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First planted tank

jamesw

Member
Joined
16 Jul 2009
Messages
45
Hi guys, Id be greatfull if you could tell me if im missing anything for my planted tank. I think ive got everything covered but im a newbeee so i dont know much lol.

Heres what my set-up includes;

Tank size; 400 litres - 100 us gallons
Lighting(t5 with reflectors); 2 x 54watt, 2 x 39watt - 10 hours a day
C02; pressurised (Drop checker green)
Fert dosing; Traces daily, Flourish pottasium 2 times week, TPN+ weekly
Substrate; 50% aquarium sand, 50% eco-complete. I also add root tabs.
Filtration; Fluval fx5(15,000lph), Fluval 405(1300lph), Fluval 4+(1000lph)
Powerhead; Hydor koralia 3 or 4 (3200lph)
Plants; Amazon swords, java moss, java fern, sagiteria pusilius, vallisneria spiral and another plant i dont no what it is because a guy i no sent me it. I am gettin some Ceratopteris Siliquosa, Hygrophillia Difformis and Hygrophilia Rosanervis this week.
Fish; 6 piranhas, 1 plec.

By the way my plants have only been in the tank for around 3 weeks, if im missing anything your advice would be much appriciated. Thanks
 
all sounds good to me, you have a hell of a lot of flow (close to 20x turnover :thumbup: ) which is good for the plants and i bet the Piranas like it, and the dosing plus the enriched substrate plus the root tabs should be fine and give you some flexability if you forget to dose :crazy: The fx5 is only 2300 L/H not 15000 :silent:
i beleive TPN+ contains trace elements so dosing traces separatly IMO is a waste.
let us know how you get on with the piranas + plants and get some pics up if you can :D
 
Thanks :D Yea i did think that was abit exaggerated, got that from another forum, tut tut. O really? i didnt no it had trace elements, i wont bother dosing seperate traces then! Ive just created a youtube account so will make a video put it on there and post up the link. Thanks for your reply.
 
on second thoughts TPN+ contains Macro nutrients, one of which being Potassium, so dosing Flourish potassium is another waste of money IMO :lol: however having 2 sources of potassium is not a bad thing at all. if your plants are growing fine then it means dont change anything :lol: but if you want to save some cash then you can stop dosing Flourish pottasium, but if you do its probably a good idea to spread the dosing of TPN+ over the week more evenly and to increas the dosing(enless you are allready doing this) have a look on James Planted Tank website at cheap and effective dosing methods http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/dosing-methods.htm :thumbup:
 
hope youve got some long scissors to trim your plants when youve got piranhas in there :lol:

All the above looks fine. the only thing I would have done when starting is run with a reduced light time for the first few weeks when started but if youre 3 weeks in with no problems then that may be mute now.
 
I only bought the flourish pottasium because on the box all it says it contains is N and P it doesnt mention K? Ive only seem the odd bite in a leaf, other than that they are fine, they dont complete ruin them lol. Trouble is ive started to get a sort of fuzzy algea on my java moss and brown algea on 1 amazon sword, btw my c02 unit has only been set up for two days, before this i was dosing excel daily!
 
Will i be able to grow "high light" plants with the lighting i have? because i only actuatly have 1.86 WPG. That isnt actuatly a lot is it?
 
Heres a video of my tank, sorry for the bad quality it was recored on my mobile.

Thanks
 
jamesw said:
Heres a video of my tank, sorry for the bad quality it was recored on my mobile.
Thanks

Damn those are some large piranhas!! What do you feed them? Any live mice? Got some videos? :lol: :lol: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
 
LondonDragon said:
Damn those are some large piranhas!! What do you feed them? Any live mice? Got some videos? :lol: :lol: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:


1 is 12" and the others are 6". All sorts, cichlid floating pellets, whole cod fillets, prawns, any sort of white fish. I have only ever fed them live once which was when i first got them, i dont do that anymore because it can give them diseases + not nice for the fish being eaten :lol:
 
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