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setting up my first proper planted tank

Amanda

Amanda

Seedling
Joined
22 Jun 2014
Messages
1
Hey i am setting up my first proper planted tank, it will be a rock/mountain scape using seiryu stone, the only plant i will be using is eleocharis acicularis. My main question is i am planning on keeping caridina dennerli and plan on using ro water remineralised using salty shrimp sulawesi 8.5, my question is would this be sufficient for the dwarf hairgrass? I will also be using pressurised co2 and will also be using tropica specialised fertiliser, also the lighting unit i will be using is the tmc grobean 1500 ultima and my tank is an ada 60f. Thanks in advance

Hey thanks everyone for the help, going to go with dry salts for fertilisation as i think it is more cost effective, I'm still in the process of setting up my tank but when i get it up and running i will post pics.
 
Last edited:
Hi Amanda,

Welcome to UKAPS! I am not sure why nobody has got back to you on your post and the questions you have asked. It is possible that the answers are already here in one of the other forums, so it might be worth doing a bit of searching around in the forums. From my experience virtually everything anyone has ever wanted to know or find out has been discussed on the UKAPS site, the problem is there is so much information it can be difficult to find sometimes. This means people ask the same questions again, when the answers are already on here. This is particularly relevant to the subject of Algae, every new starter in aquascaping experiences the same problems with algae, but if they look hard enough the answers are already here.

That said.....getting back to you post...The Rocky Mountain scape sounds great and I would love to see some pictures when its finished. The seiryu stone and eleocharis acicularis work well together, and your lighting and substrate materials sound fine. Now comes the tricky bit, RO water, minerals and pressurised CO2. I like using RO water because of its purity, and I agree with re-mineralising the water with salts such as you describe. Personally I've always used SERA Mineral salts for this purpose, but then I wasn't keeping shrimp specifically. The issues are:-

1. CO2 alters the PH of your water, i.e. reduces it so it become more acid and softer, fish like this and so do plants.
2. Mineral salts buffer the PH back up again, I assume the sulawesi 8.5 is talking 8.5 PH? In which case you will be pumping pressurised CO2 into the tank to feed your plants, which might not be necessary if you are only using eleocharis acicularis; then when you do your water changes with RO water you will be buffering the PH back up again.

When I used a PH sensor on my CO2 kit every time I added the salts I could see the PH reading change and the CO2 would start kicking in like crazy, which meant using a lot of CO2 which is not that cheap.

So you need to ask yourself are you more interested in how your plants feel and look or your caridina dennerli shrimp. It is definitely possible to do what you propose with CO2 and mineral salts, just be aware of the potential fluctuations in PH which is not good for plants or shrimps.

Enjoy, and lets see some pics.

Steve.
 
I can't give a better answer than Steve so I'll just say welcome to the forum. 🙂

Looking forward to seeing what you do with the 60F, I quite fancy one myself (but it's not going to happen🙁).
 
I was wondering if you guys can give me a few pointers about setting up my tank. I have these so far :

1- ADA 60P
1- TMC Grobeam 1500 Ultima >>>>>>>> One tile is it enough light for carpet plants ?
1- Eheim 2215
1- Co2 set up


Thank you
 
edgarseamonkey said:
I was wondering if you guys can give me a few pointers about setting up my tank. I have these so far :

1- ADA 60P
1- TMC Grobeam 1500 Ultima >>>>>>>> One tile is it enough light for carpet plants ?
1- Eheim 2215
1- Co2 set up


Thank you
Click to expand...

Hi
One tile is easily enough for most if not all carpet plants as long as your co2 injection, flow and Fertiliser regime are where they should be.

Sent from my D6503 using Tapatalk 2
 
My 1500 colour plus tile is growing dwarfe hair grass and montecarlo in my 60l cube with one channel at 30% and the other channel at 5%.
If you haven't bought the controller i would get one before you set the tank up, i grew lots of diatoms when i first started using mine, at 50% on both channels.
I haven't used the 1500 ultima but i believe its about the same power 1500 colour plus.
And as alistair says make sure flow and ferts are good
 
edgarseamonkey said:
Great information. Thank you. Flow meaning I should get a small powerhead or wave maker ?
Click to expand...

It might be worth you having a read through the stickies in each specific subject ie flow in the planted aquarium, co2 etc and it'll give you a good idea.

If you have ample flow from the filter and all plants are waving gently then your flow is fine.

I have the 1500 nd tiles and they don't have the lenses and are really good. I believe the ultimate is the similar just with lenses so light source is more direct and par is higher. But slightly less brighter.

I saw your other post on height percentage etc etc.
Have it initially about 40 ish centimetres from the surface and start out at a percentage of 30 whilst your plant mass is low. Have an hour either side ramp up ramp down and run the lighting for 4 to 5 hours until your plant mass increases and adjust as necessary. An inline diffuser is a good investment too as it allows you to see if your co2 and flow is reaching where it needs too..

Hope this helps
 
What ever happened to the Amanda the OP?
 
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