Plant noobie, need feedback

Hi,

I'm new to planted tanks. I have a 10 and 29 gallon I want to turn into low tech tanks. The 10 gallon is ready to go. I have (2) 10 watt zoo med CFL bulbs for lighting, I bought some fertilizers ( Seachem equilibrium, potassium nitrate, mono potassium phosphate), and I got eco complete for substrate.

The plants I have to work with are dwarf hairgrass (wanna make a carpet), java fern, wisteria, rotala indica, C. Wendtii And some java moss. The only livestock I will be adding at the time are some pond snails and MTS. Later I want to add some dwarf crayfish (CPO's).


My 29 gallon needs some help. I need to know what I can use for lighting. Something that will give me low light and not cost too much. I will be adding the same plants, except the rotala, and added 2 others, which are (1) Aponogeton and (2) Dwarf lillies. The filtration will be (2) two Aqueon 20 filters. Is this too much movement?

I plan to stock this tank with a 6 inch puffer (max size). Would this pose a problem in a planted tank? Basically the way I was going to set up this tank was to add some of the tall plants in back and then the whole middle and front of the tank nothing but dwarf hairgrass. Also, is this enough plant mass to be a tank where I wouldn't need to do any water changes later?


My whole idea is to have both these tanks as low tech tanks and eventually get them to the point where the maintenance is low and no more water changes. I want to add some excel to these setups for 2 months maybe to speed up the growth then cut off the excel.


I guess these are my questions:


1. I plan to stock my 10 gallon later with snails and CPO's. I plan to breed the CPO's on there too. If the tank later becomes overstocked on occasion, would this throw things out of balance on a low tech tank?


2. Is the puffer for my 29 gallon planted tank alright or will there be problems?


3. With the way I plan to set up the 29 gallon, would there be enough plant mass to make it a low tech (no water change) tank? Basically like 65% hairgrass and a few stemmed plants in back.


4. I plan to use excel in the beginning, how long should I dose before I cut it off? I just want to use it to kick start the plants.


5. What are some good lights I can use for the 29 gallon or a low tech tank?

6. What about filtration for planted tanks, can we use the same amount we would use for a fish only tank? WHat I mean is, if I have (2) two aqueon 20s on my 29 gallon is that too much?

If you have any other comments/suggestions let me know. Thanks

 

I heard CPOs arent too diffiucult to breed, not much more difficult than other dwarf crays. In the Aqueon filters I only use foam, I find the cartridges to be useless. I may just go with an aquaclear 20 instead. I also heard in low tech tanks with no waterchanges, HOB filters DO NOT causes C02 to gas out. Thanks for the repsonses. Hopefully I can get some others' opinions.

 

Can anyone else shed some light on this?

 

Ive heard HOB filters do not cause C02 to de-gas. I think I read this off a post Tom Barr made. The only reason I mention HOB filters was because it was posted it will de-gas C02. It doesnt matter if its a high tech or low tech. I only mentioned low-tech because thats what I am doing.

As for the lights, is that going off the WPG rule? I'm just confused cause I thought WPG is flawed and people now measure light intensity by type of lighting and how many bulbs used + distance of tank depth.