Stubedoo's 300litre Tank Log - My First Ever Tank

[stubedoo]

So after reading through Schmill's tank diary, I thought I should start my own, as I could really do with some help. (I wasn't sure the best place to put it, but decided on the 'new to hobby' section - mods feel free to move it)

Like Schmill I have the Aqua One Regency 120 (300litre) tank. It is my first tank, so my knowledge is pretty low, although I've been trying to learn over the past few weeks.

We've had quite a few problems to date, which I won't go into... so lets outline where we are now:

Contents of tank

Sand
Layer of laterite (beneath the sand)
1 * piece of bogwood from friends mature tank
5 * plants (need to be Identified -see below)

Picture of tank taken yesterday - please excuse the background... we're still contemplating what we are going to do with that.

I would be grateful if anyone could ID the plants in the tank.

Plant 1:

Plant 2:

Plant 3:

Plant 4: Edit - now removed & binned

Fishless Cycling:

I've been slowly adding ammonia since the weekend, originally using fish food, then household ammonia. The bottle of ammonia doesn't give a concentration, so it has taken me a few days to gauge its potency. Yesterday was the first day I got the ammonia level up to 4.0ppm.

Current water parameters: (Day 2 - 11:45)

water temp: 26C

pH: 7.5 (tap water tested as 8.0)

ammonia: 4.0
nitrtIte: 0
nitrtAte: 0

I shall leave it there for now, as there is plenty to digest already.

 

[Declan]

My browser doesn't let me see the pics of the individual plants, but from the FTS I can see on the far right in the back corner an Ergia Densa.

In the middle at the back, looks like a Cabomba Carolina.

And in the middle at the front, I can't quite tell, but looks like some sort of Vallis.

HTH, D.

 

[stubedoo]

My browser doesn't let me see the pics of the individual plants, but from the FTS I can see on the far right in the back corner an Ergia Densa.

In the middle at the back, looks like a Cabomba Carolina.

And in the middle at the front, I can't quite tell, but looks like some sort of Vallis.

HTH, D.

Thanks... I don't think it was a browser problem, the pictures wouldn't show up for me initially either. I think imageshack may of been still indexing the ones I'd just uploaded or something (I uploaded the full tank shot yesterday). Hopefully you can see the images now.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I can't see the individual plant pics either but the tank looks nice.

Sounds like you've read carefully and are off to a good start. We presume you intend to follow RDD's Add & Wait procedure? You don't say 11:45 am or pm. You'll want to establish a regular time frame for when you add ammonia as you only do it at most once, in the 24 hours and only then if the ammonia has dropped all the way to zero. It can take some time for that to happen at first, so you really only need to test for ammonia at first.

Your pH looks to be good for growing bacteria, but be sure that pH is among your tests so you can watch for it dropping too low. You'll want your temperature to be up at 29F/84F as another thing the bacteria like.

Its good that you've offered the plant roots something under the substrate. In addition you may want to consider fertilizer for the water column, like Seachem Flourish and perhaps Excel. Members usually recommend 8 to 10 hours of light as a trade-off for giving the plants lots but not going overboard and helping the inevitable algae (there is lots of excess ammonia for the algae during fishless cycling!)

Welcome to TFF!
~~waterdrop~~

 

[doresy]

I think the backdrop of a massive water mark looks great!

Good news is I can see the individual plants, bad news is plants arn't my thing so no help there either

*EDIT* My limited knowledge on plants lead me to suggest that plant 4 is not true aquatic

However, I second the use of Seachem Flourish Fertiliser and Excel. Bit of an expensive outlay but you do use a lot less of it than with other, cheaper, variaties and it's really good stuff.

As far as your problems are concerned this is the very place to log them even if you have overcome them as it just may help other's new to the hobby in knowing they are not alone

Anyway, lovely tank and good to hear you are going down the fishless cycle route method (you will won't you? ) Stick with it

 

[Schmill]

Hey hey Stubedoo, I found it

Tank is looking very nice, it's good to be able to see what it looks like with sand in it as as you know I have gravel in mine.

Plants:
Not really my subject, but I think I've had a few of those.
I think (1) is Cambomba of some kind, it looks very similar to what I have in my 60L tank and it grows like stink. I love the stuff, when it gets too tall you can just snap it off, shove it into the substrate and it will grown again
(4) Is a non-aquatic and it will eventually rot. I managed to keep mine alive for a few months, but it really wasn't worth it. It seems a lot of places will sell marsh type plants as aquatics, when really they like wet conditions, but not being fully submersed. Someone once told me, (and it's not a strict rule), that a lot of truly aquatic plants can't support their own weight when out of water, (they will slump over). This seems to work as a reasonable rule of thumb

How have you attached the background? With mine I ended up putting doublesided tape around the edges of the tank, then the other half and I carefully (and it IS a pain in the behind to do!), kept the background tawt, and working from one edge rubbed it onto the tank. It's still by no means perfect but it might help. I've also heard you can get a liquid type thing that you 'squeegie' the background onto the tank with. The only problem with that is now that my tank is sited (next to a wall), and filled, I don't think I could get my arm all the way down the back of it to squeegie

Only other thing I'd say is I'd be tempted to move your glass thermometer down a bit to a more mid-water area, otherwise you risk only seeing the 'warm water' at the top of the tank, but to be honest I'm not sure how much of an issue this will be

I guess now I'm going to have to get a few shots of my tank again to update my thread. Nothing much exciting changed, except added the background - lol
Hopefully getting plants in the next week though, and maybe my fish

Good luck with the cycle, I will be watching the thread

EDIT
As a side note here is a thread I started when I was setting up my 60L tank and needed an ID on some plants. I think the green and white one is the same one, and there is also a link in the thread to another site that gives some more useful classifications about plants, (that I had forgotton about and will now visit! )
Schmill's Plant ID Parade

 

[loubega]

i second that:

plant 4 is non-aquatic, i found out the hard way, i bought it as it looked lovely however my BN munched on it and destroyed most of the leaves, which was strange as he leaves all my other plants alone, the roots then rotted with a few weeks,

i reccomend some anubias plants, i have them in mine and have thrived with very little ferts and medium lighting...i also have amazon swords, java ferns and Cambomba which have rooted very well in sand substrate!

good luck

 

[waterdrop]

Something has changed and I can now see the plant pictures. Unfortunately I agree with the others and believe the rule of thumb is that any plant with both white and green on the leaves is a marsh plant, not an aquatic. Even though it looks really nice now, it will rot and throw off your ammonia amounts. Something fun you might try with it would be to put it in a clear glass jar or vase with some marbles at the bottom or something and place behind or near your tank. Try submerging it 1/4 or 1/3 way in the jar and feeding it some of the same nutrients we've recommended for the tank.. oh and you could put some potting soil under the marbles (it'll probably die eventually but was thinking it might be worth a try.)

The others look ok except the red one may require a lot of light to live. What are your total watts on the bulb/bulbs above the tank?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[stubedoo]

Glad to see the pictures are now visible for everyone... think it just needed a little time.

Update: Plant 4 has now been removed, and consigned to the dustbin. On the back of advice from here, coupled with the fact that is was already dying/rotting and my friend had one who couldn't get it to grow I thought it best to get rid asap. The plants were only cheap, and I don't want anything to start skewing my all important water test results.

We presume you intend to follow RDD's Add & Wait procedure? You don't say 11:45 am or pm. You'll want to establish a regular time frame for when you add ammonia as you only do it at most once, in the 24 hours and only then if the ammonia has dropped all the way to zero. It can take some time for that to happen at first, so you really only need to test for ammonia at firs

Yep I will be following RDD's Add & Wait procedure from now on. 11:45 is am, I'll be using the 24hour clock for times. The time isn't that important at the moment because it has taken a few days to get the ammonia up to 4ppm (I haven't added any today - that was just the time of the test). I'm now waiting for the ammonia to drop to around 1ppm before adding any more.

I won't be re-testing for nitrite or nitrate for a while either, I just wanted to do a one-off to make sure I didn't have any in my natural water or through some other method.

How have you attached the background? With mine I ended up putting doublesided tape around the edges of the tank, then the other half and I carefully (and it IS a pain in the behind to do!), kept the background tawt, and working from one edge rubbed it onto the tank. It's still by no means perfect but it might help. I've also heard you can get a liquid type thing that you 'squeegie' the background onto the tank with. The only problem with that is now that my tank is sited (next to a wall), and filled, I don't think I could get my arm all the way down the back of it to squeegie

Yeh it is currently stuck using double sided tape, but it didn't got to well and moisture is getting between it and the tank. We have bought some Sea View Background Adhesive, so were thinking of using that. Although painting the back is also an option (if we can find the right sort of paint).

Funny you talk about the tank being close to the wall. Last weekend when we tried to attach the background we realised how close we'd built the tank to the wall. Every we time we had to move the pipes or add a heater (or three!) it was a nightmare. So in the end we decided the only way was to empty the tank completely and shuffle the tank away from the wall. It was a pain, but as we hadn't started cycling, I'm really glad we've done it now, as it makes it so much easier to get behind. Useful when you have a leaking filter (another problem we had )

The others look ok except the red one may require a lot of light to live. What are your total watts on the bulb/bulbs above the tank?

Good question... The website tells me they have 2 times 54watts (T5 lighting), the sticker on my light rack says for 2 times 39watts (T5 lighting), couldn't see any markings on the tubes themselves.

 

[Schmill]

It's 2 x 39W T5 tubes.

I spoke to Aqua One regarding this as my tank turned up with 2 x 30W T8's, which were apparently what used to be fitted to the tanks. All the marketing hype and website was then updated, but some retailers still had the older tanks.

When I asked about the 54w T5 Vs 39W T5 I was told it was a mistake, (but one that still hasn't been corrected). A 54W T5 is the same length as the tank, (or slightly longer), and hence would not physically fit into the tank, so instead 39W tubes are fitted.

Incidently I'll be interested to hear how you get on with the SeaView stuff on the background if you use it. I was tempted by it and still might use it if it goes well for you
I just wasn't sure if it was a 'gimmicky' solution, or something actually worthwhile

 

[waterdrop]

So the point of asking the wattage question was to see what "lighting approach" that puts you into with your plants. You are right at about 1 watt/USGallon but that watt of energy is powering a T5 which is more efficient than the older T8 or T12 tubes that the guidelines were developed on, so, still going by the "wording" of the old rule, your light hitting the plants would be the equivalent of somewhere between 1 and 1.5 watts/gallon I'd say. That puts you solidly in the "Low-Light" technique of live planted tank methodology. Its just a good thing to understand if you venture over into the planted tank section to read about raising plants.

Lighting is like the "gas pedal" that drives the entire engine of plant growth. Press hard on the gas and you'll use up a lot of fuel in your tank. The fuel (for plants) is divided into gas and oil. The gas is CO2, because its how a plant makes the sugars that fuel all its busy cells. The oil is necessary to keep those busy cells doing there thing and with plants that's the fertilizer. Fertilizer, just like in our household gardens is divded up into macronutrients (NPK - Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium) and micronutrients (Iron, Sulfer, Calcium, Mn, Mg, Zinc, lots more, etc.) Fertilizers can be dosed directly into the tank by pouring in partial or full capfuls of the bottled products and by depositing hard tablets of fertilizer near the roots of rooted plants. The gas (CO2) is much more difficult, being supplied either by pressurized tanks, DIY yeast contraptions or a "bottled liquid carbon" product like Flourish Excel or EasyCarbo, if I remember correctly. Not saying you have to decide to do anything yet, just want you to "have heard this."

By the way, despite all this "plant talk", its my opinion that a beginner is better off focusing on the fishless cycle itself and then on the fish stocking issues while the cycle is completing and delaying the plant learning until later. No doubt the plant guys would disagree and to some extent it depends on the individual and what their interests are, but that's just what I've seen being a successful division of a lot of new learning when a beginner comes in.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[stubedoo]

Thanks for the info waterdrop. I have to say I haven't heard of the 1watt/USgallon rule before, it certainly wasn't me who mentioned it before, but it is useful to know.

Given I'm a complete beginner I do intend to focus more on the fish, at least initially. The plants I've thrown in so far were very cheap, so it's more a game of trial and error at the moment. Thanks for you explanation on what drives plant growth, learning things like that now is all good for when I get a bit more serious about plants.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, and personally I consider a "medium" number of plants to be a potential help for a fishless cycle. I think they (or the water they carry in from some other tank) are a potential "inoculant" of a few cells here and there of the 2 beneficial bacterial species we want. At least they can't hurt(!) as compared to a "bare" tank.

The other nice thing is that they at least make the tank look better during this long period without fish and provide a little entertainment for the aquarist, moving them around and such.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Stubedoo and to TFF,

Regarding the plants, plant 4 looks non-aquatic to me too, and you did the right thing getting rid of it.

Plant 1 looks like Egeria Densa as Declan says. It's a very easy plant to grow and should grow quickly with no special attention.

Plant 2 isn't Cabomba Caroliniana, but i'm not entirely sure what it is.

Plant 3 is Alternanthera Reineckii. Reddish plants are generally more difficult to grow successfully and aren't really a good choice for beginners. They require lots of light to stay red and healthy and usually require an iron additive.

Don't try to add too much light just now to encourage the plants to grow, as it will inevitably cause an algae outbreak. Instead, provide a few hours of light per day and feed sparingly with a plant fertiliser (lots are available). That should tide you over at least until the cycle is finished.

The thing with plants is that they need 5 things; Light, Carbon, Water, Micro and Macro nutrients. If all of these are available, the plants will thrive. If just one is a scarce resource, algae inevitably takes over. As light is the "Gas Pedal", keep the light to a minimum (say 4 - 6 hrs per day), and the plants will take the carbon they need from the water and the nutrients from the fertiliser. Keeping the light low will ensure that the demand for the other things is also low, and hopefully avoid algae. Light is the most important factor.

Don't forget to get an iron supplement for plant 3.

Aquatic plants are a complex subject (as complex as the fish themselves in my opinion) and shouldn't be rushed into. The 'Planted Tank' section on here offers lots of good info.

Good luck with the cycle. I've been following Schmill's thread and he has been slightly unlucky in some respects with uncontrollable circumstances, but is coming through the other end unscathed.

Cheers

BTT

 

[stubedoo]

Thanks for the advice and extra info BTT. I shall reduce the time my lights are on somewhat, as so far they have been on for approximately 11/12 hours a day. I'll look into the iron supplement for the reddish plants... they don't look too bad at the moment.

Okay so quick update on the ammonia test results (nothing exciting):

Day 4 (11:30am): Ammonia 4.0ppm

No surprises there then! Other things to note, I turned the thermostat on my heater up a few notches yesterday, so water temp is now at 28C

Also I've noticed the bogwood I have in there has started to get a coat of something white and furry on it. Is this a good thing?

Will probably leave it until Monday to do another ammonia test then I'll start testing daily.