start from scratch.

[caimen]

to night i broke down my tank. I removed all the plants and changed the gravel out. I now have a 3 inch layer of eco complete and moon sand 50/50 i used 80 lb of substrate. i treated the water with aqua plus and filled the tank with tap water.

My questions.

what do i need to do to get this tank stater right?

how should i treat the plants for the BGA that was over taking my tank?

I will be running a fluval 405 or 305 as a filter.

I have a coral life 65/55 x 4 light over the tank now, i only run two out of the four lights (110 watts). i was considering going back to my 2 40watt flora glow lamps (80 watts).

I will post a water test tomarrow.

I have read all the stickys and many threads for this fourm.

Plants

5 small melon swords
a lot of unknown cyrps.

i have no fish at this time.

i do have 5 aglae eating shrimp.

 

[JDogg]

what is the size of the tank?

 

[caimen]

sorry 55 gal

 

[JDogg]

sorry 55 gal

if it was me i would run the 10 watts and look into CO2 and IE fert dosing... these should keep the algae away.

treat existing bba with a 10% bleach dip or an excel dip, just make sure to rinse and de-chlorinate the plants before returning to the tank

 

[caimen]

I was hoping to stay away from Co2 and high light. from what i have read a diy Co2 unit will not work well on a 55 gal and i can not afford a pressureized unit. I was running two 40watts over the tank for a bit and it seemed to do well untill i added the PC lamps. thats when the algae strted to get crazy.


The tank is very cloudy right now. is it safe to add the palnts?
I will have the fluval tomarrow.
will i have to re cycle the tank or is it good to go.

a bleach dip, i will have to do a bit more teading on this. anyone have a good link?

 

[rkilling1]

bleach dip works. Excel dip works as well, but I would go for an H2O2 dip.

I would look into a pressurized setup. I know it's a lot of money, but it will pay for itself in the long run. Once you have one, you will be buying other tanks just to hook it up to them! It cost me 200 bucks total for my setup to go to two tanks and that included a 10# CO2 tank. It will last all year.

To each his own and I understand people don't have all the money to put into their tanks, I know I don't, but I can tell you that the pressurized CO2 was the best 200 bucks I have spent in a LONG time.

In this hobby, as with many others, there are ways to save money and there are ways that you end up spending twice as much, ie lights is a big one. You hear all the time about if you are going to buy lights buy the best the first time and you will save money in the end. This is that same thing. Go pressurized from the get go and save yourself all the BBA and making up the yeast generators everyweek and you will save money in the long run.

If you want to have a high light/CO2 tank and accually use the light you have, please look into a good pressurized system. It will make your life a lot easier!

HTH

 

[caimen]

i like the idea of a h2o2 dip seems a lot safer than bleach. i understand your point regardeing the Co2 system. But it is not in my buget right now. I got the Pcs for 25$ the man that sold them to me said they where broke. Al i did was replace the fittings and buy new bulbs. I have the 2 40watt flora glow bubls in the basement.

From what i have read it seems to me that i cant use the PC unless i have Co2, is this right ?

and as for cycling the tank what steps should i take ? a good link would be cool.

 

[Purrbox]

If you don't want to get into CO2, your best bet would be to go back to your old lighting. Unfortunately even running half of your currently lighting is going to put you into CO2 territory, and you will run into lots of algae problems without it. You can always put the other fixture back on the tank at a later date if you decide to give CO2 a try.

As far as riding your tank of the algae that was taking over, I would recommend taking a look at Steve Hampton's site. In particular his Algae Article and his Plant Dip Article. There are a few options that aren't listed for giving plant dips, but this will give you a good idea of the methods involved should you choose to go with H2HO or Excel instead.

 

[rkilling1]

You want to stay around 2 WPG without CO2 or aglae will get out of control.

When using H2O2, it only takes a couple of minutes of soaking and then a quick rinse and then you can place them back in the tank. Please reseach the internet BEFORE you do it. I have done the H2O2 on driftwood and such but not on plants yet. They may need to have the H2O2 diluted.

HTH

 

[JustOneMore20]

If you can't go with CO2, then you could just use 2 of the PC lights and then get alot more plants. The reason you have algae (well one of the reasons) is most likely because you have a low plant mass. Also you have slower growing plants (swords and crypts) so they aren't using up nutrients.

I would get alot of medium light stem plants like Bacopa (caroliniana and monneri), Hygro, Ludwigia, Ambulia, and maybe some Anacharis, though you'll definitely need to dose some KNO3 because Anacharis sucks up nitrates and that when you have BGA (0 nitrAtes). Those, along with some fertilizers, will help ward off algae. These are fast growers so they will help to outcompete the algae.

I have a 55g with 130w PC lighting and no CO2. I dose ferts twice weekly and have minimal algae. I do have a never ending supply of nitrAtes though because of my large fish load.

 

[caimen]

thank alot guys. Im cleaning the bulk rock off right now.

I soaked them in a strong bleach soultion for an hour or two. Then i scrubed them clean, rinsied well now they are soaking in a bucket of water that i treated with aqua plus ( 2 Capfulls)
i hope that kills off the alge that was on the rocks. as for drift wood, i have a peice i found on vaction how should i trwat this peice of wood? i still have a lot of reading to do !!!!

 

[JDogg]

I was hoping to stay away from Co2 and high light. from what i have read a diy Co2 unit will not work well on a 55 gal and i can not afford a pressureized unit. I was running two 40watts over the tank for a bit and it seemed to do well untill i added the PC lamps. thats when the algae strted to get crazy.
?

i run diy co2 on my 75 and it is working fine, i am perhaps an exception.... a couple people have expresed doubt that i am getting as good of co2 as i think i am

 

[caimen]

the steve hampton site is very imformative thanks