New 4ft Plant Aquarium Set-Up

[Ah_ZhaN]

Originally Posted by AK_fish

Thanks man....

Will read up on the plants side. But so far for 6 days the pennyworts are still strong. As for the fountain-like plant at the far left corner, it is starting to melt away. The forground plant has indeed started to melt, but after I bought the PL light on the 3rd day, it started to grow again.

The shrimps are cheap grass shrimps, I think. Just put them in to try to eatup any algae, and for water testing. Just added BB culture today.

Anyone knows whether the BB powder sold by OceanFree is good? Coz it claims it is good for 10000ltrs or so. I bought the FB7 from Dennerle and it is only good for 2500ltr. The latter costs more though.

Cheers....

i think 10000ltrs is more concentrated ?
wadever it is both are good if u follow the dosage appropriately..
bb will cultivate by itself cos u got cycle ur tank ma.

[elimmel]

Originally Posted by AK_fish

Thanks man....

Will read up on the plants side. But so far for 6 days the pennyworts are still strong. As for the fountain-like plant at the far left corner, it is starting to melt away. The forground plant has indeed started to melt, but after I bought the PL light on the 3rd day, it started to grow again.

The shrimps are cheap grass shrimps, I think. Just put them in to try to eatup any algae, and for water testing. Just added BB culture today.

Anyone knows whether the BB powder sold by OceanFree is good? Coz it claims it is good for 10000ltrs or so. I bought the FB7 from Dennerle and it is only good for 2500ltr. The latter costs more though.

Cheers....

i see that you have planted quite densely - which is a good start.
i would suggest that you start your fert dosing once you can maintain your co2 levels ard 30ppm during lights on period.

do not depend on the bps. use the pH/KH table to know your co2 levels.
then you start your liquid fert dosing.
you need to kick start your plant growth (lights, co2 , nutrients) to have a silent cycle. a silent means that the growing plants take in the ammonia released by the fishes (introduced too early) at a fast enough rate so that your beneficial bacteria can play catch up. you would not have to worry too much about your fishes getting ammonia/nitrite poisoning from the cycling process.

a note on the common algae problems faced by new tanks.
if you do not manage nutrients & co2 early on, you should experience hair algae pretty soon. it usually occurs due to a lack of the nutrient N. dosing ferts that contain no3 would help. then comes BGA, BBA etc

do a search on the net for articles by Tom Barr, Rex Grigg & Chuck Gadd for some very useful info.

veri nice aqua-scapping, cheers

Now, 2 problems.

(1) I think my ammonia level is too high. almost 1mg. I did half water change last night. Thought of removing some of those leftover rotting plants, that are starting to grow back(due to improper lighting eralier on). Has stopped feeding the fishes. Have not check CO2 and PH yet. Will do WC tonight again. And add plant fert and BB(from Dennerles). Will try to adjust solution with PH buffer to lower to 6.5 - 7.0.(is that a good idea?)

(2) Almost all mid and surface-level fishes are strucked with velvet disease. Has injected medicine to tank. Hope it doesn't kill my plants(using ocean).
Maybe will take out all those fish for treatment.

Is Ocean brand BB pill good? Using Dennerles is too expensive. Should I need more Bio-treatment? I'm using only Eheim 2028 with Bio inside.

Can anybody please help?

my nitrite level is a bit high. Does this means the BB is not doing its work yet? The ammonia level is very low though. O2 is at borderline. CO2 is optimum. My plants are all growing well now.

What should I do to increase O2? Grow plants with lots of O2 release? Like?

What fish should I keep? I have some stream loaches, some bottom feeders, 1 ghost catfish, 1 plant-eating catfish, 7 tetras, 2 hatchets, some shrimps, and some 'hitch-hiking' snails.

Thanks.

you have a very very nice tank ! i love it