Lighting A 10 Gallon Planted Tank

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808;3425529; said:
For the plants I have some java fern, and am planning on getting some kind of moss, and ground cover plants. Not sure what ill get exactly, whatevers low light and my LFS carries since websites dont ship anything live where i live. The plants i have right now are actually growing alright, but i wanted to speed their growth up a bit, thats why im asking about the lights.
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a change in spectrum may help. also some fertilizers..
 
with 30W of standard flourescent, you should be able to grow quite a few basic plants. beside the java fern and java moss, you could also grow:

> anubias
> cryptocoryne (also called "wendtii")
> amazon swords

what substrate are you using? if you go with some rooted plants (like cryptocoryne or amazons) you may need to do some root fertilization . . . but I think you should be fine
 
For the substrate i have about 2in of flourite. I am also going to go get some type of fertilizers. I mostly wanted some kind of ground cover.
 
good point; I was thinking about the light, not the size of the tank . . . although there are smaller species of swords, like the rosette swords, that won't get too big
 
Sab_Fan;3428885; said:
good point; I was thinking about the light, not the size of the tank . . . although there are smaller species of swords, like the rosette swords, that won't get too big
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yea i have a sword in its submerged form its leaves wont get longer then 6-7 inches, im used to having tank buster kinda dissappointed with that guy.

808;3426196; said:
For the substrate i have about 2in of flourite. I am also going to go get some type of fertilizers. I mostly wanted some kind of ground cover.
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well you have a good sunstrate. a simple multi purpose fertilizer will help for water column feeders like your java fern(your actually not supposed to plant it in the substrate). i would suggest dwarf hair grass as ground cover.

also a change in type of plants may help, i would assume a slow growing plant will never be as fast as a fast growing type, no matter the conditions, if there in the same environment.
 
808;3430675; said:
The java fern is rooted into a piece of driftwood, not in the substrate.
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generally speaking, this is good advice; however, java fern can grow rooted in the substrate as long as the rhizome is not buried . . .

I did not do this deliberately, but a clump of java fern has rooted itself in the corner of the my 30G, and as you can see, it is doing fine . . . (well, maybe you can't see, the pix not as good as I hoped it would be):

java_fern_rooted.jpg
 
Thats Pretty cool to see the java fern in the substrate. I just picked up another bunch of java fern. Thanks to everyone posting on this thread.
 
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