Picked My Method, Some Questions

Pierre-Luc Boily

New Member
Jul 4, 2018
4
0
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45
Montreal, QC
Hello,


2 months ago I bought the tank below without special goal. After buying a light that I thought it was needed, and having an algae bloom, I realized that I would prefer the low-tech method with low light and perhaps excel and WC every week (30-50%). The following is my spec :
  • The fluval vista 23g
    • Capacity : 23g
    • Aquarium Size : 30” x 12” x 18” (76 x 30 x 45.7 cm)
    • Filter : AquaClear 50
  • Light (Included LED in the hood)
    • LED Watts : 8.4 W
    • LED Lumens : 800 LM
    • LED Color Temp. : 8000 K
    • 8 hours a day, separated in 2
  • My plants are :
    • Hygrophila siemensis 53b (Died in my bleach solution. Ordered a new one at LFS)
    • Microsorum pterotus narrow
    • taxyphyllum spiky
    • crytocoryne x willisi
    • bacopa compact
    • anubia petite
    • anubia gracilis
    • anubia nana (not yet received from LFS)
    • Bucephalandra
    • Limnobium laevigatum (not yet received from LFS)
  • Soil
    • Netlea Langa Soil
    • CaribSea Super Nat (white sand)
  • Fertilization
    • Tropica premium, one pump every day (1,2 ml)
  • WC 30-50% every week
  • Fish/shrimps
    • 6 guppies
    • 10 neon tetra
    • 6 amano
    • 4 cherry
    • 2 bloody mary
    • 1 blue rilli
    • (I`d like to add 4-6 cory in a near future)

Questions :
  1. Light : Is my light is OK for low-tech non-CO2 (perhaps excel)? I would say 800LM and PAR 30 is OK, but I want to make sure. Otherwise, I will go back to my T5H0, but with only 1x24w instead
  2. Excel : I read PlantedAquaria_2001_2_22 paper from Ole Pederson where it says that some CO2 is good for growing plants even in low-light. I might want to add excel, but I read that some plants don`t like it. In the list above, is there a plant that don`t like excel?
  3. Fertilization : I read quite a bit about EI. I don`t want to calculate my own dose, and I am wondering if adding the recommended dose of tropica premium is kind of doing EI? I am adding one pump every day (1,2 ml).

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