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First post plant ideas Sand Substrate

Adzi Adam

Seedling
Joined
10 Sep 2019
Messages
10
Location
Surrey
Morning all,

This is my first post i have been keeping fish for a year now, starting with some crap hexagonal 15l tank then bought a fluval flex 57 which then i upgraded to a fluval flex 137.

I have setup a new scape after browsing the forums for a long time i have gotten into aqua scaping which i plan on setting up a high tech tank in the future.

Im looking at ideas for low tech plants to grow in a sand substrate, as you can see from the last image i have a lot of space to plant but my tank is pretty stocked so i need to balance best of both worlds.

Any advice would be appreciated.




Old scape
20190825_104530.jpg


Light settings
Screenshot_20190910-110113_FluvalSmart.jpg
New Scape
To be used.jpg
 
Thanks for your help, i will be planting when i mover in a few weeks, do you think 1 light will be good enough ? i think if i ramp up the intensity it will burn the plants as light to floor distance is low
 
Hi all,
Welcome.
as you can see from the last image i have a lot of space to plant but my tank is pretty stocked
i will be planting when i mover in a few weeks,
I must admit that was an "ahhh" moment and I 'd be really concerned about the fish stocking density, particularly now you don't have any plants.

Personally I would add some <"floating plants"> (and turn the light back up) as soon as possible. PM me if you can't find any locally and I can send you a mix for p&p.

The fish look healthy, but I'd be really worried that you are tottering on the knife edge of the bio-load over-whelming the filtration capacity of the filter, and the combination of incremental fish growth and potential low pressure could tip your tank over the edge.

If you have an air stone? I would add it, and I would want to change a reasonable volume of water every day.

I'm not familiar with the filter system on the Fluval Flex range, but "microbe only" filtration is much less efficient than "plant/microbe" filtration. A lot of of non-planted tank keepers look on plants as decoration, but they are so much more then that.

Have a read through page 4. of <"Bedside Aquarium"> and linked threads.

cheers Darrel
 
Hi all,
Welcome. I must admit that was an "ahhh" moment and I 'd be really concerned about the fish stocking density, particularly now you don't have any plants.

Personally I would add some <"floating plants"> (and turn the light back up) as soon as possible. PM me if you can't find any locally and I can send you a mix for p&p.

The fish look healthy, but I'd be really worried that you are tottering on the knife edge of the bio-load over-whelming the filtration capacity of the filter, and the combination of incremental fish growth and potential low pressure could tip your tank over the edge.

If you have an air stone? I would add it, and I would want to change a reasonable volume of water every day.

I'm not familiar with the filter system on the Fluval Flex range, but "microbe only" filtration is much less efficient than "plant/microbe" filtration. A lot of of non-planted tank keepers look on plants as decoration, but they are so much more then that.

Have a read through page 4. of <"Bedside Aquarium"> and linked threads.

cheers Darrel

Yeh i like the use of plants in aquarium to have additional filtration benefits the fluval flex uses sponge and biological media, i have upgraded the media to sera spirax if i can spell it lol and i have placed more media where the pump sits, i have an ehim air pump which can shift a bit of the water which i am hooking back up again.

I might get some plants then before i move as the fishtank probably wont move until 1 month maybe when the house is fully ready as i want that to be the last thing we move as its a big job.


Untitled.png
 
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