Si's Low Tech Tank Journal

[PDSimon]

Hello and welcome to my journal...

I've started this to keep track of what I'm doing and see how things progress and for some help/assistance on not only plants, placement but also fertliser and things. My fishless cycle is coming to an end and I plan on stocking soon (kuhli loach and bolivian rams to start of with).

My tank is a fluval roma 125 with a two T8, 20W bulbs (T5's are the stronger ones right?) a U3 filter and a 150W heater.

water is:

7.5 pH
6 GH
3 KH

I have 1cm of tropica substrate and 2 inches of argos play sand. Bought most stuff from the green machine which is local to me so all the plants are tropica.

Today I added (removed pots and as much rockwool as possibe):

echinodorus ozelot
Anubias barteri var. nana - trimmed roots
Eleocharis parvula - trimmed roots (trim top too?), also broken it up but I did that after the picture)
Echinodorus bleheri
Vallisneria spiralis
Cryptocoryne x willisii
hygrophila difformis - was pre trimmed so just stuck the stems in

Please indicate if anyelse would be better of trimmed or something

Also waiting on java moss and bacopa australis. They gave me christmas moss which I've read is harder to grow than java so I think its best to swap it with my lack of lighting?

Bought these to start me off:

Tropica Plant Nutrition+ Capsules (12pcs x 2)
Tropica Plant Nutrition + Liquid (100ml)
Easy Life EasyCarbo 250ml

Questions

- TPN+ says 5ml for every 50ml, tank is about 100L so... 10ml a week? I've heard people adjusting this and adding everyday rather than once a week?
- same goes for EasyCarbo... 1ml for 50 Litres a day, so 2ml a day?
- how many root tabs and for what plants? no instructions came with them
- if you've answered the above questions shall I get on with it and dose now(bare in mind I only planted today)?

 

[mattlee]

i dose with 8 ml of TPN+ and 8 ml of easycarbo daily after advice from people on here and the plants are doing great

 

[PDSimon]

Cheers mattlee, your tank is a 125? although closer to 100 realistically

 

[lljdma06]

This is a good start and I'm looking forward to its progress. Yes, you'll find that you'll have to adjust TPN+ dosing. My little 8g with CO2 was guzzling about 8-10ml of TPN+ daily at the height of the scape. Greedy little plants.

llj

 

[PDSimon]

Cheers llj - hopefully mine will be hungry enough soon

On the instructions it says start with half dosing (which would be 0.71ml - daily to promote plant growth), is that best to start off with? It also says to mix it with water... whats it mean by that?

Done a rescape today and added java fern + java moss... will upload pictures later

 

[Nick16]

if i was you, i would be dosing 2ml per day of each for now.

remember those 50% W/c's daily for the first couple weeks to keep ammonia down.
The crypts WILL melt. This isnt your fault. but they should pick up again.

The parva has to be trimmed right down to pretty much substrate level but you should have seperated it up into small pieces to form a carpet. each pot into 20+ plantlets.

I split mine into double size portions what i normally would split them into.

then you will start getting new shoots like this appearing.

cheers

 

[PDSimon]

Thanks nick, I am doing a fishless cycle currently though. I was hoping on adding fish today but suprisingly my ammonia came to 0.25 when it has been 0 on my 12 hour tests for weeks now. I've broken up and spread the parvula out quite a bit, but I think they need breaking up even more and cutting down.

Dosing that much TPN+ would be 25% more than advised..?

I like your tank you can barely tell there is water in there its so clean

how many root tabs shall I put in there?

 

[Nick16]

spread the root tabs around.

Obviously parvula is not as heavy a root feeder as echinodorus sp.

But, you should still give them some ferts! (in your case, tabs and liquid)

I would put a tab under every major bit of plant mass. (so under an ech or under a good sized clump of parvula etc)

Crypts and Ech's are massive root feeders and particularly benefit from iron root tabs as well. its worth getting a couple of them and putting some with the others tabs you got under those plants.

as you can see, crypts and ech's have an extensive root network. i pulled the below from my 240L and then trimmed the roots down before selling. some roots were over 50cm long when i took them out!

 

[PDSimon]

Cheers I have 2 pacs of 12 so enough to go around..!

Do I just dose TPN+ straight into the tank water?

 

[Nick16]

yep, give the bottle a good shamke to stir everything up and get it all mixed.

i would advise getting some pipettes, it makes dosing more accurate and alot easier. i use 3ml ones for all my dosing. cheap and simple.

Put the TPN+ into the path of a powerhead or a filter outlet so it all gets pushed around etc! no point putting into an area of still water. (not that you should have still water in a planted tank!!)

 

[PDSimon]

I use syringes, even more accurate need some more though

Thanks for the help, much appreciated.

Latest scape

Need to re do those parvulas and add root tabs but other than that i'm pretty happy, for now

edit: I think i'll move the hygrophila difformis around, the one on the right is under the sword to much

 

[mattlee]

Cheers mattlee, your tank is a 125? although closer to 100 realistically

mine is a 240L tank Simon

 

[ian]

Looks good, be good to watch it grow, make sure you keep us updated.

 

[Nick16]

remember dosing 2ml a day is not alot if you think what is actually happening.

Due to you dong daily 50% W/C's (you should be doing)
that 2ml is suddenly halved to 1ml. plus the plants are going to absorb some and normally a tiny percentage will be locked into the substrate if you are using a clay based substrate like akadama etc. (high CEC)

 

[PDSimon]

I've almost finished fishless cycling, why should I do the waterchanges? bit confused...