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150l planted aquarium- Tree of Life!

MikeHarris

Seedling
Joined
14 Nov 2012
Messages
5
Hi ukaps members,

I have just started up my first planted aquarium.

[/Users/michaelharris/Desktop/IMG_4204.JPG/img]

36" x 18" x 15"(High)
4 x 24W T5's
Ehiem 2071 filter with Hydor ETH External Heater 300W
custom Fire Extinguisher Co2 kit with solenoid.

I set up the tank 1 week ago (13th nov) I used 1 bag of ADA Power Sand M (2 Litres), 1 and a half bags of ADA Aqua Soil NEW Amazonia (9 Litre) and 1 bag of ADA Aqua Soil Powder NEW Amazonia (3 Litre). All from the Green Machine.

I recently went to Aquatics Live which was brilliant. Couldn't help myself buying some plants from Aquajardin!!

My plants include:

3x Tropica 1-2-Grow Staurogyne repens.
6x Tropica 1-2-Grow Vesicularia ferriei 'Weeping' - for the "Tree of Life"
6x hemianthus callitrichoides cuba.
3x Pogostemon helferi.

I currently have all of my 4 x 24W T5's on for 4 hours with Co2 coming on 2 hours before and cutting out 1 hour before lights turn off. The HC Cuba isn't looking too great and I can see some dead leaves.... I was wondering if this is too little or too much light at the beginning ?

Any thoughts we be greatly appreciated.

Mike
 
Hi Mike you are in between the devil and the deep blue sea here I am afraid. On one hand you have got the impending problems associated with ' New Tank Syndrome' where all manner of things can occur, and on the other hand trying to grow HC which likes a fair amount of light and plenty of CO2 enriched water flow.

There are also the associated Ammonia spikes associated with the ADA Amazonia in the first few weeks, which means frequent high volume water changes until it settles down.

Unless you are extremely lucky I think you might lose the HC this time around because as you are rightly doing is having a decreased lighting period to begin with. The CO2 will only get used if you have the light to go with it, so you are stuck I am afraid.

Put it down to experience this time and have a good read through the threads which contain all you will ever need to know about ammonia spikes and new tank syndrome.

Best of luck though.

Cheers,

Steve
 
Hi Steve, Thanks for the reply - that was very interesting.

I don't like the sound of that though lol. Im religiously water changing 60% every day and making sure my drop checker is between lime green and yellow! No live stock at the moment so thats all cool.

I really don't want to loose my HC... that would be a disaster! I reckon i'll be ok but i'll let you know.

Cheers,

Mike/Users/michaelharris/Desktop/IMG_4204.JPG
 
Hi Fox, thanks for the reply

Sounds good, I've switched off 2 of my 24W bulbs and turned up my Co2 slightly.
On friday it will be my 10days so I'm planning to notch up my lighting period from 4 hours to 4hours 15min. I plan on increasing the lighting period by 15min every week until I get to 10hours... what do you think ? When do you think i should turn back on the other half of my lights, when the plants tell me ? lol

Thanks again

Thanks Fox
 
For the first few months I personally never stray much over 6 hours light until I'm happy the tank is stable, after that point I will add some hygro polysperma or some other stemplant if I haven't already got a mobile leaved plant in the tank and will increase the time over a period of about a month watching the stems to see when they close their leaves, when the leaves are closed they're no longer uptaking and that it how much light the tank needs, it's very rarely ever more than 8 hours. I have a 20l nano which receives 11 hours but this is something of an anomaly.
 
you need to host it online, this is pointing at your desktop.

Glad it wasn't just me, thought there was an elephant in the room :) Mike you needs to use something like image shack or flickr to host images or videos for you. Otherwise when your computer is knocked off the images will not be available. It's pretty straight forward, free and simple to do. Just go to your hosted image and use that link instead of the place it's at on your computer. If you need any help I'll be glad to. :thumbup:
 
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