EA James
Member
Hi all,
I have a few issues with my tank that i would LOVE some help with, really hoping the collective knowledge from you guys will get it looking as it should.
Tank info-
Evolution Aqua 1200 freshwater, 120cm length, 50cm wide, 70cm high
Fluval FX-4 and Eheim prefilter
2x20 watt EA LED white tubes and a Fluval Aquasky. Sunrise 16:30 to full pelt at 17:00, Sunset 21:30 till 22:00 then very dim for an hour, lights off at 23:00. EA lights on a timer to come on when Aquasky is on full pelt.
Sand substrate with Aqua Plants Care pinia clay peat balls and jumbo clay sticks for plants in the sand.
co2 on at 15:00 till 21:00 at about 5bps. co2 art Pro SE set up with in tank diffuser run off a FE. Drop checker slightly bluey green (was advised to get a 2dKH but couldn't find one so ran co2 lean instead) Probably wrong?!
EI ferts dosed alternate days at 90ml a day mixed up inline with @Zeus. calculator
50% WC every week without fail, prefilter cleaned on WC day, glass cleaned too. FX-4 cleaned out once a month.
So since adding the co2, the EI ferts and the extra 2 EA lights things started to slowly go bad. A lot of build up of algae on the glass, plants and rocks. My black lava rock now looks like brown lava rock! A few plants just seemed to rot away, i had a lovely little Anubias bonsai and it literally fell apart. I thought i was pumping in too many nutrients and not enough plants to take them in so I've now (about 2/3 weeks ago) turned off the co2 and the extra two EA lights and dropped the ferts down to 50ml
Things seem to be better but i want the co2 on for more plants i want to add but i obviously don't want these problems again! There are still algae on the leaves and rocks, the plants just look dirty to me and nothing is a nice green. Please help!
I think the flow of the tank is poor, I added a Sicce Xstream powerhead but its way too powerful, it pretty much uprooted my Hygrophila Polysperma!
There's lots i'm not happy with and to be honest i don't really know where to start but that's it in a nutshell, hopefully you'll be able to see from the photos and give me some advice to move forward.
I have a nice little selection of plants on the way thanks to @Konrad Michalski and i want them to do well. I'm also pretty sure that the majority of the plants are slow growers so that's probably not helping matters???
I'll put some photos up below, I'd really appreciate some help
Cheers, James
I have a few issues with my tank that i would LOVE some help with, really hoping the collective knowledge from you guys will get it looking as it should.
Tank info-
Evolution Aqua 1200 freshwater, 120cm length, 50cm wide, 70cm high
Fluval FX-4 and Eheim prefilter
2x20 watt EA LED white tubes and a Fluval Aquasky. Sunrise 16:30 to full pelt at 17:00, Sunset 21:30 till 22:00 then very dim for an hour, lights off at 23:00. EA lights on a timer to come on when Aquasky is on full pelt.
Sand substrate with Aqua Plants Care pinia clay peat balls and jumbo clay sticks for plants in the sand.
co2 on at 15:00 till 21:00 at about 5bps. co2 art Pro SE set up with in tank diffuser run off a FE. Drop checker slightly bluey green (was advised to get a 2dKH but couldn't find one so ran co2 lean instead) Probably wrong?!
EI ferts dosed alternate days at 90ml a day mixed up inline with @Zeus. calculator
50% WC every week without fail, prefilter cleaned on WC day, glass cleaned too. FX-4 cleaned out once a month.
So since adding the co2, the EI ferts and the extra 2 EA lights things started to slowly go bad. A lot of build up of algae on the glass, plants and rocks. My black lava rock now looks like brown lava rock! A few plants just seemed to rot away, i had a lovely little Anubias bonsai and it literally fell apart. I thought i was pumping in too many nutrients and not enough plants to take them in so I've now (about 2/3 weeks ago) turned off the co2 and the extra two EA lights and dropped the ferts down to 50ml
Things seem to be better but i want the co2 on for more plants i want to add but i obviously don't want these problems again! There are still algae on the leaves and rocks, the plants just look dirty to me and nothing is a nice green. Please help!
I think the flow of the tank is poor, I added a Sicce Xstream powerhead but its way too powerful, it pretty much uprooted my Hygrophila Polysperma!
There's lots i'm not happy with and to be honest i don't really know where to start but that's it in a nutshell, hopefully you'll be able to see from the photos and give me some advice to move forward.
I have a nice little selection of plants on the way thanks to @Konrad Michalski and i want them to do well. I'm also pretty sure that the majority of the plants are slow growers so that's probably not helping matters???
I'll put some photos up below, I'd really appreciate some help
Cheers, James