Help me stock my 50 gal. Pics posted

[HN1]

The best you can. In a heavily planted tank, there will be areas that you can't get to. Fish might help there, but IME the resulting mulm is taken care of (and good for) the plants.

 

[jm667]

Well I went out and bought 5 more harlequins tonight. I tested the water 3 days after I did a 90% water change and it tested with 0 ammnoia, 0 nitrites, and 10 nitrates. Why would the nitrates be 10 already with only 3 fish in there? Did the flourish I dosed increase those? I started to do a fishless cycle a month and a half ago, I saw the nitrite spike and then it went back down. Then I learned that all that was not necessary with a planted tank so I left it alone and stopped adding ammonia for the past week. So it probably was cycled before I added the plants and did the 90% water change.

The other thing is a lot of the plants don't look to healthy right now. Some leaves became very transparent and dead and I pulled those out. Some are yellow and have spots. Is this just because they are newly planted?

 

[WhiskeyTrouble]

All of my plants have gone through a bit of a shock or recession period after being transfered. Plants die slowly and come back slowly. Patience is a virtue with them. trying to do too much at once to save some plants has always gotten me into trouble. ie adding too much nutrients to the water to compensate and ending up with massive amounts of algae. If your plants root in the substrate I would recommend buying the flourish tabs that go under the root system and release slowly over time. (change every 3 months or so) I dont add as many as they recommend and they work great. I use 1 tab for every small cluster of plants. Eveytime I use any liquid substitutes I get myself into trouble with over doing it. The only thing I add (besides flourish tabs for rooted plants) is flourish's Iron and I test the levels pretty regularly.

 

[jm667]

Ok thanks for the tip. I have flourite for the substrate, I don't know if there are nutrients in that or not. But anyways, as long as they grow back if they die that's fine. I just was a little nervous for a minute about spending all that money on the plants, I don't want them to be a loss! But I figured it would just take some time for them to adjust. I should have known because I have a few plants in a 10 gallon I used to have, and there is just 15w of light, and I never dose anything or add anything. I even have a sword in there and while it is very small, it looks healthy. Good advice not to dose anything then so I can try to avoid the algae. Thanks.

 

[JustOneMore20]

Some of the ones dying off might be Cryptocorynes. Those have to transition to new tanks (like many plants) and don't like being moved so they melt (leaves die off). If they start looking worse, then its probably time to overdrive the lights.

Flourite does have nutrients in it btw. So you are good!

 

[jm667]

Thanks for all the info. Any idea on why the nitrates are 10 already as I mentioned a few posts ago?

 

[JustOneMore20]

Hard to say....could be from the plants or you could be totally cycled. Either way, 10 nitrates is good! Flourish has a bit of nitrogen in it, but I don't think it would cause 10ppm of nitrates.

 

[fisherman876]

I think different kinds of angels should be good with such a beautiful aqua scape..

And if you don't like angels then a swarm of tiger barbs can make your tank so... much lively