do not need to add any fertilizers to get decent plant growth. Any fertilizers added only cause algae problems.
Algae grows 100 times easier than plants. So any extra food/fertilizer is easily consumed by algae. This is the main reason people build algae scubbers for fresh water instead of fuge's.
Hope that helps
i house them in a small section of the sump about a third of the 150G. Maybe youre right I should add more light and see what'll happen. thanks
I would try light first, like the guy said use the 5600K CFL (compact florescent lamp), low wattage but the K range is daylight...how is water turbulence low high? I've bought lots of plants over the years and some are a lot hardier than others, it's all trial and error, especially if you don't have them rooted I'm guessing? From my experience swords have to be rooted. Additives might be costly since your sump is so big...try light first see how it go. pH is also crucial as well as hardness and buffering capacity all have to be in normal range fish can adjust to these things, plants not as much.
they are all rooted in agragonite
http://www.google.com/products/cata...ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBYQ8wIwAQ#ps-sellers
Flow is medium not too much i dont think. Ill up my light and see how that goes
http://www.google.com/products/cata...ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBYQ8wIwAQ#ps-sellers
Flow is medium not too much i dont think. Ill up my light and see how that goes