Ideal Setup for a Planted Tank

Raithan Ellis

Raithan Ellis

I'm only crabby due to lack of beer
Jan 24, 2002
240
1
0
Pennsylvania
www.flickr.com
Help with general dosing and setup of an ideal planted tank.

Greetings All,

I have just torn down one of my planted tanks, and want to start over from scratch. Previously, I have been successful with several planted tanks, but never very happy with the overall growth. So, this time I would like to try only suggestions from others, using just the hardware and supplies that I have on hand:

Hardware:
15g (24x12x12) glass tank w/glass lid
Box style canopy, interior painted ceiling white, no reflector (bulb sits approx 3" from glass)
65w 6700k PC lamp
CarboPlus
50w heater
older Whisper Jr. power filter, no media (just a Tetra PHAS-Filter/Brillant Super Filter as a pre-filter on the intake tube)
Approximately 2.0 - 2.5 inch deep Onyx Sand for substrate (with a small cupful of canadian peat moss as the bottom layer, sprinkled with a cup of oolitic aragonite sand to help offset acidity)

Nutrients/Dosing Supplies:
Seachem Iron
Seachem Trace
Grant's Stump Remover (KNO3)
Epsom Salts
Muriate of Potash (0-0-60 / Soluable Potash 60% K2O)
Baking Soda
Fleet Enema

Water source is well water in Pennsylvania, roughly 7.6 - 7.8 pH from tap, 10 - 14 dGH. (I can re-test and post exact measurements if desired.)

So, setting up from scratch what would be my ideal dosing routine, photoperiod, co2 levels, ect?

Thanks in advance!
Raithan O. Ellis
 
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Lots of light = lots of CO2(30ppm) and lots of plants. To start, in addition to the ones in the substrate, I suggest some floaters to shade the tank some, and use available nutrients while the others establish themselves.
Heavy, heavy, heavy plant mass to start.
10 - 12 hours is pretty much standard for Photo-period.
You will need to dose N, P and Traces(hope you're using Flourish, not 'Flourish Trace') for sure. K+ depends on fish load. With a light fish load, you will get enough K in your KNO3 dosage. With a heavy fish load you won't be dosing as much KNO3 so K+ may be needed.
IMO you don't need Fe or Baking soda. Depending on what you're getting out of tap, Mg and Ca could be very beneficial.
You will need to know the kH of your water to determine CO2 concentration.
Was it a problem that caused you to tear down the tank and start over?
Once you start building your plant population, a photo would be of enormous help in people's advising further. In my experience, at over 4wpg CF lighting, one needs a lot of plants in the tank from the get-go.

Len
 
djlen - It's the Trace, not Flourish... Could you please explain why I might want Flourish when I can dose my macros using the stump remover (KNO3), muriate of potash (K), fleet enema (P), epsom salts (Mg) and baking soda (Ca)?

That should cover the macros, I think? Then I have the iron if/when needed and the Trace for the micros...?

The tank is so dense with plants atm, that the fish have trouble moving. ;-) Java fern, java moss, ricca, duckweed, anubias, a miramo ball, and a few oddball species including a crypt I have yet to identify.

The only real problem with the tank was that I was unhappy with the growth with it's previous lighting (2x-15w) and dosing routine, so I threw in an older spare 65w PC. I figured it would be better to install it without a reflector and just using white ceiling paint in the canopy to better spread the light in this shallow tank (12"), and would help to dim it down a bit.

The fish load is light, just a breeding colony of Ameca Splendens and a loach of some sort for cleanup.

Where do I start? I've been doing planted tanks for awhile, with just what I've picked up from thekrib, but never bothered chatting about what I've done wrong or right, so I'd like to try and re-learn from scratch. I'm hoping someone is willing to walk me through it like a neophyte.

I've always done dry dosing as it's easier and seemed to work alright. Should I really bother mixing up bottles of this and bottles of that to dose in liquid states? Is there a good rule of thumb for dry dosing, assuming dry dosing is okay to do? Is there an easy way to figure out how much of which of my dosing supplies I should be using?

Ideally, I'd like to figure out how to calculate my doses with the available products that I have (unemployed, no funds for hobbies) using my tap water. I've always just thrown in a spoonful of this, a few grains of that, and a couple of shakes of the other. :duh: I'd like to do this using a more scientific approach, and primarily learn the in's and out's of how to calculate the doses, how to figure out the CO2 level without using graphs and charts (possible?), and some help interpreting the results to guide the following changes down the road. I'd be happy to post pictures every week or so along with tank chemistry to get it right.

Please keep it easy reading, I have ADD and don't always... HEY LOOK, A RED BICYCLE!
 
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Flourish and Flourish Trace are both trace elements. Check the bottles the next time you are in the LFS, for the amount differences between the two, usually for the same price. I have heard people refer to 'trace' as 'bathwater'. I wouldn't go so far as to say that, but it does supply smaller dosages of many important elements.
Over the years I have experimented with extra Fe (over and above what trace mixes supply) with less than perfect results. I have come to the conclusion that dosing extra Fe can be more of a hindrance than a help because of the unnecessary over-abundance it creates leading to, in my case, algae issues. I only dose extra Fe it I see a need in the plants for extra.
I'm not a big duckweed fan, but it can create a nice canopy for the other plants in your tank, most of which would not be classified as 'nutrient hogs'.
The lighting you're supplying creates a need for shade, high CO2 content, and a regular dosing regimen.
I would start here: www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/articles.htm
Download Chucks 'desktop nutrient calculator' and install it to your desktop.
Start your dosing regimen according to the calculator and it's difficult to go wrong. It's not an end-all application. You will have to tweak your dosages to meet your tank's needs, and with your fish load you don't need to dose K+ at all, IMO. You want N=15 - 20; P=1.5 - 1.0.
Get a number for how many mls. of trace you dose weekly and divide it by 6(skip the traces on water change day) and dose that number daily.
I have never done split cycle photo periods. I don't see the point and it seems unnatural to me. When I see the sun take a 2 - 3 hour break during the day maybe I'll re-think my position.
I absolutely agree with you on dry dosing. Even after all these years I still tweak dosages and it's so much easier for my to dry dose.

Len
 
I managed to install a virtual Win2k environment and got Chuck's nutrient calculator working... very nice little application! Also I do like the Fertilator as well, not sure which I prefer yet.

Took out the carboplus (was an old carbon block and don't have $35 to spend on a replacement) and switched to two diy co2 gatorade bottles fed to the whisper jr impeller. Picked up a redsea co2 indicator, and the diy co2 is keeping it in the green to just a slight hint of yellowish, which is gooood.

Figured I would add some more light due to the excess co2, so it now has two 65w CF lamps, guessing it right around 8wpg.

Will post some pictures early next week for ya.

Thanks for the help!
 
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