Advice on my setup please

[chrisinmontreal]

This is my first aquarium and i'm feeling a bit overloaded with trying to understand everything i need for healthy plants....

I have a 29G tank (30" x 12" x 18") which i planted with the following:

4 amazon swords
7 spiral vals
1 java fern on a large piece of mopani driftwood
2 areas planted with Lilaeopsis.

I chose these as they gave me the look i was after and also seemed to be fairly easy plants without any special requirements. I wanted a low-tech setup as this is my first aquarium. I guess i'm just looking for some input to say what i'm doing is OK or does anyone see any issues or tweaks to my setup?

Substrate is roughly 2 inches of flourite topped with an inch of carribean sea super naturals fine gravel.

Lighting is a 24" Hagen GLO T5HO double fixture with one Power-GLO bulb (24W, 18000K) and one Life-GLO bulb (24W, 6700K) giving me a total of 48W.

Filter is an eheim classic 2213 cannister.


Currently have the tank stocked with 6 rummynose tetra, 6 silver tip tetra and 6 amano shrimp.

Tank was fishless cycled (with plants in) during which i experienced the common bacterial bloom and later diatoms (which the shrimp have now blitzed)

Water temperature is typically 25C give or take a degree.

I am currently dosing Flourish complete once a week as per the dosage instructions on the bottle and have flourish root tabs in under the sword plants.


Since planting, the swords have shown good growth, each plant has at least 3 or 4 new leaves growing. Leaves seem healthy but i note that the stems seem long and the leaves small compared to pictures of amazon swords I see on the web.

The spiral vals have new runners growing although the original stems are not really showing much growth.

The lilaeopsis looks OK since planting but really no signs of growth. This was obtained as a pad of cuttings on a wire mesh which i separated into individual cuttings and planted into the substrate.


I have been searching around on various forums and found a few sources which provide calculations for determining what light level my tank is at but the different sources seem contradictory. Using the straight Watts per gallon rule i would have a low light setup but have read that this is a bit flawed for smaller tanks with T5HO bulbs?


Whats been on my mind is that maybe i should consider swapping the power-glo bulb out for another life-glo bulb?

Also, should i consider dosing flourish excel or any other macro nutrients?

Thanks!

[chrisinmontreal]

Here's a couple of pics of my plants.

The yellow/brown spots on the swords were already there when I purchased them, all new growth does not have this.

Same with the black patches on the java fern.

[papabear]

Nice! I like that rock wall background. How did u do that?

I dose excel every other day. Plants doing good. I just started my planted tank 3 weeks ago.

[chrisinmontreal]

Thanks - the background is just one of the regular background sheets you can buy to stick on the outside of the glass.

[papabear]

Wow! Almost looks real! I met a guy at a LFS. He!! made his own out of thick styrofoam and etched out crevasses and rocks. Then he sprayed it grey. Preety cool stuff.

Here is interesting stuff I found on WPG rule.

[killifish lover]

i like it! can we get a full tank shot?

[chrisinmontreal]

Here ya go.....

[papabear]

http://rexgrigg.com/mlt.html

[chrisinmontreal]

Thanks for the link but it has left me even more confused....

I did however change out the power-glo bulb for another life-glo after researching a bit more today.