How're ya?

Hi all,

So... it's been a while. I joined the forum a few years ago but have not really been active, so thought I'd introduce myself again.

Based in Limerick, I've been working in Dublin a bit for the last few years, so have just left the tank run with guppies and a plec and the guppies multiplied significantly! Now that I'm back in Limerick full-time, I've re-setup my tank as a planted discus tank (but no discus yet!). So the guppies and plec went back to the LFS and I redid the tank.

So now I have a 300 litre planted tank with a shoal of cardinal tetras, some corys, a few kuhli loaches, 2 bristlenose plecs and I hope to add 5 discus shortly, once I'm happy that everything is going well. The plecs have recently had their second brood of babies (only had them 3 months!), so I plan to let them grow a little and then exchange at LFS. I don't have the luxury of a second tank right now, so i cant move them to grow them out. They seem to be doing ok so far in this tank, but no discus yet, so we'll see!

Plants include Marsilea hirsuta, Staurogyne rubescens, Eleocharis parvula, Hydrocotyle verticillata - these are recently put in, so I'm sure of them (assuming they were sold correctly!). I also have some older plants in there for a while including an Echinodorus of some variety, Giant Vallisneria and a couple of what I think is Nymphaea stellata. Someone more sure of plants - feel free to correct me! I'm about to start using a EI fertilizer regime - a first for me. I've used pressurised CO2 for a while, but with off the shelf fertilizers but I'm now going to mix my own from dry salts.

So, I think that's me for now. Looking forward to asking questions along the way!

thanks,

Fintan

A Picture of the tank as it is now (recent addition of small plants to form low lying carpet effect and no discus yet!):

Welcome back Fintan............i'm not the biggest Discus fan but i could really see them doing well in that tank.......very nice

Ger

Not a fan of Discus either but i do see their appeal in a way
I have 4 bristle nose adults and they spawn every 2 - 3 weeks so currently have about 300 babies in a growout tank waiting till they are big enough to head off to lfs too

Like the look of the new setup

Best of luck with it all

Neil

thanks!

Did you buy loads of vallisneria or did it just take off for you? In one of my tanks I have 3 or4 pieces with amazing growth (full length of tank curved at glass reaching back to the middle) but not a single runner ever from these plants. I've got high light and Dosed easy carbo and profito before they went in.

My other tank is a low light setup with no ferts, it has one vallisneria same type as my other tank but after a week a runner spread and grew then couple more weeks another one spread this one is only up an inch from the stones. Is it look of the draw??

What ferts Do you dose? High/low light.

I have the val for years.... I used to keep discus before, and I bought a "discus plant set". I cant remember how many I got, but maybe 4 or 5 in a bunch. There were other plants too, but the val, ech and lily are the ones that have survived through the last few years. The val and the lily actually thrived in my setup previously and I hope they will continue to!

I'm currently trimming it back all the time, cutting runners and plants off every week just to keep it in check. If I left it alone for a while it would take over completely! Back in April, when I re-did the tank, I dropped more than 50 plants into my local LFS and still had about 25 to replant back for myself! (Yes, it was very jungley before I took them out!) I also had approx 25 rhizomes of the lily for the LFS and kept 8 for myself - these have already started bulking up. The ech never did very well for me, but survives.

I've found it difficult to define low medium and high light, so best to give you my setup! Up to recently, I had 2 x 38W T8. I put in an additional 2 x 54W T5s in the last couple of months. The val thrived under the 2 x 38Ws. My setup now is about 2.3 WPG (US Gallons) and it was just under 1 WPG, which is guess is low light?

I use pressurised CO2 - you haven't mentioned this, so I don't think you have it. I would help growth. the easy carbo will add some carbon source, but from what I've read, CO2 might be your limiting factor.

For ferts, previously, I was using the easy range - nitro mainly, but not hugely. I watched the nitrate levels and fed when I needed to. I also used some generic aquarium plant food occasionally. Val seems to like nitrates. (to be fair, up to now I have not been a great aquatic plant keeper - I focused on the fish, it's only recently that I've become more aware of what I'm doing in relation to plants). I've now just changed (after realising that my new lights were not adding much without a proper fert regime) to a EI method. I'm starting this off cautiously at twice a week for macros and micros, and I'm hoping I'll learn! I did quite a bit of reading and this seems to be a popular method, and there are many reports of it working with planted discus tanks, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm only a week in, so I'll be happy to update you in a few weeks on progress.

Thanks baan I'd say it was the easy carbo that was effecting it. As for pressurised co2 I've only added it to my setup 8 days ago so I've yet see any runners of the plant I'm probably being impatient but I was thrown back a little over my other tank spreading with nothing but lighting.

From what I've read you've had amazing luck with the Vallis with pressurised so hopefully in a few weeks my plants will thicken up a bit so I can fill in the corner of my tank. I think I've read somewhere about easy carbo having an effect on Vallis.

I loom forward to seeing the update as I've seen IE dosing mentioned a good bit lately.

The CO2 should help. Just watch that you are adding enough - get the drop checker setup... when I first setup CO2 I wasnt putting enough in..

I'll let you know about the EI.

Right I haven't got the drop checker yet but I will get one within the wake shouldn't be too dare.
Thanks baan

relatively cheap and worth it. It will take you a while to get the levels right. make sure to watch the plants also.

How much light do you have / what size tank is it?

It's a 90l tank 2 t5 24watts and 1 t8 18watts.

I've been taking weekly photos since I started the tank and seen great results the biggest results are from last week to Tuesday which is when I added the co2. What do you mean by watch the plants? Make sure they don't over grow?

I'll get the drop checker this week and monitor that. Does it take long for the colour to change? Is the liquid harmful if it accidentally fell over in the tank?

Apologies for taken over your thread and thanks for the help.

Ya, that's good light for that tank. You will really notice the difference with the CO2 - the plants love it!

Sorry, what I meant by watch the plants is that no matter how much you measure parameters, including CO2, watch the impact on the plants. For instance, I would push CO2 up till you don't notice any difference and then pair it back a bit until you are maximising your growth without wasting too much. CO2 is recommended from 20-30ppm... but it depends on your plants, your light, your water, your fish, etc, don't just blindly go with something because the dropper is green. But it is a great indicator that you are not over-doing the CO2 which can be deadly.

The liquid is generally about 2 hours behind time... so if you read it at 8pm, this was the concentration at 6pm, etc. This is a pain, because it means adjusting it can be difficult. You need to go slowly, then watch the reaction, do another bit, etc.

I don't think it's harmful. I've certainly had one or two fall into the tank, but it should be ok. At the small quantities you are talking about in a tank of 90 litres it wont be a problem. If you buy a ready made solution, I think quite a bit of it is actually water of a certain dKH with a few drops of solution in it to colour appropriately.

No bother - anything I can do to help! I'm not an expert and I find it great when others share with me, so happy to pass on my experiences.

I get what ya mean I'll pick that up tomorrow if the shops down here have it if not I'll resort to online since I don't no when I can get up to dublin.

I'll do a bit of fiddling and see what needs to be improved or tweeking thanks for the information I found that searching online wasn't much help since the information on one site conflicts with the next site. But I have a better idea of what I'm doing now.

Ya, I've come to the conclusion that you need to experiment and find what works for you / your tank / your schedule. I think that's why there is so much diversity out there in terms of what will work or not.

best of luck with it.