Hello. I would like to start off by saying thank you to all of you who contribute to these forums. There is tons of good information on here I have been reading, but I feel a little overwhelmed and would very much appreciate some advise specific to my journey. This is my first experience with plants, and it’s not going so well… I haven’t been able to find anything that closely matches what I am trying to do (mainly low tech with dimmed BML XB lights), which maybe there is a reason for that, eek!
This is a new tank (setup for 4 months), so I’ve had the usual Diatom issues, but also a decent amount of green fuzz algae and green spot algae on the glass. I even had some BBA, but I think I picked up some spores from somewhere else. I started off overdosing seachem ferts (Comprehensive, Excel, Iron, Potassium, root tabs) and lights too high (75%). I did a 60% water change and reduced the lights to 50% and really cut back on the ferts and it’s been a week of no algae, but I don’t want to hurt the plants with under-dosing or go back to over-dosing. I’d like to have healthy slow growth without the weekly water changes of EI. I’m shooting for monthly changes with the filtration system I have. Right now the plants don’t look horrible, but they don’t look great either…
So, without further rambling, here are is my setup, then I’ll ask some questions.
Hardware:
Deep blue 75g reef ready tank
Aquarium Life Support Systems P2000 Sump (450gph turnover)
Aquarium Life Support Systems G-Reactor (currently containing carbon and phosguard)
Aquarium Life Support Systems 15” refugium (180gph turnover)
CoralLife TurboTwist 3x UV Steralizer (55gph)
2 Ehiem Jager 200w heaters (1 in overflow, 1 in sump)
Fluorite Substrate with Malaysian Driftwood Decorations
~90 gallons of total water volume with tank, sump, and refugium
Lighting:
Main Tank:
Daylight: 48” BML 10k Planted XB (dimmed to just under 50%)
Moonlight: 48” 460nm T5HO single bulb elevated 3 inches above glass with 2 layers of mesh screen to diffuse light
Refugium:
12” BML Universal Refugium XB (dimmed to just over 50%)
Note: I know XB is overpowered for low tech, but I wanted to have options later for going high tech or a 90g tank)
Lighting Schedule:
Main Tank:
9AM moonlight -> 11am BML @50% -> 7PM moonlight -> 11PM Dark
Refugium:
12AM BML @50% -> 8AM Dark
Water Parameters:
Ph: 7.0
Gh: 11*
Kh: 4*
Temp: 80
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm
Iron: ? (just got a Seachem Kit, hard to tell - but seems very low, maybe .25)
Phosphate: ? (API kit was horrible, got Seachem kit, it’s bad as well - cannot tell)
Potassium: ? (no kit, never tested)
Fish:
1 clown loach (~6”)
1 Roseline Shark (~5”)
1 kribensis (~5”) – I had 2, one just died
2 Swordtails
4 Congo Tetras
1 pink tailed chalceus
1 true Siamese Algae Eater
Feeding:
½ cube Hakari bloodworms or ½ cube of Hakari Brine Shrimp (rotating each night)
Several flakes of community blended Aquadine after the frozen food is eaten
Plants:
2 large Java Ferns (tied to driftwood with Rhizome exposed)
1 Cyperus Helferi (was much bigger than it is now)
1 Hornwort (in refugium)
2 Amazon Sword (in refugium)
Several Anacharis clippings (in refugium)
Some very hurt Red Ludwigia (in refugium)
Questions:
I’m having a hard time controlling Ph of my tap water. My Kh out of the tap is 7, Gh is 12, Ph is about 8.2. I got a water softener pillow from the LFS to help control Ph (really reduce Kh), but my Kh went to 0* (the first drop turned color). After a 60% water change, the Kh was 2*, so I’ve been adding baking soda to raise Kh, then the ph goes up, so I add Acid Buffer, so on and so forth… There has got to be something to break this cycle? What Kh and Ph levels are ok for fish and plants? I feel like I’m messing with the water chemistry too much and I don’t want to lose more fish, any advice would be great!
Does everything seem ok with my lighting and the lighting schedule? I was a little concerned about the 460 moonlight creating a low light condition for algae growth?
Currently I run the refugium lighting opposite the display tank lighting. Will the ferts hang around to be used by the refugium plants or should I switch to running the refugium and display tank lights at the same time since I don’t have a high tech tank for the nightly Ph swings?
How long do Flourish root tabs really last? Package says 3 months, I’m not so sure they do last that long…?
I guess the most important question is this: I spoke with Cara at BML when I was first setting everything up, she suggested dosing ferts at ¼ the amount per the instructions of flourish comprehensive. There was some confusion about comprehensive and another micro nutrient the LFS sold me that we thought was a blend of macro nutrients, so I was double dosing micros at first, well, 2 different micros at 2x per week ¼ dose, if that makes sense. What should I be doing for dosing macros and micros? I’m currently following Cara’s suggestion of ¼ comprehensive 2x a week, and have the lights at 50% for 8 hours. I dose 10ml of excel daily. I’m just not sure what to do about the phosguard the LFS sold me, as well as the flourish potassium and flourish iron I bought. I have seen Tom Barr’s posts on low tech dosing (great stuff!), but many of those chemicals are not quite the same as the flourish line, and I’m really trying to steer clear of 50% water changes weekly for EI. Like I mentioned above, I’m expecting very slow growth, I just want the plants to look healthy as well. I’ve already killed about 200 bucks worth of plants and several fish. I’ve included some pictures. I think most of the holes in the plants are from the swordtails picking at them when I had tons of algae. The swords do look a bit yellow even though it’s hard to see in the pictures. The Cypres Helferi used to be huge, but I think it is making the adjustment to submerged life and has some promising growth in the center. The Red Ludwigia is in critical condition, the Hornwort look like it has white tips, and several pieces of Anacharis have melted. All the plants (except the Java Fern obviously) have root tabs next to them. I’m just confused on how much is enough, but not too much, with my dimmed BML lights that go off of PAR not WPG. ANY help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you so much if you actually made it through reading all of this, welcome to my swirling mess of information overload!
This is a new tank (setup for 4 months), so I’ve had the usual Diatom issues, but also a decent amount of green fuzz algae and green spot algae on the glass. I even had some BBA, but I think I picked up some spores from somewhere else. I started off overdosing seachem ferts (Comprehensive, Excel, Iron, Potassium, root tabs) and lights too high (75%). I did a 60% water change and reduced the lights to 50% and really cut back on the ferts and it’s been a week of no algae, but I don’t want to hurt the plants with under-dosing or go back to over-dosing. I’d like to have healthy slow growth without the weekly water changes of EI. I’m shooting for monthly changes with the filtration system I have. Right now the plants don’t look horrible, but they don’t look great either…
So, without further rambling, here are is my setup, then I’ll ask some questions.
Hardware:
Deep blue 75g reef ready tank
Aquarium Life Support Systems P2000 Sump (450gph turnover)
Aquarium Life Support Systems G-Reactor (currently containing carbon and phosguard)
Aquarium Life Support Systems 15” refugium (180gph turnover)
CoralLife TurboTwist 3x UV Steralizer (55gph)
2 Ehiem Jager 200w heaters (1 in overflow, 1 in sump)
Fluorite Substrate with Malaysian Driftwood Decorations
~90 gallons of total water volume with tank, sump, and refugium
Lighting:
Main Tank:
Daylight: 48” BML 10k Planted XB (dimmed to just under 50%)
Moonlight: 48” 460nm T5HO single bulb elevated 3 inches above glass with 2 layers of mesh screen to diffuse light
Refugium:
12” BML Universal Refugium XB (dimmed to just over 50%)
Note: I know XB is overpowered for low tech, but I wanted to have options later for going high tech or a 90g tank)
Lighting Schedule:
Main Tank:
9AM moonlight -> 11am BML @50% -> 7PM moonlight -> 11PM Dark
Refugium:
12AM BML @50% -> 8AM Dark
Water Parameters:
Ph: 7.0
Gh: 11*
Kh: 4*
Temp: 80
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm
Iron: ? (just got a Seachem Kit, hard to tell - but seems very low, maybe .25)
Phosphate: ? (API kit was horrible, got Seachem kit, it’s bad as well - cannot tell)
Potassium: ? (no kit, never tested)
Fish:
1 clown loach (~6”)
1 Roseline Shark (~5”)
1 kribensis (~5”) – I had 2, one just died
2 Swordtails
4 Congo Tetras
1 pink tailed chalceus
1 true Siamese Algae Eater
Feeding:
½ cube Hakari bloodworms or ½ cube of Hakari Brine Shrimp (rotating each night)
Several flakes of community blended Aquadine after the frozen food is eaten
Plants:
2 large Java Ferns (tied to driftwood with Rhizome exposed)
1 Cyperus Helferi (was much bigger than it is now)
1 Hornwort (in refugium)
2 Amazon Sword (in refugium)
Several Anacharis clippings (in refugium)
Some very hurt Red Ludwigia (in refugium)
Questions:
I’m having a hard time controlling Ph of my tap water. My Kh out of the tap is 7, Gh is 12, Ph is about 8.2. I got a water softener pillow from the LFS to help control Ph (really reduce Kh), but my Kh went to 0* (the first drop turned color). After a 60% water change, the Kh was 2*, so I’ve been adding baking soda to raise Kh, then the ph goes up, so I add Acid Buffer, so on and so forth… There has got to be something to break this cycle? What Kh and Ph levels are ok for fish and plants? I feel like I’m messing with the water chemistry too much and I don’t want to lose more fish, any advice would be great!
Does everything seem ok with my lighting and the lighting schedule? I was a little concerned about the 460 moonlight creating a low light condition for algae growth?
Currently I run the refugium lighting opposite the display tank lighting. Will the ferts hang around to be used by the refugium plants or should I switch to running the refugium and display tank lights at the same time since I don’t have a high tech tank for the nightly Ph swings?
How long do Flourish root tabs really last? Package says 3 months, I’m not so sure they do last that long…?
I guess the most important question is this: I spoke with Cara at BML when I was first setting everything up, she suggested dosing ferts at ¼ the amount per the instructions of flourish comprehensive. There was some confusion about comprehensive and another micro nutrient the LFS sold me that we thought was a blend of macro nutrients, so I was double dosing micros at first, well, 2 different micros at 2x per week ¼ dose, if that makes sense. What should I be doing for dosing macros and micros? I’m currently following Cara’s suggestion of ¼ comprehensive 2x a week, and have the lights at 50% for 8 hours. I dose 10ml of excel daily. I’m just not sure what to do about the phosguard the LFS sold me, as well as the flourish potassium and flourish iron I bought. I have seen Tom Barr’s posts on low tech dosing (great stuff!), but many of those chemicals are not quite the same as the flourish line, and I’m really trying to steer clear of 50% water changes weekly for EI. Like I mentioned above, I’m expecting very slow growth, I just want the plants to look healthy as well. I’ve already killed about 200 bucks worth of plants and several fish. I’ve included some pictures. I think most of the holes in the plants are from the swordtails picking at them when I had tons of algae. The swords do look a bit yellow even though it’s hard to see in the pictures. The Cypres Helferi used to be huge, but I think it is making the adjustment to submerged life and has some promising growth in the center. The Red Ludwigia is in critical condition, the Hornwort look like it has white tips, and several pieces of Anacharis have melted. All the plants (except the Java Fern obviously) have root tabs next to them. I’m just confused on how much is enough, but not too much, with my dimmed BML lights that go off of PAR not WPG. ANY help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you so much if you actually made it through reading all of this, welcome to my swirling mess of information overload!