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Hi,

So far, it looks pretty good. I cannot identify your Rotala rotundifolia as such, mine looks certainly different. How is your Java Fern anchored? You could try to attach it to the rocks. I would suggest that you get a few more fast growing plants, as they will help you to reduce the nitrate problem. In the meantime, increase your water changes to twice weekly.

I have to say that I was wondering about your fish load, with more than one fish / gallon. It seems you have a pretty long tank with a lot of surface for oxygenation, that might make it more feasible, but never the less, that’s a lot of fish. Keep an eye on them.

I am not sure, but lava rock might actually increase your ph over time. I know that there are certain rocks that are not good for the average tetra and more suited for cichlids.

Questions: Why did you fail with a planted tank 10 months ago? What substrate do you have? How do you fertilize?

Ingo

PS: Here is the link you provided as A link to my tank photos

Last edited by Little_Fish at 20-Jul-2005 08:21

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

You are a bit overstocked but you can help your nitrates by adding a couple of plants that will suck up nitrates and by increasing ther frquency of your water changes. Plants that will grow rapidly and use your nitrates are ceratoperis, ceratophyllum and hygrophila. Go to http://www.tropica.com for pictures and parameters. Given your stocking level, I would increase your water changes to 30% every third day.

You tap pH is fine for your fish and your plants, I don't understand why you feel a need to reduce the pH. Your KH should not be a problem if you do not inject CO2. Given your current WPG and proposed WPG, I would not bother with CO2.

Part of your problem with plants may be your substrate. It appears to be sand. I good substrate is important with plants as sand can compact and kill roots. As a planting medium it holds no nutrients. Use ferilizer tabs from Dennerle around your swords to boost their nutrition.

Last edited by Bob Wesolowski at 20-Jul-2005 10:21

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Like Bob, I don't understand why you're bothering with the KH/pH. Your KH is a little bit over 2 dKH which, as Bob said, is fine if you're not going to add CO2. Even if you do add CO2 you only really need to raise it to 3 dKH which is about 50ppm.

You say that you've raised the KH and your pH rose as well -- that makes sense, but you say you're going to bring the pH down. I assume you're not going to do that by bringing your KH down or by adding CO2, which I assume means you're going to lower it with some kind of buffer. I think that this is not a good idea. It won't raise your CO2, it will just put another factor into the equation, and you really don't want to go there. By the way, your CO2 levels of 7.5 ppm is relatively high for a tank where CO2 is not added. Minimising surface agitation would raise your CO2 a little bit more, which could help the plants a little more.

A little algae on the sides is nothing to worry about, most of us get it whatever we do. If this is your only problem with algae then don't worry about it, just keep on cleaning your glass every week.

Your nitrate level is not that high, actually. At least nothing that is connected with algae bloom. Once the plants start growing in earnest your nitrate will go down. Make sure it doesn't go below 5ppm or this will inhibit plant growth.

Your lava rocks are fine as well and will not raise your GH. Do you know what your GH is anyway?

Without CO2 and your current WPG your plants will be grow slowly, but they should grow nevertheless. Fertilisers are probably unnecessary due to the slow growth rate and better be kept at hand in case you notice you need it (plants showing deficiency symptoms) and even if you do need to fertilise, once a week after changing the water is all that you need.

To help the plants grow I would suggest using Seachem's Flourish Excel. It's an organic carbon supplement which gives the plants a boost and it really does work in my experience

Finally, I like your tank a lot. I like what you did with the lava rocks, I think it's very nicely done and provide an excellent contrast to the green colour of the plants. Give your plants to grow and they should be alright. You have a good selection of plants for your setup and you should be successful, you just need to give them some time.

And keep us posted.

Last edited by untitled at 20-Jul-2005 14:13

Thanks for the comments so far.

LITTLE_FISH - Thanks. Yes I asked the place where I ordered my plants from and he said that the Rotala had been grown emmersed, so I will see if the leaves change shape or not as he suggested it will...

I have some Java Fern in the gravel, roots only buried and I have 1 piece attached to the rock with cotton thread. I also moved a piece onto another rock which has a hole in it, so I pushed the roots through it and dropped a few pebbles in the hole to way it down. I also have an Anubias attached with cotton and also another piece that had quite a big rhizome pushed into a hole in the rock, which will hopefully start to attach to, the other pieces of Anubias are pushed into the gravel (rhizome above).

I have had that load of fish for quite some time now the only recent additions have been the Lemon Tetras and about 6 more Cardinals, oh I also added some more Pristella Tetras - probably should have left them at the store but I wanted to add to the few I still had... So I guess the recent additions have added considerably to the load. I thought seeing as though they are all only quite small schooling fish that it would probably just pushing the limits.

I have had Lava Rock ever since I started which is about 3years or so when I first started with a 3ft tank and have never noticed any issues with the rock and pH.

Failed previously - bad plant choice, poor quality plants from LFS, no ferts, not much knowledge on planted tanks.

Substrate - gravel, the bottom layer is a tiny pea gravel in comparison to the top layer.

Ferts - I have Seachem root tabs near the Melon Sword and also the Rotala and I am going to put 1 near the Echinodorus tennellus and Amazon Sword. Other ferts I use are Seachem Iron and also have the Seachem Flourish Excel and I also have a Red Sea daily dose.

Thanks for fixing the link - last time I put a URL it was edited...

Bob - I will have a look at the LFS for those plants but I don't think they have the first 2, but sure they would have Hygrophilia... Be another good background plant. I will start a twice weekly water change.

untitled - I was basing my KH/pH and CO2 from a link posted previously and trying to get the CO2 levels around 10-15ppm.

I was rising the KH as it is quite low from the tap (40ppm) and I thought it should be at least 80-100ppm. I knew my pH would rise as the KH rose and yes I lower the pH with a buffer, as I do when I do water changes.

I recently bought a Hagen GH/KH test kit and my GH is 200ppm - which is very hard water. I have read little information about GH.

Currently I add daily a dose of Red Sea liquid fert (4drops), and then I add Iron to the water when doing a water change (only recently started this). I also add Flourish Excel once a week -- jeez this stuff smells!

I am glad you like the tank - it is always good to get another opinion. I love the look lava rock gives and also gives the corys and bristlenose plenty of places to hide and is easy to change the look. Lets hope the plants grow and I will keep you all posted. Will add another post next week.

I was rising the KH as it is quite low from the tap (40ppm) and I thought it should be at least 80-100ppm. I knew my pH would rise as the KH rose and yes I lower the pH with a buffer, as I do when I do water changes.

You cannot adjust CO2 content this way. If you raise the KH the pH will rise also essentially leaving you with the same co2 content. Reducing the pH with buffers negates the KH/pH calculation table and in reality deluding yourself into thinking you have more Co2 then you actually do. I would stop this practice immediately as the buffers in the pH dropper will cause more harm then good and continue to give you false readings.

The algae on the glass is an indicator of low phosphates rather then high nitrates.Not a major issue just continue to clean the glass.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

bensaf - thanks for your reply. Are you saying I should stop adjusting the KH and pH when I do water changes??? That will mean my pH will go to 7.6 - 7.8 overtime and my KH will drop again... If buffers are no good why do they sell them? I adjust my water when I do water changes to get it to the same parameters that are in my tank. Im confused :%)

If buffers are no good why do they sell them?

Guess you could ask that question about a lot of things ! It`s not that they don`t work, it@s just that they can cause more harm then good long term and usually there`s a better more natural way to tackle the problem.

KH is not an issue unless injecting CO2 so no point messing with it until ready to add CO2. Then baking soda will do fine.

Your pH is not much of an issue either. The best way to control and set pH is by addition of CO2.

In a case where KH is low (below 3o) baking soda alone with co2 injection is enough to control both KH and pH levels.

Without injecting CO2 there is no reason to play with either. Even if your current levels are not optimum it@s still better to keep them stable and constant rather then using buffers and risking big shifts if you forget or overdose the buffers.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Hi all,
After looking at mattys tank progress and photos I thought I would do some research on plants and also the water quality to keep them in. I tried a planted aquarium probably about 10months or so ago with no luck (and also little knowledge), so I am going to give it another try and hopefully with more success because the ferts, plants etc.. have cost me quite a bit.

[might want to grab a tea/coffee - I have rambled on quite a bit ...]

First of all the tank setup which has been setup for just over 1 year now:

-- 4ft 200litres
-- 2 x 40w lights [80w] approx 1.6w/g [I know it i slow light and I might look at adding another 40w single reflector]
-- 6,500k lights
-- Aquaclear 300 [70] filter with sponge/carbon(changing to bio-carb next water change for 2 weeks, then I will put another sponge in and rotate the 2). Top layer has ceramic noodles.
-- 200w heater

The fish:
16 Cardinal Tetras [Paracheirodon axelrodi]
6 Harlequin Rasbora [Rasbora heteromorpha]
7 Pristella Tetras [Pristella maxillaris]
6 Black Neon Tetras [Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi]
6 Lemon Tetras [Hyphessobrycon pulchripinnis]
4 Bronze Cory [Corydoras concolor]
2 Gomezi Cory [Corydoras gomezi] -- not sure if correct species for these 2 little cuties???
1 Black Phantom Tetra 1 Leopard Danio [Danio frankei]
1 Bristlenose Catfish [Ancistrus dolichopterus]

Now for the plants:
1x Amazon Sword (Echinodorus amazonicus)
4x Anubias nana
6x Chain Swords (Echinodorus tennellus)
Bunch of Rotala rotundifolia [apparently looks like this as it was grown emmersed]
6x Microsorum pteropus (Java Fern)
2x Echinodorus osiris (Melon Sword)

Water Parameters as of tonight are:
-----------------------------------
pH -- 7.3 (has risen in the last 4 days, as I was rising the KH, was 7.1 which is what I want back around) tap water is 7.7
KH -- 90ppm [mg/L] tap water is 40ppm!
Iron -- 0 mg/L I have never seen a reading on my Hagen test kit
Nitrates -- 25-50ppm [mg/L]
CO2 from the calculation on the site that has been posted a few times is around 7.58ppm which is very low - this is due to my ph rising in the last 5days. Will lower this over the next few days back to about 7.1 or 7.0.

I am not sure if you would consider the tank overstocked and this could be the reason for high nitrates???

Water changes have been weekly in the last month to reduce the nitrates, but they are still high. Recently gave the filter a decent clean as it had alot of gunk build up on the impeller and also the bottom chamber.

I do get a little bit of algae on the sides of the glass [high nitrates no doubt] so I clean this once or twice a week. Have also started to get some of that dreaded black beard algae on my Lava Rocks which I also scrape off - hopefully now that I have a few plants the nitrates will go down. Another water change is due on the weekend or even Friday.

Other than all of that, I am going to take photos every 2nd day and add a weekly photo to my webshots album or I could put them on my site and link to them from here... I don't test the parameters everyday only every week, although pH is tested every day as I have a digital reader

I hope in a month I still have all of the plants and they are starting to take shape in a good way not dieing off.

Photos can be seen at
http ://community. webshots .com/user/ cambo05 [remove the gaps] and look under Tropical Fish.

Enjoy the photos
Cameron.

I have updated the photo in my webshots album.

I bought an Anubias Barteri recently and also added
Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig' thought it was normal Hygrophila polysperma 'Green Hygro' but the new growth is a pinkish colour so that is good and hopefully it goes ok.

The Rotala still seems to be adapting from the emmeresed growth to submersed and slowly growing. Most of the older leaves have now fallen off.

Anubias Nana - growing new leaves and I have also attached 2 to my Lava Rock the other ones are buried in the gravel (rhizome above the gravel). Still gets a little BBA on the leaves.

Java Ferns went through a melt phase recently and alot of my big ferns leaves died, although alot had baby java ferns growing from them so I have 1/2 of the leaf that has the baby ferns on floating around the tank until the new leaves are big enough to try and plant.

E.Tennullus -- slowly slowly growing. Not sure if it is planted in the right spot as it takes the current of the filter. I have 3 new runners from the original plants though. Again I think these might have been grown emmeresed and if so must be taking time to adapt to the new conditions??? Have plant tabs near the plant and the roots of the plants are very thick and look strong.

Melon Swords - growing well with lots of new leaves in the past 2 weeks.

Amazon Sword is growing nicely as well.

Once the Rotala grows in and the Hygro spreads out along the back the background should look pretty good (here's hoping) and the foreground once the E.Tennullus takes off will not look as bare. Hopefully my Java Ferns have finished their melting phase because my biggest plant that had about 8 leaves lost all but 2 and is now attached to a rock where another fern is attached. Might move a Java Fern or 2 towards the front of the rocks near the E.Tennullus.

Not sure if I like where the Anubias Barteri is placed on the rock and might move it to the back into the gravel between the Hygro and the Rotala?

Tank still looks pretty bare and feels like it's going nowehere -- slowly.

Going on Holidays for a week so hopefully the plants do not miss the plant supplements for that time and I come back to a mess of dead plants.......

Anybody have other suggestions for some foreground plants in low-medium light???

Dwarf Saggitaria. A bit smaller then Tennellus but grows in a similar manner.

I always like the effect of a mixture of heights in grassy forground plants.

---

Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Quick update for those interested...

Plants all seem to be doing well.

Amazon Sword - new leaves sprouting and I have almost removed the older leaves that had algae on them when I bought it.

Rotala Indica - the new leaves that are sprouting are now taking shape of what I expected -- compared to the round leaves when I first purchased it. I am also pruning the older leaves and replanting some that have long stems with no leaves except for the tops...

Anubias Nana - new leaves are growing and I also removed some of the older leaves that had Black Beard Algae on them. Trying to grow some on rocks but having difficult keeping them tied down.. The cotton must not be tight enough.

Melon Swords - new leaves growing quickly and have also pruned most of the older leaves on both plants that died off. Very strong roots.

Java Ferns - growing well and even have a few little baby ferns growing from some leaves and some new growth from the rhizome.

E Tennellus - I have pruned almost all of the older leaves and now new leaves are growing in well. Hopefully they will get more runners soon to slowly create my lawn effect I am after. The new leaves look healthy.

Will add some photos tonight as I rearranged the rocks -- again. Just can't seem to find the right look, but I think I am getting closer. I moved most of the java ferns to the back so they are behind the rocks, other than that the rocks are more spaced out with not so many caves -- it is sort of a concave effect high at both ends and low in the middle and alot more room in the foreground for when my E. Tennellus grows.

Anybody have other suggestions for some foreground plants in low-medium light???

Added a new photo to webshots from the 3rd August. I missed a water change last week, amazing how busy kids can keep you... Thought I had done 1, anyway... Performed a water change last night will test water tonight and I am going to do another water change on Sunday/Monday as if my previous readings are anything to go by my Nitrates will still be high. Re-arranged some rocks again after a Cory getting stuck in a hole in 1 of them.

Plants are growing and I have noticed the E.Tennulus has a runner growing -- yay. Amazon Sword is growing well, and I am slowly removing the older leaves that had algae on them when I purchased it. 1 anubias nana has black beard algae on it again -- after I removed it all last time (same 1 that had it on when I purchased), others have new leaves.

Melon Swords are growing well although the leaves are quite yellow so I am dosing iron every day 5ml/200l. Java ferns also have some black beard algae on them and I pulled a few leaves off that were quite old and brittle and were the worse affected by the algae.

The Rotala rotundifolia is slowly sprouting new leaves although the leaves do seem to have a bit of algae on them. Roots must be starting to take hold as I am not re-planting as many as I use to.

Algae on the glass is minimal -- another yay . Just need to combat the black beard algae and keep the iron levels up. Fish are all healthy.

Cleaned the filter last night while doing the water change and it was filthy! Added another sponge, so I now have 2xSponge and the noodles as the top layer.

It certainly is a challenge growing plants

I have added some new photos to my webshots album for those that are interested. I think the black beard algae may have started from one of the Anubias Nana plants I bought as it had this on it when I bought it and may have triggered things off more -- although it was on the rocks before hand too? Noticed some on my Java Fern now.

40 ppm = 2.2 dKH

You'll want to aim for 3-4 dKH like bensaf said (I think those were the numbers he gave) EDIT - Oh he said 3

3-4 dKH = about 55-70 ppm

so stop dosing the buffer for now, wait until the KH in the tank drops to about 55-70 ppm and then just add buffer as you need it to maintain that level. adding co2 will complicate water chemistry, I'd want to get that sorted out before adding anything. JMO.



Last edited by trystianity at 25-Jul-2005 18:33

I have a little bit of Black Beard Algae on the rocks, which I get every now and then - excess nutrients I believe

More then likely a shortage of co2.

Sorry not familiar with PPM measurements of hardness so not sure how your KH translates. Aim for about 3 degrees of KH , when adding Co2 this will prevent large swings of pH and keep it stable.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Thanks again for the reply bensaf and untitled. I have always added buffers to the water when changing it because of the parameters that I thought were necessary for the fish. As mentioned previously my KH from the tapwater is about 40ppm.

I do have a Hagen CO2 canister that I can start to use and this will lower the pH -- right?

So it is still ok to add the carbonate hardness buffer to raise the KH?

I will stop adding so much pH buffer to my new water over time and allow the pH to rise slowly to the tap water I assume the fish will be ok with a slow change in pH ? ? ?

Sorry for all the Qs.

On the plant side of things, they all seem to be growing well. I have trimmed a few older leaves from the Echinodorus tennellus, Melon Sword and 1 leaf from the Amazon Sword. I have seen new leaves on all of the plants in the last week. Even the Anubias Nana's have new leaves growing (1 of the Anubias attached to the rock seems to be trying to attach)

I will add a new photo tomorrow which will mark 7 days since I planted them. Algae seems to have died down on the sides of the glass too. I have a little bit of Black Beard Algae on the rocks, which I get every now and then - excess nutrients I believe... Have read that overdosing Flourish can combat this. Have started adding about 1.5times the amount to see how it goes as it is not that bad yet.

"I adjust my water when I do water changes to get it to the same parameters that are in my tank. Im confused"

Don't be confused! This is completely unnecessary, unless you're doing 100% water changes. The only thing you should do is heat the water so the temperature doesn't change drastically. It is far better (not to mention easier and cheaper) to adjust your tank parameters to your tap water parameters. You don't need to do anything complicated to achieve that, it will happen naturally in due course with water changes.

pH of 7.6/7.8 is fine both for plants and your fish. If you still want to lower your, adding CO2 is the best way to do so, and it's also the only way to raise your CO2 levels.