I set up a new tank around 5 weeks ago now, it's my first planted tank, it's not gone smoothly really.
The specs are:
42 litre tank
CO2 injection from fire extinguisher (drop checker lime green throughout photoperiod), goes straight into filter intake
6 hour light period, Chihiros A351 light on controller, goes from 60%-80%-60% over the course of the 6 hours
Eheim Eccopro 200 filter (600 litres per hour quoted in spec)
Substrate is a mixture of carribsea eco complete and JBL mandano (wish I'd gone for something nicer now)
Livestock is happy and not dying
Plenty of flow throughout tank - I know this because my hair algae on my carpet gives me an indication like an evil stringy wind-sock
Products I've been using
TNC Complete
Some root tabs in the substrate
Seachem Prime
Recently tried some Seachem Flourish Excel to combat algae, didn't do anything noticeable
I have a carpet of monte carlo which has filled out nicely, but I've also got plenty of fuzz/hair algae in this, and the remainder of the plants have not been growing well, particularly the stem plants I'm worried about. They're all suffering (irregular growth) and hardly growing.
The rotala rotundifolia here was planted on day 1, and now 5 weeks later does show some new growth but it's not looking good, it lost all its round leaves and started growing in its other form, and has tried to branch, but the leaves are mostly quite small.
I've really not got to grips with the dosing of the TNC complete. The bottle says 1ml per 10 litres once per week, but when I dosed at this level the plants were actually starting to die and I got algae. I looked that the EI calculator on rotala butterfly which has options for TNC complete, and it calculated to put 5ml per day in. There's quite a difference here, 4ml per week vs 35ml per week. I've been trying 2.5ml per day and plants look less dead but still they aren't growing, but I'm pretty unsure about plonking more than the stated weekly dose in every single day. The amazon frogbit I have also overall turned yellow, black, and had quite a bit of die-off.
Am I doing something wrong here? Please help!
The specs are:
42 litre tank
CO2 injection from fire extinguisher (drop checker lime green throughout photoperiod), goes straight into filter intake
6 hour light period, Chihiros A351 light on controller, goes from 60%-80%-60% over the course of the 6 hours
Eheim Eccopro 200 filter (600 litres per hour quoted in spec)
Substrate is a mixture of carribsea eco complete and JBL mandano (wish I'd gone for something nicer now)
Livestock is happy and not dying
Plenty of flow throughout tank - I know this because my hair algae on my carpet gives me an indication like an evil stringy wind-sock
Products I've been using
TNC Complete
Some root tabs in the substrate
Seachem Prime
Recently tried some Seachem Flourish Excel to combat algae, didn't do anything noticeable
I have a carpet of monte carlo which has filled out nicely, but I've also got plenty of fuzz/hair algae in this, and the remainder of the plants have not been growing well, particularly the stem plants I'm worried about. They're all suffering (irregular growth) and hardly growing.
The rotala rotundifolia here was planted on day 1, and now 5 weeks later does show some new growth but it's not looking good, it lost all its round leaves and started growing in its other form, and has tried to branch, but the leaves are mostly quite small.
I've really not got to grips with the dosing of the TNC complete. The bottle says 1ml per 10 litres once per week, but when I dosed at this level the plants were actually starting to die and I got algae. I looked that the EI calculator on rotala butterfly which has options for TNC complete, and it calculated to put 5ml per day in. There's quite a difference here, 4ml per week vs 35ml per week. I've been trying 2.5ml per day and plants look less dead but still they aren't growing, but I'm pretty unsure about plonking more than the stated weekly dose in every single day. The amazon frogbit I have also overall turned yellow, black, and had quite a bit of die-off.
Am I doing something wrong here? Please help!