Hi all,
Lairewen wrote
Fair enough. I am really embarrassed by them - if I wasn't desperate to get it sorted I would have been ashamed to post the pics.
after this quote had been posted,
bh, that last tank looks under maintained and past the point of saving. Plants aren't healthy, and they wont recover.
Lairewen there is no reason to feel embarrassed at all, and I'm sorry but this comment is just totally wrong, the plants don't look lush and green because they haven't had large amounts of macro- nutrients, there is nothing else "wrong" with them at all. In my opinion a lot of what has been posted on this thread is in-appropriate advice, your plants lack macro-nutrients, that is all that is "wrong" with them.
I think that your "to do" list in the last post is a good one:
Increase water changes to weekly or twice weekly.
Clean the filter pads monthly.
Reduce light to 6 hours a day.
Dose with easy carbo daily.
Dose with ferts daily once I get them.
Personally I would ditch the liquid carbon, and start with a very low nutrient addition. In your case the first addition I would make would be to add some KNO3 (potassium nitrate), and my suspicion would be that your plants will show a very quick response to this in terms of both growth and colour. Use the calculator on "James' Planted Tank" (<
http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm>), and aim for about 5 ppm N (for example 1/2 of a teaspoon of KNO3 in a 100 litre tank would supply 12ppmK & 18ppm NO3 (this is 5ppm N)).
Over time you may feel that plant growth would be increased by the addition of more nutrients (I'll include light (PAR) and CO2 in this), and once you used to "normal" plant growth, you can start manipulating these 3 elements.
I want healthy plant growth, but much more than that I want a stable, resilient tank environment. In fact I welcome some algae and biofilm, it is an entirely natural part of the aquatic environment.
cheers Darrel