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Java ferns can be planted in the substrate. You just have to be careful not to plant them too deeply or the rhizome will rot killing the plant. Your best bet is to plant the rhizome level with the top of the substrate and only the roots buried.

Nope. You volunteering to come over and help put it together?

Actually those are the dual daylight bulbs, so you'd actually have closer to medium light.

Since the plants are using the nutrients in that aquarium you would dose the full amount.

Wow! That's a LOT of Cryptocoryne Parva. It should look quite nice once it's grown in.

There are any number of fertilizer calculators out there. Chuck's Calculator (though his site doesn't appear to be available anymore) and Fertilator on Aquatic Plant Central are a couple of popular ones. You'll want to dose enough for 20ppm for the week. You can do this all at once after the...

Just cut the runners so that you have a small number of leaves with roots and then plant with tweezers. I'd probably plant at least 5 in a group to try to avoid going super batty. The less time/patience you have the larger you can do the groups.

I would not recommend using Flourish Potassium on as large a tank as yours. It's much to dilute to be cost effective. Instead go to you grocery store and pick up some NoSalt (KCL - Potassium Chloride) for your dosing. It's much more cost effective.

Definitely looks to be BGA (aka cyano). Generally it's caused by low nitrates and/or poor flow in the area. Most aquarist grade test kits aren't accurate for Nitrate levels below 20ppm unless you have taken the time to calibrate them by testing against reference solutions. It's quite possible...

Well our Fish Club's Spring Auction last weekend gave me the push to make a little more progress on this project. I took down both the 2.5 & 5.5 gallon setups and put them in the auction. Next I need to clear out the stands and move them out of the way. The shelving unit that I was using for...

With those levels of Ammonia I'd wait to add the plants. Ammonia + Light = Algae.

Small aquariums like that one need more light to reach the various lighting levels. I have 26 watts over a 5.5 gallon and would say that it's medium light at best. So with only 15 watts, you're probably looking at low light.

You might want to check to see if the sword has developed a crom (sp?). It's sort of like a bulb and will be at the base of the roots. If there is one you will need to break it off to encourage the plant to start growing again instead of going into a dormant phase.

Please note that Chuck's Calculator is suggesting target levels to maintain in an aquarium and is not in any way based on EI.

I stand corrected. Thanks for the info.

Laterite generally isn't rinsed. Are you actually talking about Flourite?

It would be much easier to add fert tabs instead of the laterite. If the laterite gets exposed to the water column you're in for a major algae bloom.

With that kit, don't trust the results under 20ppm unless you take the time to calibrate the test kit. To calibrate the test kit you have to test against several reference solutions and record the differences. This allows you to account for any variance. The actual results could be anywhere from...

What test kit are you using to test the Nitrate? Most aren't accurate enough under 20ppm to be trusted unless you have calibrated the test kit.

Most report that 3wpg over a 10 gallon aquarium is not high light. You probably won't need to do much dosing. I'd recommend starting with Potassium and going from there. Testing your current Nitrate and Phosphate levels would be helpful to see whether those are bottoming out.

You only need to worry about the mix with water if you are mixing a solution for dosing. Generally this is only necessary for smaller aquariums. For a 55 gallon like yours, you'll probably be dry dosing instead. If you look closer you'll see that the ppm is based on dosing 1ml which is why you...

As a general rule, you want to dose enough for 20ppm Potassium, 20ppm Nitrate, 1-2ppm Phosphate, and 0.1-0.2ppm Iron in a week. Figure the dosage using Chuck's Calculator and adjust from there.

30 watts using the spiral CFLs over a 10 gallon is really probably only medium low light. A lot of the light is lost due to restrike (light hitting another part of the bulb and not getting into the aquarium) so there's less light than expected. So it is probably insufficient light that is the...

It's likely insufficient light or potassium deficiency from the sound of it. What type of lighting do you have over the 10 gallon and are you dosing any fertilizers at the moment?

Your aquarium is fairly lightly planted. You may find it helpful if you add more plants.