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New Tank / Question Can you help/pics enclosed

2K views 8 replies 4 participants last post by  Angel12 
#1 ·
I have a new Tank Planted quite heavily.. I have added Plants over a period of 3 weeks substrate has laterite as a layer between 2 layers of fine Gravel.....

From my point of view Im fairly happy things are going on ok seeing as this is the first planted Tank I have set up (thanks to this fantastic board I have gained so much information and help)...

However just a couple of points I would like to ask your advice/input on

having just measured my Ammonia Nitrite and Nitrate levels last night .. the tank is stocked lightly with 10 Cardinal tetras... I got a strange reading

Ammonia 0 nitite 0.25 and Nitrate 0 ppm ... 90% of the plants seem to be doing fine and in some cases are growing fantasticaly.. others are showing a few leavs with the Yellow eye or tip ... these are just leaves not the whole plant....

I am at the moment just adding a liquid fertilizer and have water changed only 2 times each week ....mainly cause I wanted the tank to settle ......


Question I need answered is How do you Judge if things are going well If you planted with quatily plants most have come from Tropica.dk how long would it be before you started to see problems occur in your setup ..... One of the plants which i dont know the name of has grown over 2.5" in the 3 weeks and is now just under the surface ..what I mean is many people take photos of there setup only after x amount of time and everything looks great .. But when do the potential problems come along is there a time frame for ex say after 4 weeks any of the plants original nutirients are used up and then they start to rely on what they can sustain from the tank....

At the moment the only modifications I have made to the tank besides adding the liquid fert is to put reflectors on the Flourescent tubes 2x 30 w
wich has made a bit of diff in that the light is being reflc straight down on to the plants

to my eyes it looks Fantastic (but im no expert) but I just want to reasure myself that I have got over the initail difficulties because if I have i wil be well chuffed :D :D :D

what about Malaysian Trumpets do u think these would be of benefit to my Tank ... its going be a discus tank in the future ... but i dont want to rush things until Im cofident that things are on the right line

if anyone could provide some advice input I would be extremly gratefull..


:)

One last thing There is no sign of algea and I feed the fish once a day giving them just enough for them to eat is so very little sinks to the bottom it is truely a wonderfull sight seeing the shoal of cardinal swimming along the tank .. they have a game where they go the the swim to the output of the filter and freefall and then swimback ..

Pic added can u tell me what might be the cause
 
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#2 ·
Well a bit more info on your tank would help. How large is the tank? We know how much light you have over it. I find it interesting that you have a nitrite reading. Normally even with a new heavily planted tank one will not see any ammonia or nitrite readings. Seeing no nitrate doesn't surprise me as the plants are eating it up. 2.5" of growth in 3 weeks for a stem plant is not surprising. I have some that grow more than 6" a week. What kind of liquid fertilizer are you using? How much are you adding?

The biggest problem is by the time you see problems you are well into the problems. The plants will utilize their stored nutrients before they start showing signs of a problem. Then all of a sudden you are going to have lots of problems.

Also do you have any kind of CO2 injection?
 
#3 ·
ok sorry here is more information Light is 2 w per galll as it is a 40 Gallon tank but minus sub gives 2 w per galllon
The liquid addative is Ferropol link is here
http://www.jbl.de/index_uk.html
there is no co2 but the readings are as above there is Nitrite of 02.5 have also just done the nitrate again and it reads 1.5 ppm

as for having lots of problems can someone explain how i identify and remove possible issues .....
:D
I also add the Ferropol according to the insturctions and put in the reccomended doseage
 
#4 ·
Question I need answered is How do you Judge if things are going well
It appears your tank may be still cycling somewhat with those readings and like Rex says it is kinda strange to see if it is heavily planted. Your bio-load is very low for that size tank which makes it even stranger.
As far as the leaves go, the coloring is usually a difficiency of some sorts like iron,carbon,pottassium etc.
It also depends on what type of plants you are talking about... some are root feeders and others draw ferts off the water column.
Are all your plants showing these signs or just one variety or two?
 
#5 ·
yeah thats what i thought kind of strange isnt it that just 2 plants are showing these small eyes nothing major but Ijust want to pre empt any problems or to reslove any issues that may arise before they come all at once ...
like people have mentioned everything looks fine but it is not till later that you find that out that problems have been there all along .. as a matter of intrest what should the nitrite reading be ? I mean I know it should be 0 but what gets me is there is 0 amonia the plants are taking that and very little nitrate again prob the plants but where is the nitrite coming from ...

:D
 
#6 ·
Plants cannot just use up nutrients once their leaves hit the water... It takes at least several days for plants to settle in and really start using nutrients. My guess is that your plants missed some ammonia early on and some bacteria got the chance to process it into nitrite. Now, you will just have to wait for bacteria to colonize and process the nitrite, which should be happening soon. As long as your cardinals are doing fine, I wouldn't be worrying. Maybe start a plan for CO2 too.

-Tim
 
#7 ·
Thanks for the replies so far however u have me a bit confused is it advisable with such low light levels to start to use co2 I have read the article about the home made yeast version of a co2 system ...
but surely If i start to inject co2 whilst i appreciate it is a fundamental processing ingrediant for Plants it will cause more potential problems down the line ?

also the Kh and Gh levles of my water are very soft Kh is 1 Gh is 3 I could prop this up but what effect with the intro of co2 have on the ph value of my tank as mentioned above it is 40 Gall
the current value is 7.2 and this is direct from the tap super water for keeping Discus there is no nitrate in the tap water either as I checked this before I set up the Tank

again advice would be appreciated .. also what form of CO2 Reactor should I consider buying ... note im in the UK

:D
 
#8 ·
I just read one of your previous posts and you said you have 2 wpg minus substrate, hmmm. How much light (in watts, and what kind) do you have? This would help to give us more of an "exact" value if you will about how much light the tank is getting.

Also, I must have been confused, but it is not essential to do any CO2 yet at all since you only have 2 wpg, which is a good balance point it seems if you aren't injecting any CO2.

If you don't plan on increasing the light (which is perfectly fine, since discus prefer lower light), then I wouldn't advise adding a CO2, but adding something like Flourish Excel might work, though I have never tried it myself.

That water you have is SOOOO nice! Don't worry at all, it is much easier to raise the GH/KH than it is to lower it, but if you aren't going to inject CO2, then I would not reccomend changing them, as you would only need to change them in order to taper off the effects of the CO2. Hope this helps!

Tim
 
#9 ·
Ok ive just put in image of a pic i took last night in my post the very first post .
I have a 40 Gallon tank and it is as abvoe powered by 2 x 30 w flourescent tubes it has reflectors fitted ...
I use as mentioned ferropol addative and have just done my tests again this morning and ammonia is 0 nitrite is 0 nitrate is 0 ppm
water is 7.2 ph
the thing I wanted to know is how if anything i can resolve the yellowing I realise some plants get nutrients though the water coloumn and some through substrate ... do you think that putting an iron tablet in the substrate next to the affected plant well there are 2 like this would help

as for Co2 what would equiipment would you recommend .. like i mentioned im VERY new to this and dont want to bite of more than I can chew .. also the nitrate is being used up allmost straight away do u think the addition of a couple more fish would help to increse the bio load ....

I know so many questions but I want to do this right to the best of my abitily before I Put my most valuable fish in the tank..

:D
 
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