bsquizzato

Hey guys,

I'm going to be planting a standard 29 Gal tank.

Specs:

Dimensions: 30x12x~18
65W compact flourescent 10000k
Flourite
Eheim 2213 filter (not exactly sucking up stuff like I thought it would at the moment either, check out my threads on that one...)

I'll be sticking to low light plants obviously i.e. java fern/moss, crypts, anubias, maybe some anacharis at the start to help beat out algae.

So first of all I'd like to ask what else is needed to know what kind of nutrient dosing I need to start off with. I have flourish and flourish excel. I've got test kits for GH/KH, pH, nitrite, nitrate, ammonia. I currently don't have a detailed water quality report, but can testing with any of the kits I have bring us to conclusions on how to start off?

Also, do I need to do ammonia dosing when cycling a planted tank?

I appreciate the help...

Jay

Hey bsquizzato

Good for you on the planted tank

Just some quick responses

Yes you need to do ammonia dosing if you are going to fishless cycle.

I would pack the tank with cheap stem plants and grasses at first to get a plant mass established and then move onto the specimen plants you want.

Anacharis and Excel do not do well together.

Read through the posts "crash course" "I need help" there is a lot of good information there to soak up (no pun intended)

I am not familiar with the Eheim filter you are questioning...sorry

Stay with the forum, there are some up and comming newcomers to planted tanks here who are working through the same issues.

Regards,
Jay

bsquizzato

Okay so I've stocked the tank, unfortunately I wasn't all that impressed with my LFS's selections today, I really wanted to get some grasses like hairgrass or dwarf sag, but as you suggested I stuck for the most part (except for water sprite..) all to stem plants. Maybe I can get some pictures up soon

Currently in the tank:
Water sprite
Water wisteria
Java moss
Roundleaf rotala (this is kind of an experiment ... I -think- my lighting will be enough for it, it was growing decently under the LFS's crappy lighting, hoping to really turn it around)
Anubias nana
Hornwort

Honestly I think java moss is a huge pain and I'll remove it once I acquire some nice grasses.

For today I just dosed excel and flourish as recommended on the bottle, and I'm hoping my tap water has a good amount of the correct macro nutrients but like I said I don't have a water quality report right now. I'll also need to start on the ammonia dosing.

Current tank parameters after dosing excel/flourish and adding the plants, before ammonia dosing:

pH: ~6.6
Ammonia: 0.25 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 0 ppm
KH: 35.8 ppm

The GH wouldn't even register, I did 20 drops from my Aquarium Pharm KH/GH test kit and the color still did not change. Could it really be this high? I have black slate in the tank and a root, no other rocks.

My pH out of the tap is about 7.6, so this is a pretty major change compared to the tank water... I assume the tank is low because I added excel? But if my GH is so high, how come it fluctuates so much? How quickly should I see a rise in pH as the plants take in carbon

Obviously I need to add nitrates somehow, when I start ammonia dosing I suppose this will start happening on its own, but are there any suggestions for some sort of macro nutrient supplement besides mixing my own at this point?

Jay

yeah man

join us in nutrients and algae 101.

Another member of planted tanks...

Regards,
Jay