Planted tank advice needed

iamtony

Hi lads, I’ve a planted fluval flex 54 Ltd set up about 3 weeks, sponge seeded from my established outdoor pond.
I’ve a few different plants in it, the only one I know the name of is monty Carlo but is pretty heavily planted.
Anyway the main question I’m hoping you can help with is is it safe to add liquid carbon and fertiliser at this early stage or if I need to add co2 at all for the plants. The ph is at 6.5 and I don’t want to make it any more acidic than this for the sake of the livestock. How can I determine if the co2 levels are low to begin with?
In the tank at the moment is a nirate snail, a few cherry shrimp, 5 cardinal tetras, 2 rummie nose, 2 other tetras with a red streak, 2 black skirt Tetras and a glass cat. I know it’s a lot for such a new tank but it belongs to the missus and she just kept showing up with more fish dispite me telling her to wait.
Here’s the reading I got last night from a 5 in 1 test strip which I’m not convinced about the accuracy but hopefully close enough.
Gh: 180
Kh: 180
Ph: 6.5
No2: 0-0.5(hard to distinguish from the colour)
No3: 40

Ammonia is either 0 or between 0 and 0.25 the test kit is hard to read.

Thanks for any advise.

iamtony

Forgot to mention I'm running the lights for 12 hours a day at present as I read it was good for new plants

OnDraught

Depending on the plants you may need proper co2. It’s completely safe and benificial for your plants to start dosing now. I’ve had good results with a lot of plants just using EasyCarbo and Profito from Easy-Life.

Profito is a great fertiliser as it contains no No3 or ph4. You’re No3 levels are plenty high enough at 40 to sustain your plants. It might come down as your plants multiply and grow though. Profito contains lots of micronutrients in an all in one weekly dose.

Watch your No2 like a hawk at the moment anyway with them stocking levels. Do a water change if in doubt at all.

iamtony

OnDraught wrote: »

Depending on the plants you may need proper co2. It’s completely safe and benificial for your plants to start dosing now. I’ve had good results with a lot of plants just using EasyCarbo and Profito from Easy-Life.

Profito is a great fertiliser as it contains no No3 or ph4. You’re No3 levels are plenty high enough at 40 to sustain your plants. It might come down as your plants multiply and grow though. Profito contains lots of micronutrients in an all in one weekly dose.

Watch your No2 like a hawk at the moment anyway with them stocking levels. Do a water change if in doubt at all.

OK thanks for that. I think most of the plants are discribed as easy or medium care I was concerned with the pH so im guessing the liquid carbon won't lower this further?
Regarding the no2 how quickly can this rise from your experience? Should I check daily or what do you think?

iamtony

Another question sorry, I already bought the liquid carbon does it matter how I add it to the tank at all? It doesn't mention on the label do I just dump it in their?

penev10

iamtony wrote: »

Another question sorry, I already bought the liquid carbon does it matter how I add it to the tank at all? It doesn't mention on the label do I just dump it in their?

Just pour it in.

The only benefit of liquid carbon that I ever noticed was it keeps algae at bay.

Valliseneria is sensitive to liquid carbon btw, doesn't do well with it.

iamtony

No2 and no3 now at zero in this tank plants are growing rapidly. Thanks for the help.
My question for now is do I need to do water changes at all if the plants are using all the nitrates? Is there some other factors at play which need water changes?

OnDraught

I’d still do a water change every week to refresh the whole thing.

If your No3 is at 0 I would recommend adding Nitro or something else to bump it up to about 20.

iamtony

OnDraught wrote: »

I’d still do a water change every week to refresh the whole thing.

If your No3 is at 0 I would recommend adding Nitro or something else to bump it up to about 20.

Great thanks. Ill stick with the water changes. I added my weekly dose of plant fertiliser today should that bump it up?

OnDraught

iamtony wrote: »

Great thanks. Ill stick with the water changes. I added my weekly dose of plant fertiliser today should that bump it up?

Depends what fertiliser you are using. If it’s one that doesn’t contain any macronutrients like No3 it won’t. It should say on the bottle.

iamtony

OnDraught wrote: »

Depends what fertiliser you are using. If it’s one that doesn’t contain any macronutrients like No3 it won’t. It should say on the bottle.

Grand I'll check it out and see what I'm using. Thanks.

iamtony

Different tank and different question but do the eggs on the glass in the attached pic look like they have something growing in them?
Reason I'm asking is because it's a single cory I have that lives in my pond but I brought her in for the winter and she layed eggs. They were cloudy but now they are clear in the centre and it looks like an embryo developing inside.

iamtony

iamtony wrote: »

Different tank and different question but do the eggs on the glass in the attached pic look like they have something growing in them?
Reason I'm asking is because it's a single cory I have that lives in my pond but I brought her in for the winter and she layed eggs. They were cloudy but now they are clear in the centre and it looks like an embryo developing inside.

Sorry didn't attach.

kylith

do you have any tank snails?

iamtony

kylith wrote: »

do you have any tank snails?

Yes a few came in from the pond with a water hyacinth I think, I originally though they were snail eggs but from googling they looked like the Cory's eggs and I seen a pic of snail eggs and it looked like a lump of jelly with eggs inside which led me on this path.
Maybe it is the snails then does it look like that to you?

kylith

the fact that you just have one cory is what made me think it could be a snail. Nerites will lay single eggs (constantly, all over everything, that are impossible to get off) but they won't be viable. But apparently a lone cory female will spawn if in good condition, but I can't find anything about whether the eggs would be viable. Keep an eye on them, watch out for fungus, and let us know if there's a virgin birth!

iamtony

kylith wrote: »

the fact that you just have one cory is what made me think it could be a snail. Nerites will lay single eggs (constantly, all over everything, that are impossible to get off) but they won't be viable. But apparently a lone cory female will spawn if in good condition, but I can't find anything about whether the eggs would be viable. Keep an eye on them, watch out for fungus, and let us know if there's a virgin birth!

yeah I have a nerite in my other tank and it lays those seseme seed looking eggs all over the shop but from what I've seen online these eggs don't look like pond snail eggs. They are very big for starters.
Yes a virgin birth would be awesome I'll keep you updated!

iamtony

The Cory is laying a new batch of eggs daily but also eating an older batch daily. Shame she is living in a fluval chi for the winter or id buy her some friends to fertilise her eggs.