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Am I doing it right?

Seditro

Seditro

Member
Joined
17 Mar 2015
Messages
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Hi guys!

I set up a rio 125 tank about 2 and a half weeks ago and im wondering if im doing everything right

So my tank

Juwel Rio 125 standard juwel internal filter planted it with tropica substrate and capped with 3mm pea gravel added my wood rocks and plants

Plants

Vallisneria spirial
Saggitria subulata
Ludwigia repens
Amazon swords
Cabomba
Dwarf hygrophilia?

Now i set it up with a co2 system using a bazooka atomizor and a hydor 1600 wave maker to try blow it around the tank although im finding it hard to get it to flow round the whole tank I have 2 drop checkers on ethier side of the tank one is blue the other is yellow which I don't understand? Currently running it at 2 bubbles per second And the tank looks like a fizzy drink

My lights are standard 2 x 28w t5 hi lite day bulbs I added reflector ( explained lower) my lights are on a timer come on at 12pm go off at 9pm my co2 comes on at 10am and off at 8pm

Im ei dosing daily as the guide says at 30ml macro and micros on different days then rest day water change day

But the problem I have is my cabomba plant is not growing and iv had this plant in a no co2 no fert tank and had lt reach the surface in no time my dwarf hygro was growing well now suddenly stopped my amazon swords don't look like they have changed atall
Same for all of them the vallis is still melting I assume this is normal kinda brown on the tips

So i was thinking not enough light maybe? Added the reflectors a few days ago now im not sure if this was a good idea to do or not

Any suggestions on what I could do to see some growth or if im doing something wrong

Cheers guys

Ben
 
Hi, your photo of your tank & plants look healthy & I personally cannot see any problem with your lighting period (a bit longer than Id risk with start up) but don't think that should stunt growth as the species you mentioned aren't really dependant on high light. Swords & Vallis might take a bit longer to establish roots first & 3 weeks is still quite early! Though as your using co2 I'd expect your cabomba & ludwigia to show more growth a bit quicker than they are. Silly question but are you doing weeky water changes ok?
 
Hi there i have some how managed to get 1 of the ludwigia plants growing by giving it a light trim and it seems to have took off I did the same with cabomba but still the same which is very strange

Water changes I do 50% once a week

The vallisneria is still melting but I can't see behind the decor to see if new growth is there

I moved my wave maker and diffuser so it blows diagonally which seems to have worked gettin a even co2 distribution
 
Hopefully you'll see growth soon & changing the position of your wave maker if increases flow should help ☺ Tank looks really good anyway! Apologies for bad grammar btw - I'm really tired tonight!
 
Hi there hmm well the ludwigia seems to be growing but very slowly and the cabomba I have absolutely no idea what is wrong with it

It now looks like this sort of just leaving it alone but it does look terrible but no idea why

My vallisneria spiral kind hasn't grown atall kinda just melting away slowly


I changed the tank around thinking maybe not enough flow reaching certain areas but still the same
 

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This was 24th of November when I changed it around
 
Seems as if it's going abit down hill now and not sure why as iv not done anything different
 
Hi all,
Seditro said:
Seems as if it's going abit down hill now and not sure why as iv not done anything different
Click to expand...
I agree with Mark, the plants don't look unhealthy.

It might be a light issue. If you look at the internodes (stem between the leaves) they are quite long on the newer growth, and that is often a sign of low light. I don't think there is much you can do about that, nine hours is a long photo-period and low light issues usually relate to intensity, rather than duration.

Some of the tanks I've got get quite a bit of indirect ambient light in the summer and I need to thin out the floaters in the winter or I tend to get poorer growth in the submersed plants. The kitchen tank is in a SE facing room with a large window (on the right of the photo), and two smaller windows to the left.

My tanks are low tech. and on a 12 hour day with quite bright lights (I have 2 x 24W on the 24" x 15" x 12" tank below), but I have a very high plant mass, with a lot of floating plants.

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Top of the tank.

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cheers Darrel
 
It's very likely light but I suggest beginners not to increase light at all. If cabomba doesn't grow, but everything else does, rip out the cabomba and bin it. You can always grow it later.

You are on the right track and doing well...
 
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