Just looking for a little advice

[hamfist]

Greetings everyone. I'm just looking for a little help as I'm trying something a little new. To set the scene - I am an experienced aquarist and shrimpkeeper of around 5 decades. However I have always sucked bigtime at keeping aquatic plants of any sort alive in the past, so I sort of just gave up trying for many years. Anyway, a couple of years ago I decided to give it another go, with some success, and I now have 3 x smaller low tech tanks (60-90 litres) which are going quite nicely. All have shrimp, some have a few nano fish, and all have inert substrates (+/- active buffering substrate in a UGF box). I fertilise these with API or Seachem root tabs (so nothing particularly high nitrogen), plus an "all in one" generic liquid fertiliser (Dennerle Liquid Plus) twice weekly (which does contain nitrogen). I feed the shrimps reasonably heavily, light is low-moderate and these tanks all seem to be thriving in every way. Algae is minimal.

Enter my 500 litre fish community tank, which I have always had decorated with just hardscape, inert fine gravel and plastic plants in for many many years. I fancied having a go at turning it into a low tech planted tank, complete with its already reasonably generous fish bioload.
Fish Stock is .....
1 x v large blue acara
1 x v large angel fish
1 x large Strawberry leporinus
1 x golden gourami
12 x congo tetras
6 x mature scissortail rasboras
6 x Cory sterbai
3 x ember tetras
3 x espei rasboras
1 x stiphodon ornatus
1 x Garra flavatus

As for the new plants, they went in around 1-2 weeks go.

Various Echinodirus sp.
Various Anubias sp.
Crypt wendtii *
Staurogyne repens *
Myriophyllum mattogrossense *
Ludwigia repens “Rubin” *
Bucephalandra sp.Red *

* = cuttings or extras from my other tanks.

I initially thought I would stick with purely Anubia species and other rheophytes, but thought I could then probably pull off a more adventurous planted setup when I discovered my Leporinus showed little interest in eating finer leaved plants. hence the arrival of various rooted plants into the tank.
I think I have got light fittings reasonably well sorted now (within my budget) and these are the same lights that I use in all my other tanks - Hygger LEDS. They have plenty of red, green and blue as well as the white and seem to work well for me elsewhere and they are super programmable. Not fashionable I know, but they work.
Fertilising is my main issue. Initially I thought I would stick Seachem Root tabs under all the rooted plants, and then try just adding trace elements (Flora Grow Plant Fertiliser) into the water column. With such a good fish bioload I was hoping that macros would be mainly sorted with waste products of fish and food. However I measured the nitrates at the end of the first week, just before a water change and found they were only 5 ppm, a little lower than normal. I'm just thinking that I might well need to add N, P & K as well as the trace elements I currently add. I've got pretty low light currently, just trying to let the plants settle in a little. The M.mattogrossense is already growing like a weed, as it always does, but the Anubias and Echinodorus are already starting to get a noticeable sheen of algae on the leaves.
I know I am a little out of my depth so far with this project and I do expect teething problems, I'm just hoping for a little advice from the group as to what things I could possibly do a little better, especially in relation to ferts.

For those interested, the tank parameters are, 8dGH, 3dKH, 25 degrees C, pH 7.6. Ammonia and nitrite always zero, nitrate usually runs at around 10 ppm. Filtration is by 3 x Eheim 2217. 50 % water change weekly (RO diluted tapwater plus a little extra GH), plus a large airstone.
I'll also add a pic of my 90 litre tank to give you an idea of an established tank of mine. Thanks to anyone who feels they could take the time to advise me.

 

[tam]

With 500l, I imagine the suggestions are going to be dry ferts as they'll be less expensive for a tank that volume. You might like to look at TNC complete if you want liquid. You don't have to pick one or the other though. It's quite common for people to alternate trace on some days an complete on others. It will be tough for people to say dose x amount of this as each tank is different and the fish and plant load changes over time. It's mostly keeping an eye on how healthy the plants look at adjusting accordingly.

What sort of watch change scedule do you have?

The 90l looks really good!

 

[hamfist]

With 500l, I imagine the suggestions are going to be dry ferts as they'll be less expensive for a tank that volume. You might like to look at TNC complete if you want liquid. You don't have to pick one or the other though. It's quite common for people to alternate trace on some days an complete on others. It will be tough for people to say dose x amount of this as each tank is different and the fish and plant load changes over time. It's mostly keeping an eye on how healthy the plants look at adjusting accordingly.

What sort of watch change scedule do you have?

The 90l looks really good!

Thanks. Yes I have been reading the threads on here about the Solufeed range of ferts, which are definately on my radar. I may have some specific questions about using them, but I guess they will be best suited to posting in the Fert Dosing forum section.
Water change schedule is a religious 50% weekly. 20-25% local hard tapwater, 75-80% RO. GH topped up to around 7-8dGH with a shrimp-oriented GH+ remineraliser. I forgot to add to the livestock list that I have a few platies in there, who will not tolerate soft water, hence topping the GH up. Once those platies pass, I will stop topping up the GH and let it become a bit more of a softwater tank.

 

[tam]

Thanks. Yes I have been reading the threads on here about the Solufeed range of ferts, which are definately on my radar. I may have some specific questions about using them, but I guess they will be best suited to posting in the Fert Dosing forum section.
Water change schedule is a religious 50% weekly. 20-25% local hard tapwater, 75-80% RO. GH topped up to around 7-8dGH with a shrimp-oriented GH+ remineraliser. I forgot to add to the livestock list that I have a few platies in there, who will not tolerate soft water, hence topping the GH up. Once those platies pass, I will stop topping up the GH and let it become a bit more of a softwater tank.

If you are doing 50% water changes already you could also have a read up on the estimative index - that's another regime where you basically dose everything you might need and a bit more, knowing that the 50% water changes will keep things evened out and not allow excess to build up. That's as opposed to looking at the plants and just picking what you think they need e.g. skipping the nitrate because you already have some. To add even more choices, some people do that, but less of it, particularly when running low tech tanks (no co2).