# Heavily planted not possible for low tech?



## jacobsears (Dec 15, 2013)

Since the plants will be growing slower, you should probably plant as heavily as possible in a low tech tank. Just use plants that can do well without extra co2 and all of the other fancy stuff. In my experience, you can't plant too heavily. The more plants you have growing, the easier it is to have a balanced system. I've got several low tech tanks that are planted edge to edge with stems, and they do really great.


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## jacobsears (Dec 15, 2013)

I ran this tank for a few months without co2 (this is what it looked like back then, not now). I eventually started using it because I wanted faster growth, but it did fine without it. It's pretty heavily planted and very lightly stocked- never had any problems.


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

There isn't really any issue with it being low tech and heavily planted. Just go with slow growing low light plants and they will do fine. You can fill a whole tank with water sprite and low light and never have an issue.


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## philipraposo1982 (Mar 6, 2014)

I have a very low tech 30g tank for my betta and 2 vampire shrimp. I have a huge water sprite which takes up 1/3 of the tank right to the top. I dont run a filter, just a circulation pump for a little movement.

The rest of the plants are mostly crypts, anubias and some bolbitis. Co2 is completely used up in the tank, my ph reading vs kh is how I measure it. I dont inject co2 and while the water sprite and all plants look great, the growth of my plants is super super slow. 

So while you can do it, if your planning to watch things grow you might be sadly disappointed.


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## jcmv4792 (Jul 15, 2015)

jacobsears said:


> I ran this tank for a few months without co2 (this is what it looked like back then, not now). I eventually started using it because I wanted faster growth, but it did fine without it. It's pretty heavily planted and very lightly stocked- never had any problems.
> 
> View attachment 501553


Those look great. What kind of plant is that?


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

I have a moderately stocked 29g that has a good amount of plants in it... Mostly floaters so they get plenty of atmospheric CO2 but I consider it somewhat heavily planted.

I do minimal maintenance on this tank. WC maybe every 2 weeks and almost never dose it (maybe once a month). It's not the prettiest tank in the world but for the amount of work I don't do on it I think it does quite well. Every month or so I pull out fist-fulls of pennywort and water sprite from the top.

I agree with others that it entirely depends on plant selection. Obviously demanding plants would not succeed in this environment but all I have in that tank are easy plants like:

Pennywort
Water Sprite
Blyxa Japonica (does not thrive but it definitely survives in there - grown out in my high tech)
Christmas Moss
Anubias
Crypt Wendtii

You can definitely pull off a lot of plants if you have adequate lighting and a good balance of ferts, lights, and plants.


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## jacobsears (Dec 15, 2013)

jcmv4792 said:


> Those look great. What kind of plant is that?


I know it's ludwigia, but I don't know the exact variety. I found it outside in a ditch. Maybe someone can id? It grew pretty fast even before I started using co2. I was trimming at least once per week. I am using dirt though...


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## jcmv4792 (Jul 15, 2015)

klibs said:


> I have a moderately stocked 29g that has a good amount of plants in it... Mostly floaters but I consider it somewhat heavily planted.
> 
> I do minimal maintenance on this tank. WC maybe every 2 weeks and almost never dose it (maybe once a month). It's not the prettiest tank in the world but for the amount of work I don't do on it I think it does quite well. Every month or so I pull out fist-fulls of pennywort and water sprite from the top.
> 
> You can definitely pull off a lot of plants if you have adequate lighting and a good balance of ferts, lights, and plants.


Very nice, I like how dark it is on the bottom. 

Does very high light at the top grow algae on the floaters? Isn't the PAR in the hundreds at the top of the water?

edit: is that a planted+ fixture I see?


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## mattinmd (Aug 16, 2014)

jcmv4792 said:


> Does very high light at the top grow algae on the floaters? Isn't the PAR in the hundreds at the top of the water?


With floaters the high light levels usually are not an issue.. Floaters have access to air, which is around 400ppm of CO2. Compare that to high-tech CO2 injection in water at 30ppm..

Besides, stem plants that grow up and get near the surface experience well over 100 PAR in my tank, I don't do CO2, and they don't spontaneously sprout algae... Hoppy's PAR level guides are based on measuring par at the substrate, not at the top of the plants.


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## DHElder (Apr 18, 2015)

jcmv4792 said:


> I was reading up on setting up low tech tanks, and this person reccomends one should not plant heavily in a low tech setup..due to the need for lots of co2 if there are lots of plants.
> 
> Just wondering how you guys who plant heavily without co2 injections get around this.



I justed started my first fish tank yesterday. It's a 20 gallon long with Finnex Planted+ 24/7 light running in 24/7 mode. I used Planted Aquariums Central to get my list of low/medium light plants. 

I started off with a plan for 28 plants (potted and stem plants) but ended up receiving about 38 in total. Stem Plants- Narrow Leaf Temple, Bacopa Carolina, Wisteria, Gold Creeping Jenny, Brazilian Penny. Java Fern and Anubias Nana Narrow Leaf for my driftwood. Plus trying out a Crypto Wendtii Red for mid ground. Brazilian Pennywort is being used as both a stem plant and floater for possibly light control. Wisteria is being used for foreground plants as I don't want a grass tank. I want to see some gravel. There were a lot of other plant choices at the website but I wanted fast growing stem plants to fill in the tank quickly. I can replace plants later.

From what I read for a densely planted tank, looking down from the top, you should only see about 10-15 of your substrate. Mine's not there as I only planted yesterday but stem plants show help fill it in quickly.

None of this needs CO2. If I find I am getting too much light and using up the CO2 too quickly, besides the Pennywort as a floater to help control light, I can also use parchment paper or window screen to reduce light as I like the 24/7 mode.

Idea for my tank is low tech and low maintenance with minimal water changes. Just added my profile if you want to see what the tank looks like freshly planted. Plants really changed the look of the tank! Doesn't look so roomy now LOL. Can't wait to see adding fish!


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

There is a thread in this forum something along the lines of "low tech can be lush too!" Lots of thickly planted tanks shown in that thread. It's possible but may take a while to fill out/grow in or you have to buy a loooot of plants to fill it in instantly.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

A "heavily planted" tank might have 4 times the plant mass as a non "heavily planted" tank. So, if all else was equal the "heavily planted" tank would use 4 times as much CO2 as the other tank. But, if you add adequate fertilizing, including CO2, the growth rate in the tank can be 10 times as much, or more, as the non CO2/fertilized tank. It is that very fast growth rate that drives the need for lots of CO2, much more than the plant mass in the tank. I think that's why both heavily planted and not so heavily planted low light tanks can do very well without adding CO2 (although I also believe that using Excel/Metricide is very beneficial when you aren't adding CO2.)


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## BruceF (Aug 5, 2011)

I have a ten gallon tank that is completely full of dwarf sag and a ten gallon tank that is completely full of cryptocoryne nurii, neither of these tanks has any added co2. I feed them both regularly with the basic ferts and change aout 30% of the water once a week. 

Really it just depends on what plants are in the tank.


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## DaveFish (Oct 7, 2011)

I have a heavily planted low tech 10 gallon that I totally neglect. It is possible, and not really that hard to do. I have a whole series on YT about it. ADU Aquascaping is my YT channel. In the tank I used a really old Aquasoil/Eco complete mix 50/50 substrate. It was well used, but it still does the job. The only thing I add to the tank is DIY Osmocote root tabs every couple of months. At first only every 4 months or so. I never clean the filter, rarely do water changes, and just totally neglect the tank. If I see deficiencies I just add more root tabs because they are obviously releasing some nutrients into the water column, which most substrates do in a planted aquarium because in most setups the substrate is actually colder than the water column. The opposite is true in nature, but our tanks are the exact opposite. Something I haven't heard many hobbyists talk about. Pretty easy to test as well. All you need is a good sized thermometer. The tank was set up on Aug. 15th 2014 and the picture was taken on May 28th of this year. BUT it can mature a lot quicker than that because this tank was actually destroyed midway through the process and I had to do a total rescape in November of last year. So in about 6 months, or maybe even sooner if you use a new Aquasoil substrate or soil based substrate, your tank can mature.


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## jcmv4792 (Jul 15, 2015)

Very nice setup Dave. Is that dwarf sag in the foregound?


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=99729

that low tech low tank show off thread I mentioned earlier.


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## jcmv4792 (Jul 15, 2015)

AquaAurora said:


> http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=99729
> 
> that low tech low tank show off thread I mentioned earlier.


Thanks. I've checked out the setups, so obviously it is possible to have heavily planted low-tech tanks. However, I posted this thread because I just found the point regarding co2 take-up to be confusing.


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## philipraposo1982 (Mar 6, 2014)

Ended up getting dwarf rainbow school of 10. I didn't like the idea of a 6" barb stuck in a 4' tank. The dwarf rainbows should be much happier


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## jcmv4792 (Jul 15, 2015)

philipraposo1982 said:


> Co2 is completely used up in the tank, my ph reading vs kh is how I measure it..


Can you elaborate?

Bump:


philipraposo1982 said:


> Ended up getting dwarf rainbow school of 10. I didn't like the idea of a 6" barb stuck in a 4' tank. The dwarf rainbows should be much happier


Nice pick.. I'm thinking of getting some dwarf rainbows myself


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## philipraposo1982 (Mar 6, 2014)

Basically, you measure the kh value of your water. If you have a look at the ph vs kh chart for co2 concentration, you will see as the ph moves up and kh is constant the co2 because less and less concentrated in the water.

As a test, you can take a sample of water and measure its kh and ph. Put that sample in a large bucket so that you can swirl and splash it around for a few minutes. The more you agitate the water the more co2 it loss. You should be able to get the ph really high. 

In the case of my betta tank I have a lot of plants which use up all the co2 in the tank. I know this because I measure the ph and kh values and can see how much the ph has risen.


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## ahem (Dec 27, 2014)

I don't buy it. I don't use CO2 and have pretty dense foliage. Now I don't kid myself that without CO2 I can get a thick hair grass carpet etc... But there's some tricks including:

- a few hr mid-day siesta (darkness) to allow CO2 to recharge a bit
- growing with floaters and emerging plants, these get some of their C02 from the atmosphere
- excel
- stock with larger plants to begin with, and shallow tanks like the "long" varieties, so you don't have to worry about fast growth, the plants already fit


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