The Basics For creating a Medium to High Light Setup
The basics you will need to create a lovely planted tank are:- An aquarium - For these articles we will assume that you are using a Juwel Rio or similar that you already own. If not, and you are purchasing everything from scratch, I would advise a system with a wooden hood/canopy as this will make it much easier to add as much lighting as you can fit just by drilling the hood and screwing in tube clips and brackets. In a wooden hood you could light a 36-39″ tank with 4 T5s for about £74 including starters and tubes.
Upgrade the lighting - In the case of Juwel tanks this will consist of adding another 2 tubes to the 2 that it will already take. For this purpose I would recommend the use of T5 lighting.
Filtration and heater- I would reccomend ripping out the internal, and buying the cheapest external that you can find for your tank size.
Lighting
The cheapest way that I found to do this (using T5) is to purchase a Hagen Glo T5 HO dual controler for about £30. You will also need 2 tubes for this, I would recommend the use of Osram Lumilux 865 T5 HO tubes for this purpose as a good cheap daylight lamp. Also you might need to upgrade the tubes in your existing light fitting, if it is a Juwel T5 Highlight fitting then you are stuck with buying the tubes made for this. If however it is the older T8 unit then you could possibly combine the T8 Version of the 865 with either a Zoo Med Flora Sun (if you want some pink in your light, to bring out the reds and blues) or another 865 if you just want daylight style lighting, please note however that under this lighting red plants and blue or red fish may look a little bland, whereas green plants will positively glow due to the green/yellow spectrum in the light. To attach the new tubes, just use the method as details by MrAlgae from the practical fishkeeping forum, using cable ties to fasten the cables to the lamp holder of the existing system, put a tube clip in the middle of each tube and use this to rest the tube on the central brace bar. You will also need reflectors for ALL of the lights fitted in your aquarium, do a search for these and purchase the cheapest/best that you can find.
Substrate
In my tank I have a substrate made up of aquarium peat, laterite, activated charcoal and fine silica lime free gravel of the sort that resembled grit. This was then enriched further using clay based root balls. Mine is mixed as the laterite etc were added to the substrate whilst the tanks was running. A better approach however is to layer the substrate like this:-
| Top | About 2-3 inches of either quartz sand or lime free gravel. |
| Middle | A thin layer of aquarium peat (optional) |
| Bottom | About 2cms made up of laterite and activated charcoal/carbon |
As an alternative if you can afford look in to using one of the combined planting substrates such as Carbisea Eco Complete.
CO2 Addition
By far the cheapest way to add CO2 to your system, short of spending your days blowing down a pipe, is to use a DIY yeast fermentation set up. For this you will need the following components:-
2x 2litre plastic fizzy drinks bottles. For tanks larger than 35 gallons you will need to add more bottles.
Airline/CO2 tubing - CO2 tubing is better as you lose less gas, but is more expensive and the point of DIY is to save money so I used silicon airline.
1 None return valve per bottle.
1 T/Y connector, you will need more of these if you are using more than 2 bottles (not needed if you run the bottle seperately).
1 lime wood air stone as sold for marine aquariums, again you will need more of these if using more bottles on larger tanks(2 if you decide to run the bottle seperately).
Bakers yeast or wine makers yeast- The sort I use is the dried yeast as sold for bread machines.
Bicarbonate of soda - Opinions are split on using this, but I find that without it too much gas is produced too quickly, and the sugar is used too fast.
Sugar.
Aquarium grade silicon sealant.
Method
Drill a small hole in the caps of the bottles, it should be very slightly smaller than the diameter of the air line. Push a piece of airline into the hole until about an inch of tube is in the hole and seal the join with silicon sealant (aquarium grade). Attach the other ends of the airlines/tubes to the T connector. Now using enough airline/tubing to reach , attach the none return valve to the one end, and the other end to the connector. Now conenct the outlet of the none return valve to a another length of tubing with the lime wood air diffuser attached to the opposite end (none return valve should be connected to stop water leaving the tank and entering the bottles). If using only 2 bottles it might be better to initially connect this direcly to the none return valve for about 4 days of running, then splice it with the T and add the second bottle as this will allow you to stagger refilling of the bottles.
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Step 1, drink the contents. |
A nice empty bottle |
Insert the airline into the cap and seal with aquarium silicon |
All ready |
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Now to add the yeast culture to the bottle/s. Put about 300-400g of sugar in a bottle, next add about 1/2 a teaspoon (2.5mls) of the dried yeast, then about 1tea spoon full (5mls) of bicarbonate of soda (optional). Now top up the bottle to just under the start of the curved bit under the neck using LUKE WARM (temp about 23-30 degrees centirgrade, not more!) water, put the cap on. It might take up to 10 hours for the yeast culture to start giving off CO2 bubbles. It is best to stagger filling the bottles by a few days so that at any 1 time at least 1 culture is running at full pelt, to prevent the CO2 levels plunging/fluctuating a lot.
Notes
1. As an alternative to the limewood diffuser you could also use a ladder style diffuser (beware blockages!) or any other diffuser that gives off fine bubbles but doesn’t need a high pressure. Introducing CO2 bubbles into the intake of an external filter to use the filter as a reactor is not reccomended as it runs the risk of damaging the impellor.
2. If you find that your bottles are collapsing then likely as not the water you are using is too warm/hot. As hot liquids/gasses cool they contract (in the case of water this is true until it reaches about 4 degrees centigrade at which point it expands again), in a sealed unit like a CO2 bottle this creates a vacuum collapsing the bottle. It’s also best to only use DIY/Yeast based setups in rooms that are heated (20 degrees to 25 degrees) as yeast becomes dormant at lower temperatures.
3. If you need the culture to start faster for any reason, Youngs wine making yeast is much faster, but be aware that without the use of bicarb this may be TOO fast!