What to dose?

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majolo

Aquarium Advice Freak
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Jul 14, 2006
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West Central MN
Quick question: I have a lowish light aquarium I just planted (info below), and I put in Flourish root tabs before planting. Should I be using any other ferts?

55 gal, fish in sig
Water: ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 5-10ppm. pH 8.0, kh & gh both around 12 degrees
Plants: Wisteria, hornwort, Ludwigia repens, Cladophora, Anubias afzelli, A. nana, A. coffeefolia, Java fern, corkscrew val, Sagittaria subulata, and four leaf clover. And an unknown Hygrophila, possibly corymbosa v. angustifolia.
Light: 2x65W compact fluorescent, half actinic. On 6-10am, 4-10pm.

All have been in around a week, and the only one in trouble is the val, losing leaves like crazy, though I think I see some new growth.
 
First off, what type of Test Kit are you using? If it's test strips then you need to replace them with liquid reagent test kits. Even the hobbiest grade kits are going to be iffy when testing Nitrate levels below 20ppm, especially if you haven't calibrated it.

In a low light setup the main things that you will definately need to dose are Potassium and a good Trace mix. You'll want to dose 10-20ppm Potassium and enough Trace to get .1-.2 fe right after your water change. If your Nitrate levels are accuarate, you probably have a high enough bioload to keep your Nitrates and Phosphates up through feeding. If not, you'll probably need to dose Nitrates and Phosphates as well.

Can you describe or even better get a picture of what is happening to the Val as it loses the leaves? This would better help us to pinpoint the problem. Most likely its not enough light since one of your bulbs is actinic which isn't usable by plants. As such you've got a low light tank, which probably isn't enough for several of your plants.
 
API freshwater master test kit.

I have API Leaf Zone on hand, which I gather is just iron and potassium. So I'll start dosing that according to the recommendations on it. Should I pick up something like Flourish Trace as well?

As far as phosphates go, I have a phosphate test kit (Seachem), haven't tested the tank in a while, but my tap tested at 0.75 ppm, if that's relevant. I'll test the tank tonight if I remember.

On the vals, the leaves turn kind of gray, weaken and end up coming loose and floating around. I figured that plant might be iffy but I wanted to try them.


On the lighting, am I correct that moving to full daylight bulbs would require CO2 (which I'm not prepared to do at this time)? Which other plants do you expect will not work?

Edit: below is a pic of the vals. They look a lot better in the picture than in real life, they're not that green. but you can see how some look grayish.
 

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Instead of replacing the actinic bulb with a daylight bulb, you could go with a 50/50 bulb. This would up your light closer to medium light and wouldn't make a necessity out of CO2.

You'll want Flourish (sometimes referred to as Flourish Comprehensive) and not the Flourish Trace. The Flourish Trace isn't nearly as a good of a Trace supplement for some odd reason. You could go with either CSM+B or Tropica Master Grow as well.

The Vals could be due to insufficient light, but it looks more like a Nitrate/Phosphate deficiency to me. I've got a feeling that either your Phosphates have bottomed out, you're getting inaccurate results from your AP Test Kit because of the low levels, or both. You may need to start dosing both of these as well.
 
On the bulb, these are 50/50 bulbs. It's two 65W bulbs end-to-end, each one half-actinic (they're the bulbs that come with the fixture, Current single Satellite 48" Compact fluorescent). It's awkward because it seems I can't really step up without effectively doubling the light...

So I guess I'll get some Flourish and go with that, and try to check on the nitrate & phosphate levels. Thanks!
 
Since you've already got the 50/50 bulbs, then you could just replace one with a daylight bulb. It's kind of nice since you'll be able to use that second 50/50 as a spare when the first one needs to be replaced.
 
Won't that be lopsided though, with one side of the tank high(er) light and the other half low light? I imagine it would look all right, but I would think it would be pretty problematic for plants (and algae).
 
Ah, now I see what you were saying. I missed the fact that you were saying that each bulb only covered half the tank. Yeah, that really does making it harder to reach that in between lighting. I would try adjustments dosing first and if that doesn't work, you may need to consider whether you want to risk upping the tank into CO2 territory or not.
 
I've got that setup with one 10000k and one 8000k it is a little lopsided. I just switched sides to see how it looks. it's bad. But is the amount of UV different with the different color bulbs?
 
Why couldn't you put a daylight in one side where the vals are and the higher light plants and have the other side with a 50/50 where the lower light plants are. Like a transitional tank from forest to shrubbery? I think it hsoud still keep it low enough that you won't need CO2 but high enough to at least give the vals a fighting chance.
 
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