Aiden's Planted Journey

[Aiden123]

Hi everyone, this is my first attempted at a high tech planted tank and I'm hoping this journal will supplement my learning experience.

Tank Equipment

24" L x 12"W x 13" H tank
Caribsea Eco-Complete substrate
TNC Plugs
TNC Complete
2 x 24 watt T5 lighting unit
23 watt Arcadia Stretch Led light
Pressurised Co2 @ 2-3 bubbles a second
APS 1000 lph external filter
1000lph power head
Marina heater set to 25c

Flora
Hemianthus Callitrichoides
Vesicularia ferriei
Echinodorus paniculatus
Microsorium pteropus specie
Postostemon helferi
Staurogyn rubescens
Alternathera rosanervig
Hygrophila angustifolia

Fauna (Not yet in the tank)
Celestial Pearl Danios
Pygmy cory
Red cherry shrimp

All feedback is welcome and hopefully this tank will be a success

Sorry for the poor photograph, the tank is still a bit cloudy, hopefully I should get a better shot later tonight

 

[ceg4048]

Sorry for the poor photograph, the tank is still a bit cloudy

Hello,
And really, it's the only thing that might save this tank in the short term. You have way too much light and your plants will start to disintegrate within 2 weeks unless you are pumping in epic levels of CO2. It's the same old story. When you flood a plant it suffocates ans the only way to save it will be to drastically lower the light.

Can you see this chart?

You need to be in the blue zone. If your tank is only 13 inches tall and if the lights are only a couple inches above the water then you are in serious trouble already at about 200 micromoles at the substrate just from the T5s, and it's even higher due to the added LEDs. You're in serious trouble....Serious.

You also need to sketch out your filter outlet and powerhead arrangement, or at least take a better photo of it because that will be suspect as well. Is your dropchecker lime green by lights on? Have you taken a pH profile to determine the CO2 dissolution effectiveness?

There's a lot of work to do on this tank. This is just the honeymoon...

Cheers,

 

[Aiden123]

Thank you for your very informative response.

I shall remove the LED light asap and try to place the T5 higher.

I will try to get a better photograph but to try and give you an idea:
The filter intake is the back left hand corner
the filter out is he middle back pointed slightly upwards
and the powerhead is the back right hand corner with two outlets, one points along the back of the tank and the other pointed towards the front of the tank.

This is the first day of the pressurised co2 system so I am yet to observe the drop checker coloration before lights on and take a ph profile.

 

[ceg4048]

the filter out is he middle back pointed slightly upwards
and the powerhead is the back right hand corner with two outlets, one points along the back of the tank and the other pointed towards the front of the tank.

Not good. All pump/filter outlets should face the same direction (and should be distributed evenly across the back wall pointing forward ideally). This give you the best use of the pumping power in order to get CO2 down to the bottom of the tank.

This is the first day of the pressurised co2 system so I am yet to observe the drop checker coloration before lights on and take a ph profile.

OK, fair enough mate, but you really need to do this ASAP.

Cheers,

 

[Aiden123]

I thought I would do a little update on this one.

My first planted tank seems to be going ok so far, had some ups and downs including algae.

P.S, I know my drop checker is blue atm, took the photo after some tank maintenance which included changing the drop checker solution