Abcdefg
Member
Hi all,
I've started my first tank, I've never had any sort of tank before, so please bare with me...
The tank is as follows, and may or may not be a slightly odd setup / odd equipment choices (due to reading various advice from various places over the course of setting it up)
50l tank with a large amount of rock so possibly the water volume is more like somewhere between 35 to 40.
Substrate:
Base: some 'aquarium sand' (just plain fine sand) - in retrospect this was foolish..
Then a layer of powersand special - in retrospect this is probably unnecessary
Top:
Ada amazonia.
In terms of the substrate, I should have done this differently I feel, as I'm left with not as much volume of Amazonian as I should / could have...
Filter:
an external eheim pro3 250 (2071)
Light:
Ecotech Radion freshwater - I want to be able to have a fair amount of control over rthe lighting as it's in the living room of a one bed flat, so it will have to be lived with constantly.
Start up method:
I didn't Intend to, but ended up doing an unplanned 3 to 4 day DSM as it took a while to plant. It was partly flooded / sprayed to saturate the substrate, then planted and covered. Lighting was very strong during this (unintentional)
It was flooded, then left for 30 to 40 hours then had a fairly traumatic 95% we after change (the siphon dumped a load of water back in to the tank when let air in to the downstream end, and uprooted lots of plants.
It was then run for a week or so, then I did another 95% water change as I noticed some of what looked like some hair algae / or maybe early BBA on some of the moss.
It's been flooded for 2 weeks now, and I have been dosing:
Seachem Stability at recommended dose:
5ml, then 2 ml per day
Flourish excel at recommended dosage: 5ml after a water change and 1 or 2 ml a day thereafter. However I have increased this to 5ml a day starting last night in the hope that it will fight the algae.
EI : got a starter from aquariumplantfood and started dosing at recommended dose yesterday so alternate days 10ml macro then 10ml micro/trace
C02:
I have one of those £10 topica aerosol and bell diffuser co2 kits (it was cheap, non intimidating, and I thought why not run it at the beguining) I fill the bell whenever I notice it's not full, so mornings, after work and before bed.
I've been um-ing and ah-ing about whether to get a soda stream setup, but if I'm honest it's initially a little intimidating in terms of having pressurised gas in the living room. I might make my peace with it though if it's going to make life easier / healthier for the tank.
I definitely have new growth and spreading on most of my plants, I've had no melting that I can see and the roots are burrowing down in to the substrate. and I've seen new growth since the start.
Monte Carlo
Pygmy chain sword
S. repens
DHG
Also mosses are growing (despite some algae)
Flame moss
Weeping moss
Christmas moss
I have a few small clumps of a small (can't remember the species but it's a pygmy or dwarf type..) Java fern. hard to tell if that growing, but it's a slow grower.
I've been testing the water with jbl 6 in 1 test strips and a tetra total amaonia (nh4 / nh3 combined I believe) test kit with liquid regents. I know test kits get short shrift from a fair few of the very informed members here, but I didn't see an alternative and needed a rough guide, especially with chlorine and dechlorinators for example.
My total ammonia hit 0ppm yesterday after going down for a few days and my n02 was at 50 to 100ppm no3 was at between 2 and 5ppm
I have been cutting back on light which initially must have been pretty high, and I'm now doing a split photoperiod of 3 hrs on, 3hrs off, 3hrs on per day. Lights are now on "19%" ntensity (I'd be more specific but I can't find par info and how it relates to the ecosmart graph thing ( doea anyone know anything about this)
I have a few questions;
1: ammonia;
I'm wondering whether this 0 reading (if its accurate at all) means that the cycle is in danger of stalling, ie my water changes have removed too much ammonia, and now any bacteria are growing slowly and so the cycling will be slow.
Or alternatively has the tank cycled or almost cycled due to adding seachem stability.
2: water changes and algae;
I thought that changing water this much ( one 95% 1to 2 days after flooding, the again after a week or so, would help with algae and cycling. However I'm now reading a few posts about water changes causing big changes in c02 and that the changes can act as a chemical signal to algae triggering outbreaks- is this 'correct'
Also maybe I've prematurely deprived the tank of the baseline of ammonia needed to feed bacteria?
C02;
The bell and aerosol probably does something, but it takes up room I the small tank and was only meant as a temporary thing to start the tank, should I phase it out slowly and go no c02, or switch to a soda stream or yeast type setup.
Plants;
These plants are all small, are some bigger ones even if it's just one (probably only room for one ) going to help me out in terms of stability / balanced tank, or is it going to be negligible
Things that I don't know but should;
Does any of the above setup sound ill-advised in a way that's going to lead (as much as anyone can tell) to me having a bad time?
I need (it's been promised to my daughter) to be able to keep a small number of small (tiny) fish, species undecided yet. And I'd also love to keep some ammanos and some RCS / fancy- ish shrimp of some kind.
Many thanks in advance,
Sorry about any confusing info above, I can clarify anything that's important.
Tom
I've started my first tank, I've never had any sort of tank before, so please bare with me...
The tank is as follows, and may or may not be a slightly odd setup / odd equipment choices (due to reading various advice from various places over the course of setting it up)
50l tank with a large amount of rock so possibly the water volume is more like somewhere between 35 to 40.
Substrate:
Base: some 'aquarium sand' (just plain fine sand) - in retrospect this was foolish..
Then a layer of powersand special - in retrospect this is probably unnecessary
Top:
Ada amazonia.
In terms of the substrate, I should have done this differently I feel, as I'm left with not as much volume of Amazonian as I should / could have...
Filter:
an external eheim pro3 250 (2071)
Light:
Ecotech Radion freshwater - I want to be able to have a fair amount of control over rthe lighting as it's in the living room of a one bed flat, so it will have to be lived with constantly.
Start up method:
I didn't Intend to, but ended up doing an unplanned 3 to 4 day DSM as it took a while to plant. It was partly flooded / sprayed to saturate the substrate, then planted and covered. Lighting was very strong during this (unintentional)
It was flooded, then left for 30 to 40 hours then had a fairly traumatic 95% we after change (the siphon dumped a load of water back in to the tank when let air in to the downstream end, and uprooted lots of plants.
It was then run for a week or so, then I did another 95% water change as I noticed some of what looked like some hair algae / or maybe early BBA on some of the moss.
It's been flooded for 2 weeks now, and I have been dosing:
Seachem Stability at recommended dose:
5ml, then 2 ml per day
Flourish excel at recommended dosage: 5ml after a water change and 1 or 2 ml a day thereafter. However I have increased this to 5ml a day starting last night in the hope that it will fight the algae.
EI : got a starter from aquariumplantfood and started dosing at recommended dose yesterday so alternate days 10ml macro then 10ml micro/trace
C02:
I have one of those £10 topica aerosol and bell diffuser co2 kits (it was cheap, non intimidating, and I thought why not run it at the beguining) I fill the bell whenever I notice it's not full, so mornings, after work and before bed.
I've been um-ing and ah-ing about whether to get a soda stream setup, but if I'm honest it's initially a little intimidating in terms of having pressurised gas in the living room. I might make my peace with it though if it's going to make life easier / healthier for the tank.
I definitely have new growth and spreading on most of my plants, I've had no melting that I can see and the roots are burrowing down in to the substrate. and I've seen new growth since the start.
Monte Carlo
Pygmy chain sword
S. repens
DHG
Also mosses are growing (despite some algae)
Flame moss
Weeping moss
Christmas moss
I have a few small clumps of a small (can't remember the species but it's a pygmy or dwarf type..) Java fern. hard to tell if that growing, but it's a slow grower.
I've been testing the water with jbl 6 in 1 test strips and a tetra total amaonia (nh4 / nh3 combined I believe) test kit with liquid regents. I know test kits get short shrift from a fair few of the very informed members here, but I didn't see an alternative and needed a rough guide, especially with chlorine and dechlorinators for example.
My total ammonia hit 0ppm yesterday after going down for a few days and my n02 was at 50 to 100ppm no3 was at between 2 and 5ppm
I have been cutting back on light which initially must have been pretty high, and I'm now doing a split photoperiod of 3 hrs on, 3hrs off, 3hrs on per day. Lights are now on "19%" ntensity (I'd be more specific but I can't find par info and how it relates to the ecosmart graph thing ( doea anyone know anything about this)
I have a few questions;
1: ammonia;
I'm wondering whether this 0 reading (if its accurate at all) means that the cycle is in danger of stalling, ie my water changes have removed too much ammonia, and now any bacteria are growing slowly and so the cycling will be slow.
Or alternatively has the tank cycled or almost cycled due to adding seachem stability.
2: water changes and algae;
I thought that changing water this much ( one 95% 1to 2 days after flooding, the again after a week or so, would help with algae and cycling. However I'm now reading a few posts about water changes causing big changes in c02 and that the changes can act as a chemical signal to algae triggering outbreaks- is this 'correct'
Also maybe I've prematurely deprived the tank of the baseline of ammonia needed to feed bacteria?
C02;
The bell and aerosol probably does something, but it takes up room I the small tank and was only meant as a temporary thing to start the tank, should I phase it out slowly and go no c02, or switch to a soda stream or yeast type setup.
Plants;
These plants are all small, are some bigger ones even if it's just one (probably only room for one ) going to help me out in terms of stability / balanced tank, or is it going to be negligible
Things that I don't know but should;
Does any of the above setup sound ill-advised in a way that's going to lead (as much as anyone can tell) to me having a bad time?
I need (it's been promised to my daughter) to be able to keep a small number of small (tiny) fish, species undecided yet. And I'd also love to keep some ammanos and some RCS / fancy- ish shrimp of some kind.
Many thanks in advance,
Sorry about any confusing info above, I can clarify anything that's important.
Tom