New tank - Plants are looking bad

tnnlynch

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I think I may have made more than one mistake here but just in case anyone has any advice that will save some plants...

120G (US) 48x24x24 tank, NuClear filter with pump. Ecco Complete substrate. 330 Watts of PC lighting using AHSupplies extremely bright reflectors. Co2 is not setup yet as my tank hasn't arrived. My pump seems to drain my overflow fairly low and churn a bit of air into the tank.

I planted the following:
Telenthera or Red Temple, Kleiner Bar Sword, Bacopa, Ludwigia, Anubis Nana, Becketii, Micro Sword Grass, and Red-Spot Ozelot. I added some flourish after planting.

The plants I recieved had a large population of snails and hair algae on them so I did a bleach dip. Looks like that was not a good idea for quite a few of my plants as quite a few leaves have "melted" away. I rinsed the plants using Prime and added Prime to tank as well. I have not done a water change in 5 days and the nitrite level is rather high at over 5ppm, ammonia was 0, PH was 7.5 and I do not have test kits for nitrate.

Suggestions welcome.
Tom L
 

Tom Barr

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Re: New tank - Plants are looking bad

tnnlynch said:
120G (US) 48x24x24 tank, NuClear filter with pump. Ecco Complete substrate. 330 Watts of PC lighting using AHSupplies extremely bright reflectors. Co2 is not setup yet as my tank hasn't arrived. My pump seems to drain my overflow fairly low and churn a bit of air into the tank.
I planted the following:
Telenthera or Red Temple, Kleiner Bar Sword, Bacopa, Ludwigia, Anubis Nana, Becketii, Micro Sword Grass, and Red-Spot Ozelot. I added some flourish after planting.
The plants I recieved had a large population of snails and hair algae on them so I did a bleach dip. Looks like that was not a good idea for quite a few of my plants as quite a few leaves have "melted" away. I rinsed the plants using Prime and added Prime to tank as well. I have not done a water change in 5 days and the nitrite level is rather high at over 5ppm, ammonia was 0, PH was 7.5 and I do not have test kits for nitrate.
Suggestions welcome.
Tom L

Raise the slats in the standpipe on the overflow, make it so the level in the over flow is 3-4" max, you do not want a large spill over in the over flow, this is a large source of CO2 loss.

I hope you are notr adding all 330 watts of light without CO2, you will have an algae farm very fast.

Never add light without CO2 being ready and hooked up.
Turn it off till you get CO2. You can use 110w for now.

I'd do a large water change to remove any of the NO2.
Pack the tank with plants, cheap plants whatever you can get your hands on till you can phase them out as the other grow in.

always add mulm to a new substrate and filter, you will never measure any NH4/NO2 if you do this.

I think you'll find that you do not need 330w on the tank and will only need to light the tank in 110w for 11 hours, 220 for 6, 330 for perhaps 3-4.

That will give you decent results and use your lighting the best way I think.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Regards,
Tom Barr



Regards,
Tom Barr
 

tnnlynch

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Feb 1, 2005
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Re: New tank - Plants are looking bad

I was not planning on using all 330 11 hours once I had the CO2. I was planning on a phased approach using timers. I believe I got the original idea from a post of yours on another board. I had all of it on at the moment as the plants were not looking to good. I'll drop that down.

I was planning on a large water change tomorrow and I'll add some mulm from my small tank's water change & filter at the same time.

Thanks
Tom