My 34G

[guppygirl]

Ok that looks a whole bunch better!!! I would fill in that little gap with the riccia on the foreground and add some more vallis to the back left corner to look equal to the right side. I love the new plants!!

 

[George Farmer]

Tank looks awsome if I can get mine to go like yours Ill be more than happy. Have a look at my first attempt in members tank section. Are you using any plant fertilizers/feeding at waterchange time and if so which brand, also how often do you do a waterchange and how much.

Your tank looks excellent, especially for such a new setup. What tank is it, looks like a Juwel? Mine is a Rio 125.

Fertilisers - Dennerle S7 - weekly
Dennerle E15 - 15th of every month
Dennerle V30 - 30th of every month
Waterlife Tropiflora - fortnightly
Potassium Nitrate - weekly to reach Nitrates @ 5 mg/l

I change 30% water weekly using 60:40 RO/tap water to keep the water soft and acidic. pH 6.6, KH 3, GH 6, CO2 20-25 mg/l.

I've modified my lighting, I have 5 various plant tubes giving me 3 WPG. Substrate is fine gravel/laterite with heater cable.

 

[Yenko]

I need to start adding KNO3 to my tank; where do you get yours, gf255?

Nitrates are nearly undetectable. For my tester (Hagen NO3 tester) that's well less than 5 ppm... cleaner than most lakes around here. It's pretty bad when a 10 gallon tank can acheive better water quality than the tap water it was filled with way back when (Sourced from lake water, chlorinated and the PH is buffered with CaCO3).

Fish food and iron-rich substrate fertilizer (Not laterite, tabs and a local mineral-rich, nutrient poor clay) provide my plants with sufficient (I think) nutrition, the only thing I have noticed is possible calcium deficiency, which is easy to treat by adding more CaCO3 to the water, which I already have. I added MgSO4 just in case I was actually seeing Mg deficiency. The H. Polysperma is fine and growing like a weed, but the Java Fern appears to have slowed down, and is producing yellowish-brown leaves, which I think is a sign of iron deficiency. If I was right, then why would a slow-growing plant be the first to suffer from nutrient deficiency?

My plan was to run the aquarium more or less using the diana walstad method of letting fish food provide the needed nutrients, and I think that is starting to fail on me right now because the fish load is so small (Only 6-8 immature guppies and a 1" goldfish that I'm overwintering), so the plants aren't getting enough nutrients at the moment. I'm adding more guppies from my dad's tank today, but that is annoying because I have to add immature guppies, which means I have to wait for them to reach full size before contributing their full bioload to the tank.

It has 28W of lighting and DIY CO2@20ppm. The Ph is 6.8. Plants include Java Fern, Java Moss, H. Polysperma and a potted cryptocoryne of an unknown variety. I am using the pots to do a trial run of the local clay I found, and so far they are doing very well.

 

[dwarf-puffers]

wow thats great !!! it looks awesome (can u ever c the fish Jk )
that is very inspirring

 

[konrad05]

damn gf225, that's a beautiful tank... as always, but I like the new appearance

 

[BigC]

Cheers!! gf225 for your reply on plant fertilizers, I'm using JBL brand at the moment and everything seems OK... You are quite right my tank is a Juwel Rekord 70.(guess the filter outflow was the give-away eh!!) managed to convince the wife that we need a tank to brighten up a dark corner in the living room.

 

[George Farmer]

Cheers!! gf225 for your reply on plant fertilizers, I'm using JBL brand at the moment and everything seems OK... You are quite right my tank is a Juwel Rekord 70.(guess the filter outflow was the give-away eh!!) managed to convince the wife that we need a tank to brighten up a dark corner in the living room.

No worries. Glad to see you're doing things right from the start, you must have done some research right?

 

[George Farmer]

I need to start adding KNO3 to my tank; where do you get yours, gf255?

Nitrates are nearly undetectable. For my tester (Hagen NO3 tester) that's well less than 5 ppm... cleaner than most lakes around here. It's pretty bad when a 10 gallon tank can acheive better water quality than the tap water it was filled with way back when (Sourced from lake water, chlorinated and the PH is buffered with CaCO3).

Fish food and iron-rich substrate fertilizer (Not laterite, tabs and a local mineral-rich, nutrient poor clay) provide my plants with sufficient (I think) nutrition, the only thing I have noticed is possible calcium deficiency, which is easy to treat by adding more CaCO3 to the water, which I already have. I added MgSO4 just in case I was actually seeing Mg deficiency. The H. Polysperma is fine and growing like a weed, but the Java Fern appears to have slowed down, and is producing yellowish-brown leaves, which I think is a sign of iron deficiency. If I was right, then why would a slow-growing plant be the first to suffer from nutrient deficiency?

My plan was to run the aquarium more or less using the diana walstad method of letting fish food provide the needed nutrients, and I think that is starting to fail on me right now because the fish load is so small (Only 6-8 immature guppies and a 1" goldfish that I'm overwintering), so the plants aren't getting enough nutrients at the moment. I'm adding more guppies from my dad's tank today, but that is annoying because I have to add immature guppies, which means I have to wait for them to reach full size before contributing their full bioload to the tank.

It has 28W of lighting and DIY CO2@20ppm. The Ph is 6.8. Plants include Java Fern, Java Moss, H. Polysperma and a potted cryptocoryne of an unknown variety. I am using the pots to do a trial run of the local clay I found, and so far they are doing very well.

Yenko - I got my KNO3 from here in the UK, I'm not sure if they'll post overseas. www.gardenchemicals.co.uk. Are you sure you need it? How old is your kit, I had the same one a while back and it read <5 mg/l all the time. I thought I was doing well until I tested my daughter's goldfish tank which is unplanted and the test read <5 mg/l. I used the API Dry-Tab kit and the actually reading was 40 mg/l!! I can only assume that the kit went out of date, quite common in liquid Nitrate kits apparently. Are any of your plants showing signs of Nitrogen deficiciency?

I'm at a loss as to your Java fern. Mine produces the odd yellow leaf now and again but soon after is fine. As you said, the polysperma should show any signs first. Java fern is well known for its undemanding nature, how old is it?
I love the idea of using local clay, I wish I had access to free stuff!!

 

[BigC]

yeah right gf225 had a tank setup way back in the early eighties using the Dupla system. read books like Dupla's Optimum Aquarium. I'm a book freak really, have you got the Dennerle one with the plants and there codes.

 

[Yenko]

Yenko - I got my KNO3 from here in the UK, I'm not sure if they'll post overseas. www.gardenchemicals.co.uk. Are you sure you need it? How old is your kit, I had the same one a while back and it read <5 mg/l all the time. I thought I was doing well until I tested my daughter's goldfish tank which is unplanted and the test read <5 mg/l. I used the API Dry-Tab kit and the actually reading was 40 mg/l!! I can only assume that the kit went out of date, quite common in liquid Nitrate kits apparently. Are any of your plants showing signs of Nitrogen deficiciency?

I'm at a loss as to your Java fern. Mine produces the odd yellow leaf now and again but soon after is fine. As you said, the polysperma should show any signs first. Java fern is well known for its undemanding nature, how old is it?
I love the idea of using local clay, I wish I had access to free stuff!!

The local clay came from my yard. I have no idea what it is composed of, but it's oarnge, a sign of a lack of organic matter and some sort of minerals. It may not be very iron rich, but I've read a post on the Krib that suggested putting fine steel wool in the substrate to add iron.

About my NO3 test: I've tested it on a less sucessful tank recently, and it registered 50 mg/l so I'm pretty sure it's good. It's only 3-4 months old. The Java Fern was likely a plantlet from a Java Fern I bought 1.5 years ago, but it might be a granddaughter or greatgrandaughter so it could be anywhere from 4 months to a year old.

I mixed my clay with potting vermiculite to keep it from getting too anerobic, as well as increasing the cation exchange capacity and it's nutrient storage ability.

My plant's older leaves do seem to die off, but they aren't getting yellow, they actually get dark green blotches, which I doubt are alage; the only 2 forms I see in the tank are green fuzz alage and hair alage. The same is happening to the older Java Fern leaves. Once the leaf gets the dark green blotches hair alage usually follows on that leaf. I don't think it's age-related; the stem of my largest, oldest Hygrophilia plants is probably 2 months old and has no signs of the alage. Is this another deficiency?

 

[George Farmer]

yeah right gf225 had a tank setup way back in the early eighties using the Dupla system. read books like Dupla's Optimum Aquarium. I'm a book freak really, have you got the Dennerle one with the plants and there codes.

I do own the "The Big Dennerle Guide". My tank is based on their principles. I use a lot of their products too but save money where I can by using cheaper manufacturers, a good example is my Heater-Cable, a 25W Rena-Cor on a cheap timer rather than Dennerle's system which is about 5 times the cost!

I haven't read Dupla's Optimum Aquarium but it sounds like the principles are similar to Dennerle's.

Other books I own are Takeshi Amano's Nature World Aquarium series and Diana Walstad's Ecolopgy of a Planted Aquarium.

 

[George Farmer]

Sorry Yenko. I really have no idea what could be wrong with your Java fern. My only suggestion would be to buy another and see if the results are the different, if not then I'd be really confused. You could try another Planted forum, the Aqua-Botanic one is excellent.

Good luck with your clay, it sound like an excellent idea.

 

[guppygirl]

Is this dennerele only in the uk, or can you get it in the us?

 

[Yenko]

High-tech works if you have money. I get good plant growth with equipment that costed $20 with no expensive fertilizers (Except DIY CO2, which isn't that expensive to run)

 

[George Farmer]

Is this dennerele only in the uk, or can you get it in the us?

It's actually a German manufacturer. It's not readily available in the UK, specialist shops have to import their products. I don't know about US availibility.

Yenko is right. High-tech tanks are expensive initially but you once you have the right equipment it is very easy to have success. The fertilisers last ages too. In the last year I have only had to replace two plants due to poor growth.