Plant cycling a tank against Algae.

[tazcrash69]

OK, I’ve kept many tanks in the past, but now I want to get into a serious planted tank. My equipment is listed in my signature. I’ve been patiently acquiring my hardware, and I am ready to start filling my tank, and running the equipment. Now I am a real noob at a real planted tank, so I just would like a confirmation that I understand the principals behind cycling a planted tank in order to prevent lots of algae. I need to stock my tank with lots of fast growing stem plants, and begin my CO2, and dosing routine. Then once the plants are established, I should start adding algae eaters, and then on to other fish.
My Question is what are some names (common names would really help) of the faster growing stem plants?
How many of these fast growing plants do I want for a 55 gallon?
Can someone suggest a dosing routine for the above?
I’ve picked up the dry ferts from Greg Watson including the CSM+B+Fe

TIA,

 

[czcz]

Great work on the research and purchases

Heavily planting is key: I think you should get the plants you want to grow, and just weight some anacharis somewhere for the beginning. Anacharis is an uptake machine and was used by Diana Walstad to measure ammonium uptake in plants, and a large bunch will quickly become a very large bunch to help you with slow stocking of animals. A great way to pick somewhat fast growers (most everything grows slow compared to anacharis) is to look at plants that grow well with less light -- limnophila sessiliflora (ambulia), rotala rotundifolia (commonly mislabeled "rotala indica"), ludwigia repens (red ludwigia), hygro. difformis (wisteria), and so on.

Suggest you start with Travis's old routine while measuring. Saftey of 50% pwc at the end of the week helps to make sure nutrients don't get away from you, and you can cut back on dosing if need be. I would not be surprised if you end up halving his ppm dosages for medium-high light, and you could start with ~10ppm NO3 and .5ppm PO4 on alternating days, for example. AP tests (for example) are good enough since your dosing by weight is more accurate than any test kit, and you just need ballpark ideas of uptake. In case you are not aware, this is adapted EI, btw.

HTH

 

[tazcrash69]

Thanks for the compliment on the equipment, and Thanks for the link to the routine. I am aware of EI, and was going to try to use it, but I don't want to get too far behind in the WCs.