57 gallons plants Tank - Need Help

[Hogie]

Hello all,
I M planning to set up a 57 gallons plants tank.I need all advices from y'all, Thanks in Advance.
Below is what I got.

• 57 gallons tank.
• Ehiem pro
• power head
• co2 tank

I need some suggestion please.

[Mzungu]

Do you have your lighting yet? If not, do you know what you're going to get?

[Hogie]

57 gallons plants Tank - Need Help

Don't know yet.
Any suggestion?

[armthehomeless]

What type of plants do you want to grow?

[Mzungu]

There are so many ways you can go with a planted tank, and without knowing more specifics, like what you're interested in, etc., it's going to be hard to give advice.

I suggest you look around a bit here on HFB in this Planted Tank forum, read some of the advice threads that have been posted, get an idea of what you like, what kind of plants you want, and you will get tons of advice. :)

[Hogie]

don't know yet. any suggestion ?

[Hogie]

Thanks. Will do. How ever I do like vicki's tank.

[wvgdiscus]

Lighting depends on if you like high light plants or not.
Since your running CO2 you might as well go with high lighting.
A four bulb T-5 light will give you plenty of lighting for(I assume a 4 foot tank).

[Hogie]

56 gallons

Thanks. tank is 36 inch only. How many w do i need ?

[schance]

you also need a co2 regulator and diffuser to put the co2 in the water. u need a plant friendly substrate. ( that ada stuff is amazing) you need to ake sure there is very little water agitation on the top so your co2 doesnt get wasted but at the same time enough to give the fish o2 u might want to invest in some type of arm extension or something to get those hard to reach plants and ya lighting would be good. u should look into a double 150 watt metal halide light. the bulbs should be arond the 6700-10000k range

[wvgdiscus]

Thanks. tank is 36 inch only. How many w do i need ?

I would go with 2 T-5's.
Just seen someone selling 2 96w compacts on here that would work great to.
Which would be 3.5w per gallon.

[schance]

i would do at least 4 t5s or a dual power compact but i just like alot of light. if you want something crazy drs foster and smith now had led lights which are AWESOME but u pay out the rear for them

[Hogie]

How abot this light ? 6 T5

[Hogie]

how about 4 X80 w ?

[Mzungu]

The ATI website says these guys are the only distributors in the US:

http://www.reefgeek.com/lighting/T5_Fluorescent/ATI/Powermodule_Fixtures/

If you're going to spend that kind of money, why not try to find a used fixture? Like wvgdiscus said, there is a great deal to be had here in the fish market on 2 Coralife double PC fixtures. :)