# A place for Corydoras



## swackett (4 May 2017)

Hi,

After a few years away, we thought we should start anew tank to replace our existing Roma 125 tank which has a nice long scratch along the front.  After a trip to our local Maidenhead Aquatics shop we returned with a new Roma 125 LED.

Opened the box on Sunday to find Hagen had changed the brace meaning it would be much harder to fit the external pipework, out came the trusty hacksaw!!  Then constructed the bog wood with help of a drill and some cable ties ready for the big swap out.

Monday afternoon we started the operation, removed all plants and fish from existing (always takes longer than you think) and put new tank in position.  Time for a cup of tea.   Next put in the Tropica Substrate topped with smooth gravel and a carefully placed piece of bog wood.  By 6pm the fish were back in, all the Crypts, Anubias and Java fern replaced, with Java fern bunched ready for sale as its not going to feature so heavily in this setup.

Once the Java fern has gone it will show up the longer piece of wood running out towards the right at the back.


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## swackett (4 May 2017)

Plants in the aquarium are:-

Cryptocoryne (various)
Echinodorus (rubra and ozelot)
Narrow leaf Java fern
Anubias (various)
Alternanthera cardinalis

Lighting now set to 6 hour period as plants need to establish.  Should I be dosing any ferts at this stage?


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## dw1305 (4 May 2017)

Hi all, 





swackett said:


> Next put in the Tropica Substrate topped with smooth gravel and a carefully placed piece of bog wood.


Could you replace a patch of the gravel with finer sand?

cheers Darrel


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## swackett (4 May 2017)

I guess so, you mean just to the right of the middle?


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## dw1305 (4 May 2017)

Hi all, 





swackett said:


> you mean just to the right of the middle?


Where you like. 

It wasn't for aesthetic reasons, it was just that _Corydoras _like to sift sand. 

Have a look at Ian Fuller's ("Coryman") comments <"PlanetCatfish: pygmy cory tank substrate">. 

cheers Darrel


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## swackett (4 May 2017)

We did have sandy area in our old setup (about than 10mm) over gravel.  We found they lost their barbels and did not last very long, although that may have been because the gravel we had then may have been coarse rather than smooth.

A number of years ago we had Bandit Corys in a small Jewel Rekord 70l tank with gravel substarte, they loved in there so much they reproduced a number of times and we had small bandits to try and avoid when siphoning.


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## swackett (4 May 2017)

Can anyone recommend what if any ferts I should be dosing at this stage as I done want algae to appear.


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## swackett (5 May 2017)

After losing a number of fish and shrimp during the tank swap due to the shock of the move, I think its time to repopulate this weekend so current thinking is to start with the following 

12 x Lemon tetras
6 x Amano shrimp to make a total of 9

Then the follow weekend 
4 x Harlequins to make a total of 10
8 x Bandit Corys

Any thoughts or suggestions welcome?


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## swackett (6 May 2017)

Just picked up some Vallis for the rear of the tank and 12 lemon tetras and 6 Amano shrimp


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## AverageWhiteBloke (10 May 2017)

Plants are starting to fill out nicely, looking good. Regarding your light from your other post looks like the room is still naturally lit and the lights do look quite bright. 

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## swackett (10 May 2017)

Nine days in and so I've added a few pictures showing added Lemons, the vallis in the back right corner (small at the moment).  Noticed some GSA on 2 Anubias leaves in the middle of the tank so will monitor that, leaves have been removed.


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## Dominik_K (10 May 2017)

Is it just me or can't we see the new images?


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## swackett (10 May 2017)

oh, I'll check, what do you see the broken image icon?

Just updated the sharing details on the images, can you see them now?


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## Dominik_K (10 May 2017)

There you are 

Sometimes I am sad not to live in the UK. I would really love to by those bushes of Javafern for my new tank


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## swackett (12 May 2017)

Noticed some pin holes in Alternanthera cardinalis, so upped co2 to 1 bpm, also added Hygophila Rosae Asutralis. Also will be buying an inline diffuser to replace in tank diffuser.


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## Vandal Gardener (12 May 2017)

I call foul Swackett,

Where's the corydora porn   tank looks cracking 

Just curious is the Hygophila Rosae Asutralis the same as Hygophila Polysperma Rosanervig?

All the best


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## swackett (12 May 2017)

Vandal Gardener said:


> I call foul Swackett,
> 
> Where's the corydora porn   tank looks cracking
> 
> ...



Thanks   Waiting for my local fish shop to get Bandit Corys, hopefully they will get them next week.

Maybe the same, the link to the plant is https://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/hy...55_447&zenid=1925b16bca946f492d6f27f61fc761c6  It looks like it's taller.


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## Vandal Gardener (12 May 2017)

I had a quick glance as hadn't heard of it before, but they look very similar, I'm wondering if the one you mentioned stays green or whether they all start turning pink under the right light.  I've nabbed a couple of stems from a mates tank of what looks same as both of types-so not sure what it is, time will tell.

Just had a look at bandit corys - they're gorgeous - hope you get them this week.  I've got some bronze in the trigon and they're hilarious carpet wrecking wee so-an-so's - they keep chucking out eggs but as yet no fry - to be honest even  if they did produce fry I think they'd be hoovered up by the rest of the inhabitants.

Come on the cory porn 

Cheers


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## swackett (12 May 2017)

We had Bandit Corys a number of years ago, they must of been happy as they had lots of offspring, we even found a few in the filter when we cleaned the filter (they were alive)


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## swackett (12 May 2017)

Thinking of adding more plants to the right hand side, any suggestions (i'll take a picture tonight without the java fern in the way)?

I have the Echinodorus rubra just in front the inlet, is the best place for it?


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## swackett (14 May 2017)

Yesterday added JBL inline diffuser in a horizontal position as this worked with two lengths of old filter pipe, meaning I did not need to cut the existing pipe (just in case I want to remove the inline diffuser).

Took the Java fern to my local Maidenhead aquatics for some credit and whilst I was there picked up a pot of Lobelia Cardinalis Dwarf.  This was planted in the front right side.

As you can now see the original idea of an "opening" for the corys can now be seen, I think I need some small plants to put in front of the crypts around the "opening" - Any suggestions??


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## swackett (18 May 2017)

So in a effort to get the co2 under control I borrowed a digital ph meter from a friend.  First days use its been really helpful.  Before co2 started read 7.04, 2.5 hours after co2 started read 7.2, so slightly adjusted, 3.5 hours later read 6.97 when co2 stopped.

Tomorrow want to try and see if co2 is consistent throughout the lighting period. Once that is sorted will then determine time to start co2. 

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## Dominik_K (19 May 2017)

swackett said:


> As you can now see the original idea of an "opening" for the corys can now be seen, I think I need some small plants to put in front of the crypts around the "opening" - Any suggestions??



Hi,

I think so too. That would really help to transition. Some smaller crypts (i.e parva) would work nice, since I assume you to be on the low tech side of things. Also some Anubias, tied on pretty small rocks in a way making the rocks invisible, would look good I guess 

Further I would place some stems in the background of the left side. That would fill the gap behind the root I think.


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## swackett (19 May 2017)

Dominik_K said:


> Hi,
> 
> I think so too. That would really help to transition. Some smaller crypts (i.e parva) would work nice, since I assume you to be on the low tech side of things. Also some Anubias, tied on pretty small rocks in a way making the rocks invisible, would look good I guess
> 
> Further I would place some stems in the background of the left side. That would fill the gap behind the root I think.


Well funny you should day that as 2 x pots of Hygrophila compact and Staurogyne repens arrived yesterday.  Pots placed in tank for now ready for Saturday.

Thinking these can go around the back with maybe a clump on the left?

Also thinking of removing the brown cryptocoryne, any suggestions for replacements ?




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## swackett (19 May 2017)

Alternanthera cardinalis cut back yesterday and tops replanted, leaves with holes in removed.  Reading a bit more on this plant it seems fairly common for it to get holes in its leaves.

PH read 7.4 this morning, hoping to get 6.8 (which I believe is the sweet spot) when the lights come on and to maintain this level until lights out.

Tested PO4 yesterday and it read 0.25 which to me seems a little low (I know you can't reply on these test kits 100%)

Water KH is 7 and GH is 11 (which tallies with water company averages)


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## swackett (22 May 2017)

Planted Hygrophila Compacta and Staurogyne repens at the weekend.


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## swackett (23 May 2017)

Ringing around local fish shops, finding it hard to find some Bandit Corys   Damn as this scape is for Cory's.. oh well patience.


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## swackett (29 May 2017)

swackett said:


> Ringing around local fish shops, finding it hard to find some Bandit Corys   Damn as this scape is for Cory's.. oh well patience.


A quick update on the goings on in the coryless tank.  Having a few problems with the Staurogyne repens, they lost all their lower leaves (just floated) off. The Alternanthera Cardinalis is still getting holes in its leaves.

Now dosing 2.4ml Tropica specialiseddaily + 1.8 ppm of po4 and 0.76 of k.









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## AverageWhiteBloke (1 Jun 2017)

What's your current doing regime these days mate? Been looking at your other thread regarding deficiency but thought I'd post in here to keep track and all information in one place. Pale new growth would suggest iron, your water is quite hard but if you're using tropica I think they use a better chelator. Noticed further up you're adding extra Po4 and K but no mention of nitrogen. Lack of nitrogen would give pale new growth and yellowing of old leaves which seems to be apparent in the sword leaf and the upper most leaf in pic 2, the one with the brown hole in it. 

If I was to hazard a guess I would start adding a bit more N and see how you get on with that. Tropica does have N but not massive amounts so if iron and N were in your cross hairs maybe up the Tropica dosing another squirt for a while. I would also up the co2 a touch, if the S.Repens are at gravel level are dissolving you could do with getting a bit more co2 down there as well.


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## swackett (1 Jun 2017)

well...  2.4 ml (2 squirts) of Tropia Specialised daily, and just started 1.2ml (1 squirt) of tropica premium daily.  Co2 is now at ph6.8 (water is 8.2 after 24h) when lights on (lime green in drop checker)

We dose the dry 3 times a week.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (1 Jun 2017)

and the Nitrogen?


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## swackett (1 Jun 2017)

some more specifics about the dry ferts...

Used this http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm to get 1.84ppm Phosphate and 0.76ppm of potassium.  To get that I put 2 teaspoons of KH2PO4 in 500ml water and am dosing 10ml 3 x a week.


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## swackett (1 Jun 2017)

AverageWhiteBloke said:


> and the Nitrogen?



None on top of what is in the Tropica solution.  Although when last tested it was between 5ppm and 10ppm.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (1 Jun 2017)

I'm still thinking Nitrogen buddy. The nitrogen in Tropica specialised is relatively low compared to other dosing methods. I tend to think of Tropica products as ones you could use in a lowish light non co2 injected setup where most of the nitrogen comes from the fish waste unless you want to dose large amounts and have deep pockets. the dose you're currently adding is at the bottom end of what Tropica recommend for a tank of your size and advise upping this dose in heavily planted tanks until you find the correct absorption rates.

Right now your tank appears to be getting quite a decent bio-load of plants with some hungry fast feeders. I think you may have been getting away with it up to now with the plant soil but the nitrogen is depleting as the plants grow in. If you have any kno3 about try maybe a half teaspoon of that per week and see if your situation improves or double your tropica spec dosing for a few weeks.

Out of all the nutrients in the tank, although they all need to be balanced the plants generally consume mostly nitrogen and potassium hence EI dosing would recommend between 20/30ppm weekly nitrogen and 15/20ppm potassium.  Po4 only at 3ppm and iron 1ppm so as you can see N&K are the ones plants need a fair bit of. Looking on Rotala if you dosed 35.7 m*l *of Tropica spec you would be adding 3.83ppm of Nitrogen.

Taking all that into account plus the plant deficiency has the traits of nitrogen deficiency that's the direction I would be heading in I think.

Just to add po4 is quite low in potassium as well where as quite high in KNO3 so a dose of kno3 could sort two issues if that's the case.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (1 Jun 2017)

Should probably explain the Rotala bit, you would need to dose more than a standard dose of Tropica Spec to get the bottom end of Iron requirement for E.I but as you dose premium as well you are probably covered for iron. But even at that rate you are still low on nitrogen and the premium doesn't contain any. Essentially other than that little bit in the specialised your plants are relying on fish waste and whetever left in the soil.


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## swackett (1 Jun 2017)

AverageWhiteBloke said:


> I'm still thinking Nitrogen buddy. The nitrogen in Tropica specialised is relatively low compared to other dosing methods. I tend to think of Tropica products as ones you could use in a lowish light non co2 injected setup where most of the nitrogen comes from the fish waste unless you want to dose large amounts and have deep pockets. the dose you're currently adding is at the bottom end of what Tropica recommend for a tank of your size and advise upping this dose in heavily planted tanks until you find the correct absorption rates.
> 
> Right now your tank appears to be getting quite a decent bio-load of plants with some hungry fast feeders. I think you may have been getting away with it up to now with the plant soil but the nitrogen is depleting as the plants grow in. If you have any kno3 about try maybe a half teaspoon of that per week and see if your situation improves or double your tropica spec dosing for a few weeks.
> 
> ...



Brilliant analysis and very informative reply, thanks very much.  I do have kno3, so 1/2 TSP a week would be what ppm a week as I'm thinking I could add it to the kh2po4 solution which I dose 30ml a week?


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## swackett (1 Jun 2017)

So if I put in 6 TSP into 500ml, each dose of 10ml will give me 4.41ppm.  So over the week id get 13.23ppm as I'm dosing 3x a week, is that a good starting place?


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## AverageWhiteBloke (1 Jun 2017)

I always refer back to James Planted Tank Calculator for a quick reference. you would need to decide which way you are thinking about going about this obviously the spoon route is simplest. Looking on there a quarter tspoon of kno3 added once to a 125 ltr tank would raise your nitrogen levels by 7.36ppm and a half would be 14.71 ppm. If you want to mix in your bottle you would need to start with a fresh bottle so you know how much volume you have to start with so I would add dry until you use up your existing bottle. You need to take into account you already have some nitrogen in there so maybe add the quarter spoon twice a week first dose after your water change and see how you get on allowing a few week for the plants to soak some up and build up a store. You could then use the calculator and mix some in with your bottle if you feel that the situation has improved.

I'm no expert btw so I could be wrong here but if all the signs are there in the plants and what we know about how you're currently dosing points to possible nitrogen shortage then you have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain from adding the KNO3. Once we know it isn't the nitrogen we can look at what else maybe a miss but you seem to be adding all the others in enough quantities to rule them out for now anyway. Process of elimination.

That's why E.I dosing with dry salts is such a popular way of growing plants, basically all of the above ferts can be ruled out (sort of) as they are being added in quantities that it is highly unlikely with whatever lighting you have that the plants will need any more than this so people can concentrate on flow and co2.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (1 Jun 2017)

swackett said:


> So if I put in 6 TSP into 500ml, each dose of 10ml will give me 4.41ppm. So over the week id get 13.23ppm as I'm dosing 3x a week, is that a good starting place?



Something like that yeah, just remember though if you add water to your existing bottle and you've used some it will water down whatever ferts are already in there so fresh bottle or dry.


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## swackett (1 Jun 2017)

AverageWhiteBloke said:


> Something like that yeah, just remember though if you add water to your existing bottle and you've used some it will water down whatever ferts are already in there so fresh bottle or dry.


We have only used and 30ml of it, so I think I'll just add to that and see how I get on.  To start with this week I'll add 1/2 a TSP now and upon water change on Sunday start using the bottle.

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## swackett (4 Jun 2017)

I'm still wondering if the cause is a lack of iron.  I've been doing some research and glass like new leaves with green/yellow tips seems to be a sign of iron deficiency.  My Hygrophila has glass like new leaves with green tips.




 

Also the Staurengen Repens is going from bad to worse, attached it the latest photo showing it disintegrating before my eyes.


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## swackett (4 Jun 2017)

AverageWhiteBloke said:


> The dose you're currently adding is at the bottom end of what Tropica recommend for a tank of your size and advise upping this dose in heavily planted tanks until you find the correct absorption rates.



Where did you find this advice ?  When I look for dosing guidelines all I find is what it basically says on the bottle, so for a 100L tank, it would be 10 pumps a week.  We are dosing 14 pumps of Specialised and 7 pumps of Premium a week.

Ta.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (4 Jun 2017)

Hello Pal, I'm not saying it isn't iron, I'm not that experienced at spotting deficiency, I actually have some myself at the minute in my tank which also looks like iron def but one thing I know it probably isn't is nitrogen. My reasoning is I dose E.I levels of nitrate and I have floating plants that are thriving. Floating plants tend to show up first any nitrate issues because they are closest to the light, are in a co2 rich top layer and love consuming nitrogen. That's my  tank though so back to yours.

The figures I used are from rotala which I linked further up. Put your tank size in and what fertiliser you are using and it outputs the totals of each nutrient. I've highlighted nitrogen and dose. As you can see if you added 35.7ml of Trop Spec which rotala recommends to get your iron level right which is also the bottomn end of the scale when it comes to ei levels of Iron (see image 2) then you would be adding 3.83ppm of nitrate.  Knowing your tank, how much plants and co2 with your lighting this is quite low I would have said. EI values range from about 20/30ppm of nitrate.

You dose 14 pumps or about 17ml of tropica spec, which is half of that, forget the premium it has no nitrate in. The premium will up your iron though. So considering tropica uses a good chelator for iron in your harder water chances are you might be low on iron but almost certainly v low on nitrogen. I've followed a few threads on people who have used Tropica only products and the general census of opinion on them is that they had to massively increase the dosages when combined with high lighting to the point it wasn't financially viable.

These are just my opinions though, so please anyone with more experience jump in. The thing is you have some kno3 so it doesn't do any harm IMO to give a little a try. Failing that yes, iron could be in the frame but my gut feeling is it would be suspect number 2.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (4 Jun 2017)

Sorry forgot to add, if you read the bottom of the image it says "dose these levels 2-4 times a week"  you’re a dosing this weekly so in effect you would need to at least triple the amount of ferts you are using. Obviously there's nothing to say that your tank can't get by with such levels of nitrogen but I doubt it unless it is very heavily stocked with fish in which case you would have to make some big water changes to combat all the rest of the crap from the fish and if there's no nitrogen in your tap water you would still find yourself depleted pretty quick.

I find iron def causes deformed leaves and bad colouring rather than plants dissolving.


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## swackett (4 Jun 2017)

AverageWhiteBloke said:


> Sorry forgot to add, if you read the bottom of the image it says "dose these levels 2-4 times a week"  you’re a dosing this weekly so in effect you would need to at least triple the amount of ferts you are using. Obviously there's nothing to say that your tank can't get by with such levels of nitrogen but I doubt it unless it is very heavily stocked with fish in which case you would have to make some big water changes to combat all the rest of the crap from the fish and if there's no nitrogen in your tap water you would still find yourself depleted pretty quick.
> 
> I find iron def causes deformed leaves and bad colouring rather than plants dissolving.



I noticed some BBA on a crypt leaf towards the middle of the tank, which I think is sign of low / fluctuating Co2, so I'll go back to make sure that is correct as well.

I've added KN03 and MgS04 to our dry fert mix as well.


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## swackett (4 Jun 2017)

AverageWhiteBloke said:


> Hello Pal, I'm not saying it isn't iron, I'm not that experienced at spotting deficiency, I actually have some myself at the minute in my tank which also looks like iron def but one thing I know it probably isn't is nitrogen. My reasoning is I dose E.I levels of nitrate and I have floating plants that are thriving. Floating plants tend to show up first any nitrate issues because they are closest to the light, are in a co2 rich top layer and love consuming nitrogen. That's my  tank though so back to yours.
> 
> The figures I used are from rotala which I linked further up. Put your tank size in and what fertiliser you are using and it outputs the totals of each nutrient. I've highlighted nitrogen and dose. As you can see if you added 35.7ml of Trop Spec which rotala recommends to get your iron level right which is also the bottomn end of the scale when it comes to ei levels of Iron (see image 2) then you would be adding 3.83ppm of nitrate.  Knowing your tank, how much plants and co2 with your lighting this is quite low I would have said. EI values range from about 20/30ppm of nitrate.
> 
> ...



Our yes Rotala Butterfly, I have looked on there as well but as I don't want to follow EI so I've been doing about half of what it tells me for EI, so for 100L (125L - substrate etc) it says 28.6ml, so divide 2 = 14.3ml which is a bit less than we are dosing of N + P.  Interesting though is we are dosing about 25.2ml of everything expect N + P.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (4 Jun 2017)

Those figures are 2 to 4 times a week though right?

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## swackett (4 Jun 2017)

AverageWhiteBloke said:


> Those figures are 2 to 4 times a week though right?
> 
> Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk


Yes just thought about that and was just going to post on that.


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## swackett (4 Jun 2017)

Going to work out my dosing and see how much I'm putting in.  I'll do some research on ei as well to see what quantities of each I should be putting in.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (4 Jun 2017)

Let me know how you get on. Maybe isn't nitrate but you can narrow it down. 
Any time I've seen posts about iron or magnesium it's caused Plants to look veiny or off colour which might explain some of your leaves but your s repens has starved to death. Whatever it was was catastrophic like no food or co2 getting to it. 
I sort of think of it as traces being a balanced diet and npk being the main diet. Sure you wouldn't starve to death if you ate just a potato every day, you would just start looking weird and suffer from health problems 

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## swackett (5 Jun 2017)

Okay so after a bit of research, I think for EI I should be aiming for the following

NO3 range 5-30ppm
PO4 range 1.0-3.0 ppm

K+ range 10-30ppm
Fe 0.2-0.5ppm or higher
I think we are putting in the following 

*Dry mix a week*

NO3 - 15ppm
PO4 - 4.68ppm
K - 11.01ppm
Mg - 1.8ppm
*Tropica Specialised a week (16.8ml)*

NO3 - 9.9ppm
PO4 - 0.52ppm
K - 1.73ppm
Mg - 0.66ppm
Fe - 0.12ppm
*Tropica Premium a week (8.4ml)*

NO3 - 0ppm
PO4 - 0ppm
K - 0.67ppm
Mg - 0.33ppm
Fe - 0.06ppm
*Total dosing for the tank per week is*

*NO3 - 24.90ppm*
*PO4 - 5.2ppm*
*K - 13.41ppm*
*Mg - 2.78ppm*
*Fe - 0.18ppm*
So iron looks a little low and PO4 looks a little high.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (5 Jun 2017)

Just to clear up, are you dosing the Tropica Spec 16.8ml multiple times or is that the total for the week? if total for week I think your figures are too high, 35.7ml on Rotala has nitrogen at 3.83ppm which it advises dosing 2-4 times a week. 
I think people aim for a 10:1 ratio on the n and po4 so setting up your dosing for 20ppm n and 2ppm po4 would be about right. I think you can see from all this information though how weak of a formula Trop spec is. I would set up your dry salts for the 10;1 ratio and carry on with Tropica and see where it goes. Like you say at that you would maybe be a little light in iron. Also if you have high po4 and hardish water this won't help with iron. Po4 and iron react and the iron precipitates out and becomes unavailable to plants. Once you have the NPK sorted then look at you traces again.


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## swackett (5 Jun 2017)

AverageWhiteBloke said:


> Just to clear up, are you dosing the Tropica Spec 16.8ml multiple times or is that the total for the week? if total for week I think your figures are too high, 35.7ml on Rotala has nitrogen at 3.83ppm which it advises dosing 2-4 times a week.
> I think people aim for a 10:1 ratio on the n and po4 so setting up your dosing for 20ppm n and 2ppm po4 would be about right. I think you can see from all this information though how weak of a formula Trop spec is. I would set up your dry salts for the 10;1 ratio and carry on with Tropica and see where it goes. Like you say at that you would maybe be a little light in iron. Also if you have high po4 and hardish water this won't help with iron. Po4 and iron react and the iron precipitates out and becomes unavailable to plants. Once you have the NPK sorted then look at you traces again.



RB only states N, to get NO3 from that multiply N by 4.4.

When I put in "Results for my dose" and entered 16.8ml (which is my total dose for the week) I get 2.251ppm, so multiply this by 4.4 which equals 9.9ppm of NO3 for the week from Tropica Specialised.

Also I think 10:1 ratio is between NO3 and PO4, but I could be wrong


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## swackett (5 Jun 2017)

Just took some photos of the drop checkers, both with the same water and reagent, what do you think, does the JBL look bluer or is it a optical illusion?


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## AverageWhiteBloke (5 Jun 2017)

It's not uncommon for two DC's in same tank to give differing results. It's an idea to put one in a place where you expect bad circulation. If you get good co2 there chances are the rest of the tank will be fine. In your case maybe put the DC near the melting s.repens to see if there is a low co2 problem in that area.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (5 Jun 2017)

swackett said:


> RB only states N, to get NO3 from that multiply N by 4.4.



My bad, yeah see what you mean. Didn't notice n instead of no3


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## swackett (5 Jun 2017)

AverageWhiteBloke said:


> It's not uncommon for two DC's in same tank to give differing results. It's an idea to put one in a place where you expect bad circulation. If you get good co2 there chances are the rest of the tank will be fine. In your case maybe put the DC near the melting s.repens to see if there is a low co2 problem in that area.


Thing is the s repens are right in the flow

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## swackett (20 Jun 2017)

A quick update, 1.5 weeks into EI I can see some changes now in the Hygrophila, the new leaves look much better, still some brittle, yellow, glass like leaves on the Hygrophila mini at the front of the tank though, so hopefully time will improve this plant. 

The Staurengen Repens stalks now have some small leaves on them so hopefully they will pick up as well in the coming weeks.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (20 Jun 2017)

Nice one mate. Improvement at last.

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## swackett (20 Jun 2017)

Cheers, hopefully it will look better soon . What do your do when your go away as far as dosing goes as we are going away soon? Thinking of asking neighbour to dose as they will be feeding the fish anyway.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (20 Jun 2017)

How long you away for?

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## swackett (25 Jun 2017)

1 week from Monday to Monday, so thought dose as normal on Sunday, then make up some bottles for neighbour to pour in for each day from Monday to Thursday.  Thinking should we do water change when we get back or keep dosing for the second week as per routing and do the water change the following Sunday, so effectively going 2 weeks between wc?

Also seem to notice that water is not as clear, it looks more of yellow by the end of the week and after water change all looks clear again.  Is this normal?


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## AverageWhiteBloke (25 Jun 2017)

Maybe just tannin leaching out from you wood. Ok if you can get a neighbour to look after the tank but to be honest one week isn't going to make much of a difference. I haven't dosed for nearly two week before and I can't say I noticed much of a difference when I got back which threw all my previous hard work into question of how obsessive I should actually be about my routine. If I were away for a week I would just do a decent WC, trim the plants down and dose a bit more macros in than usual after WC then put the micros in just before I left as the micros tend to get used quicker. An EI dose is 2 days worth plus some so enough for 2 days at max light so you could say the tanks only going to a few more days without dosing and the fish waste will help that way. If you really want to edge your bets knock some time off the lighting as well.


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## swackett (5 Jul 2017)

Seems that Bandit cories are very illusive, as I called my local fish shops again yesterday and still no Corrydoras metae, so none since I started this tank 2 months ago .    WHERE ARE YOU CORIES 

Seems these things are seasonal from what I have heard, so does that mean they are not farmed but are caught from the wild?


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## swackett (5 Jul 2017)

The plants still seem to be struggling, the Hygrophila mini is melting way in the foreground and the repens now has some small leaves on the stalks, but its not growing very fast (looked the same for a a few weeks now).

Could I be dosing too much?


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## swackett (5 Jul 2017)

Looking at this site I think the issue may still be Iron deficiency 

"Leaves yellowing from the tip then become transparent - Iron deficiency"

https://www.ratemyfishtank.com/blog/diagnosing-problems-with-aquarium-plants


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## swackett (3 Aug 2017)

A quick update, still not getting any growth from the Hygrophila mini, its just about hanging on with a few leaves left   Maybe these plants dont like water at 11 dGH?


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## swackett (4 Sep 2017)

Having a few issues with what I think it's BBA, can someone confirm from the photo attached please?

If it is I've read that easy carbo is a good way to kill it.


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## swackett (7 Sep 2017)

Can anyone advise on this for me?


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## Daveslaney (7 Sep 2017)

Not really to clear from the pic but spot dosing with liquid carbon with the filter off for 10 min so the carbon stays in the local area ussually does the trick.It will turn red or grey when it is dieing off.


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## swackett (7 Sep 2017)

Thanks, its seems to be on the edge of most leaves in the tank, even the leaves in strong flow.


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## Daveslaney (7 Sep 2017)

Ok i had this in the last tank for a while. Try the Easy life Algexit.Takes a while to work because you dose it weekly but might do the trick.There is the one two punch method using h2o2 then liquid carbon but i wouldnt recommend this as there is a good chance of killing the good bacteria in your tank as well as the algea.
I found cleaning the filter and pipes monthly helps too.


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## swackett (7 Sep 2017)

Thanks,

I've read the BBA threads on here before and it appears to be a maintenance issue mostly.   We have Armano shrimps in the tank so I think I need to be careful with easycarbo


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