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What are my plants telling me?

Flow looks much better.

Only change I’d make is move the co2 diffuser to front right, opposite the outflow. You’ll really see the bubbles move round then.

Re keeping clean. Check out a George farmer 1200 maintenance video on YouTube. Soak glassware in mix of cheapest bleach and water whilst you do your maintenance and then clean with a long brush on a wire and a toothbrush.
will need to do it a once a fortnight along with cleaning tubing with the same brush on wire.

https://www.aquariumgardens.co.uk/filter-tube-cleaning-brush-150cm-2127-p.asp
 
AWB is correct would be good to reduce lighting to 50% whilst you get things straight. Should only be a couple of weeks! Then slowly turn up.
 
AverageWhiteBloke said:
Its a trade off mate. The higher the light the more ferts the plants consume, the choice is lower the lights or increasing the ferts. I would personally lower the lights until I had more ferts and let them have a rest to build up reserves. Up the dose then gradually increase the lighting over the space of a few weeks. The plants looked washed out to me and to be fair it's probably only the co2 keeping them alive. If the plants fail and start falling to bits you know who's waiting in the background to take their place!
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Siege said:
AWB is correct would be good to reduce lighting to 50% whilst you get things straight. Should only be a couple of weeks! Then slowly turn up.
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OK thanks, lighting now @ 50% while I sort out my ferts.
 
Rob Wilkinson said:
TNC Complete or Flourish comprehensive?
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Looking on Rotala again TNC complete looks to be a very similar makeup as Trop Spec but with marginally higher Nitrogen so you will still need quite a lot of it. Flourish Comp is even lower still than the Trop Spec. Make the initial investment in the salts mate and spend the savings you're going to make on a set of £10 digital scales off Ebay if you don't like the sound of mixing with spoons.

Here's a simple mixing method based on EI levels. Just put 40 Grams Kno3 and 4 Grams of Po4 into 500ml of water and dose about 10ml three days a week and the Trace elements alternate days for three days. Altogether you will probably get a years worth of ferts for the price of three bottles of Trop Spec.

EI Dosing Final.png
 
Siege said:
Flow looks much better.

Only change I’d make is move the co2 diffuser to front right, opposite the outflow. You’ll really see the bubbles move round then.
Click to expand...

Good idea thanks, I'll move this around too. I'll move the drop checker back to the opposite side to the diffuser right?

I also have a JBL inline diffuser that I could switch to, what are the thoughts on these?

Siege said:
Re keeping clean. Check out a George farmer 1200 maintenance video on YouTube. Soak glassware in mix of cheapest bleach and water whilst you do your maintenance and then clean with a long brush on a wire and a toothbrush.
will need to do it a once a fortnight along with cleaning tubing with the same brush on wire.

https://www.aquariumgardens.co.uk/filter-tube-cleaning-brush-150cm-2127-p.asp
Click to expand...

Thanks, watched the vid and good tips.
 
Just to add make sure you add magnesium sulphate or Epsom salts as its known. Your ferts don't have any and neither does your tap water. A level teaspoon per week will do.
 
AverageWhiteBloke said:
Looking on Rotala again TNC complete looks to be a very similar makeup as Trop Spec but with marginally higher Nitrogen so you will still need quite a lot of it. Flourish Comp is even lower still than the Trop Spec. Make the initial investment in the salts mate and spend the savings you're going to make on a set of £10 digital scales off Ebay if you don't like the sound of mixing with spoons.

Here's a simple mixing method based on EI levels. Just put 40 Grams Kno3 and 4 Grams of Po4 into 500ml of water and dose about 10ml three days a week and the Trace elements alternate days for three days. Altogether you will probably get a years worth of ferts for the price of three bottles of Trop Spec.

View attachment 118846
Click to expand...

AverageWhiteBloke said:
Just to add make sure you add magnesium sulphate or Epsom salts as its known. Your ferts don't have any and neither does your tap water. A level teaspoon per week will do.
Click to expand...

Got it, dry salts it is - thanks for the advice again.
 
No problem buddy, just keep your hands away from that light control for a while. Once you see the plants starting to cheer up and fill out after dosing higher ferts for a while that's the time to notch it back up again.
 
Nice one, did you up the ferts on the trop spec for the first pic? I'm guessing the salts have arrived just in time for it running out.

Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk
 
AverageWhiteBloke said:
Nice one, did you up the ferts on the trop spec for the first pic? I'm guessing the salts have arrived just in time for it running out.

Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Yep, I increased it to 6ml per day which is 7x what I was dosing. Day by day plants are looking much better and all round less algae. The tropica hasn't quite run out yet but it's nearly there.

Lights still at 50%, when I start dosing salts I'll up this gradually from there.
 
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