Prevention is better than cure...

[tankN00b]

Hello, hello!

I had a planted tank years ago, but a house move and children got in the way and have only recently got to the point where I can get back into it. Being super rusty, I’d love to call on the combined knowledge of the group to help me help myself and try and spot any issues with my new setup, if anyone’s got a spare 5 minutes?








Tank: SuperFish Scaper 90
Light: LED that came with above (allegedly 269 PAR?)
Dimmer: S2 Pro
Filter: Eheim Pro II (2126) with new media
CO2: FloraGrow Carbo liquid carbon 2ml/day (came with the tank)
Ferts: FloraGrow Plant Fertiliser 1ml/day (also came with tank)
Substrate: 1:1:1 mix of Tropica Aquarium Soil with 5mm gravel and Samoa fine sand. Somoa fine sand on top
Hardscape: Mopani wood

Photoperiod:
08:30 0%
10:00 25%
14:00 60%
19:00 25%
20:30 0%

Water changes: 40% every 2-3 days to date

Flora:
Helanthium Tenellum Green
Staurogyne Repens
Littorella Uniflora
Cryptocoryne Undulatus Red
Taxiphyllum Taiwan Moss
Anubias Gracilis
Bacopa 'Compact’
Hottonia Palustris
Cryptocoryne Beckettii 'Petchii'
Eleocharis Montevidensis
Rotala Rotundifolia
Microsorum Pteropus 'Narrow'
Echinodorus Rosé

Fauna (too early at the minute, but I’m thinking first in the tank will be a clean-up crew of):
Nerite Snails
Amano Shrimp
Otocinclus

Water stats:
Day 2 – pH 7.8, NH3 0, NO2 0.5, NO3 7, KH 9, GH 15-16
Day 8 – pH 7.5, NH3 0, NO2 1.5, NO3 35
Day 10 – pH 8, NH3 0, NO2 1.0, NO3 15-20, KH 6 (??)

Questions (thanks for getting this far):

Deficiencies?:

• Helanthium – whilst they are putting out new plants from the shoots, I’ve noticed that the tips of the older leaves have stated to go yellow and curl up.
• Cryptocoryne Red – again, lovely new leaves being produced, but the older ones have started to curl a bit
• Cryptocoryne ‘Petchii’ – and again, leaves curling a bit maybe?
• Echinodorus Rosé – new leaves looking quite translucent. Some mottling on older leaves

I live in London and am using tap water (treated with Prime), so I can’t see there being any calcium deficiencies (note the KH above), but I’ve noticed that the ferts that came with the tank don’t appear to have any nitrogen in them (seems to be largely micro, rather than macro), so I’m wondering if that could be the problem for some of this? I’ve ordered the Tropica Specialised, which is supposed to be an all in one, so perhaps this will help?

I've been going cautiously on the ferts and lights whilst the tank gets going as my last tank was an algae mess whilst cycling and I really want to avoid that again. Not sure if this is the right thing to do.

KH:
Can the kH value have decreased since the tank was set up? There’s no peat or similar in the tank and 9dKH is much closer to my tap water (I brew beer and had a water report a little while back which puts the tap water alkalinity (CaCO3) at 195ppm). Is this a thing?

Algae:
Very little to date, except the white mould coming out of the Mopani wood. From what I’ve read, this looks to be normal for this wood and it comes off with little effort anyway. I know I’m only 2 weeks in, but I’m hoping this means that I’m not massively unbalanced with the CO2 / nutrients and light (subject to deficiencies above…)

Fauna:
What’s the accepted best practice here? Keep cycling the tank until the nitrites dry up? I see Tropica suggest putting in shrimps in week one, but that seems a bit unfair to them when the nitrites are still high.

Skimmers:
What do people do with these? I’m very onboard with the idea of pulling in the surface of the water, but the one I’m running at the minute has a very low WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) as it tends to gulp periodically. I’ve made this better by adjusting the flow at the bottom, but it’s as open as possible now and still happens periodically. Another side effect of this is bursts of micro bubbles from the outlet into the tank. Guess that's oxygenating the water at least...

Anyway thanks for listening and if you've got any opinions on the above, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks!

 

[John q]

I'd say your tank is looking pretty good to be honest. A lot of the leaf curling or die off could well be down to the new plants settling in to their new life underwater.
I'd continue as you are for now and just let your tank cycle at its own pace, no need to start forcing things with the light just yet.

 

[tankN00b]

Great, thanks John

 

[John q]

Can the kH value have decreased since the tank was set up?

Yes, whilst your tank cycles the parameters will swing around and won't necessarily be stable. Don't worry about it.

What’s the accepted best practice here? Keep cycling the tank until the nitrites dry up?

I'd wait at least another 2 weeks before adding anything, the gold standard would be wait 6 weeks from start up.

? I’ve ordered the Tropica Specialised, which is supposed to be an all in one, so perhaps this will help?

I don't know what nutrient levels the floragrow contains but it looks like it lacks nitrogen and phosphate, not sure if @Zeus. has included this in the ferts calculator?
Adding in a weekly dose of tropica will do no harm, although in the long term it might be cheaper to look into diy ferts.

 

[Zeus.]

I don't know what nutrient levels the floragrow contains but it looks like it lacks nitrogen and phosphate, not sure if @Zeus. has included this in the ferts calculator?

Not yet GHE Floragro - good link with the data I/we need

 

[John q]

I'm assuming its the Colombo Flora-Grow zeus, it makes no mention of % on its website.

Colombo Plant | Aquadistri

CO2, Substrates and Fertilizers. We offer a wide product range for optimal plant growth.

colombo.nl

 

[Zeus.]

GHE Floragro - good link with the data I/we need

Wont take long to 'crack' it

 

[tankN00b]

Thanks both!

I have this from the label on the bottle if it helps (apologies for the stitched image)?

 

[Zeus.]

Thanks both!

I have this from the label on the bottle if it helps (apologies for the stitched image)?

View attachment 166983

So your using just one of the GHE Flora Grow ferts ? You got a pic of front of bottle to just confirm I am comparing the same product 😉

My initial thoughts on the GHE hydroponic range is they seem very comprehensive and cheap compared to the competition - need to double/triple check my figures

 

[tankN00b]

This is the stuff that came with the SuperFish tank - Moderately planted - Colombo



Having had a look they also seem to do one that comes with Nitrates and Phosphates, but this isn't the one that comes with the tank - Heavily planted - Colombo

 

[Zeus.]

This is the stuff that came with the SuperFish tank - Moderately planted - Colombo

View attachment 166987

Having had a look they also seem to do one that comes with Nitrates and Phosphates, but this isn't the one that comes with the tank - Heavily planted - Colombo

View attachment 166988

Cheers not the same as the one I was looking at and that explains why the elements % was different
Will use your label for the Flora Grow plant fertilizer 😉

 

[Zeus.]

So now that I have the right fert your using we can clearly see it has no NO3 or PO4


your fish load is providing all the N and P. Colombos website is incorrect saying N and P promote algae, this is a big misconception with the planted tank. Having all nutrients in abundance promotes healthy plants, healthy plants produce less waste so we have less algae.
I would advise a more comprehensive fertiliser. TNC or TSN as the compare table above would be suitable off the shelf or a DIY fert

Thanks for posting as always good to get the data on more ferts, even when I get the wrong one to start off with

 

[tankN00b]

This is great!
I had some Tropica Specialised land today, so will start dosing with that from tomorrow. Should help given that I've currently got no fish load 😉
Thanks so much for taking the time to look at this. Much appreciated.

 

[tankN00b]

I thought I'd update this thread with some progress for anyone that's interested.

Flora:
Everything seems to be doing really well. After the above conversation about ferts I settled on dosing alternate days with Tropica Specialised one day, followed by the FloraGrow the following day, so each day the plants get micro nutrients and every other day they get macro nutrients.
I'm still dosing with the liquid carbon, 2ml a day. Plants seem to be ok with this, but then I've only really got slow growing stuff in the tank.

Algae:
The Mopani wood fungus has largely cleared by itself, as expected.
Shortly after I started dosing with the Tropica I started to get a bit of brown diatoms on the glass and on the plant leaves (mostly on the Staurogyne and Anubis). Wiping it off and changing the water every 3 days kept it in check and once the clean-up crew went in it was night and day. They went in and the next day there was zero diatom.
I'm now seeing a bit of stringy green algae on the moss and on some of the leaves that are less healthy on the Helanthium and Littorella, but to date this has been relatively easy to pick out. I'm wondering if the flow isn't optimal towards the left hand side of the tank, but now that I have the fish in I've dialled back the strength of flow to give them a break.
Will be looking to move to weekly water changes once everything's a bit more settled in a couple of weeks.

Fauna:
Once the nitrogen cycle looked to be well in flow, I added a cleanup crew consisting of 3x Otos and 4x Amano shrimp.
I also added 8x Cardinal Tetras because... that's what people who take small kids to the fish shop end up doing. 🙂
Everything seems super happy and the clean-up crew are doing excellent work

Skimmer:
Once I dialled down the strength of my filter for the fish, the issues with the skimmer gulping air and making choking noises completely went away. Mo more noise, no more micro bubbles. Happy wife, happy life.

I'm really pleased with how things are going. Hopefully this is useful to someone else. Now I just need to work out what do with a cat who has a sudden interest in small fish...

 

[tankN00b]

So I'm starting to see quite a bit of BGA now. I had to trim a lot of my moss to get rid of it this week (photo below a couple of days after the trim) and it seems to be enjoying working it's way around the Helanthium.
I've dialled down the maximum light from 65% to 50% which seems to have helped a bit.
I'm now daily dosing with 2ml Tropica Specialised and 2ml FloraGrow Carbo, but having just tested my water it's: NH3 0, NO2 0, NO3 5
This makes me think that the plants aren't getting enough nitrates maybe? I've read elsewhere on here that adding KNO3 might be the answer? What do people think?