(dramatic music)
- [Dustin] What's up, fish tank people?
Dustin's Fish Tanks bringing it to you.
Talking about how to grow plants fast.
How's everybody doing?
I'm hope you're doing well.
Today's video, we're going to talk about
how to grow plants faster.
We're going to talk about lights,
we're going to talk about substrate,
we're going to talk about food and CO2.
We talked about lights last week
and we want as much light as we can get our hands on.
Folks, you can always reduce light,
but it's a lot harder to add.
We don't want light to be our limiting factor.
I built a greenhouse, not a warehouse.
But you're not alone, folks.
I have been there, too.
This is my old piranha tank.
It is an old 55, 48 inches long,
with only a 36-inch single fluorescent
being used over it.
We want as much light as possible,
(upbeat music) we can always reduce light.
Second things, CO2.
Carbon dioxide.
Anyone who has used CO2 knows how fast
an increase in CO2 can grow your plants.
But there are two major problems with using CO2.
One, when it runs out,
you immediately take your tank extremely off balance.
And then number two, too much CO2
will kill your fish.
Ask me about the time when I had the CO2
running too high on my 220,
and all of my Boesemani Rainbows
were at the surface gasping for air.
But let's stop, let's take a step back.
I want to talk about CO2 in the wild.
First, how do most aquarium plants grow in the wild?
Answer, above the surface of the water line,
or right below it.
Why?
CO2 and light.
But I want to talk about herpes for a minute.
Duckweed, the herpes of aquarium plants.
Why does it grow so fast?
First, it floats on the top
of the readily available CO2 aquarium.
Second, it gets the most unfiltered light
from the sun or from your light source.
There is no dirty water that the light
has to struggle through to penetrate down to the bottom,
losing energy along the way.
(upbeat music)
But let's go back to growing plants quickly.
What about plant food?
This is an Amazon Sword,
arguably the heaviest root-feeding aquarium plant.
This is an Amazon Sword growing in Greenhouse 2.0.
This is an Amazon Sword growing four degrees
from the equator in Peru, in the Amazon.
In both instances, they are growing
and thriving in good substrate.
Dirt, mud, soil, whatever.
Plants can't move.
They are entirely reliant on the area around them
for their nutrients.
You and I can go get food.
Plants are basically stuck with what they are provided.
What is the most consistent thing plants have?
It's not the sun up, sun down,
one day hot, one day cold environment, nope.
It's below the surface.
This is what is constant.
In the words of the Beastie Boys,
"How we gonna kick it, gonna kick it root down?"
So, you want to grow plants faster?
Here's three steps, in this order.
One, figure out how to get the most light possible
and the best quality of light to your plants.
Two, figure out how to get your plants as much CO2
as possible without killing your fish.
And three, figure out how to get your plants
as much food as possible, where they eat,
as much food as possible.
But wait, there's more.
Mother Nature does not have a CO2 regulator
sitting there providing CO2.
So, how do all these plants get the CO2?
They either A, grow up and out of the water
into the CO2-rich atmosphere,
or B, they are getting CO2 which is provided
from all the organics breaking down in, on,
or below the substrate. (upbeat music)
Kind of like how a dirted tank gives off CO2.
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