New 4ft Plant Aquarium Set-Up

Posted some photos. Set-Up at this time is 3 days.

For your advice and guidance.

Newbie at plant aquarium.

Tank : 4 x 1.5 x 1.5 ft
Lighting : Arcadia 3ft fresh water lamp x 3
Filter: Ehiem 2028
Plants: No idea what is what, but about 10-15 species. A few seem to be dying.
fish : 49 neon tetra, 50 lousy shrimps (left half I think), 1 royal whiptail catfish, 2 leopard corydoras(both died on 2nd day, red patches appearred on body), 5 small wall suckers that looked like miniature stingrays(sorry, dun know the name).

Water Conditions : Stable at 3rd day. Water looks clear, but has turn slighty greenish. PH around 7. CO2 is injected at 1 bubble per second(dun know the correct setting). Temperature is ~31 to 32 deg. C(Too hot?). Added in 4 caps of TetraPlant FloraPride fertiliser.

Great startup dude

Focus on getting those plants to grow well. Look into fertilisation and CO2.

How many types of fertilisers should I put in? I hav only added 2 types, for green and red plants.

Originally Posted by |squee|

Great startup dude

Focus on getting those plants to grow well. Look into fertilisation and CO2.

hi Bro,

you might be too fast, the water would not be ready in 3 days to take the load, need time for the water parameter to stable and mature, suggest you
read the tank setup pointer which can be find in this board, have patient bro have patient, it not more casualty to follow.

Originally Posted by AK_fish

How many types of fertilisers should I put in? I hav only added 2 types, for green and red plants.

[betta_zoid87]

nice clean setup...

Bro, not a bad set up. Your temperature is way too high. Try to get it down to around 28 degrees, if not your plants wont do well. Once your plants start to grow you can gradually up your Co2. Bps is not a good way to calculate. A good Co2 range is from 20-30 ppm. Cheers

Hi! Welcome to the hobby!

The plants on the left side of the tank, the fountain rush (dark green plant with leaves that look like fountain) and the pennywort (round leaves), will melt in a few days' time.

The Rush is a bog plant (roots like water) and cannot be grown submersed (in water). The Pennywort that you have is in emersed form (grwon out of water). Try replacing them with something else...

The plant on driftwood on the right is also not truely aquatic, if I didn't remember wrongly... It will also melt soon...

Your foreground plants will also melt to grow the submersed form in a while too... These will grow back if you lower the water temperature and continue to provide CO2.

I can't see properly, but hopefully those red plants are not bog plants or plants grown emersed. Else they too will melt. Those that are able to grow underwater will do so like mentioned in last para.

As you had found out, a lot of the plants sold in LFS are not truely aquatic or had been cultured in emersed forms... So, do try to read up. Magazines such as Tropical Fish Hobbyist (TFH) from USA and Practical Fish Keeping (PFK) from the UK are very useful. They can be found in the libraries, book stores and magazine stands. The books from TFH Publications are also useful. Happy reading.

Lower the water temperature using a fan. Opening the hood will help to lower the temperature too. That should drop the water temperature to 28C and would be good for plants.

Do you have pics of the shrimps? Are they Yamatos or Grass shrimps?

The suckers are hill stream loaches... Likes cool water too...

Hope it helps!
Cheers

nice setup man.... very majestic scape

Originally Posted by Justikanz

Hi! Welcome to the hobby!

The plants on the left side of the tank, the fountain rush (dark green plant with leaves that look like fountain) and the pennywort (round leaves), will melt in a few days' time.

The Rush is a bog plant (roots like water) and cannot be grown submersed (in water). The Pennywort that you have is in emersed form (grwon out of water). Try replacing them with something else...

The plant on driftwood on the right is also not truely aquatic, if I didn't remember wrongly... It will also melt soon...

Your foreground plants will also melt to grow the submersed form in a while too... These will grow back if you lower the water temperature and continue to provide CO2.

I can't see properly, but hopefully those red plants are not bog plants or plants grown emersed. Else they too will melt. Those that are able to grow underwater will do so like mentioned in last para.

As you had found out, a lot of the plants sold in LFS are not truely aquatic or had been cultured in emersed forms... So, do try to read up. Magazines such as Tropical Fish Hobbyist (TFH) from USA and Practical Fish Keeping (PFK) from the UK are very useful. They can be found in the libraries, book stores and magazine stands. The books from TFH Publications are also useful. Happy reading.

Lower the water temperature using a fan. Opening the hood will help to lower the temperature too. That should drop the water temperature to 28C and would be good for plants.

Do you have pics of the shrimps? Are they Yamatos or Grass shrimps?

The suckers are hill stream loaches... Likes cool water too...

Hope it helps!
Cheers

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....

[dinosor]

yep.. agree with the rest, very nice indeed