New to Planted Tanks, Need Some Help

[QueenKiara]

Hi, everyone! I have a new 10 gallon tank that's fishless cycling right now. It's in the middle of the nitrite spike, >5ppm of nitrites but consistently bringing 2pmm of ammonia down to 0 every 24 hours. I added plants the same day that I added ammonia, on March 20th. I'm using Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride for aquariums. The plants that I have are Staurogyne Repens, Bacopa Caroliniana, Anubias Nana, and Cryptocoryne Wendtii Green. I just want to make sure I'm doing everything right.

I believe it's considered a low tech, low light tank. The substrate is Eco Complete Planted Aquarium Substrate, and I have occasional Seachem Root Tabs in it where I have plants. The light is an 18 inch Zoo Med Ultra Sun Trichromatic Super Daylight 6500K Fluorescent Bulb T8 15 Watt. It's on a timer from 11am to 7pm daily. The temperature is 78 degrees F. I'm dosing it with .83 mL Seachem Flourish Comprehensive weekly and 1 mL Seachem Excel daily, which are both the amount recommended on the bottle. The tank has an Fluval Aquaclear 50 on it. Lastly, the pH of the tank is a stable 7.8.

I removed all of the dead leaves from the plants when I planted them. So, I wanted to make sure I was doing everything right because the Staurogyne Repens doesn't look great, and a few leaves on the Cryptocoryne are kind of wavy. I can see new growth on the Bacopa though, so I'm just not sure. I'll attach pictures of the tank, and you guys can just tell me what you think. The first picture is the tank when I first put the plants in, and the rest are of the plants now. Any advice is appreciated!

 

[Barliman]

Hi, everyone! I have a new 10 gallon tank that's fishless cycling right now. It's in the middle of the nitrite spike, >5ppm of nitrites but consistently bringing 2pmm of ammonia down to 0 every 24 hours. I added plants the same day that I added ammonia, on March 20th. I'm using Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride for aquariums. The plants that I have are Staurogyne Repens, Bacopa Caroliniana, Anubias Nana, and Cryptocoryne Wendtii Green. I just want to make sure I'm doing everything right.

Sounds to me like you're doing everything right. An AC50 is kind of big for a 10g -- you must have to turn down the flow quite a bit. The plant behavior is normal as the repens and crypts adjust to their new home. As long as the roots are fine, you'd get good new growth in a few days, weeks.

And welcome!

 

[QueenKiara]

Sounds to me like you're doing everything right. An AC50 is kind of big for a 10g -- you must have to turn down the flow quite a bit. The plant behavior is normal as the repens and crypts adjust to their new home. As long as the roots are fine, you'd get good new growth in a few days, weeks.

And welcome!

That's great news!! I do have the filter flow turned down to the lowest setting, at high it causes big ripples through the whole tank I had it leftover from an old tank though, so I figured it'd be okay. Should I go in and trim any of the plant that doesn't look great or just let it do its thing?

 

[Barliman]

Should I go in and trim any of the plant that doesn't look great or just let it do its thing?

When a leaf is clearly dying, I'd trim it. The plant will put it's energy into new leaves, then. Just make sure you leave it with a few good ones.

 

[QueenKiara]

When a leaf is clearly dying, I'd trim it. The plant will put it's energy into new leaves, then. Just make sure you leave it with a few good ones.

Will do! Thank you so much, I was getting worried about them