new tank plant food?

[Tropicanafishbanana]

heya my new tank with low fish atm waiting for the cycle fore i add more fish atm 3 plattys is all thats there,
seen products like this https://thenutrientcompany.com/products/tnc-complete and been told i needed plant food too ?

ive just started using n02 and no3 test strips and the gk gh
atm i am
gh 30
gk 40
ph 6.5
no2 0.5
no3 20

online says to add food till 10-20 nitrates weekly? is that no2 or 3? do i need to add any or waht? my plants are dieing and i hear ill need food until the tank establishes ?? spent liek £80 on plants so id rather they not die ??

 

[Byron]

As you have plants, you can forget "cycling" as such as just get the plants growing. They take up a lot of ammonia, certainly more than the fish mentioned can produce, provided they are growing obviously, and particular if some are relatively fast growing species. Nitrates you want to be as low as possible, so get the plants thriving and this should occur.

As for the fertilizer, use TNC Lite. This has all nutrients but no nitrate or phosphorus, and there is sufficient of these (ammonia/ammonium for nitrogen, fish foods for phosphate).

 

[Tropicanafishbanana]

As you have plants, you can forget "cycling" as such as just get the plants growing. They take up a lot of ammonia, certainly more than the fish mentioned can produce, provided they are growing obviously, and particular if some are relatively fast growing species. Nitrates you want to be as low as possible, so get the plants thriving and this should occur.

As for the fertilizer, use TNC Lite. This has all nutrients but no nitrate or phosphorus, and there is sufficient of these (ammonia/ammonium for nitrogen, fish foods for phosphate).

forget cycling?? i thaught it was the important stage to set the filters and bacterias into motion? doesnt that stil apply with planted aquatics?
i have a 120l tank im filling aswell does that need cycling ? ive never heard of throwing plants in and forgetting? i was going to wait 2 weeks and get my fish corydoras etc , while i will be adding the smaller conditioned tank aswel

 

[Byron]

forget cycling?? i thaught it was the important stage to set the filters and bacterias into motion? doesnt that stil apply with planted aquatics?
i have a 120l tank im filling aswell does that need cycling ? ive never heard of throwing plants in and forgetting? i was going to wait 2 weeks and get my fish corydoras etc , while i will be adding the smaller conditioned tank aswel

With live plants that includes some relatively fast growing species (floating plants like Water Sprite, Frogbit, Water Lettuce, and stem plant are fast growers) there is no need to "cycle" a tank. The nitrifying bacteria will still occur and colonize some areas, but the plants take up almost all the ammonia any number of fish can produce, and nitrite is not produced by the plants so that step is altogether avoided.

This is sometimes called a "silent cycle" because the bacteria still occur but waiting for them to go through the whole process--which by the way can sometimes take 2 weeks if lucky but may take up to 8 weeks--is not necessary. Plants need nitrogen, it is a macro nutrient, and aquatic plants use ammonia/ammonium as their preferred source of nitrogen [not nitrate as is often mentioned]. Plants also take up ammonia/ammonium faster than the nitrifying bacteria, quite a bit faster. Floating plants are often termed "ammonia sinks" because of the incredible amount of ammonia they will assimilate if it is present.

Once you have the plants obviously growing, you can add the fish. For a first time "silent cycle" aquarist you should go easy here. I have done this so often, either for new tanks or more often when tearing down and rebuilding a tank, I can add all the fish back in the tank once it is the way I want it without any issues. I have never had ammonia or nitrite in any of my tanks. When adding fish though, it is important that for a shoaling species (one needing a group of their own) that you add all of the intended number together at the same time. So if you were to select say Rosy Tetras, and since this is a 130 liter/31 gallon tank you could have 12 of this species, introduce all 12 together. The fish will always settle in easier and faster, which means less chance of problems like ich, the more there are--safety in numbers to the fish.

 

[Byron]

BTW, the GH of 30 mentioned in post #1 I am assuming is 30 ppm, not 30 dH. The pH at 6.5 would suggest softer rather than harder water, and 30 dH would be liquid rock. So you want only soft water species--tetras, rasboras, most catfish, etc.

Mention was made of platys, and it would be advisable to re-home these as this water at 30 ppm is much too soft for any livebearer, and they will slowly weaken.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

What Byron says, although we don't know what plants you have. Byron referred to fast growing plants and these are the ones necessary to help cycle your tank.
If you've spent your money on only slow-growing species, then you may be in trouble.

I created this list to act as a guide, for when you're looking for faster-growing plants.

 

[Tropicanafishbanana]

BTW, the GH of 30 mentioned in post #1 I am assuming is 30 ppm, not 30 dH. The pH at 6.5 would suggest softer rather than harder water, and 30 dH would be liquid rock. So you want only soft water species--tetras, rasboras, most catfish, etc.

Mention was made of platys, and it would be advisable to re-home these as this water at 30 ppm is much too soft for any livebearer, and they will slowly weaken.

awsome,
yeah i have a Full RO 6 stage system drinking water and reminieraliseation, i would have assumed this safe for any fish? like ida thaught some fish hard water all fish soft , but a soft fish wotn go in hard ?

i have 3 plattys my kids love em, i got them as advised there good to tank cycle, how will they not be happy ? what can i do ? tap water here is 500ppm and full of fluride and chloramines, id never use it, wont even wash in it myself,

plants i love plants im growing grasses, mosses, red leafs ferny plants etc, i got them online ofc, multi plant pack of 12 species and have buckets of grass seed lol,

my main fish im getting are corydoras, a plec, and a few others using the aqadvisor so not to overstock or get any problems,

my readings are fom the api 5 in 1 strips if that helps

 

[Byron]

awsome,
yeah i have a Full RO 6 stage system drinking water and reminieraliseation, i would have assumed this safe for any fish? like ida thaught some fish hard water all fish soft , but a soft fish wotn go in hard ?

i have 3 plattys my kids love em, i got them as advised there good to tank cycle, how will they not be happy ? what can i do ? tap water here is 500ppm and full of fluride and chloramines, id never use it, wont even wash in it myself,

plants i love plants im growing grasses, mosses, red leafs ferny plants etc, i got them online ofc, multi plant pack of 12 species and have buckets of grass seed lol,

my main fish im getting are corydoras, a plec, and a few others using the aqadvisor so not to overstock or get any problems,

my readings are fom the api 5 in 1 strips if that helps

I agree you are probably better with the RO/remineralization. The GH of 500 ppm is way too hard for most fish. To explain the soft/hard water fish is involved but needs to be understood by all aquarists. It has to do with the physiology of the fish.

Each species of freshwater fish has evolved to function in a very specific environment, which here means everything connected to the fish: water parameters (hardness, pH and temperature) is a major component, and there is also the habitat conditions that we can leave aside for the purpose of this discussion.

Fish do not drink because they are continually taking in water via osmosis through every cell. Any substance dissolved in the water and that is able to diffuse across the cell membranes will pass into the fish's bloodstream and enter internal organs. Minerals like calcium and magnesium (and the others like copper, iron, etc) that are dissolved in the water are easily able to diffuse across the cells. In fish that have evolved to function in soft water, their physiology considers these minerals as toxins, and the kidneys remove them from the water as it passes through. However, the calcium will in time block the kidneys, and the fish will weaken and die. Fish that have evolved to live in harder water are different; they remove the calcium and magnesium from the water and use it to maintain their internal processes. They need these minerals to be in the water, because they cannot otherwise obtain sufficient levels, so in softer water they weaken and die too.

Livebearers have evolved in moderately hard water, and thus they need these minerals to be in the water in which they live so they can assimilate them from the water entering their bodies and maintain a proper functioning. Soft water fish as I said are the opposite...the softer the water they live in, the healthier they will be because they do not have to contend with removing the "toxic" minerals which will eventually block the kidneys causing death. In both cases, the weakening of the fish usually allows other issues like disease to be more problematic and that may well kill the fish. We might think it was disease "x" that caused the death, when in fact it was the weakening of the fish that was directly responsible. Therefore, the closer the parameters of the water to those of the habitat in which the fish is best suited to live, the healthier the fish will be.

With a GH of 3 you cannot have livebearers. But there are hundreds of soft water species that would be ideally suited.