First planted tank

[callmephathead]

Hi everyone,

I am new to this and after a few weeks with my planted tank I thought I should start a journal.
To be quite honest I rushed into it a little bit and did not think about the layout or plants very much when I started, I just used a little advice from Dan @ Aquajardin in Gloucester (thanks a lot BTW) and a rather large piece of wood which I found and loved straight away even though it was a little big for the tank...
So here it is, a picture of the tank at setup, another one of the tank on the first day of planting and the last one is of the tank today:
All comments, advices and criticism ar welcome.
Thanks

 

[pariahrob]

Wow, that looks some decent growth for a few weeks.

I'm also new to planted tanks and loving every minute (even the clumsy minutes where I break things). Did you have any plants that melted at first? My glosso isn't doing so well, at least not all over the tank and I wondered if you had any problems.

Looks great and I like the large piece of wood!

 

[Iain Sutherland]

thats a nice start with good growth, now to maintain it
Thats a lot of light and on for a long time, you should back the duration down to 6-7 hours or you will likely encounter algae. With high tech tanks algae happens fast!
How often do you WC and what ferts?
Your on the right track though mate!

 

[callmephathead]

Wow, that looks some decent growth for a few weeks.

thanks mate! I look at when the pics where taken and it was on the 28/02 and 01/03 so around 6 weeks ago. I am very pleased with the way things are growing and I already had to trim down a few things

I'm also new to planted tanks and loving every minute (even the clumsy minutes where I break things). Did you have any plants that melted at first? My glosso isn't doing so well, at least not all over the tank and I wondered if you had any problems.

I just had a look at your journal... I am impressed!! your setup is going to look fantastic!
I was lucky and all my plants are doing well, nothing has died yet and although the staurogyne is a little slow to get going it seems to produce a few new leaves. plus I only added more plants when I was sure that the previous one looked fine.

I started the tank with some Echinodoru Teneilus, Limnophila Sessiliflora, Rotala Rotundifolia and Staurogyne Repens. I cycled the tank like that for about 2 weeks adding fertiliser and fish food to the tank, once the tank was cycled and all the tests i could do where fine I came back with a few guppies and more plants i.e. Anubias Barteri var. nana, Hygrophila Pinnatifida, Cryptocoryne Beckettii "petchii", Lilaeopsis Brasiliensis, Weeping moss and Nymphaea zenkeri. I found it very helpfull to add more plants with the new fishes, all the water parameters stayed excellent and I supposed the extra bacterias brought in with the plants helped a lot.

Thats a lot of light and on for a long time, you should back the duration down to 6-7 hours or you will likely encounter algae. With high tech tanks algae happens fast!

Yes, I may reduce the lenght of lighting period a bit, I have a UV steriliser and I think that kept the algae in check until now but I just read somwhere that it's not particularly good for the plants? I need to find out more about that...

How often do you WC and what ferts?

Once a week, 80 litres water change (That's around 45%) and I dose Tropica Plant Nutrition (40ml) straight after that.

Your on the right track though mate!

I certainly hope so

thank you for your help

 

[callmephathead]

While I have time to do so, here are a few pictures of the tank's inhabitants. I am Sh*t at taking pictures so please forgive me in advance

That's my assassin snail trying to sort out my snail problem, I need more than one assassin snail to do the job it seems since that pic I have managed to remove about 40 snails from the tank and it looks a lot better...no doubt I'll be fighting with them for a while

That's one of my baby shrimp! I am so excited about that!!!

And another shrimp

 

[Matt Warner]

Hi, nice tank, your plants look very happy

 

[callmephathead]

One question:
What do you do with regards to faeces build up? Do you leave it in the tank? And in that case, is it beneficial to the plants etc. OR is it armful to the fishes and it needs do be taken out? But how? Syphoning the gravel is pretty much impossible without damaging the plants...

 

[Iain Sutherland]

I dont worry too much about fish poop, give the tank a good waft around before and during water change and anything left will be dealt with by bacteria.

UV's have little effect if any on most algae, good for green water but that is it. Dont think UV's have been proven good or bad but the general opinion seems to be that they have such small benefits that most people dont bother.

Do you dose just TPN or TPN+ as well. TPN is just trace micro nutrients, TPN+ has added nitrogen and phosphate. Either both can be used on alternate days or just TPN+ daily

 

[callmephathead]

Thanks mate!

I use TPN only, not TPN+ but I'll look at it next time I'm in a shop...

Thanks