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lighting a planted 90G


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#21 Guest_brian1973_*

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Posted 19 December 2008 - 07:02 PM

the topsoil layer is anywhere from 3 to 5 inches and the gravel is about an inch maybe a bit thicker in some spots. I did add some plants last night and I was suprised that the water did not cloud up hardly any, and what did come up settled very quickly.

#22 Guest_nativeplanter_*

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Posted 22 December 2008 - 12:39 PM

Sounds good. From the photo, the gravel layer looks thinner, but that must be because the tank is so large. If the gravel layer is thin, there is more of a chance of the soil getting disturbed.

A lot of people are surprised that the water stays pretty clear if it is added carefully - but in retrospect, it makes sense - natural water bodies are usually clear of sediments, unless people are disturbing them.

#23 Guest_brian1973_*

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Posted 23 December 2008 - 11:48 PM

I have some better pics I need to post, I do have a couple questions, I have no fish in the tank and havent added anything to start a cycle but I am reading low nitrates and about 1ppm ammonia, is the ammonia coming from the substrate? Also I added some plants ludwigia, vals, and some dwarf hair grass, the vals and ludwigia arent looking so good, kind of yellowish, what am I missing here?
My lighting is 260watts PC.

Edited by brian1973, 24 December 2008 - 12:05 AM.


#24 Guest_drewish_*

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Posted 24 December 2008 - 01:08 PM

You probably have amounts of ammonia in your tap water. As for the plants, I've seen growers grow plants terrestrially which would cause your leaves to die and grow back. You may also have a nutrient or CO2 deficiency.

#25 Guest_truf_*

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Posted 24 December 2008 - 04:23 PM

I have some better pics I need to post, I do have a couple questions, I have no fish in the tank and havent added anything to start a cycle but I am reading low nitrates and about 1ppm ammonia, is the ammonia coming from the substrate? Also I added some plants ludwigia, vals, and some dwarf hair grass, the vals and ludwigia arent looking so good, kind of yellowish, what am I missing here?
My lighting is 260watts PC.

If you have excessive water movement, you can drive out the CO2 from the water; kind of like shaking up a soda can. In a planted tank, less water movement is better. I assume, since there are no fish, there is no source for CO2 in your tank right now. Adding your fish may help increase CO2 through respiration.
Drewish is correct, if the plants were grown terrestrially, you may get a temporary die back. Don't be overly concerned if this is the case, as they will grow back. However, usually yellow leaves is an indication of low levels of Iron. Consider an Iron supplement, or a comprehensive aquarium plant fertilizer containing Iron. This would be my first step, as it is the cheapest/easiest. Also, some specialty planted aquarium substrates contain iron. It is a too late for that now though. If they continue to yellow, you can also inject CO2 for terrific growth; it works for me.
-Thom

#26 Guest_brian1973_*

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Posted 24 December 2008 - 05:03 PM

If you have excessive water movement, you can drive out the CO2 from the water; kind of like shaking up a soda can. In a planted tank, less water movement is better. I assume, since there are no fish, there is no source for CO2 in your tank right now. Adding your fish may help increase CO2 through respiration.
Drewish is correct, if the plants were grown terrestrially, you may get a temporary die back. Don't be overly concerned if this is the case, as they will grow back. However, usually yellow leaves is an indication of low levels of Iron. Consider an Iron supplement, or a comprehensive aquarium plant fertilizer containing Iron. This would be my first step, as it is the cheapest/easiest. Also, some specialty planted aquarium substrates contain iron. It is a too late for that now though. If they continue to yellow, you can also inject CO2 for terrific growth; it works for me.
-Thom


Thanks drewish and Truf..I recently tested the tap water for ammonia and it was zero but that could have changed, I will recheck it, when I first moved here the tap water did have ammonia. I have addded flourish by seachem, and may do a DIY CO2 system for the tank, it did dawn on me after I posted that without fish I probably have very low CO2 levels, I was going to by flourish excel today but the only LFS that sells it here was closed, may do that on friday if I dont do a DIY for now. I am trying to avoid using CO2 injection but a DIY setup may be alright.

#27 Guest_truf_*

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Posted 24 December 2008 - 07:28 PM

Thanks drewish and Truf..I recently tested the tap water for ammonia and it was zero but that could have changed, I will recheck it, when I first moved here the tap water did have ammonia. I have addded flourish by seachem, and may do a DIY CO2 system for the tank, it did dawn on me after I posted that without fish I probably have very low CO2 levels, I was going to by flourish excel today but the only LFS that sells it here was closed, may do that on friday if I dont do a DIY for now. I am trying to avoid using CO2 injection but a DIY setup may be alright.

I know I've reposted this recently, but in case you are interested and missed it:

DIY CO2 Generator/Reactor

#28 Guest_pmk00001_*

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Posted 24 December 2008 - 08:22 PM

I have some better pics I need to post, I do have a couple questions, I have no fish in the tank and havent added anything to start a cycle but I am reading low nitrates and about 1ppm ammonia, is the ammonia coming from the substrate? Also I added some plants ludwigia, vals, and some dwarf hair grass, the vals and ludwigia arent looking so good, kind of yellowish, what am I missing here?
My lighting is 260watts PC.



Give the plants a few weeks, they usually take awhile to adjust, Vals don't need much to spread other than time, they'll sit there for a month not doing much and then throw off a bunch of runners in a week.

Depends on which species of Ludwigia you have but most are pretty easy to grow.

#29 Guest_brian1973_*

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Posted 24 December 2008 - 11:31 PM

I know I've reposted this recently, but in case you are interested and missed it:

DIY CO2 Generator/Reactor


thanks for the link, I will probably go with the 2 liter bottle route for now, I used that on my other 90G and the plants looked great until my oscars destroyed them. I know alot of people dont like the DIY systems on large tanks but for me it seemed to work before. I use 2x 2L bottles then a 20 ounce as a safety/ bubble counter then use a small powerhead to break up the CO2. Basically the 20 ounce bottle goes between the 2l and the tank so if for some reason the liquid mix got pushed out of the tank it would go into the 20ounce and hopefully stabilize before going any further. I took the plans off a website and it worked well last time unfortunately I cant remember the site.

#30 Guest_brian1973_*

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Posted 27 December 2008 - 10:06 PM

You probably have amounts of ammonia in your tap water. As for the plants, I've seen growers grow plants terrestrially which would cause your leaves to die and grow back. You may also have a nutrient or CO2 deficiency.


Figure I would give you an update, the ludwigia has begun forming new leaves, I added DIY CO2 and dosed with excel today, I assume you where correct drewish since the only thing I did was replaced a actinic bulb with a 10000k bulb on christmas eve and I noticed the new growth yesterday but couldnt be sure it was actual new growth until I saw more today.

One other question, I realized that I didnt compact the soil that is under the layer of gravel, should I compact it or just leave it alone?

#31 Guest_drewish_*

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Posted 28 December 2008 - 01:43 AM

One other question, I realized that I didnt compact the soil that is under the layer of gravel, should I compact it or just leave it alone?


I'm just a newbie when it comes to soil in tanks. I'm not sure what problems that would cause if you left it alone. I imagine it would depend on how dense the soil is and how deep it is. Maybe nativeplanter can elaborate.

#32 Guest_brian1973_*

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Posted 28 December 2008 - 02:41 AM

I was hoping she will be able to give me some advice here, I think I was thinking it would settle on its own once it was water logged but it hasnt, it doesnt seem to cause any problems, the plants stay planted, and as i said the ones I had problems with seem to be coming back around.

#33 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 28 December 2008 - 02:00 PM

I didn't compact mine. With terrestrial plants, soil compaction is a no-no because it limits gas exchange at the roots, and can inhibit root growth as well. There may be a similar issue with aquatics, as compaction could reduce water flow around the roots (just guessing here).

#34 Guest_brian1973_*

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Posted 28 December 2008 - 06:37 PM

I didn't compact mine. With terrestrial plants, soil compaction is a no-no because it limits gas exchange at the roots, and can inhibit root growth as well. There may be a similar issue with aquatics, as compaction could reduce water flow around the roots (just guessing here).


Yours is growing well right? I figured the water would eventually allow it to settle and compact some.

#35 Guest_Newt_*

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Posted 28 December 2008 - 10:00 PM

Yeah, the vals seem to be doing fine. The new plantlets seem unable to root themselves through the gravel layer, so I have to peridocially go through and plant the ones I want to keep. I have had no problems with the soil getting into the water column after the initial settling period; on the other hand, none of my current fish root around in the substrate.

#36 Guest_nativeplanter_*

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Posted 30 December 2008 - 03:22 PM

I'm just a newbie when it comes to soil in tanks. I'm not sure what problems that would cause if you left it alone. I imagine it would depend on how dense the soil is and how deep it is. Maybe nativeplanter can elaborate.


Sorry to be late - I've been off the net during the holidays.

I don't think you need to have compacted your soil as long as it is staying put. I never have specifically compacted mine, other than to smooth it out before adding gravel. I have noticed a few air pockets down there and figured they would fill in with water eventually, but they never have. Don't know why.

Newt is right about the plantlets having difficulty rooting in coarse gravel. They may need some fussing with to get them into the soil. Overall, I've found that the finer-rooted the plants are, the finer the gravel needs to be - pea gravel works well with large-rooted plants and those that you manually plant; gravel about 2mm works well for the average plants, and some of the very, very fine stuff seems to do better with a coarse sand.

Regarding the ammonia - did you use a chlorine remover or chloramine remover? If only chlorine remover, you would get excess ammonia released if there are chloramines in your water. I'm not sure, but I think if you use nothing at all (since there were no fish), you would get ammonia as well as the chloramine broke down and the chlorine volatilized. But I'm not sure about that.

Anyway, I've had tanks with no fish and didn't fertilize or use CO2. The soil will take care of that. Especially at first, any organic material in the soil will be breaking down and generating CO2 as well. My fishless tanks have been the easiest to maintain, actually, since I don't get fish poo in the water adding nutrients to the water column.

#37 Guest_brian1973_*

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Posted 30 December 2008 - 10:24 PM

Sorry to be late - I've been off the net during the holidays.

I don't think you need to have compacted your soil as long as it is staying put. I never have specifically compacted mine, other than to smooth it out before adding gravel. I have noticed a few air pockets down there and figured they would fill in with water eventually, but they never have. Don't know why.

Newt is right about the plantlets having difficulty rooting in coarse gravel. They may need some fussing with to get them into the soil. Overall, I've found that the finer-rooted the plants are, the finer the gravel needs to be - pea gravel works well with large-rooted plants and those that you manually plant; gravel about 2mm works well for the average plants, and some of the very, very fine stuff seems to do better with a coarse sand.

Regarding the ammonia - did you use a chlorine remover or chloramine remover? If only chlorine remover, you would get excess ammonia released if there are chloramines in your water. I'm not sure, but I think if you use nothing at all (since there were no fish), you would get ammonia as well as the chloramine broke down and the chlorine volatilized. But I'm not sure about that.

Anyway, I've had tanks with no fish and didn't fertilize or use CO2. The soil will take care of that. Especially at first, any organic material in the soil will be breaking down and generating CO2 as well. My fishless tanks have been the easiest to maintain, actually, since I don't get fish poo in the water adding nutrients to the water column.


Gotcha..I do push the plants down into the soil..hopefully that is right. I typically treat my tanks with Prime but honestly I cnat remember if I did when I posted this, I actually drained it down sunday and did a bit of rearranging and removed some of the ludwigia that was defiantely dead, then refilled. I treated with excel on saturday and setup a DIY CO2 Sunday that I am using for now. I will see how everything goes.

I also added some Cabomba carolina a few days ago, it seems to have lost most of the lower leaves but the top of the plant looks great, I did have them bunched up a bit so I spread them out to see if it helps.

#38 Guest_brian1973_*

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Posted 04 January 2009 - 05:21 PM

Heres a few pics the first couple where taken last weekend after I rearranged some things and the last 2 where taken today if you look closely you should be able to see the difference in growth in the Cabomba carolina especially 2 small pieces that where barely sticking out of the substrate are now 2 to 3in tall, there is more growth happening with everything but they are the most noticable.
I also used black poster board for a background that you will notice on the last 2 pics. I am still using DIY CO2 that what the powerhead is being used for, and dosing with flourish excel every few days and flourish once a week. I will be adding some fish in the next few days.

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the next one I circled the cabomba carolina that I was refering to.
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These are from today.
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#39 Guest_BTDarters_*

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Posted 06 January 2009 - 10:54 AM

Brian,

Looks like it's going to be a really great tank when the plants fill-in! In fact, it doesn't look bad now! Please keep us posted as to the plant growth, etc..

Brian

#40 Guest_brian1973_*

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Posted 06 January 2009 - 10:16 PM

Brian,

Looks like it's going to be a really great tank when the plants fill-in! In fact, it doesn't look bad now! Please keep us posted as to the plant growth, etc..

Brian


It will look better once those fish get here ;)




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