New Aquarium - 20 gallon

We have just set up a new aquarium with our new lighting system. This tank will hopefully grow more of the difficult plants and create a lush aquascape.

For a very general rule of thumb you compare the number of total light watts to the number of gallons an aquarium has to determine what type of plants you can grow. Here is a basic guideline:

Up to 1 watt of light per gallon of tank volume: Low
Up to 1.5 watts: Moderate
Up to 2 watts: Strong
Up to 3 watts: Bright
4 watts + : Very bright

The new tank setup is a 20 gallon and our lighting system is four High Output T5 florescent bulbs. The bulbs are 24 watts per bulb for a total of 96 watts. So for this aquarium we will have approximately 4.8 watts per gallon.



Lights are not the only requirement for healthy plants. A good substrate (soil) is needed as well. The substrate we used is a mix of two substrates. The very bottom level is fluorite (top picture), which is a type of very hard nutrient rich clay. On top of that layer we used a volcanic soil (bottom picture) which is much softer and also nutrient rich. I am not 100% sure how this setup will work for plants but I believe it will be effective.



Another requirement for healthy high demands plants is CO2. So for this tank we will be using a very simple CO2 diffuser. It will hopefully add enough CO2 to the water to give the plants the requires carbon levels. The CO2 will ideally be added in the morning as plants use CO2 during the day.



We also have an air pump set up with two air stones on opposite sides of the tank. The air pump is on a timer and will only be running during the night as plants use oxygen during the night. The air tubing is set up with both a valve for controlling air flow as well as check valves to prevent water from backing up in the tube when the pump isn't running.

Here is a picture of the tank with the lights on it but with no plants actually planted yet.



So here is a picture of the tank now with some plants in it. I will post more picture as the plants grow (hopefully)!



The inhabitants of the aquarium will eventually be shrimp. Currently there are 3 Amano shrimp (top picture) in there but that will increase to 5 and soon there will be 8 Red Cherry Shrimp added (bottom picture). The Amano shrimp are much larger than the Red Cherry but are great tank cleaners. The Red Cherries are quite small and also decent tank cleaners. The red cherry shrimp will likely breed. The tank can hold a great deal of red cherry shrimp without any negative effects. Generally it is considered acceptable to have up to 10 red cherries per gallon, so for this tank it could safely hold about 200 or so of them.

What are the names of the plants and why are so difficult to grow? They have high light and CO2 requirements?

Ya the plants have higher light and CO2 requirements. Not all of the ones here have high requirements and I not sure how they will fair in such a bright enviroment.
Some of the plants are:

Glossostigma elatinoides - This is a carpeting plant


Micranthemum 'Monte Carlo' - This is a carpeting plant


Dwarf Baby Tears - This is a carpeting plant


Myrio - Red (Myriophyllum heterophyllum)


Micro Sword (Lilaeopsis novae-zelandiae) - This is a carpeting plant


Cabomba (Cabomba caroliniana)



There are some other plants in there that I can't remember the name of right now. There is an anubia, vallisneria and a bananna plant for sure. We may end up harvesting some of these plants to be used in other aquariums as well as we may add other plants into this aquarium. It is a work in progress. We are growing lots of carpeting plants right now and hope that they take.