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Hello all, I'm not new to fish keeping but fairly new to true planted tanks, ie going beyond being able to keep Anacharis and Amazon swords alive in my fish tanks.
I have a 20 gal that's been fully set up for almost 1 month:
-Light is about 40 PAR at the substrate level (should be medium light from what I've read)
-No CO2 setup yet - planning on getting that in a week or so
-Temp: 76 heated
-Nitrate: <10
-Nitrite: 0
-Chlorine: 0
-GH: 150
-KH: 200
-pH: 7.8
My water is from a limestone aquifer so it's pretty hard stuff, the tap water is even worse than this - I use a 10 stage countertop filter that at least gets some of the minerals out!
The substrate is EcoComplete, with Osmocote Plus DIY root tabs.
Plants: Lilaeopsis Mauritius, Anacharis, Cryptocoryne parva, Cryptocoryne Wendtii, and an Amazon Sword
Only other life forms in the tank besides the plants are some red/brown algae which I always manage to get with new tanks-nothing extreme, and a lone baby pond snail that probably hitched a ride on one of the plants.
I do small weekly water changes of 5-10% and plan to increase the water change amount when I add fish. I use Prime as my water treatment.
All of the plants are growing well (visible growth every day but not much in the way of pearling) especially considering no CO2, including the Lilaeopsis with about 1 new runner-leaf per clump every day, but some of the Lileaopsis' older leaves are yellowing and turning brown starting at the tip, and a few of them continue yellowing until the leaf dies. The clumps don't seem to be thinning out though like they might be replaced by new growth...is this normal for the lilaeopsis life cycle or am I missing something like the CO2 or fertilizer in the water column?
Thanks in advance for any help/opinions tossed my way
I have a 20 gal that's been fully set up for almost 1 month:
-Light is about 40 PAR at the substrate level (should be medium light from what I've read)
-No CO2 setup yet - planning on getting that in a week or so
-Temp: 76 heated
-Nitrate: <10
-Nitrite: 0
-Chlorine: 0
-GH: 150
-KH: 200
-pH: 7.8
My water is from a limestone aquifer so it's pretty hard stuff, the tap water is even worse than this - I use a 10 stage countertop filter that at least gets some of the minerals out!
The substrate is EcoComplete, with Osmocote Plus DIY root tabs.
Plants: Lilaeopsis Mauritius, Anacharis, Cryptocoryne parva, Cryptocoryne Wendtii, and an Amazon Sword
Only other life forms in the tank besides the plants are some red/brown algae which I always manage to get with new tanks-nothing extreme, and a lone baby pond snail that probably hitched a ride on one of the plants.
I do small weekly water changes of 5-10% and plan to increase the water change amount when I add fish. I use Prime as my water treatment.
All of the plants are growing well (visible growth every day but not much in the way of pearling) especially considering no CO2, including the Lilaeopsis with about 1 new runner-leaf per clump every day, but some of the Lileaopsis' older leaves are yellowing and turning brown starting at the tip, and a few of them continue yellowing until the leaf dies. The clumps don't seem to be thinning out though like they might be replaced by new growth...is this normal for the lilaeopsis life cycle or am I missing something like the CO2 or fertilizer in the water column?
Thanks in advance for any help/opinions tossed my way
