My first planted tank, a journal

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ROYWS3

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Aug 29, 2000
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Roy
It looks like your rosette plants are too deep. Pull them up so the " crown" is exposed. That is the part of the plant where the roots and the leaves meet. Get some more fast growers in there

You asked me before what fast growers to get. Google "fast growing aquatic stem plants" you'll find an extensive list - much more that I want to type.
 

ffmurray

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Oct 6, 2014
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Ithaca NY
thanks roy,
I pulled the plants up last night and today went to a local pet store, they dont look great but they sell more than the top fin plants in a tube. I picked up a bunch of hornwort and some more anacharis and have put them in the tank. The fish store didnt look so hot and neither did their tanks or stock, so i did a chlorine dip on the plants before I put them in the tank. Hopefully these plants will help remove any excess nutrients.

I have some crested java fern that im trying to attach to the roots, its being held on with brown thread, how long do these guys take to secure themselves?
 

ffmurray

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Oct 6, 2014
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Ithaca NY
couple of quick pics of my tank. sory about the poor quality, cell hone camera.
20141201_152018.jpg

a look at the tetras hiding in the back
20141201_152200.jpg


a view from the side
20141201_152043.jpg

the tank seems to be doing pretty well, no problems with the fish except for one hatchetfish died, but I kind of expected that. When I got that fish home it was not doing well, it kept bouncing off the bottom. The plants all seem to be growing, my anubus grew another leaf, the anacharis grows well, except all the leaves melted off after a while, but they grow new ones and seem to do well. my amazon swords seems to have brown spots on them, from what Ive read that might be an excess of iron. my well water is unbelievably high in iron (you should see my shower if we forget to clean it for a week). I had been fertilizing once a week with flourish complete, and that also has iron in it, should i stop with the micro's to try and keep the iron to a minimum? One of these days im going to put a softener and a potassium permanganate system in, but thats a ways off. when I do that I will probably add in a RO system and pipe it over to the tank area with a drain. But back to the question, what can i do about the excess of iron for now?

20141201_152018.jpg 20141201_152043.jpg 20141201_152200.jpg
 

ROYWS3

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Aug 29, 2000
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Might just be the emersed leaves on the swords that are beginning to die off. A better pic will tell a better story
 

ffmurray

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Oct 6, 2014
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Ithaca NY
Ive tried to get my phone to get a good picture of the swords, I could not for the life of me get one. I could get better pictures before, but not now... gonna try some things
 

ffmurray

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Oct 6, 2014
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Ithaca NY
didnt quite make the edit deadline......

I tried downloadign a new camera app for my phone and i came out with some better pics of the swords and the tank
The only thing is that for the most part the brown spots seem to have disappeared. Originally it looked like the plants has some freckles

14 - 8.jpg
14 - 7.jpg
14 - 6.jpg

14 - 8.jpg 14 - 7.jpg 14 - 6.jpg
 

ffmurray

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Oct 6, 2014
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Ithaca NY
I'm trying not to rush anything. It's been interesting so far, I really enjoy keeping a planted tank. Yesterday my dry certs finally came in the mail. I got KNO3, K2SO4, KH2PO4, yesterday I mixed up a 500 mL batch of liquid, I know you can dry dose but it seems easier to me to mix up some in liquid and measure that out. I marked a small Tupperware with my 25mL dose level so I just have to pour some in up to the line and dump it in.

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ffmurray

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Oct 6, 2014
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Ithaca NY
I don't know what to attribute it to, but my plants went nuts after i fertilized than tank with macros for the first time last night. The hornwort is now up to the surface of the tank and the anacharis is almost doubled in size. Its pretty amazing.

I did some reading and I think thing I got the math right on the solution that I made up last night. I made up 500mL of solution. I decided on a 25 mL dose, id didn't seem like anything smaller would allow me to get everything fully dissolved.
So to 500 mL of water I added
33.3g KNO3
44.5g K2SO4
5g KH2PO4

does this seem like a reasonable amount of each fert?
 

ffmurray

AC Members
Oct 6, 2014
87
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Ithaca NY
Haven't posted an update in a while.
So here it is:

...... Well that was worth a try, I couldn't get any pics to upload from the app.

The plants have all been doing well, growing like weeds.
-I removed all the hornwort from the tank
-started cuttings of the to tell a to fill in the back side
-moved the two Anubis a but
-doubled the size of my dig co2 and added a power head, the bubbles run into the intake of the power head and get chopped into smaller bubbles.
-moved the central sword back with the other swords,
-split the water wisteria in two and but some behind the log in the back corner by the filter

Pics will follow once I get around to using a computer.



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