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carpeting guideline....I need to know.

Sanjoy

Seedling
Joined
7 Oct 2017
Messages
2
Location
India
I am doing this carpeting with dwarf hairgrass in a 55G tank with pressurised CO2.
1. How many hours of photoperiod would you suggest?
2. From which day should I start fertilizing the tank?
3. What do you think about frequency of water change initially?
The substrate is ADA Amazonia with previous tank enriched soil and old canister.
 

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I am no expert but from reading this forum.

Start with 6 hours light.
Do dose the tank.
Change at least 50 percent everyday for first week.
50 percent every other day week 2
Every 3 days week 3
Then once a week there after.
 
So your Amazonia is from an older tank and your canister is already cycled?
If so excessive water changes may not be necessary in the beginning.
The ADA substrate leech a lot of ammonia from the start which is why they suggest doing frequent water changes. You also only need to dose potassium and micro with new aquasoil as other macro nutrients may be sufficient.
As your soil is old start dosing comprehensively with NPK + micro from the start.
I would start out with 5 hours of light and increase it gradually to max 8 hours depnding on how long you want to have your tank lit.
From the picture it doesn't look like super bright light.
Focus on having CO2 at a stable high level and keep your tank and filter clean from muck.
Turn CO2 on an hour before light come on so the water is saturated before the plant get blasted with light.
 
Thank you Odogg and Sweded for your inputs.
one point I must clear here that the substrate here is old amazonia from previous tank + a new 9 L bag over it.
Few snails and shrimps are now there( as they were with the previous soil).
After how many days should I attempt to put fish in ? I donot have the test kits now with me...
 
I’m not going to put fish in my tank for month. At present I have no fish so I’m in no rush. Just been testing some hardscspe layouts today with a cardboard box some potting compost and 20kg if rock. I am going to let tank cycle properly, then add a clean up crew - followed by a small Shoal of fish.
 
Shrimps are more sensitive than fish so if they can survive the fish will be safe.
I would do lots of water changes though as some of the soil is new.
 
I think that Tropica start up guide is very useful; i've successfully used it myself 3 times; check their website
 
only one time, without having planned to do so before starting the tank; because of badly executed hardscape layout there wasn't enough physical space for all those plants
for my second attempt I've used ADA Malaya soil and I've put snails and shrimps in the tank the 3rd day, as advised by Tropica's guide, without any deaths
 
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