Recent content by curefan

Cheers Alto...I think I will buy at least 2 new T5's....any recommendations on tube type?? The substrate is old Aquasoil. Tank is cleared of all old plants, so might start again with easier to grow plants and see if I can gradually change to more demanding ones, as it would be more cost...

Thanks for your input... Well the flow rate it actually quite good, its just that the spray bar is so long now, about 4ft, so i don't really reckon the cleaning is going to improve things much if the indicator is showing good flow? Would i be better off spending more money and getting a 2nd...

Ok, I increased the size of the spray bar to almost the full length of the tank BUT, there is only a trickle coming out of it now. I know you said the Tunze's would create enough flow but I'm still concerned especially since my co2 will be coming out of the spray bar via Atomizer. Do I need be...

Thanks supercoley for your thoughts. I'll see if I took a pic after planting later....Just in from a night shift You say spray is too short, but if I make it longer, I'm gonna make my flow even worse , right? Flow wouldn't be the strongests out of it even though there are no blocks and yes...

Sorry in the delay on getting pic up....as you can see all dead plants cleared out...Co2 now off....no point in wasting it. Was talking to Green Machine....they reckon the problem was that i wasn't using the 4 bulbs initially as the tank is 2ft deep and said those plants need more light....well...

yeah, ill try and get some up shortly......

As stated in OP, i did a PH profile .....7.0 before co2 and drops to min of 6.3

ok....not Ca so.....cheers.....As i said any more Co2 fish will suffer, and as from my OP there seems to be enough flow distribution:banghead:

Anyone any thoughts on the Calcium...is it an issue?

ok....an update.... My LFS asked me to drop in some water samples as they have some high tech water testing equipment seemingly. They said my tank water has a GH of 10, of which 97.5% is calcuim and the rest being magnesium. He reckons my plant growing problems lie here with the content of Ca...

I find those GH/KH kits difficult to use as its hard to see exactly when the colours change (maybe because they are old test kits). But what i got was a KH of 8 (German degrees) and GH of 14, but can't be sure of accuracy??

Thanks for all the suggestions so far......@Ian I was only using 2 of the 4 tubes, so thats 160 Watts, only when i saw the plants dying off i put on the 4 to see if would get pearling or something, but no joy.....plants never pearled with 2 or 4 bulbs on.

My current filter spray bar does not go the full width of the tank, if i added another filter, would i need co2 coming from both spray bars or would the one do......dont like the thought of 2 co2 cylinders under tank as i would barely fit in another filter!!!

Yes they melted completely and they were in Jelly but the Cuba wasn't which took a lot longer to die.....did you have success with non jelly plants after???

...no, no serious algae problems, just the normal build up over time!!!