# [Wet Thumb Forum]-What am I doing wrong?



## imported_bonklers (Oct 15, 2004)

Hi all,

I hope someone could tell me what I've done wrong for the past two years. My aim is only to have a good healthy looking plants. Because this is my first tank, I've chosen for "easy" plants just to make life easier. The thing is, even with (in my opinion) high tech gadgets like gravel heater and pressurized CO2, most of my plants won't even look healthy as you'll see from the pictures. They do grow though, but it just look disformed and has lots of algea on them. I'll try to descirbe my tank and how I maintain it as clearly as possible, though english isn't my native language.

*Tank dimensions*
125*50*50 length width hight in cm (300 litres)
50*20*20 length width hight in inches (79 gallons)

*General water parameters*
pH 6.8
GH ?
KH 6
uS 680 (our tapwater reads about 650-600)

NO3 5ppm (ppm was the same as mg/l right?)
PO4 <<<0.1ppm
Fe2+ <<0.1ppm
CO2 28 ppm (as you can see from this link with given KH and PH

The parameters are stable after a year or so.

*Lighting*
4* 36 watt T8 (3 of them with color 4000 Kelvin and 1 with 6500 Kelvin)
40 lumen per litre (or 150 lumen per gallon)
The tank has 12 hours light, 6 hours with all the lamps on and the remaining 6 is where I switch them on/off with 1 lamp per hour so I can build op/off the intensity.

"Das Optimale Aquarium" written by the owners of Dupla, recommended 30-50 lumen per litre or 110-190 lumen per gallon.
They are all about 2 years old. I know you should replace the lamp every year. But from this pdf it tells me it'll only drop to 90% output after several years and stays that way (lumen maintenance graphic), so basically I only have to replace them when it's totally broken (after 5000 hours or so with a probability of 50 %, from the other 3 graphics). So even with the 90% drop, my lumen per litre will still be on the recommended range from Dupla (39 per litre).

*Fertilizer*
Peat ferilizer in the substrate (and nothing else, no injections, iron, tablets or whatsoever)
Dupla 24 daily
CO2 fertilizer (automatic/pressurized)

I have the peat fertilizer for 2 years, and my tank was never heavily planted, or if it was, then the plants probably didn't even used it because they just die off after a few days







.

*Plants condition*
Full tank view
right view left view

Vallisneria neotropicalis
This plant is the only one that has been doing fine all the time. It even has it's tiger-pattern and it even has runners and stuff. Maybe this is just one of those hard to kill plants. Though I always have some algae on the tops.

Echinodorus osiris
This plant is also fairly stable, it grows some shooters at the moment. But here you still see some algae on the older leaves. I guess having some red young leaves indicate there is enough lighting and iron?

Hygrophyllia polysperma
In this plant, you can start to see that the leaves at the bottom are starting to dissapear.

Bacopa caroliniana
Ok this plant is growing very slow. It has no leaves at all at the bottom. And so much algea.

This plant is the winner of "leafless at the bottom".

Though not all of the stem plant grows like that, as you can see from amania gracalis.These photograph was made just after pruning. They stood alot closer together.

There are lots of algea in the aquarium: background and driftwood left.

As you can see, the aquarium doesn't look healthy at all. All the pictures can be found here.

*Things I want to change*
I'm thinking of changing the substrate fertilizer. I was thinking of using Dupla root, which is made from laterite. I've already seen great results in this forum about this fertilizer (from plantella). Ofcourse there are more I guess, but this product is easily available on my LFS. Do you guys think this will be better than peat? Do I have to add anything else as substrate fertilizer?

I was also thinking of having the lighting on full power (4 lamps) for 10 hours instead of only 6.

Is there anything else I can change to make things better?

Happy hollidays everyone,
bonklers

*please note, my picture server is going offline everyday for an hour or so every GMT 11:00. So pleae try again later when you can't see any pictures.


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## imported_bonklers (Oct 15, 2004)

Hi all,

I hope someone could tell me what I've done wrong for the past two years. My aim is only to have a good healthy looking plants. Because this is my first tank, I've chosen for "easy" plants just to make life easier. The thing is, even with (in my opinion) high tech gadgets like gravel heater and pressurized CO2, most of my plants won't even look healthy as you'll see from the pictures. They do grow though, but it just look disformed and has lots of algea on them. I'll try to descirbe my tank and how I maintain it as clearly as possible, though english isn't my native language.

*Tank dimensions*
125*50*50 length width hight in cm (300 litres)
50*20*20 length width hight in inches (79 gallons)

*General water parameters*
pH 6.8
GH ?
KH 6
uS 680 (our tapwater reads about 650-600)

NO3 5ppm (ppm was the same as mg/l right?)
PO4 <<<0.1ppm
Fe2+ <<0.1ppm
CO2 28 ppm (as you can see from this link with given KH and PH

The parameters are stable after a year or so.

*Lighting*
4* 36 watt T8 (3 of them with color 4000 Kelvin and 1 with 6500 Kelvin)
40 lumen per litre (or 150 lumen per gallon)
The tank has 12 hours light, 6 hours with all the lamps on and the remaining 6 is where I switch them on/off with 1 lamp per hour so I can build op/off the intensity.

"Das Optimale Aquarium" written by the owners of Dupla, recommended 30-50 lumen per litre or 110-190 lumen per gallon.
They are all about 2 years old. I know you should replace the lamp every year. But from this pdf it tells me it'll only drop to 90% output after several years and stays that way (lumen maintenance graphic), so basically I only have to replace them when it's totally broken (after 5000 hours or so with a probability of 50 %, from the other 3 graphics). So even with the 90% drop, my lumen per litre will still be on the recommended range from Dupla (39 per litre).

*Fertilizer*
Peat ferilizer in the substrate (and nothing else, no injections, iron, tablets or whatsoever)
Dupla 24 daily
CO2 fertilizer (automatic/pressurized)

I have the peat fertilizer for 2 years, and my tank was never heavily planted, or if it was, then the plants probably didn't even used it because they just die off after a few days







.

*Plants condition*
Full tank view
right view left view

Vallisneria neotropicalis
This plant is the only one that has been doing fine all the time. It even has it's tiger-pattern and it even has runners and stuff. Maybe this is just one of those hard to kill plants. Though I always have some algae on the tops.

Echinodorus osiris
This plant is also fairly stable, it grows some shooters at the moment. But here you still see some algae on the older leaves. I guess having some red young leaves indicate there is enough lighting and iron?

Hygrophyllia polysperma
In this plant, you can start to see that the leaves at the bottom are starting to dissapear.

Bacopa caroliniana
Ok this plant is growing very slow. It has no leaves at all at the bottom. And so much algea.

This plant is the winner of "leafless at the bottom".

Though not all of the stem plant grows like that, as you can see from amania gracalis.These photograph was made just after pruning. They stood alot closer together.

There are lots of algea in the aquarium: background and driftwood left.

As you can see, the aquarium doesn't look healthy at all. All the pictures can be found here.

*Things I want to change*
I'm thinking of changing the substrate fertilizer. I was thinking of using Dupla root, which is made from laterite. I've already seen great results in this forum about this fertilizer (from plantella). Ofcourse there are more I guess, but this product is easily available on my LFS. Do you guys think this will be better than peat? Do I have to add anything else as substrate fertilizer?

I was also thinking of having the lighting on full power (4 lamps) for 10 hours instead of only 6.

Is there anything else I can change to make things better?

Happy hollidays everyone,
bonklers

*please note, my picture server is going offline everyday for an hour or so every GMT 11:00. So pleae try again later when you can't see any pictures.


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## Margolis (Sep 22, 2004)

I'm no expert, but I do want to post a couple of observations and opinions.

1: Your co2 level cannot be relied on with peat in the tank. peat will throw the co2/kh/ph chart off.

2: Your 4000k bulbs have to go. Get all 4 bulbs 6500

3: even though it sounds logical, ignore the lumens rating. Rely more on what the people around here go by, the Watts Per Gallon rule, 2-4W of light per gallon, 2W for low light plants, 4W for co2 added tanks and plants that require higher lighting level. you are just barely there.



I am sure you will get some help from some of the knowledgable people here, I am curious myself to see what they say.


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## WolverineFan (Nov 28, 2004)

I agree with margolis, you need more and better light. Having all the bulbs on for only six hours is not nearly enough. All of them should be on for 10-12 hrs a day.


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## imported_bonklers (Oct 15, 2004)

Thanks for the fast replies/advice,

Now if I think back, I can see your point about my co2 level. I've used lots of peat. And maybe with the substrate heating on, the peat will even make my water more acidic.

I will crank up my light with 1 hour per day till I get all of them burning for 10 hours long. If it's still not enough, then I might consider switching on to T5 bulps. This is the only way I can get closer to 4watts/gallons, there won't fit any T8 bulps anymore







.

BTW which picture gives you guys the idea that my lightning might come short? Is it the one with the bacopa with no leaves at the bottom, or is it the algea in general?


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## WolverineFan (Nov 28, 2004)

Its not so much the pictures as it is what you said in your message. 2.5-3 wpg for 11-12 hrs a day is pretty much standard.


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## biffe (Nov 1, 2004)

For a start I would pull up the pieces of wood and clean them for as much algae as possible, your background also looks like it’s under heavy attack of algae, clean that one too. Make a large water change and adjust your fertilizer levels. Buy 4 new bulbs, I had great success with Osram Biolux(6500 kelvin with 93cri), they are pretty cheap and can be ordered in most hardware stores, before installing them, make sure that your reflectors are clean. 
I would raise the co2 dosage slowly over the next week, since you can't measure the amount of Co2 because of the peat; you have to watch your fish very closely, when your fish starts to gasp for air, you go back to the previously day's setting, let it be there for a day or two to get stable, if your fish act normal, then let it stay there.
I don’t know what kind of Echinodorus you have, but they are heavy feeders and like substrate fertilizer, since you are in Holland you can properly get “Die 7 Kugeln” your crypts looks like they could use a ball or two too, final word would be add more plants.

Make water change at least once a week(50%), preferable twice(25-30%) if you can manage that until it’s settled in. 

Best of luck

Regards Kenneth


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## dissident (Sep 6, 2005)

Biffe hit it big. 
#1 : Clean the algae, it is chocking plant growth, add some really fast growers (a lot of them), do the above mentioned bulb change. The bulbs you have now will only grow algae well.
#2 : In your post you did not list any fish, do you have an algae eating crew? If not I would add some ASAP.


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

Sounds to me as if your biggest problem is light. Not enough. 6 hours a day is definetly not enough. 144 watts of light on a 79 gallon tank is pretty weak. I realize however that Europeans use much less light than we do, but you still need 12 hours a day.


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## imported_bonklers (Oct 15, 2004)

Hello,

I'll give some update on how/what I've been doing till now.

*New soil substrate*
I've removed all the peat and replaced them with laterite (Duplaroot). There are a couple of reasons why I wanted to do this: I believe it coloured the water yellowish (not good for my light-intensity), Christel Kasselman does not recommend peat as soil substrate because they could rot within a few weeks and could cause "anaerobic-zones" in the substrate (Planzenaquarien gestalten is what the book's called in German), I've read some good things about Dupla laterite (high on CEC etc.) and it's easier to plant things deep without the peat-_blocks_. Though I do see some black spots when I look under my aquarium, some roots from cryptocorynes actually grew into the peatblocks. So I don't know if peat-blocks are really bad or not.

*Better and more lighting*
After reading the article in Aquabotanic about "A comparison between light sources" I finally understand why I should look at watt/gallon instead of lumen/gallon. So I decided to go with 2XT5 and 2XT8 lightstrips which will give me about 2.8 watt/gallon. The bulps I use will be 2X Sylvania grolux (original spectrum) T8 36 watt and 2X ATI Sun Pro T5 54 watt. Also I went for better reflectors because after reading the example-section in the article above, I think having some good reflectors are just effective as having high efficiency bulps. This is because the reflectors have control over the 75% of the light that does not go directly into the water. So better lighting from having some full-spectrum/plant bulps combo instead of office-bulps-only I used before (3X 860 and 1X 840), and more lighting from having more watts. I don't have the T5 strips yet, I'll get them Saturday and with some luck maybe I can visit Zoo Zajac in Germany too







.

I tried to scrub all the algae from all of my driftwood. They don't come off easily, Even shaving doesn't seem to work well. Is it that big of problem if I just leave it as it is? After doing my substrate (two weeks ago), I've seen my algae pearling instead of my plants. What does this mean? I do see some bubbles on the leaves, but still having pearling algae is weird stuff. Maybe I should change my nick to Algella (lol). And btw. I don't have any algae eating fish because I don't them.

Here are some pictures of algae pearling
driftwood1 driftwood2

And here are some pictures from my reflectors. ATI superreflektor some info here and here. It has a parabolic overall shape with a bit W-shape in the middle. When using T5, it'll be more effective because of their smaller width.
ATI superreflektors comparison with JUWEL reflectorsIn the right picture you see a comparison between a standard JUWEL reflectors (left) and ATI (right). I can see more reflection of the bulp in the ATI one. The LFS was kind enough to demonstrate a lux-meter comparison between the two above, ATI had about ~140 lux while the Juwel had ~80 lux. So this was reason enough for me to buy them, I hope it's money well spent only time will tell.

This is the new set-up, it'll be all grass when I have enough money to buy them







.
Takashi Amano? 

Can someone tell me what kind of algae this is?
On my bacopa

All of the picture shown above could be found in picturetrail.com/bonklers


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## Margolis (Sep 22, 2004)

that's a great shot of the algae pearling.

If you really want to remove the algae from the wood, bleach and a small brush like a tooth brush. Bleach melts algae


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## Peter(09) (Jan 18, 2005)

Be careful on the Watts per gallon rule here. I have a tank of the same size as you (Rio 300) and have 4x36watts of lighting (all with reflectors). My plants are ok and I have Glosso forming a carpet across most of the front of the tank. There are articles on the Web which suggest that the watts per gallon rule is not a straight line across all sizes of tank. You could end up spending a lot of money trying to upgrade your lighting when in reality you have other problems.


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## imported_bonklers (Oct 15, 2004)

Could you tell me more about your aquarium and if it's possible some pictures? Like what bulps you're using (spectrum), how often you replace bulps, lighting duration, co2, fertilizer (substrate and water supplements) etc.

Glosso's had never survived in my tank for more then 1 week. It'll start to get fuzzy (?) and float upwards. Though I've never tried it with 12 hours lighting......

I'm not going to overdo it with lighting, just replace two of the 4 T8's with T5's and crank the my wpg from 1.8 to 2.8. And offcourse let them stay on for 12 hours







. I've tried to figure out what those "other-problems" are, so I purchased CO2, substrate fertilizer (peat at that time) and water supplements Dupla24. But none of them had really long lasting effect. Now i'm going for better lighting and controlling my Redfield-ratio to get rid off the algae (and lots of brushing).

There are lots of ppl who have good healthy tanks without even using any gadgets I use(El natural







). Sometimes this alone makes me wonder if I should pay more attention into aquarium-maintenance instead of looking for more and more equipment.


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## Peter(09) (Jan 18, 2005)

I think you need to make sure of the basics.
1) Good Lighting at around 2 watts+ per gallon or so (+ reflectors)
2) Get your CO2 concentration right

Get rid of anything in your tank that will prevent you being confident about 1 and 2.

It is best to get a proprietry substrate to improve your chances of getting things moving quicker and ensure it does not screw up your measurements of 2.

Start with the basics before getting to the more difficult detail. 

As for fertilisation, remember that your plants will grow without fertilisation (for a while). If you do not see growth in the beginning then ferts will just drive the algae harder.

You will need to fertilise but with care and, in my opinion, not the full amounts straight away, it takes a while to 'get the balance'

Read this forum, there are a lot of experts here and a lot of great people prepared to help with excellent advice.

A note on lighting.
In my experience the higher the watts per gallon the harder the tank is to control and the more expertise you need. At 2 watts per gallon if your plants run low then you have longer to address the issue. At 4 watts per gallon the algae can be everywhere before you realise.


Final word, this isn't an exact hobby, I am sure there are others far more experienced than me who will have a different slant on the strange and mysterious practices concerning planted tanks.


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

I agree, peat blocks are not a good idea. I used them when I first got in the hobby and had the same problem. After a few months it turned the substrate sour, and it smelled like rotten eggs. There are some benefits to peat, as it decomposes the acid helps make oxidized minerals soluble, (sp?) for plants. It also makes the substrate more acidic which is good for plants that like that, BUT decomposing organic material can cause problems. It is better to use loose peat than blocks, spagnum peat, and only a sprinkling on the bottom of the substrate underneath the laterite.

Substrate heaters are more popular in Europe than here in the USA. Some people swear by it, I think it is money needlessly spent.

Miligrams per liter or whatever it is, is not the same measurement as ppm. It can be converted though. I have a measurement conversion calculator in the Library section.

I take that back, I don't think my conversion table will help, check out this:
http://www.aquabotanic.com/charts.htm


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## imported_bonklers (Oct 15, 2004)

Last time I cheked, my PO4 level was 0 mg/l and my nitrate (NO3) was 15mg/l.

Should I add some KPO4 ? I am hesitating about this because I thought I should keep my PO4 as low as possible so I can use it as the minizing factor to keep algea away. But looking at my tank right now, it doesn't help at all. So I'm thinking to add some KPO4 because without any P they wont grow at all and can't compete with algea. Is there a reason I should not add KPO4? 

I've also checked Dupla 24 (the only watersupllement I use every day), it doesn't have any Phosphate. When I drop one whole drop (good for 20 gallon water treatment) the PO4 test didn't even coloured at all. I haven't checked my tap water though.

I have lots of N and little of P in proportion; from Sears & Conlin paper I should expect lots of green algea. This is what I see in my tank too, lots and lots of them and no blue algae.

When I put the lights on for 12 hours, my plants did grow a little and it had some algea but not as much as now. Right now, the stem plants won't grow at all and I have lot's of algae.


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## Peter(09) (Jan 18, 2005)

Give you plants a little time to respond to the change in environment, however you must address the basics first, get your light and c02 right. 

In my opinion fiddling with PO4 and Nitrate is the way to go once you have plant growth. If you are feeding you fish there will be enough to cover the minimum required for the slow growth you have.

At the moment the only thing you are going to help is the algae.

The only other point I would make is that the one plant you say is doing well is the Vallis. I believe that Vallis are very good at taking Carbon from the Calcium salts in the water. This may be a clue that you do not have enough C02.


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## WolverineFan (Nov 28, 2004)

You never did address the issue of algae eaters. Do you have any? If not you should get some. They will not help all that much right now but as your tank gets balanced they will come in handy.


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## imported_bonklers (Oct 15, 2004)

I don't have any algae eaters. I'll see if i can get some of those siamese algae eaters.


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