What Am I Doing Wrong?

[fish nutter]

Wait i will give you better directions.

Just upload the photo in tinypic then once you are done out of the links which come up you will see a link which is stated as IMG code for forums and message boards. Now below this there is a link so just copy the link. If you cant find it then the link will start with the word "". Now once you find this link then just copy it and paste it here and the add the reply or publish the reply.
Have a look:

[/quote]

But can't you see the image on the post?

 

[sam9953]

Wait i will give you better directions.

Just upload the photo in tinypic then once you are done out of the links which come up you will see a link which is stated as IMG code for forums and message boards. Now below this there is a link so just copy the link. If you cant find it then the link will start with the word "". Now once you find this link then just copy it and paste it here and the add the reply or publish the reply.
Have a look:

[/quote]

But can't you see the image on the post?
[/quote]

Right now i can. LOL. the first time i thing there was a glitch so i could not but now i can. Good you did that anyway i was not aware of that so i also made a tutorial.

 

[fish nutter]

haha no prob , Thanks 4 the help .

 

[sam9953]

haha no prob , Thanks 4 the help .

Your welcome bro

 

[fish nutter]

Ok, you've got 243L/64USG tank and 80 watts of T8 light which puts you at 1.25 watts per US gallon which is an excellent lighting level for what we call "low-light" approach to growing plants. The 15,000K may have been a marine type of light and I'd recommend 6700K as a better color for freshwater but that's not terribly important. The 17" is not too high I don't think, meaning no special worries about the light fanning out too much from being too high above the substrate. So one of your basic worries is out of the way.

Since you've got good light for low-light technique you will not want to use CO2 (kind of advanced anyway for now) and you will want only minimal "nutrient dosing" (which is our fancy term for giving the plants some fertilizer.) The next important think will be sort of the dual thing of figuring out your plant species and/or learning about species that are good for low-light technique (java ferns, java moss, anubias, crypt.wendtii, swords, many more.) Once you get the pic thing figured out you may need a post in the planted section to get the species figured out.

~~waterdrop~~

Ok i have added a pic and posted a new topic in the plants section...

I am already using a fertilizer it is called Flourish Seachem and dosing 5ml per week.

 

[waterdrop]

I put a little comment over in the planted section one to try and egg them on a bit.

The two or 3 types you've got there are not among the easy ones within my ability to identify since I'm still such a novice to plants. Its possible the stem plant on the right is some form of Hygrophila but there's lots of overlap in the look of plants like that.

One limited comment (all my comments are very general and most decent planted tank hobbyists could probably correct them and make them better!) I can make is that 2 of the 3 appear to have a bit of red in the colors and even the middle plant is one of the lighter shades of green. The lighter the green of the plant and especially as you move into red plants, the more light the plant needs, which often means its among the "high-tech" (high light above 2 w/g needed and thus CO2 needed) approach plants.

Plants that we consider "easy" low-light plants are often a much darker green, indicating they have lots of chloroplasts in their leaves to make good use of low-light conditions. They are adjusted to slow growing and have adapted to less CO2 needed.

Anyway the good news could be that they just need some time to settle in and then they will start to flourish. The bad news is that if they really need more light (and you wouldn't be able to provide that without going into the planted hobby and acquiring more expensive equipment to provide the CO2) then they may gradually die off. If you are starting the Seachem Flourish at recommended dose per the bottle instructions then that's good and I would perhaps gradually ease that amount downward a tiny bit after a month or so because their instucs may be for higher growth tanks. I would divide the recommended weekly amount over two or three evenly spaced days, dosed right after feeding the fish (at least that's easy for me.) You may want to consider using Flourish Excel also for carbon but don't go over the recommended amount. Hopefully the planted guys will help you out.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fish nutter]

wow thanks, i can now understand my options clearly...

i can go into the more expensive side of things, i just wanted to know (i might end up going there) what will i need to get?

i can replace my plants with sturdier, faster growing 'low-light' plants (probably the best option) and will getting these help with less algae growth? (i heard on some post / tag that faster growing plants tend to 'fight' algae?)

or i could just stay with the plants i have and when they die off i can get some more.

i have noticed that the one on the front right grows really fast... here is the before and after picture

Before:

After:

these two images is in a period of only 3 weeks

 

[OldMan47]

The stem plants are doing fine, the ones at the right front. The others are struggling with your present light level. I am not certain, I'm not really a plant person, but I think the one on the right side in the back is not a water plant at all. You might want to have the people in the planted tank area help you identify your plants.

 

[fish nutter]

The stem plants are doing fine, the ones at the right front. The others are struggling with your present light level. I am not certain, I'm not really a plant person, but I think the one on the right side in the back is not a water plant at all. You might want to have the people in the planted tank area help you identify your plants.

I have put a post in the plant section already however no one it answering . Not an underwater plant wow i bought these from my LFS, that's absurd that they'd sell me a plant that is not meant to go in the water .

 

[waterdrop]

In the threads here on TFF we actually seem to see -more- non-aquatic plants brought home from the LFS the first few times than we see aquatic plants brought home. Lots and lots of the plants sold are actually little landscaping plants from the same places that grow them for new home developments (ok, I may be adding a little grumpiness into this )

One of the complications of discussing this sort of thing is that a lot of the plants that really are common around water are not fully submerged year-round!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fish nutter]

ok i found out my plants (copy and paste from other post):

The one on the right is rotala rotundifolia, it may lose it's red under low light.
Middle looks like Normampha stricta Thai (spelling)
and the left could be hygrophillia polysperma rosanervig or alternathera reinickii/ or lilacina ( alternathera is hard to grow)

I think i should defiantly take out the ones on the as it looks like they are dying or certainly unhappy, and the one on the back right???

What plants should i replace them with? and should i wait until my tank is fully cycled?

Thanks

 

[waterdrop]

Plants sometimes go through a rough period after being moved to a new tank, regardless! So you might want to give them a chance rather than through them out too soon. Besides, if they decay in a fishless cycling tank you will be measuring the ammonia twice a day anyway and can see that it doesn't get up to 8ppm and mess up your cycle, right?

The decision of whether to have plants during typical beginner fishless cycling is pretty much a personal choice but here's a typical trade-off I like to think of as an example of the considerations: Many beginners are starting tanks as a family undertaking and plants can help the tank be more interesting during the weeks of cycling. At the worst the plants can be tossed out afterwards (its even better if you anticipate this and only get cheap plants!) On the other hand if there are not kids or spouses wanting the tank to look beautiful then it can be really better to fishless cycle without plants, so that they don't get algae all over their leaves. You can even fishless cycle "blacked out" with the tank wrapped in darkness to further reduce the chance of algae. Just be careful that whatever you wrap the tank with doesn't get into the water and soak it up or wick it out or that it doesn't get hot from some piece of equipment or such.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fish nutter]

hi, i appreciate your information however i am doing a fish-in cycle. by the time i even heard about cycling (when i signed up here) i have already had a small tank and upgraded to this tank. By the time i heard about fishless cycling it was too late to take back the fish.

 

[waterdrop]

Whoops! Forgot you were Fish-In! For easier plants let me recommend the pinned topics at the top of the planted tank forum. In particular I think one of the articles by George Farmer has a section in it about "easy" plants.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[fish nutter]

ok, will do... cheers