Hi everyone

[ChrisG]

Hi,

I have a Fluval Roma 90 that I have attempted to plant in the past. I have had some success however while I was on holiday my timer plug broke leaving it on, this lead to rampant algae and the tank looked horrible. I ended up removing the majority of the plants, and the tank still looks to be in dismay. My substrate isn't deep enough either really, I plan to switch to using Miracle grow organic or something similar as it has been suggested to me a couple of times on reddit's various aquarium communities. I plan to top this off with some JBL Manado my dad had left over from setting up his tank. I do have another 2 tanks in addition to this planted tank however they didn't exactly qualify as planted unless having some Vallisneria Spiralis in my community tank does.

Equipment wise I have:

• Fluval U2 Filter
• Glo Aqua-Glo 15w T8 light
• Glo Power-Glo 15w T8 light
• Reflectors for each light installed in the tank hood
• Aquatropic aquatherm 100 watt heater
• JBL ProFlora Bio 160 CO2
• For fertiliser I have ferropol and ferropol 24 by JBL, admittedly I have been fertilising my tank that often with the daily fertiliser

In the way of fish I have:

• Siamese Fighter Crown Tail
• 6 x Cardinal Tetra
• 3 x Bristlenose plecs, they are currently babies and I will be moving at least one of them out to my community tank in the future which has additional filtration to support it.

As for plants I am not entirely sure what I have but I will attempt to identify them:

• Vallisneria Spiralis
• Twisted Vallisneria
• Cabomba Caroliniana
• Mini Amazon Sword (I believe)
• Elodea Densa
  
• And some others I can't manage to identify

Any suggestions would be welcome to how I can improve my tank. Thank you.

Pictures of my tank (and fish):

Spoiler

The whole tank

The CO2 diffuser

What I suspect to be the mini amazon sword

Plant/Algae cluster that I hate looking at

Close up of Plant/Algae cluster

Twisted Vallis

Size of bristlenoses

 

[Martin in Holland]

O my....where to start...
OK, lights probably to much and to long, Filter output (circulation) not enough also look into your CO2 if it's enough (drop checker or better a pH vs KH measurement per hour), manually remove as much algae and cyno as you can, remove leaves that are to much effected or dying (dead ones should be removed already), do as much big water changes as you want/can, clean your filter. This should be a nice start to a cleaner looking tank, if plants stop dying and algae are better under control, get more (much more) plants. Plants are your friend.

 

[ChrisG]

Lights are on for no longer 11 hours a day normally sometime between 10 and a half hours and 11. My filter has a circulation, of 400 lph. As for cleaning it the body/pump are brand new as my last filter broke. It still has the same media in, for now. Which is clean weekly with the carbon portions being changed one every 2 weeks. As for manually removing stuff, I have been avoiding that recently as my medication for eczema and dermatitis has disappeared, the tank edging can also give me some rather bad scratches on top of that.I will be doing a rather large water change at some point this weekend, also removing the fish for a couple of hours to replace the substrate. I do intend to get way more plants in the future, and could possibly steal some vallis out of my community tank.

 

[Martin in Holland]

Light only on for 5 to 6 hours please and way to much light, turn on only 1 light at a time or atleast take out the reflectors....Roma 90, is that 90 liters or gallon, if liter you would need a filter/pump with an output of 900 lph, if gallon even a whole lot more (10x your tank). For cleaning glass I always use filter floss and elbow grease, cyno is easy to sifon....replacing your substrate????? why??? this is where fish waste turns into plant food if your bacteria are doing their job.
Soda stream CO2 isn't the most stable, try to keep it as stable as you possibly can.

 

[ChrisG]

90 litres, why do I need to have the filter output rated to do my tank 10 times an hour? This is the perfect size for my tank and going any bigger I'd be looking at a huge increase in cost. I replaced the substrate as the gravel/aqua base mix I had was no more than a centimetre deep. Cleaning the glass is easy enough.

 

[Martin in Holland]

Chris, maybe it's best to start reading the tutorials in the articles section http://www.ukaps.org/index.php?page=ukaps-articles.
It's also possible to place a power head in you tank for extra current, the output (or current) 10x the tank per hour is needed to get nutrients efficient enough to your plants and keep think you don't want in your water longer up in order for the filter to catch it...but these are just a few of the reasons why you need 10x....anyway, start with that light of yours, it's way, way, way, to much.