Recent content by ZxC

Eco-Complete and Flourite are inert substrates, and offer no nutrients for plants to use. They have very low cation exchange capacities and instead, trap a lot of detritus that rots away in the substrate. If your degassed pH is around 7.4 that's fine, what is your pH when you are injecting...

Looking like a good start. Are you planning on running a sump (I see the overflow in the picture). Any plans on CO2 and fertilizing? That's a decent amount of light energy and would likely require CO2 and a decent fertilizing regime to make use of the increased plant growth potential.

I would look into the concentration of CO2 they guarantee in each and make the call if the extra money is worth it or not.

Any substrate can work well for a planted tank. If you want you can still use the plain gravel you have if you like the look of it. If not, you can swap it or you can mix substrates without any issues. For cheap substrate, pool filter sand, black diamond blasting sand, normal aquarium gravel...

Which plant substrate do you currently have?

It should come with directions, I personally front load all my macros (my weekly total amounts) after a water change and then dose my micros 3 x per week to achieve my weekly totals. For an all-in-one like Thrive, I would break it into 3 or 4 doses per week, 1 after a water change and then 2...

50% is preferred, if possible larger 60-70% changes are miles ahead of a 50%. But, again, performing water changes that large isn't always convenient. 50% is a much better option than a 25%, and you'll be more flexible with fertilizer dosing (large water changes can easily "reset" the nutrient...

You're probably fine at 6 hours for now, just keep an eye on how algae progresses (or lack there of) once you get your fertilizing regime in check. I would leave the lighting as is (possible reduce the 24/7 unit's intensity) and then focus on tank maintenance / CO2 levels / getting some macro...

6 hours is a good start, if you are having trouble with algae, drop it down to 5 hours. Consider running the Planted Plus 24/7 at 50% + the Ray 2 until you are ahead of the algae. You are correct, high end of medium light, not quite into the high range just yet. but you've got enough for...

Perfectly fine to run them for 4 hours x 2 photoperiods per day. One claim is that CO2 is quickly depleted in a low tech tank, so having the lights shut off after the first short photoperiod lets CO2 build back up and supply the plants for the next short photoperiod. Another claim is algae...

Optimizing water quality for any size tank is not crazy.... I do it for little 5 gallons...

Depends on the style and materials of the stand. Do you happen to have a picture of it?

Not that I know of as far as I'm aware. What you can do is use a drop checker, they are a ballpark reference tool as well, but if you get it to a lime green, almost yellow, that will be 30-40ppm of CO2 in the water. In tanks without active substrates, we use pH drop to determine CO2 levels. A...

No, KH does not determine how much CO2 is in the water, atmospheric CO2 concentrations or the rate and efficiency of pressurized CO2 system determine how much CO2 is in the water. The KH/pH/CO2 chart you are referring too is not accurate, and is best used as a ballpark reference point only. It...

Clean glass with reflex about 10% of the light on average, I would assume that plastic would reflex a little bit more.