Help Me Do It Right 1St Time :)

[ellena]

So I have just set up 2 planted betta tanks. Both have cat litter under sand and I'm dosing TPN+. Trying to gauge correct levels, going for 1ml every 2 days atm. Both tanks are about 20l. Lights about 9w, on for about 7 hours a day. No CO[sub]2[/sub]
I had wisteria in 1 and it just rotted away, so I've replaced it with ludwigia(?). The other tank has twisted vallis which is already starting to go brown and rot.
Does what I'm doing sound OK? There are pics of the tanks in this thread. If anyone can ID the rosette leafed plant behind the coconut, that would be great. I think the feathery one is water sprite? LFS very usefully called it carrots

 

[Mr Bliss]

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Vallisneria takes its time to settle, and often goes brown after replanting, because it needs to regrow its root system, and apparently they like to do this at the expense of older leaves, so I'd just give them some time (and prune all older leaves that are starting to go brown, just make sure you leave some leaves intact). Mine kept shedding their leaves for the first couple of weeks, after which they sprouted new ones and started growing like crazy.

They won't do well in very low KH water without CO2 addition, though, in case that happens to be the case with your water.

 

[ellena]

Right, I'll try and keep on top of the trimming then. Might be the water though, my KH is only about 5 although my GH is off the scale!
They don't do CO[sub]2[/sub] as easycarbo or similar do they? I'm not setting up a proper CO[sub]2[/sub] supply on this small tank, so if they don't pick up in a month or so, I'll have to think of something else.
Thanks

 

[Mr Bliss]

Yeah, Easycarbo etc are said to be tricky with Vallisneria. I've read reports even on this forum that Vallis will adapt to it after losing some leaves, and other reports where dosing Easycarbo/Excel just killed the Vallis off. I don't dare try it. For all I know, even if they "adapt" to it it just means it's no longer as poisonous to them, not that they're able to extract carbon from it.

KH 5 should be enough, it's somewhere below 3 that they seem to run into trouble. I've grown V. spiralis in my KH 3.5 water back when I just kept cichlids and knew nothing about planted tanks and it did just fine, but it never survived in my other tank, which had a lot of bogwood in it (and therefore lower KH). It was a huge mystery to me at the time.

 

[Truck]

easy carbo is fine with vallis providing you don't exceed the recommended dose, I have vallis nana (one of the most delicate species) and I dose 8ml into 30 gallons, thats over dosed but I have no problems, its all trial and error with dosing, the leaves dying and going brown are most probably a CO2 issue, 0.6ml of EC a day should see things fine, I would also up the TPN+ dose to 1ml daily.

Better flow via a small power head will help too.

 

[ellena]

Thanks guys, I'll try upping the TPN+ and look into getting some EC-I'll need some for my 'proper' planted tank at christmas anyway.
Can't up the flow with it being a betta though. I've had to put some sponge over the outlet to kill the flow as it is!