Pet Forum / Aquaria / Plants / October 2006

I'm looking for some 'inexpensive' Metal Halide lighting for my upcoming 90
gallon. My current 55 gallon (3') has 200 watts of CFL. So I'm looking for
about 350+ watts for the new tank. I've found the odd deal, but by the time
you add up the pieces it's still big $$s. It's also ...

What is your opinion for a freshwater planted tank - 5500 or 6700 lights?
Anyone have an opinion?

You know that Excel overdose to get rid of algae thingy ?
How much of an overdose are we talking about ?
I'm also wondering about the safety of my fish.
I have Clown Loaches, Corys, Angels, Danios, and Platys.

My Sword is about to flower again, although I think it's a different plant.
Once it flowers, will I get seeds or plantlets or what? Not that I really
have room for more Swords at the moment, but it's an interesting process.

I'm resurrecting a neglected 20 gallon planted tank.  It was totally
overgrown with a year's accumulation of algae and an unknown variety of
narrow-leafed vallisneria.  I pulled out all the val last week (it
smelled bad) cleaned up the muck at the bottom, and replanted a few of

my nitrate levels in a 120 are pretty high (for fish anyway - around 40-50),
but the plants seemt o be pretty happy - they've really taken off with the
higher levels.... anyone else having this problem? if so, what taret levels
do you shoot for?

Does anyone have any tips for planting Glossostigma? I have some
cuttings and was told that tweezers would be needed to plant it. Even
with tweezers, I can seem to get just the roots down. I had to cover
the runner with gravel in some cases to keep things down. Any tips