My 120l Tank Is Now Planted....

[Dave Spencer]

I kid you not. Here I am, a total beginner, just set up a Juwel Lido using the pinned article written by George Farmer on using the EI method and within one hour of lights and CO2 on one or two leafs of Vallis have a constant stream of tiny bubbles coming from them.

Phosphate and Nitrate are dosed to half target at the moment and CO2 is one bubble per two seconds. I plan to have everything within target by the weekend, although I was wondering; as there are no fish in the tank (obviously), should I just go for all the target values from the word go?

Everything is looking a bit tatty at the moment and bent over. I hope to post a picture at the weekend when the plants have started growing more upright.

Fingers crossed that I won`t have to start reading the algae articles in any great depth.

Crikey, it`s like having another kid!

 

[Themuleous]

Sounds promising I would go for the target levels from the off, especially if there is lots of light from the off, need to make sure the plants are getting the required nutrients.

If you've not got any animals in there, you could also whack up the CO2, say +50ppm, to help stop the algae and give the plants plenty to work with. Unless anyone knows this is a bad idea?

Sam

 

[George Farmer]

Enjoy the ride Dave.

You can get away with dosing half for a while as the plants will have been grown in luxury conditions and have a big nutrient store. Plenty of CO2 (30ppm, possibly more if there's no fish) is vital though with EI.

I look forward to seeing pics. You could start a journal......

zig wrote the pinned EI thread BTW.

 

[Themuleous]

Just out of interest, why not dose fully George? Get things 'balanced' as soon as poss? Or will the plants not take up much nutrients when first added?

Sam

 

[Dave Spencer]

It is the measuring CO2 thing that is bothering me. People talk about bubbles per second, but surely if my CO2 system was running at the same rate in a tank of twice the capacity then the dissolved CO2 content would be half. Plus, my JBL diffuser doesn`t seem to be working properly at the moment. The bubbles seem to spiral nicely up the first two thirds before coming to an abrupt halt, forming a large bubble before shooting up the last third and straight out the top. I`ll leave it for a while so it can settle.

I am currently at about one bubble every two seconds and there are several winding their way up the column all the time. The CO2 has been on for about six hours now, so I am going to guess that the levels have reached their maximum for this bubble rate and take a sample of water out of the tank to be pH tested tomorrow.

Anybody out there know a good source for refilling CO2 bottles in the N. Wales area?

 

[George Farmer]

Just out of interest, why not dose fully George? Get things 'balanced' as soon as poss? Or will the plants not take up much nutrients when first added?

Sam

I'm not certain but I assume most plants will take time to adapt to their new environment. This is definitely the case with most Cryptocoryne sp. During this time they'll be using less/if any nutrients.

 

[Themuleous]

People talk about bubbles per second, but surely if my CO2 system was running at the same rate in a tank of twice the capacity then the dissolved CO2 content would be half.

You'd think? But I run my nano a 2BPS to get 30ppm, mostly because the tank is so short so the bubbles dont have long to dissolve before reaching the surface and getting released into the air. My main tank, which is very tall for its size only needs 1 BPS to get the 30ppm as the bubbles have loads of time to dissolve into the water before escaping.

The bubbles getting stuck on the diffuser ladder is a common problem when first set up, it should clear given time.

SAm