Diana Walstad
- Thread starter Swimfins
- Start date
Wow! Lo-tech has quickly turned high tech. Pass me the flourite and that co2 canister pwease! 
Well not really. As mentioned, using less sub soil helped, it helped for a specific reason. Algae never lies, nor do plants.
These are decidely low tech observations.
You can get all into how and why, but the how in and of it's self is rather simple and very easy to do.
Tank:
Lots of plants from day one
no water changes
Onyx/peat(soil that's been soak for 2-3 weeks or boiled can be used) and some mulm from an established tank added to the bottom 1/2" or so, capped w/3" of sand or Turface+ sand or Onyx.
Small filter
Add some algae eaters.
Dosing once a week:
SeaChem EQ
KNO3
KH2PO4
Traces
Moderate light(1.5-2w/gal)
That's 4 little things you add to feed the plants, many folks add more than this for their fish a week. I see nothing high tech or complicated about this.
It is about 2x as complicated as making cereal
You are adding only a small amount of ferts once a week and feeding fish. If you forget one week to add the ferts, things will be okay.
The routine allows a lot of flexibility.
If you do decide to go with CO2, you can do a simple method to maintain the levels there using water changes.
You do 2-3x a week dosings at higher level and you add CO2 correctly.
Most algae issues in CO2 plant tanks are from improper(not enough ) CO2 usage. The remainder are from a lack of KNO3 or they add something that has NH4 in it.
Once the NH4 is gone and at extremely low levels(immeasurable) then you will not have algae issues in either method of growing plants. That's what soil has in it, that's why I suggest to boil it, or soak it for 2-3 weeks till the NH4 is converted to NO3, which is not an algae inducing nutrient.
Some methods are simple and should be kept that way and offer a lot of flexibility. When you ask why to complex questions and relationships, there are no simple answers. But the how and the success is rather simple.
You can take non CO2 tanks to a very high level, the same is true for CO2 tanks, but the growth rates are faster.
Regards,
Tom Barr
These are decidely low tech observations.
You can get all into how and why, but the how in and of it's self is rather simple and very easy to do.
Tank:
Lots of plants from day one
no water changes
Onyx/peat(soil that's been soak for 2-3 weeks or boiled can be used) and some mulm from an established tank added to the bottom 1/2" or so, capped w/3" of sand or Turface+ sand or Onyx.
Small filter
Add some algae eaters.
Dosing once a week:
SeaChem EQ
KNO3
KH2PO4
Traces
Moderate light(1.5-2w/gal)
That's 4 little things you add to feed the plants, many folks add more than this for their fish a week. I see nothing high tech or complicated about this.
It is about 2x as complicated as making cereal
You are adding only a small amount of ferts once a week and feeding fish. If you forget one week to add the ferts, things will be okay.
The routine allows a lot of flexibility.
If you do decide to go with CO2, you can do a simple method to maintain the levels there using water changes.
You do 2-3x a week dosings at higher level and you add CO2 correctly.
Most algae issues in CO2 plant tanks are from improper(not enough ) CO2 usage. The remainder are from a lack of KNO3 or they add something that has NH4 in it.
Once the NH4 is gone and at extremely low levels(immeasurable) then you will not have algae issues in either method of growing plants. That's what soil has in it, that's why I suggest to boil it, or soak it for 2-3 weeks till the NH4 is converted to NO3, which is not an algae inducing nutrient.
Some methods are simple and should be kept that way and offer a lot of flexibility. When you ask why to complex questions and relationships, there are no simple answers. But the how and the success is rather simple.
You can take non CO2 tanks to a very high level, the same is true for CO2 tanks, but the growth rates are faster.
Regards,
Tom Barr
Thank you for clarifying the issues. I'll reread your post a few times and let it sink in a bit, before I decide what to do. I do appreciate your advice.
