hey i have a 10G tank..it all my parents would buy me and ive been taking good care of it. just started trying the whole planted bussiness and it working out fine..i have no CO2 and no special substrate...i live in palma de mallorca and it kinda hard to find ''flourite'' or ''eco-complete''. im thinking of buying a small bag of eco-complete just to give my plants a little bit more nutrients. also have doubts about my lights...i use 2 15w power-glo bulbs for a 38liter tank...trying to keep up with the 1watt /liter rule the fish store advice me...is it enough to lights the ''hard plants''? thanks...

I believe that 3 wpg is considered to be high or moderately high lighting. You can probably grow the more challenging plants with the lighting that you have, but you'll need to add liquid ferts and preferably CO2.

I'm not as sure as Natalie about being able to grow the high light varieties with the light you have. Maybe the med light types.

I've been proven wrong before, so I'd get some more opinions.

I'm not trying to steer people away from this site, because it's great, but www.plantgeek.com forum has some really die-hard planted tank growers.

They'll say you can't grow plants without co2 and they can be kind of stuck up IMO sometimes, but they do know a lot about planted tanks and 30 watts on a 10 gallon would be a good question to ask.

I don't think it's enough light, esp with the bulbs I've seen that come with tanks as a kit, to grow grasses, microsword, baby tears, or other high light plants at all.

I'm allways trying to sell people on the use of the low light varieties anyway. I think Anubias is amazing, Java moss on wood, Java fern on wood, and a red colored lilly or lotus with lillies that rise to the surface are great plants. These red lillies also have under water leaves as well as the pads the rise up and float.

The more you go up with the light , if you use co2, and ferts, the more problems and hassels you'll have.

Low light is super easy, and you'll get plenty of growth without co2.

You at the least need to use pH to determin co2 levels. The co2 will lower the pH, and you can get a rough idea of how much co2 is actually getting into the water.

You can't just connect the co2 line to an air stone and expect to get the co2 into the water much at all, unless you use too much yeast........and then it will use up the sugar really fast..........and then the pH will swing back toward alkaline and the fish will get pH shock.

You need a stable co2 system that keeps running pretty much continuously. DIY is a pain in the ass, and I disconnected mine and my high light plants are doing fine.

I don't want to have to be constantly yanking out overgrowing crowded plants all the time. I like a slow and steady growth.

You're going to have to get better lights, and probably go with a pressurised co2 system if you think you need that.

Unless you're at a real delux aquarium-only store................If you're shopping at Petsmart, Petco, etc.......You probably won't find good enough lights. These stores sell plants that they know will never grow with the equipment they sell, and they even sell plants that aren't even supposed to be in the water as "water plants".
Any way you look at it, if you're trying to grow high light plants you're gona have to put in some serious $$$$$$$

3 wpg is plenty of light to grow many types of plants. Many of the vallisneria and cryptocornes will grow in this light. There are many beautiful varieties of each, plenty to fill a 10 gallon. If you get much higher in wpg you'll begin to battle algae problems and that's a whole other level of light management. From I usually see, 3wpg is moderate lighting, which is good for many plants. Just stay from "high" light plants and you should be ok. High lights are typically those that are red or very light green, among others.

Z

i know nothing of planted tanks but its funny to read and see the diversity of different systems..............for example, 3 watts per gallon in a salt tank is almost hard to get unless your useing a walmart hood with a t-12 flouresent bulb - - - you hear salt guys talking about 150 watt 250 watt even 400 watt fixtures - - -and thats just one bulb ...........very interesting