New to planted aquariums looking for some advice

[rockhoe14er]

I have a 29 gallon planted tank.

Lighting : 5000k and 10,000 k T5HO

Substrate: innert black sand (but i use root tabs)

Pressurized CO2 at 1.5 bps I built an internal CO2 reactor connected to a small pump

Nitrates at 30ppm (don't have a test kit for phosphates and the other macronutrients)

I dose fertz using the EI method for a 29 gallon tank.

I don't have a drop checker yet (still waiting on that in the mail)

HOB filter the water level is high to reduce surface agitation.

Here are some pictures of my tank

any suggestions and tips on what i'm missing would be greatly appreciated.

I really want to get pearling but so far no luck. Also i seem to have some brown algae growing on my HC. It seems to come off pretty easy when i Vaccume the substrate but comes back pretty quickly.

 

[dutchy]

Change less water, more like 25% per week and see if the brown algae goes away. This also means, that you should dose less of course.

Pearling is badly overrated. I have hardly any pearling in my tank, but great plant growth. Even though plants pearl, still doesn't mean everything is ok. I've seen plants pearl even when there was a CO2 deficiency. Pearling is more about light. More light is more pearling / faster growth. But it also means higher CO2 demand. So don't worry about that.

Don't use too much different kind of plants on this tank, 3 species would be fine. Maybe a nice group of Mayaca could look really nice on the left side. (a group, not just three sticks)

regards,
dutchy

 

[rockhoe14er]

Thanks a lot Dutchy for the reply.

Part of my goal was to use plants with small leaves to give the appearance that the tank is much larger than it actually is. I have some HM that i could spread out on the left side and take out the other plants i have there (i'm not sure what their names are) and let it fill in more. Do you think that would be a good idea?

 

[dutchy]

You're right about the small plants. But a lot of various species will make it look messy. Try.

regards,
dutchy

 

[rockhoe14er]

One more question. Why do you suggest doing smaller water changes to help with the brown algae?

I was actually doing close to 40% water changes very other day to help pull some of that stuff up off of my substrate. Was this a bad idea?

 

[dutchy]

Some people here have very high SiO3 levels in their tap water. Because of the frequent water changes, the level rises so high that diatoms start to grow. reducing the waterchanges will help here.

If your tank is still new and not fully cycled yet, you"re on the right track. Then it's just a matter of time until it goes away.

regards,
dutchy+