dmachado
Member
- Joined
- 2 May 2013
- Messages
- 46
Well, after having my planted tank in total misery for some years, while successfully selling fertilizer plans to fellow hobbyists (!!), last december I decided to give it a makeover.
I had 20 kg Dennerle, some river sand and black sand in there. Took most of the black sand off, and kept the rest.
Then I used a big load of unfertilized potting soil I kept in a box outside for maybe a year - mostly mineralized by now, plus a big load of fresh potting soil, no additives too.
I placed the mixed soil in the bottom layer, then the river sand plus dennerle substrate I had kept aside, then a layer of washed river sand, then "amazon" sand as a cap.
I changed the CO2 injection from inline diffuser to a ceramic disc diffuser, about 3-4bps and set the 208w T5 lights to full blast. I set it to 5 hours at start, now it runs for 8 hours on weekdays and 9 hours on weekends. CO2 starts 5 min before lights on and stops 1 hour before lights off.
I use EI fertilization, with increasing iron ppm, maybe about 2ppm/week now, and also good Ca and Mg supplementation. The water changes need to be made more frequently, the usual problem... I'm lazy. But I try.
And I got this, from bottom to top:
It's pretty stable now. The "problem" is the required trimming rate, and the lotus' leaf size trying to take over the tank.
I'm happy.
Regards,
Daniel
I had 20 kg Dennerle, some river sand and black sand in there. Took most of the black sand off, and kept the rest.
Then I used a big load of unfertilized potting soil I kept in a box outside for maybe a year - mostly mineralized by now, plus a big load of fresh potting soil, no additives too.
I placed the mixed soil in the bottom layer, then the river sand plus dennerle substrate I had kept aside, then a layer of washed river sand, then "amazon" sand as a cap.
I changed the CO2 injection from inline diffuser to a ceramic disc diffuser, about 3-4bps and set the 208w T5 lights to full blast. I set it to 5 hours at start, now it runs for 8 hours on weekdays and 9 hours on weekends. CO2 starts 5 min before lights on and stops 1 hour before lights off.
I use EI fertilization, with increasing iron ppm, maybe about 2ppm/week now, and also good Ca and Mg supplementation. The water changes need to be made more frequently, the usual problem... I'm lazy. But I try.
And I got this, from bottom to top:
It's pretty stable now. The "problem" is the required trimming rate, and the lotus' leaf size trying to take over the tank.
I'm happy.
Regards,
Daniel
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