I'm getting back into the hobby after 30+ years, having been inspired by seeing planted tanks online. I got a 30 gallon long tank (wishing in retrospect that I got a better quality, rimless tank) which I set up the ADA way (slightly modified...in that I didn't using all the substrate additives). The substrate is Aquasoil, and I planted heavily from day one. The "trees" are manzanita driftwood: I'm using Anubias and Water Sprite to imitate the foliage, though that may change.
I'm using pressurized CO2 at about 1.5 bubbles per second over eight hours (1-9pm), which is the amount of time the lights are on (2 to 10pm). The LED TrueLumen Pro strip has a PAR rating of about 52 at the substrate level. I'm running an Eheim 2215, which for 3 weeks had only mech and a ton of activated carbon (per a great planted tank diary by Frank Wazeter, which made a lot of sense to me); then I replaced the carbon with the standard Substrat Pro biomedia. I did the standard recommended water changes for Aquasoil -- 85-90% daily for the first week, every other day for the second week, and every third day the third week. Now I'm doing 50% water changes once a week. It was a lot of water changing (whew!), but the Aquasoil was putting out ammonia for a while, which was good because it fed the cycle. Nitrates are at 5-10ppm, but then again so is my tap water (according to the test kit). The pH is staying between 6.6 and 7, and the Hydor inline heater is keeping things at 75.5 to 76 degrees. KH and GH have remained consistently 3 and 7 respectively.
I've been fertilizing since day 4 with ADA ferts, and used a little Stability with each water change. The plants have been doing pretty well, I think. The Water Sprite, the Mayaca, and the Proserpinaca palustris put out lots of new growth. The Crypt wendtii has doubled in size. (I'm actually thinking it was a wrong choice and out of scale for this tank.) The Hydrocotyle Japan and the Christmas moss are spreading nicely. The Anubias nana and coffeefolia have given me several new leaves. The other species are holding their own without much increase - the Staurogyne repens, the Monte Carlo, the Ranunculus - which, interestingly, were the tissue culture plants I used. Unfortunately, my iPad died, and along with it I lost a lot of early pics, so most of these photos are from the last 2 weeks. The Fissidens that was on the "fallen log" never took, and the Proserpinaca all died when I tried to spread it through cuttings.
I have had small snails this whole time: hitchhikers on the plants I assume. I've been picking them out but they are persistent: I guess they can survive all that ammonia and nitrites. And I consider myself extremely lucky in that I have had NO algae! I'm taking that as a sign of a good balance.
After I replaced the charcoal with the biomedia, and the Aquasoil stopped leeching ammonia, I added ammonia to 1ppm daily, had a week-long nitrite spike, then had readings of zero each day after the ammonia addition. At 6 weeks, I considered the tank cycled and got some animals! 6 Pygmy Corydoras, 7 Ember Tetras, 8 very small Neocaridina shrimp (4 blue and 4 red), and 3 Guppies. Maybe that was too much too soon, in that I lost 2 of the Corys and 3 of the Ember Tetras. No, I don't have a quarantine tank. I waited a week a got some more Embers, so that there are now 9. All fauna now seem happy and healthy, but I'm going to wait a while before adding anything else. AqAdvisor says I am only 36% stocked though. So that's where things stand after 8 weeks.
Let me know what you think!
I'm using pressurized CO2 at about 1.5 bubbles per second over eight hours (1-9pm), which is the amount of time the lights are on (2 to 10pm). The LED TrueLumen Pro strip has a PAR rating of about 52 at the substrate level. I'm running an Eheim 2215, which for 3 weeks had only mech and a ton of activated carbon (per a great planted tank diary by Frank Wazeter, which made a lot of sense to me); then I replaced the carbon with the standard Substrat Pro biomedia. I did the standard recommended water changes for Aquasoil -- 85-90% daily for the first week, every other day for the second week, and every third day the third week. Now I'm doing 50% water changes once a week. It was a lot of water changing (whew!), but the Aquasoil was putting out ammonia for a while, which was good because it fed the cycle. Nitrates are at 5-10ppm, but then again so is my tap water (according to the test kit). The pH is staying between 6.6 and 7, and the Hydor inline heater is keeping things at 75.5 to 76 degrees. KH and GH have remained consistently 3 and 7 respectively.
I've been fertilizing since day 4 with ADA ferts, and used a little Stability with each water change. The plants have been doing pretty well, I think. The Water Sprite, the Mayaca, and the Proserpinaca palustris put out lots of new growth. The Crypt wendtii has doubled in size. (I'm actually thinking it was a wrong choice and out of scale for this tank.) The Hydrocotyle Japan and the Christmas moss are spreading nicely. The Anubias nana and coffeefolia have given me several new leaves. The other species are holding their own without much increase - the Staurogyne repens, the Monte Carlo, the Ranunculus - which, interestingly, were the tissue culture plants I used. Unfortunately, my iPad died, and along with it I lost a lot of early pics, so most of these photos are from the last 2 weeks. The Fissidens that was on the "fallen log" never took, and the Proserpinaca all died when I tried to spread it through cuttings.
I have had small snails this whole time: hitchhikers on the plants I assume. I've been picking them out but they are persistent: I guess they can survive all that ammonia and nitrites. And I consider myself extremely lucky in that I have had NO algae! I'm taking that as a sign of a good balance.
After I replaced the charcoal with the biomedia, and the Aquasoil stopped leeching ammonia, I added ammonia to 1ppm daily, had a week-long nitrite spike, then had readings of zero each day after the ammonia addition. At 6 weeks, I considered the tank cycled and got some animals! 6 Pygmy Corydoras, 7 Ember Tetras, 8 very small Neocaridina shrimp (4 blue and 4 red), and 3 Guppies. Maybe that was too much too soon, in that I lost 2 of the Corys and 3 of the Ember Tetras. No, I don't have a quarantine tank. I waited a week a got some more Embers, so that there are now 9. All fauna now seem happy and healthy, but I'm going to wait a while before adding anything else. AqAdvisor says I am only 36% stocked though. So that's where things stand after 8 weeks.
Let me know what you think!