New to plants and need help please?

[Seditro]

Hello there im new to planted aquariums and this website im in need of a little help i think as i don't understand what i have done wrong

Ok so i have just bought a brand new juwel vision 180 in the hopes to plant it up i bought all the items needed as advised by a aquatics who displays planted tanks

What i have is

Tropica co2 canister disposible
Aquagro nutra soil
Thats all the guy said i needed as the lights in my tank ( just standard juwel hi lite day x2 think 35w each )

I planted some sorry if names are wrong

eloecharis purvla? ( hair grass)

Ludwigia red repens?

Some kind of crypto

Tied christmas moss and anubias to my drift wood

They was all labled easy tropica plants

This was 3 days ago

Now today i turned the lights on and co2 ( keep them on 10hrs and guy suggested 1 bubble per 2-3 seconds )

Iv noticed my anubias us curling and turning yellow my moss is a brownish colour

Now i know anubias is a very easy plant so now im worried
Im doing somthing wrong here

I have pictures but im currently on my phone and unsure how to add them

 

[John S]

I'd half the lighting period straight away. How are you measuring your Co2 and how long are you running your Co2 before lights on? What filter do you have? Are you adding any plant ferts?

 

[Seditro]

I was told to measure it using the bubble counter at 1 bubble every 1-2 seconds the co2 was running the same time as the lights 10hrs as recommended

Its just a standard built in juwel filter

And iv only just been told about ferts so i added tropica premium ( not sure if correct)

 

[Rahms]

edit: you made two identical threads so you're just being told the same information in two different places

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

First place to stop would be reading the Articles on the home page. Get yourself some coffee and a few hours spare and read them thoroughly. It all starts with lighting, depending on your lighting it will give you an idea of which direction to go in. Generally speaking, the higher the light the more fertiliser and co2 is required.

Anything you don't understand in the articles then pop in here and ask for clarification, everyone will be more than will to help. Maybe ask mod to merge posts if you have two running to keep everything in one place. Pictures are also a massive bonus, it's a lot easier for people to recommend what they would do if they can see what's going on. Pictures speak a thousand words and all that.

Good luck with your new hobby.

 

[Seditro]

Hi guys

Thanks for the links and the reason i have 2 posts was because i was unsure on the correct place to post them unsure how to delete it as well but anyway

i have pictures and i have no idea what i am doing what i need and so on so i hope you guys can help me here

Here is my juwel vision 180 with standard juwel lights t5ho no reflectors ( but can get if will help )



Here are the plants i planted
Anubias (starting to curl and go yellow)
Cryptocoryne (starting to melt? )
Echinodorus (starting to get holes in the leaves and becoming see through) and the smaller plants dotted around is eleocharis parvula
another picture of anubias ( thought anubias was bomb proof )
Christmas moss i tied onto my wood was once very bright green and now looks brown/dark green
Limnophilia seems to be ok at the moment
lilaeopsis also seems ok at the moment there is also Ludwigia repens "rubin" in there


So these are the plants i have all from tropica "Easy - medium" plants

so for what i have and what i used

Tropica nano co2 system ( said will do up to 200L )


Tropica premium ferts ( thats all i could get hold of )

AquaGro Nutra Soil as my substrate

Now following a conversation with another member of this website
i was advised to cut my lighting down to only 4 hrs a day ( was on 10 hrs with co2 on 10hrs also )
and put co2 on 2hrs before lights on and off 1 hr before lights off

So i have set a timer for my lights to come on around 6pm and to go off at 10pm ( i dont get back from work until 6-6:30 )
so i left my co2 on very very low approx 1 bubble every 10 seconds or so ( tropica diffuser )

So What do you guys suggest i do now?
Do i need to buy something?
Do i need to do something?

Would adding fish to my tank help at all?

it all sounded so easy reading the tropica website and plant guides...oh how wrong i was
But i do want to get this right as i have spent a lot of money on it so far

i just need to fully understand how it all works

Many thanks guys for your help so far

sorry i am a pain 🙂

 

[Rahms]

the other post: http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/new-to-planted-tanks-need-help-please.36557/#post-392834

it's best if you stop posting across two threads as you're just going to be asking the same questions and hearing the same answers. This thread is probably in the right place but the other one got more attention so what can we do 😛 I'll try and point people this way....


ian_m has basically given you all the advice you need. Your plants need CO2 and nutrients to grow, and the growth has to keep up with the damage caused by the light. Your concern should be providing good CO2 and nutrients with low light. Once you have this sorted, you can slowly increase the light. Your plants will likely start "melting," which is quite literal. The intense light will damage the leaves faster than the plant can repair them, and they will turn to mush.

So, reduce your light intensity (as ian said, foil rings around the tubes work well) and then work on the CO2 and ferts. You're going to want a timer for your CO2. Providing a small concentration all day is not equivalent to providing a high concentration during the light period, as this is the only time the plant uses the CO2. You're also going to have to do a fair bit of reading yourself. It's hard to get this right, especially through proxy....

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Reducing the light duration will help you get over this phase by creating less work for the plants=more room for fertiliser and co2 errors. your lighting tubes at the moment would put you in the medium/high lighting bracket so unless you can control each tube individually you will need to go down the route of duration for the moment, however if you are going to go for a full 6/8 hours with these tubes you will have to investigate co2 and ferts further or you will run into problems.

Co2, you could investigate the solenoid as mentioned. Some people do run 24/7 but this is a waste of the gas as before the lights go on and at the back end of the lighting period the plants don't require it. At night the process is reversed and the plants use oxygen and give off co2 which if you are pumping co2 in as well can be dangerous for the fish. The timer is the way to knock this off and on. Also, on a tank that size with your lighting it will get expensive to run co2 looking at the size of your bottles it will need refilled quite often. For now until you get a bigger set up you could also investigate adding liquid carbon to buffer this up a bit. Products like Easy Life, Excel and a few of our sponsors also have their own. You will also need a drop checker and 4kh fluid/bromo blue to make sure you are adding the correct amount of co2 at the right times (see articles I linked earlier.)

Fertiliser, you undoubtedly will need to add extra nitrogen and phosphate to that set up if you go ahead with the lighting and co2. Unfortunately the ferts you have there are a bit misleading with the "Premium" bit. Basically the ferts come into two categories. Macros (main plant food Nitrate and Phosphate) Micros (snacks and vitamins, trace elements) needed but not as important as the Macros, as long as there is some in the tank the plants will be fine. The one you have there is micros. Luckily you have a nutrient rich substrate which is probably why you have managed to avoid a disaster at this point albeit these are starting to run out hence your issues with yellowing plants and dissolving starting. The cheapest way of going about ferts is to make your own. The basis ingredients for this again can be bought from our sponsors, are more cost effective and last a long time. Read the articles for mixing recipes or the sponsors site.

Other than that, you're off to a good start I guess.