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Too much lighting vs wrong plants vs new tank?

Animallover

Member
Joined
12 Mar 2021
Messages
75
Location
U.K.
Hi guys,
I am new to the hobby and have started my first tank last Monday so on day 8 today.

The tank is 318 litres in capacity.

I am running 2 Fluval LED plant spectrum which are 59 watts each. I have them on full power for 6 hours a day since I started and CO2 comes on 2 hours before light comes on and turns off 1 hour before lights turn off.

Dimensions 122cm x 61cm x 46cm

Filters: Oase 850 and Fluvial FX6.

When I calculated lighting I thought this would be enough for this tank but I have some slow growing algae on the hardscape and so was thinking whether I am using too much light or not? My flow is good and stable, my co2 is stable and my light every day is stable.

I would like to say my plant is heavily planted but they are all still babies the plants (most are 1-2 grow pots). Lots of stem plants on left and left back.

Should I adjust the lighting in any way? Or make any other changes? Or is it just new tank algae that will leave in a couple weeks?

I have attached some pictures.

Any help would be appreciated.
 

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It looks like a lot of the plants on the right side are melting. I'd replace them with fast growers. Fast growers are great "fast" indicators of what is going on. I'd also move the drop checker to the bottom and I'd make sure that none of the rhizomes are buried.
 
Yes. Algae on hardscape is the first indication of excessive lighting.

Cheers,/
Thanks! I was wondering if it could also be the fungus that you get on new driftwood at the start of a new tank? I tried googling images but it's more fuzzy. The white patches I have are fuzzy but also in blobs so not sure.
 
Thanks! I was wondering if it could also be the fungus that you get on new driftwood at the start of a new tank? I tried googling images but it's more fuzzy. The white patches I have are fuzzy but also in blobs so not sure.

It’s definitely fungus on the spider wood.

Also the anubias at the front needs its rhizome to be out of the soil otherwise it will rot and die.

It looks like you are suffering quite a bit of melt on your plants, what is your current water change regime?
 
It looks like a lot of the plants on the right side are melting. I'd replace them with fast growers. Fast growers are great "fast" indicators of what is going on. I'd also move the drop checker to the bottom and I'd make sure that none of the rhizomes are buried.
Thanks! Yes all my pogostemon helferi have melted and some are reappearing bright green so I thought maybe its just part of the normal process and that it will melt and then replace itself. Are fast growers like stem plants? I have them on this tank set up on the left of the tank and shorter planters on the right and front. Yes I was OCD and definitely moved the checker to about 10 different locations (2 new locations per day) and the colour of the drop checker has always been okay. Thanks for letting me know about the rhizomes didn't even think of that so will definitely get them out. I have Java fern on the left front portion that has rhizomes too right? Not sure how i'm going to attach the java fern on the left side without burying. Any tips? Don't really fancy adding more hardscape.
 
It’s definitely fungus on the spider wood.

Also the anubias at the front needs its rhizome to be out of the soil otherwise it will rot and die.

It looks like you are suffering quite a bit of melt on your plants, what is your current water change regime?
Thanks! Yes I need to get the anubias and java fern rhizomes out on my next water change- still wondering regarding how to do that with the java fern. Yes its all the P. helferi- it was actually like that from day 1 from the 1 2 grow pots when I planted them I thought it was normal and now there are some green coloured leaves coming out. I'm doing water changes every 3 or 4 days only at the moment 50%-80% at a time. Is that too infrequent? I just thought huge water changes meant I could do them a bit less frequent.
 
Thanks! Yes I need to get the anubias and java fern rhizomes out on my next water change- still wondering regarding how to do that with the java fern. Yes its all the P. helferi- it was actually like that from day 1 from the 1 2 grow pots when I planted them I thought it was normal and now there are some green coloured leaves coming out. I'm doing water changes every 3 or 4 days only at the moment 50%-80% at a time. Is that too infrequent? I just thought huge water changes meant I could do them a bit less frequent.

I would remove the dead plants, they’ll just foul your water.

Aquasaoils generally release a lot of ammonia in the first couple of weeks, so a 75%+ per day water change is ideal, for at least the first week, and preferably the second.

Anubias are an epiphyte plant, which means they typically grow out of soil, on rocks and wood. You can use some superglue - only on their roots, not the rhizome - to attach them to your stones or wood next water change.

As mentioned by @Emil. you need a lot more plant mass really otherwise you may start running into some issues.
 
I would remove the dead plants, they’ll just foul your water.

Aquasaoils generally release a lot of ammonia in the first couple of weeks, so a 75%+ per day water change is ideal, for at least the first week, and preferably the second.

Anubias are an epiphyte plant, which means they typically grow out of soil, on rocks and wood. You can use some superglue - only on their roots, not the rhizome - to attach them to your stones or wood next water change.

As mentioned by @Emil. you need a lot more plant mass really otherwise you may start running into some issues.
Ok thanks! Will definitely implement those ideas and see how it goes
 
Yes I need to get the anubias and java fern rhizomes out on my next water change- still wondering regarding how to do that with the java fern.
You don't need big rocks to keep them down, you only need few small ones that can hide inside of the root "bush". You can also buy plant weights which are just lead strips. They're not the best looking however.
 
You don't need big rocks to keep them down, you only need few small ones that can hide inside of the root "bush". You can also buy plant weights which are just lead strips. They're not the best looking however.

Thanks that's a good idea. I might get some small pebble sized stones and glue the java fern roots onto that and place the pebble and roots in substrate while keeping the rhimzone and plant above the substrate. Hopefully that will work!

I was also wondering how other people manage to add algae eaters to the tank so early on? Im on day 16 now and haven't got any signs of algae but would be nice having a few algae eaters just in case there's something that I can't see. Just not sure if my tank is safe after such a short period especially as I was not using dechlorinator for the first few days so definitely wasn't helping the BB.
 
You can use bottled bacteria starters or filter media from previous tanks. Or just stay on top of water changes. Don't worry about algae, algae isn't bad. And if you're plants are thriving, it won't grow on them.
 
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Hi guys,

I’m on day 28 today. I haven’t changed anything really since my last post except water changes.
There has been some growth in all of my plants and not so much growth on the plants that melted on the right but I would say 1/6 of them have reappeared and super healthy.
I was just wondering when I can safely increase my light? It’s only on for 6 hours a day. Haven’t really increased it as when I was doing the initial reading online most people said 6 hours is enough for the early parts. Just wondering if I can just jump to 8 hours? I was going to increase to 7 hours a day for the next month and see how it goes and adjust the CO2 of course?
I also have some fertiliser but have not used a drop yet just wondering if I randomly start using it now?
Thanks!
 
I’ve started using ferts now just 1 pump a day of tropica SN (starting slow and will build up). From the first day I used the following day I got this new green algae that can be seen on a few of the pictures. Any idea if this is normal? Hasn’t grown since coming up.
Also my reinicki has started melting with holes in it? I’m guessing the lack of fertiliser is the issue from earlier on?
Also my crypts are browning now. Any help with what I can do to fix all these issues?
The rotala are all growing fast and very healthy from what I can see.

thanks!
 

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Just another update. Since last Monday where I added the fertiliser there hasn’t been any change except 2 days ago I added some Monte Carlo and drawf hair grass. Today I noticed the Monte Carlo now has some kind of hairy stringy algae on its surface? All of my other plants haven’t changed that much since last Monday except for one leaf of my Crypt also having the hair algae and the colouring of my plants seem to have picked up since adding the fertiliser.

I’ve just passed 5 weeks from starting up this tank. Not really sure what can be the cause of the algae as I haven’t changed any of my parameters except for adding the little amount of the 2 new plants. Should I cut down/ increase the fertiliser or just wait a bit longer to see if it’s just diatoms? I’m currently only doing once a week 50-75% water changes. Should I increase this? I’m just wondering if I made a mistake by adding more plants randomly while the tank is cycling.


Any other help would be appreciated!
 
I just put a pump of Tropica SN daily after my photo period. My tank is 318L. I haven’t got an extensive regimen. I just remember watching the Green Aqua YouTube videos on fertilisers and the guy said for newcomers just follow the instructions on the back of the fertiliser and it’ll be fine so been hoping for the best haha.

image.jpg

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The dosage for a 318L tank would be a minimum of two pumps a day, and that’s still a pretty lean dose. I’d recommend doubling that for starters.
 
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