Designed By A 4 Year Old - 10 Gallon

[OldMan47]

Trace is something worth having when you are dosing fertilizers. When I dose I use separate N, P and K components that I measure for my tank and then I add some trace mix to round things out. I only do these additions to a well lit tank that is also running with CO2 additions. On all of my other planted tanks, I run lower light levels and do not dose fertilizers at all. Dosing traces works well with regular dosing of the main growth chemicals.

 

[jmiller]

Thanks for the replies. Since this is my first attempt at plants I'm trying for as low tech as possible. I'll take it back for now and try it without any to see how it goes.

 

[jmiller]

Today's readings before gravel vac and 50% WC:
HR PH 7.9
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 40

I've never seen anything above 15. This was the first week since I've had the test kit that I didn't have to do a WC because the filter is finally cycled. Is this normal? Most always it reads 10.

 

[waterdrop]

My own experience has been that new tanks are pretty devoid of nutrients for plants usually and could use some dosing, even if they are low-tech, but it needs to be smaller dosing than normally recommended on the fertilizer and it can be phased out after the tank has a pretty full population of fish and is pretty mature. Tom Barr recommended this and called it "reduced EI."

Speaking of EI (estimative index), one of the important parts of it is the weekly water change and it sounds like your nitrate(NO3) of 40 may be telling you that the weekly water change will do better being a bit on the larger percentage size. I'm assuming your tap nitrate(NO3) is zero and if so then you will want to see if you can find a pattern that will keep the NO3 lower. Being at 40 is not a particularly bad thing though and it may very well be that the upcoming gravel-clean-water-changes will clear it out and it will settle at a lower level.

WD

 

[jmiller]

I found out the other LFS in town has the regular Flourish and Flourish Excel. Which one would I need to get?

As far as the water changes go I'll probably just go back to twice a week and keep them in the 35-50% range. The fish seem to really stress out if I take out any more than 50%.

 

[waterdrop]

You need both if you are going to do it. They are totally different. Excel tries to supply carbon to the plant, Flourish tries to supply most of the other 16 nutrients the plant needs.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[jmiller]

Okay, thanks.

 

[jmiller]

Did a quick check last night and Ammonia still at zero and Nitrates down to 20.

Plants are arriving today!, so I'll do another 35% WC tonight.

Do I need to do daily water checks since I'm adding plants?

 

[waterdrop]

One would hope I could just keep the conversation going casually along as if I were there in the room with you and still aware of which tank and what you're currently doing to it and what the goal is, lol. But the truth is that I get a dozen or more of these conversations going and I'm likely to completely confuse those things. I assume this is the (larger?) of your 3 tanks and is the one we've been arranging the plastic ones in? (just so I won't lose my editing buffer...) Are we still fishless cycling and if so what stage? Adding plants would not cause one to change the testing schedule of a fishless cycle and would not cause one to start testing particularly differently. The one thing that would change with the addition of live plants would be the beginning of plant nutrient dosing, as we've discussed, and the beginning of perhaps a more controlled lighting schedule. WD

 

[jmiller]

Yes this is the 10 gallon with the plastic plants. Fully stocked with fish but I had to change the filter because the old one couldn't keep up. Filter finally cycled about 10 days ago. I'm stopping after work tonight to get the Flourish and Flourish Excel. I have a lighting timer at home waiting to be used.

I was just handed my box of plants!

 

[waterdrop]

OK, you're fine then, no need to add testing because of the plants but you might want to continue to do some occasional nitrate(NO3) tests just to satisfy your curiosity about whether any of the new plants at some point starts to help with eating some of that! (they can absorb ammonia, nitrite and nitrate but most species almost never absorb nitrite.. instead most of them absorb ammonia the most and nitrate next most and its a small amount compared to the amounts we deal with pertaining to the fish and filter. A tank really packed with plants though can absorb significant amounts of the two.) WD

 

[jmiller]

Before:

After:

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out but there is one change that I'm thinking about making tomorrow. I want to sleep on it first.


Now starts all the questions.
First and foremost all of the plants are starting to droop is that normal?, and second, two of the plants I ordered Dwarf Baby Tears & Anubias Barteri Var. Nana came in pots with this "stuff" packed around the roots like this:

I didn't know if I was suppose to take it off or not so you can see that I just left it. What is it and what do I do?

I have the lights on a timer to come on from 7:30 am till 12:30 pm and then again from 5:00 pm till 10:00 pm. I also changed the lights to CFL 7 watt left side and 10 watt on the right. I'll have to read up on the liquid fert tomorrow.

 

[jmiller]

For those in the US I got the plants from http/www.sweetaquatics.com/ in Hamilton OH. They are a small family owned business that provided excellent customer service. I couldn't have asked for a smoother transaction. The plants arrived in perfect condition. Also they are currently having a 25% OFF SALE until the 17th.

Disclaimer: I have no connection to Sweet Aquatics other than being a satisfied customer and will not profit in any way from recommending them.

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

I really like the look of your new layout; it looks very nice.

 

[jmiller]

Thank you.