Starting a 46G Planted Tank -- First Timer

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I'll pass on the assassin's I think I'm getting them under control and I think my cycle's starting to work, finally seeing a good nitrite spike and dropping ammonia. No rising nitrate's yet, but until I see the nitrites drop, rapidly, I assume the plants are consuming nitrates faster than they're being produced.

My foreground plants are doing well -- rosettes swords, S repens, and DBT. Its the midground & background plants that are still unhappy.
Cabomba furcata is probably the best of those and is probably healthy. The purple Cabomba is keeping its color, but developing a rash of brownish algae in a mold-like grown pattern at each node -- I think I'm going to pull them all tonight.

The U Apon melted heavily, but might be showing new growth.

The Red Melon sword has nice red to the new growth, but some more brownish algae spots starting to grow on the leaves.

I haven't been able to find good pictures online to diagnose the type of algae yet. I'll try to take some photos tonight to see if y'all can help me figure out the type and from there the appropriate remediation.
 
May just be diatoms? Does it rub off easily? Kind of crumbly..give the stem plants a chance to recover, if the foreground plants are doing good there is plenty of light for the stem plants.

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I'll check the texture of the dots on the leaves when I get home, I suspect based on appearance I have two different types of things growing.

I'm just happy that I've managed to save the DBTs. The main fix was just keeping the light fixture directly above them, and moving one of the stem plants that was shadowing the patch a bit.
 
Oooh, my BML has shipped... soon, soon :) Guess I'll swing back by the LFS tonight, wanted to pick up some more DBT, now that I know I can make it happy in my tank.
 
Oooh, my BML has shipped... soon, soon :) Guess I'll swing back by the LFS tonight, wanted to pick up some more DBT, now that I know I can make it happy in my tank.

That was fast! I've heard they can take a long time?? Tank is going to explode!! Ned's has a bunch of plants in right now, the tissue cultures from petsmart have worked well for me too

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BML should be here soon, but switched to PPS-Pro today (from all the Seachem stuff previously), and wow, so much more pearling! Hoping the stem plants recover now that other parts of the aquarium seem so much happier
 
Good move!! I noticed a big difference between the two as well. Heh.. think of all the gas you create after a proper meal!

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Got the BML today, already setup over the tank, looking good. Visually it looks about as bright as my existing light (but you can tell its biased towards the red end of the spectrum. I'll get some pictures later.

Going to have to control it manually for a bit -- just noticed the wall timers I bought in anticipation don't accept 3 prongs plugs, stupid me.
 
You can get dual timers at lowes for ten bucks. I have 2 of them and they are great. They have 2 outlets on them with one timer so are perfect for my dual p+ t5 no setup on my 29 gallon, plus they are 3 prong.


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Cool, I'll swing by a Lowes later today.

Tank cycles ammonia like there's no tomorrow (2ppm to 0 in under 24 hours), but nitrites are at crazy high levels (off the chart after a 40% water change). Going to do another large wc change in a bit. I'd really like to be able to get a few ottos soon to help with the algae. Willing to do 20% wc daily while it finishes cycling but need to see if I can get the nitrites to a level that don't go crazy under that regime.
 
Otos are usually better off in a matured tank as they mainly feed on biofilm.. do you dose glut or excel?

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I seem to have a fair bit of biofilm :) that's why I thought to get some ottos to help control that. At least it looks like pictures of brown algae, growing on large rocks, glass, and hanging off some of the more fine plants. References are saying ottos love it :)

I don't dose glut or excel -- injected CO2 and liquid PPS-Pro (plus Seachem Iron since I have some of that left over and PPS doesn't seem to include any of that)
 
Some metricide would greatly benefit your tank, even with the co2, it acts as a mild algaecide..

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These nitrites are crazy... All told today I've done an effective 66% WC (several serial smaller WCs... I know they are less effective than a single large one but easier to avoid disturbing plants, etc). Nitrites are still above 5ppm.

Did an additional test using 1/3 tank water, 2/3rd tap water -- simulating another 66% water change, and its still above 5ppm. That implies the original value had to have been above 45ppm...

(Actually not quite true since tap water reads just about 0.25ppm, but close enough for the estimates).

So obviously no where close to being able to add fish.
 
So was lazy and only did a 25% WC. Nitrites are still through the roof, but at least nitrates are reading non-zero (more than 0 less than 5) for the first time, so maybe the nitrite consumers are starting to work.

Course the ammonia bacteria are a little too active :) I don't want them to die, so I'm still dosing 1-2ppm/daily for them. They convert it in under 6 hours... so that just means more nitrites that keep building up...
 
So was lazy and only did a 25% WC. Nitrites are still through the roof, but at least nitrates are reading non-zero (more than 0 less than 5) for the first time, so maybe the nitrite consumers are starting to work.

Course the ammonia bacteria are a little too active :) I don't want them to die, so I'm still dosing 1-2ppm/daily for them. They convert it in under 6 hours... so that just means more nitrites that keep building up...

They won't die with just a few days with no ammonia. Supposedly they can survive for a month without food. Just dose 2 ppm a week of you want.
 
Looks like my Apon U, is sending up a flower spike! I must be doing at least something right.
 
And the nitrites are finally dropping! The test still reads 5ppm, but it took the full five minutes to develop to that color, instead of the usual instant color change. I've been adjusting the pH a little higher since that favors the second stage bacteria, maybe that's been helping jump start their growth.
 
Nitrites have dropped below 1! Getting close, finally. Hopefully they'll hit zero and stay there soon, and I can find a time to get to the store mid-week.
 
Nitrites were zero this morning; dosed to 2ppm this morning, and was back to 0 ammo/0 nitrite by 6pm, nitrates under 20. I went to the fish store and picked up 6 otos.

Five look very happy, can't find the sixth, but I know they can be very good at hiding. Four are attached to the glass doing their thing; one is sleeping on a leaf.
 
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