# Help this poor noob with her 20H NPT!



## Gilly (Dec 18, 2010)

Ok I'm restarting my 20H NPT. It was a bit of a disaster before, the soil went bad, the water was brown with tannins- the plants did just Ok-ish, then green beard algae took over and I broke it down. I know some of the mistakes I made: I had the lights on for too long, I had a big piece of driftwood covering part of the soil and I didn't plant enough in the beginning. Now I want to restart it and do it right by golly!

The NPT is in front of an east facing window so it gets a ton of morning light. I have a dual coralife lightstrip T5 14W one 6700k bulb one colormax bulb. Prob should replace the bulb cuz it's been a year or is this even the right amount of light?

Is an east facing window too much light? Should I have the lights on for less time because of this?

Here's another problem- I can't use the scott's organic potting soil so many recommend. I have a crazy allergic reaction if I don't wear gloves. And I really want to be able to touch my aquarium. Is there another potting soil anyone knows of that doesn't require gloves to handle? I'm tempted to just use Fluval plant substrate.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

From tests with a PAR meter, I can tell you that your ColorMax tube does almost nothing for plants. Replace it with another 6700K, or a generic tube from the hardware store. Look for something 5000K or higher. Even if you can only find 4200K, that will be better than ColorMax for plants.

An east facing window is not too much light. You probably will need to reduce the photoperiod on your fluroescents during the summer, and increase during the winter to compensate for seasonal change.

There are a lot of ingredients in potting mixes. Do you know which one(s) you are allergic to? I have heard of allergies to sphagnum peat, so you might look for a mix that has none of that ingredient. Try checking ingredients on the cheapest bagged topsoil available in your area. You could also try some natural topsoil--if it will grow terrestrial plants, chances are it will work in an aquarium. Maybe from a vegetable garden? Really, almost any ordinary soil that will grow plants and that you are not allergic to will probably work.

One very common mistake is using a soil layer that is too deep. For a 20 gal, a 1 inch layer is plenty. I would not use more than 1.5" in any tank.

Good luck!


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## Gilly (Dec 18, 2010)

Thanks so much for that info about my lights! I appreciate it. I'm definitely going to change out that colormax bulb! 

I'm not sure what it is in the soil mix that burns my hands- I might actually try contacting Scott's and asking them. In the meantime, I think I'm going to go upstate to my friend's house and dig dirt out of his backyard. I'm in Brooklyn and it's hard to just go out and get dirt here! I have a 3 gal lo-tech betta tank with just plain old dirt from a yard and stuff grows fine in there though I've had problems with algae. 

I'm planning on using 1 inch of yard soil with a 1 inch Fluval plant stratum cap. i like how it looks. 

This is another soil related question but it's kind of weird- does anyone worry about getting toxoplasmosis from the soil? I've read it can be in both bagged and just regular topsoil. I mean, I'll just wash my hands after I use it and stuff I guess that's all anyone can do.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Toxoplasmosis is usually only a problem for people with severely depressed immune systems. People undergoing chemotherapy, who have had a transplant, or who have HIV must be especially careful. Cat litter boxes are the most common source of infection.

So just wash your hands and don't worry.

Your friend's back yard soil should be fine, just take it from a place that has not been treated with pesticides or fertilizers.


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## Gilly (Dec 18, 2010)

Thank you so much for this info. I am planning a big trip to the fish store and I don't want to buy a ton of stuff and have everything go wrong again.

These are the plants I want to put in the 20H

A "lawn area" of dwarf sag
a cluster of cryptocoryne spiralis to mingle with the sag
a clump of ludwigia repens for the middle
tuft of rotala rotundiflora for the middle
A background of hygrophilia corymbosa siamensis (I like it bc it looks like amazon sword but won't grow out of the tank- and I can trim it without spoiling the shape...I think??)
I didn't have much luck with it before but I like the way pennywort looks.
I'd like to put in an amazon sword but I don't want it to grow out of the tank...

Survivors from my old tank include some giant cabomba that grows like crazy and I'm a little sick of...not sure where to stick that
3 leftover apongeton crispus to stick in a corner
some sort of large bronze-ish crypt i forgot the name of for the middle
I have java moss but it takes over everything...it's in a low-tech shrimp tank growing on driftweed doing super well. Gonna leave it there.
and duckweed like crazy.

Will the light level in my tank work with these plants? Is that enough variety? I'm trying to pick "easy" plants that will just grow and look good without a ton of fussing. Are there any other "easy" plants that will look good in there? Ha, I know there's only a billion plants to chose from.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

All of these sound reasonable. As with any tank, some are likely to flourish and some not.

If you want to see more easy plants, go to the Plant Finder and set the search on "easy" and "very easy".


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## Gilly (Dec 18, 2010)

I was afraid the plants on easy/very easy would be ugly but to my surprise I liked a lot of them.

I think I'm going to add Myriophyllum Mattogrossense, Creeping Jenny and Cardamine Lyrata to the mix if I can find it at my LFS. And leave out the Cabomba. I'm tired of it! 

I wanted to fill the tank with green tiger barbs and cherry barbs but I keep reading 20H is too small for them? Is that true? If I can't have barbs, it's going to be a mix of tetras. I never have had much luck with livebearers though I like the way they look. I also want to put nerite snails in there too.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

If you are in Brooklyn, you have the famous soft, acidic NYC water. Livebearers and nerites like hard water, so that explains your problems with livebearers and also makes nerites a poor choice.

If I recall, the barbs you mention are quite adaptable, and ought to be OK, just not to many, and just one species in a tank that size. Also look at all the rasboras, most of them like soft water and many are smaller than the tiger barbs. Smaller fish = more fish = more fun.

Check out The Skeptical Aquarist, a.k.a. Wetman. He is in NYC, and has a fantastic web site that will take you months to read.


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## Gilly (Dec 18, 2010)

I randomly stumbled on the Skeptical Aquarist a little while ago and your endorsement makes me want to take a closer look. I've never kept rasboras before, I'm going to read up on them. I like to see a lot of motion in the tank. I'm glad I can blame my problems with livebearers on something other than myself. Shoot I wanted some horned nerites, they're so cool looking. But I don't want to have to mess with my water quality all the time, I'd rather make do with what I've got.

The tetras that were in my 20H are now hanging out in my 10 gallon low-tech tank are phantoms and neons. There's also some panda cories, amanos and cherries in there. There's a ton of java moss in there and everyone seems pretty happy so they may just stay put.

Thanks for your help! I'm determined to make this tank work and I'm going to set it up this weekend if I can so I'll take pictures etc.


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## Gilly (Dec 18, 2010)

I'd like to purchase plants off this message board but I'm worried about BBA as I can't inspect them first like I can at an actual store. Does anyone else worry about that? Years ago, before I did a NPT and I would just stick plants in the gravel, I had BBA just totally take over an aquarium and overwhelm all the plants and I'd like to avoid that.


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## Skizhx (Oct 12, 2010)

Quarantine and treat new plants before adding them to the aquarium.

Even with close inspection it's so easy to miss a tiny thread of BBA or cladophora hidden in the roots or something, and that's all it takes for it to be in your tank permanently.


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## Gilly (Dec 18, 2010)

How do people usually do that? I was dipping them in a diluted bleach solution, is that good enough? I must say I'd rather not use the bleach method any more, it smells! How long does one quarantine them for? Also, could I just leave plants that grow emergent outside for a bit to kill any algae?


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## Gilly (Dec 18, 2010)

Just read a thread about someone using undiluted 3 % hydrogen peroxide as an algae dip. That sounds easier than bleach and not as smelly.


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## Skizhx (Oct 12, 2010)

I use 1:1 peroxide:water solution. You leave the plant submerged for I think a few minutes? Google it, I don't remember it by heart (been awhile).

Some plants are sensitive, but this seems to be the most gentle dip.

Another option might be to keep the plant for a prolonged period in water with a high concentration of excel. I've read of some people using large excel doses in plant-only tanks to 'nuke' problematic algae. It works great for spot-treating. You'll have to look into this yourself.


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## Gilly (Dec 18, 2010)

uhm... maybe I should have diluted that hydrogen peroxide. :retard:

I read you could use it undiluted though. The Hygrophila melted as did the hornwort and the leaves of the amazon swords. The crypts and the annubias are fine as is the rotala. Will those plants I melted come back? Or should I get more. I am embarrassed to report this.


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## Skizhx (Oct 12, 2010)

I've used peroxide undilluted to spot treat plants already in the aquarium and to sterilize substrate taken and recycled from a clado infested tank. Never as a plant dip though.

You've had plants survive the undilluted dip, so evidently, yes, it can be used undilluted. But some plants didn't take well to it.

Searching around, I'm finding people using various ratios for various lengths of time... Longer soaks for more dillute solutions. Which really doesn't clarify much of anything, and it's sort of hard to verify their techniques are working and their lack of clado, etc isn't just coincidental.

Doing some searching for you I found this thread... http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/algae/84475-dealing-cladophora-staghorn-algae.html

In it, HeyPK advises:


> Once you have gotten your tanks free of clado, it is not too hard to keep it out. I examine all new plants with a magnifying glass. If I see any clado. the plant has to get a four minute bleach treatment. Fortunately, I find clado. attached to plants with thick rhizomes or to the older parts of crown plants. These kinds of plants can survive 4 minutes easily. With stem plants it may be attached to very old stems, which can be removed and thrown away, but never to newer, recently grown stems. Any other kind of hair algae found on new plants can be eliminated with a 2 minute treatment.


As far as the plants surviving, sort of hard to say for certain... Depends on the extent of damage, etc. Certainly couldn't hurt to try though... I'd give the sword a chance if nothing else...

Hope this helps.


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## Gilly (Dec 18, 2010)

Thanks for the info. I've never dealt with Clado but it sounds harder than BBA to get rid of. Algae is weird. I still can't get over that giant kelp isn't actually a plant but an algae. 

Anyway, the 2 types of hygrophilia just melted away completely. There's a couple of bare stems that might come back, I'm keeping them in there. All the crypts are pretty much fine. One sword is fine the other two are basically mush but maybe the roots are ok. The rotala is kind of wilted looking but I do see new growth on the tips. I thought my dwarf sag was a goner but I was heartened to see a new shoot peeping out of the substrate. I threw in some snails to eat all the dead leaves. Otherwise there's no fauna in there yet.

My plant volume is way down though, should I get more plants to make sure algae doesn't overrun the tank? I wanted to start this tank off with it looking good but unfortunately it looks pretty crappy. And if I do get more plants I would obviously dip them for way less time in a much more diluted solution.


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## Gilly (Dec 18, 2010)

Ok I ordered a bunch of new plants off the plant selling forum here so when I get them I going to use a much more diluted dip for much less time and hopefully things will be good. Everything except the hygrophilia is coming back albeit slowly except for the crypts which are producing new leaves faster than I thought possible!


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## apctjp (Feb 12, 2012)

I have a 1 gallon bowl that only has 3m pool sand for substrate. It only receives natural sunlight. There are many plants that do well in this environment. They grow slower, than in a soil substrate, so they require less work. The dwarf sag, ludwigia repens and pennywort will do fine. The dwarf sag will stay smaller and under control.
Algae in this bowl is not a problem. In tanks with soil substrate there is the initial algae outbreak.
Unfortunately 3m sand is no longer available. I think Tahitian Moon Sand may be a close match, buy the larger grain size (size of the grain should be 3-4 times larger than play sand). There is Eco-Complete, Laterite and Flourite substrates, these contain minerals to promote plant growth.


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## Gilly (Dec 18, 2010)

Ok I got new plants. I'm gonna treat them with the 1:1 peroxide dip and hope for the best.


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## Skizhx (Oct 12, 2010)

If they're decent sized stems, you could clip a bit off the top and dip it. Then if it survives dip the rest of the plant... I usually lop off the tops of new stem plants and replant them. Then lop the tops off again soon after they've established...

You sure can get a lot of plants pretty fast out of a taller bunch of stems.


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## Gilly (Dec 18, 2010)

Argh, I was just about to dip the plants in H2O2 when I noticed a definite tuft of BBA on some Dwarf Sag. I didn't expect the plants I bought to have that on them outright, I guess I thought I was just dipping them as a precaution...maybe I should use bleach if it's stronger? I'm definitely going to pull that leaf off...maybe I should just leave the sag out of the aquarium entirely? Is BBA just impossible to avoid in a tank or what?

UPDATE: I did the bleach. Now my tank is full of plants. Keeping my fingers crossed!


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## Skizhx (Oct 12, 2010)

Should be good... As long as you don't introduce live BBA, it'll stay out.

FWIW any time I've had real problems with it, I've found there's usually been something wrong/unstable that's usually reflected in the growth rates or health of the plants. Not proven, just my own personal observations.

Getting the plants to grow stronger seemed to be enough to make the BBA recede on its own, which is why I suspect so many people find increasing CO2 helps, even though BBA seems to have no problem growing around diffuser outlets, etc.

Should I encounter it again I would not jump to chemical eradication... It's cladophora that's the real menace...


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