sciencefiction
Member
- Joined
- 26 Feb 2013
- Messages
- 3,412
I know you guys are very helpful and knowledgeable about plants and I am getting no response elsewhere so I thought I'd post a quick summary of my recent disaster.
I setup a 5f(around 100G tank), 2nd hand cheap tank. It's supposed to be low tech, no injected CO2 for sure, not sure about other options depending on how it goes.
I ordered custom made LEDs which were going to take a while and in fact I don't have them yet two months after.
In the mean time I fishless cycled the filters using bottled ammonia, that was finished ages ago, so I just dosed more ammonia whenever I thought of it.
I mineralized 2x25kg bags of topsoil, two different types-B&Q and Homebase versions
I bought Unipac fiji fine sand for a cap.
And I got red clay to mix with the soil at about 10% of the total amount
Also dolomite and potassium chloride for sprinkling the bottom.
The equipment is:
Eheim Professional 2-1000L/H
APS filter-2000 L/H
V2 TMC Sand bed filter with Eheim 1250L/H external powerhead.
At the moment, the outlets are 3 spraybars along the bag covering the entire lenght.
Plants:
Echinodorus Parviflorus
Echinodorus Rosé
Echinodorus gabrielii
Echinodorus cordifolius (E. radicans)
Vallisneria spiralis(straight vallis)
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Mi Oya'
Cryptocoryne beckettii "Pink"
Hygrophila pinnatifida
Nuphar japonica
Nymphaea lotus var. rubra
Bacopa australis
Aponogeton crispus
Shinnersia rivularis(Mexican Oak Leaf)
Ludwigia palustris x repens (L. mullertii)
Wood:
Taxiphyllum species "Spiky"
Anubias barteri var. barteri
Microsorum pteropus ''Narrow''
Floaters:
Pistia stratiotes(waterlettuce)
Trapa Natans
Salvinia Minima
Because of the huge delay in receiving the lights, I ended up receiving the plant order earlier. It also got stuck in the post and then spent some time in a bucket hoping I'd receive the lights any day, but I didn't.
So I had to use my last option, which was to use a crappy one 36W bulb over the 100G tank for a week until I receive the LEDs this week sometime hopefully.
I setup the tank this Friday. I made a few mistakes along the way, almost forgot to sprinkle the dolomite and potassium. Then it took so long to be putting the soil, washing the sand, that I ended up with plants spread on a bin bag for ages. I did sprinkle water on them but possibly they spent too long out of the water. So I didn't do much aquascaping, just stuck the plants in so I can fill the tank faster. I couldn't even distinguish between the echinodorus species too, because they weren't tagged. They are all different, two small species and two large, so wasn't sure which one at the back, which at the front, so I just spread them around to see once they grow. At the end, when filling up the tank, I forgot to check the tap water temperature, so ended up bringing down the temperature of the tank a lot.
Today, a few days later, my plants are melting a lot, even hard plants like anubias. I think I may lose a few plants. I am not sure whether it was all the problems with the plants, or the light is just not enough to keep them alive for a few more days, as it's only like 0.3W per Gallon.
Here are a few pictures from start to finish.
The tank cycled with the filters only, soaked the wood too.
Mineralizing the soil:
The paw prints of my helper
About 3/4" of soil
Capped with about 1"(2.5cm), maybe a bit more Unipac fiji fine sand
And finally I put the crappy temporary 36W light(only one bulb works) and the ugly cover(the tank will be open top, but the cover holds the current light
The bad state of my melting plants:
As you can see, several plants are completely melting, including the anubias. The others are the the roots and bottoms of the stem plants: Bacopa australis, Ludwiga and the Mexican Oak Leaf. At the moment there are some stems floating because the base near the root melted.
The Red lotus has no leaves anymore, The Nuphar Japonica has melted all the big leaves but has one small one still healthy.
The rest are still hanging on for now, but then I haven't looked today as I don't want to see really.
I measured ammonia and nitrIte, both 0, so even if the soil is releasing ammonia, the filters are clearing that up so not detectable on the test.
The water parameters after the addition of the soil are pretty much the same as my tap and other tanks besides the Gh being 2dGh higher which could be because of the dolomite. The stats are as follows, measured yesterday I think.
Ammonia-0
NitrIte-0
NitrAte-not tested, but 100% water change prior to planting with less than 1ppm nitrAte in tap water(according to the water company)
Gh-14
Kh-8
Ph-7.4
TDS-291ppm(higher than my tap so the soil does leach nutritients into the water column I suppose).
There are no fish in the tank yet.
Is there anything I can do to stop them melt away completely? Is it the shock they experienced prior to planting or possibly the light is too low to keep them alive for a few more days?
I have kind of given up at this stage. I planned for so long, did everything to have all ready on time and not deal with ammonia spikes, but the delay in the LEDs kind of mixed up my plans altogehter.
Thanks for reading.
I setup a 5f(around 100G tank), 2nd hand cheap tank. It's supposed to be low tech, no injected CO2 for sure, not sure about other options depending on how it goes.
I ordered custom made LEDs which were going to take a while and in fact I don't have them yet two months after.
In the mean time I fishless cycled the filters using bottled ammonia, that was finished ages ago, so I just dosed more ammonia whenever I thought of it.
I mineralized 2x25kg bags of topsoil, two different types-B&Q and Homebase versions
I bought Unipac fiji fine sand for a cap.
And I got red clay to mix with the soil at about 10% of the total amount
Also dolomite and potassium chloride for sprinkling the bottom.
The equipment is:
Eheim Professional 2-1000L/H
APS filter-2000 L/H
V2 TMC Sand bed filter with Eheim 1250L/H external powerhead.
At the moment, the outlets are 3 spraybars along the bag covering the entire lenght.
Plants:
Echinodorus Parviflorus
Echinodorus Rosé
Echinodorus gabrielii
Echinodorus cordifolius (E. radicans)
Vallisneria spiralis(straight vallis)
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Mi Oya'
Cryptocoryne beckettii "Pink"
Hygrophila pinnatifida
Nuphar japonica
Nymphaea lotus var. rubra
Bacopa australis
Aponogeton crispus
Shinnersia rivularis(Mexican Oak Leaf)
Ludwigia palustris x repens (L. mullertii)
Wood:
Taxiphyllum species "Spiky"
Anubias barteri var. barteri
Microsorum pteropus ''Narrow''
Floaters:
Pistia stratiotes(waterlettuce)
Trapa Natans
Salvinia Minima
Because of the huge delay in receiving the lights, I ended up receiving the plant order earlier. It also got stuck in the post and then spent some time in a bucket hoping I'd receive the lights any day, but I didn't.
So I had to use my last option, which was to use a crappy one 36W bulb over the 100G tank for a week until I receive the LEDs this week sometime hopefully.
I setup the tank this Friday. I made a few mistakes along the way, almost forgot to sprinkle the dolomite and potassium. Then it took so long to be putting the soil, washing the sand, that I ended up with plants spread on a bin bag for ages. I did sprinkle water on them but possibly they spent too long out of the water. So I didn't do much aquascaping, just stuck the plants in so I can fill the tank faster. I couldn't even distinguish between the echinodorus species too, because they weren't tagged. They are all different, two small species and two large, so wasn't sure which one at the back, which at the front, so I just spread them around to see once they grow. At the end, when filling up the tank, I forgot to check the tap water temperature, so ended up bringing down the temperature of the tank a lot.
Today, a few days later, my plants are melting a lot, even hard plants like anubias. I think I may lose a few plants. I am not sure whether it was all the problems with the plants, or the light is just not enough to keep them alive for a few more days, as it's only like 0.3W per Gallon.
Here are a few pictures from start to finish.
The tank cycled with the filters only, soaked the wood too.
Mineralizing the soil:
The paw prints of my helper
About 3/4" of soil
Capped with about 1"(2.5cm), maybe a bit more Unipac fiji fine sand
And finally I put the crappy temporary 36W light(only one bulb works) and the ugly cover(the tank will be open top, but the cover holds the current light
The bad state of my melting plants:
As you can see, several plants are completely melting, including the anubias. The others are the the roots and bottoms of the stem plants: Bacopa australis, Ludwiga and the Mexican Oak Leaf. At the moment there are some stems floating because the base near the root melted.
The Red lotus has no leaves anymore, The Nuphar Japonica has melted all the big leaves but has one small one still healthy.
The rest are still hanging on for now, but then I haven't looked today as I don't want to see really.
I measured ammonia and nitrIte, both 0, so even if the soil is releasing ammonia, the filters are clearing that up so not detectable on the test.
The water parameters after the addition of the soil are pretty much the same as my tap and other tanks besides the Gh being 2dGh higher which could be because of the dolomite. The stats are as follows, measured yesterday I think.
Ammonia-0
NitrIte-0
NitrAte-not tested, but 100% water change prior to planting with less than 1ppm nitrAte in tap water(according to the water company)
Gh-14
Kh-8
Ph-7.4
TDS-291ppm(higher than my tap so the soil does leach nutritients into the water column I suppose).
There are no fish in the tank yet.
Is there anything I can do to stop them melt away completely? Is it the shock they experienced prior to planting or possibly the light is too low to keep them alive for a few more days?
I have kind of given up at this stage. I planned for so long, did everything to have all ready on time and not deal with ammonia spikes, but the delay in the LEDs kind of mixed up my plans altogehter.
Thanks for reading.