Hello,
I wasn't sure where to put this post but seeing as we have changed just about everything else in the tank the substrate is the only thing left?
We set up the tank in 2014, it is a large tank at 450 litres, we filled it with ADA Amazonia soil, power sand and this stuff that was made up of white pebbles with holes in it which was supposed to store nutrients ( sorry can't remember what it was called ).
My husband made the lights ( he's an electronic engineer ) and we rigged up a fire extinguisher system with an inline ceramic diffuser. We have a fluidized bed filter and various cartridge filters for the inflow for the water changes. And dose with the EI ferts system.
Anyway its never been that good, it has never looked like the amazing tanks on this forum, but I have a 1 year old and a 5 year old so have barely any time. We filled it with what we thought would be the easiest plants to grow - Echinodorus and Vallisneria and after an initial problematic phase of cyanobacteria it worked well enough. We had all kinds of algae but the main thing was the plants grew bigger and there was always enough growth that I could do a clean once a week and take out the old growth and the new stuff would fill in.
But for the last year it has all stopped growing, the plants are just dying slowly. At first we thought it was a circulation problem so we rebuilt all of that, then when that didn't work I read a lot on this forum and came across Ceg's post about Potassium Nitrate and realised we had fallen down that pitfall so sorted that out but still no better. Thought maybe it was the CO2 but the drop checker goes yellow by the afternoon and we don't want to gas the fish. So we are lost. The substrate is the only thing left?
Do you think if it has all runout of nutrients after 5 years that would be enough to kill the tank, even with the COz, lights and ferts? What ever the set was before it was enough. We are currently trying to sell the fish so we can rescape - incidentally does anyone want 3 Discus fish cheap?
I'm hesitant to spend lots more money on ADA stuff after everything else we've done that hasn't worked. Are there people in this community that can come and see a setup and tell whats wrong with it, for a fee obviously? Because if we don't fix it we will just have to strip in down and put some tetra in it as it makes up half of my livingroom!
I would grateful for any advice sorry the post is so long.
I wasn't sure where to put this post but seeing as we have changed just about everything else in the tank the substrate is the only thing left?
We set up the tank in 2014, it is a large tank at 450 litres, we filled it with ADA Amazonia soil, power sand and this stuff that was made up of white pebbles with holes in it which was supposed to store nutrients ( sorry can't remember what it was called ).
My husband made the lights ( he's an electronic engineer ) and we rigged up a fire extinguisher system with an inline ceramic diffuser. We have a fluidized bed filter and various cartridge filters for the inflow for the water changes. And dose with the EI ferts system.
Anyway its never been that good, it has never looked like the amazing tanks on this forum, but I have a 1 year old and a 5 year old so have barely any time. We filled it with what we thought would be the easiest plants to grow - Echinodorus and Vallisneria and after an initial problematic phase of cyanobacteria it worked well enough. We had all kinds of algae but the main thing was the plants grew bigger and there was always enough growth that I could do a clean once a week and take out the old growth and the new stuff would fill in.
But for the last year it has all stopped growing, the plants are just dying slowly. At first we thought it was a circulation problem so we rebuilt all of that, then when that didn't work I read a lot on this forum and came across Ceg's post about Potassium Nitrate and realised we had fallen down that pitfall so sorted that out but still no better. Thought maybe it was the CO2 but the drop checker goes yellow by the afternoon and we don't want to gas the fish. So we are lost. The substrate is the only thing left?
Do you think if it has all runout of nutrients after 5 years that would be enough to kill the tank, even with the COz, lights and ferts? What ever the set was before it was enough. We are currently trying to sell the fish so we can rescape - incidentally does anyone want 3 Discus fish cheap?
I'm hesitant to spend lots more money on ADA stuff after everything else we've done that hasn't worked. Are there people in this community that can come and see a setup and tell whats wrong with it, for a fee obviously? Because if we don't fix it we will just have to strip in down and put some tetra in it as it makes up half of my livingroom!
I would grateful for any advice sorry the post is so long.
