Ishar's 20GH Planted tank

[ishar]

yeah I was planning on removing whole leaves from both .

No I am not dosing Iron... I was trying to save my money on this tank and I thought Flourite would be a good enough iron supplement. If I grab some liquid iron fert you think it would help my algae problems?

[Lotus]

I've found iron really helps if you have hair algae. I'm not sure exactly what algae you have.

Unfortunately, Flourish doesn't really have quite enough iron in it for higher light tanks. I use a dry form of chelated iron, which is cheap, but I'd rather use Flourish iron. I'm not sure why, I just like it better.

[ishar]

yeah that is what I have I think- this fuzzy, light to dark green little strands. I added a powerhead because I felt it might have been caused by a lack of water circulation, but it has only been in for a few days so no change has happened yet if it even will.

Well since I have the time I might as well go down to my LFS right now and pick up some Flourish iron. I will start dosing it the weekly dose amount split between the seven days of the week for daily fertilization.

Anyways, I forgot to get a before picture, but nothing really changed form the last one I gave, but here are a few of the tank and of the trimmings.

A note on the anubias: the leaves had rotten away where the stem met the rhizome. Not sure what that means... other than it was dead/very close to it and I removed two leaves.
A note on the windelov: on the small piece of driftwood, two of the 'adult' leaves were growing a whole string of plantlets up the whole length and one of them has one on each finger at the end! The one without the ones on the fingers has the plantlet's roots already attached to the driftwood, so I am going to wait until the babies fully mature and the adult leaf dies off. The other one I added a lead weight to it to weigh it down and allow the plantlets to attach themselves. I am pretty excited about that .





I wanted to show you how wide some of the 'fingers' on my windelov can et- that one is about 3" wide and is by far not the biggest I have had in my tank .

Anyways I am off to the LFS for some iron. Be back in a few hours .

[ishar]

Well another update today! I went and grabbed some Seachem Iron on Lotus' suggestion, and while I was there I picked up a new lightbulb to replace the crappy stock one at the front of my tank right now. Hopefully that will help my glosso and hairgrass out. However I am unsure about how good it really is, and if you think you could help I asked about it and gave the details .

The dosing I will start with is in my sig as .25mL per day excepting two days at .5mL for six out of 7 days of each week.

[ishar]

BAM!!

that's what my tank is saying hahahah

I took back the 2400K bulb... and decided to go all out right now- why not? I was going to pick up another dual T5 strip like the one I have... but then I noticed that for the same price I could get a 65W compact 6700K lamp! So now I am rocking out 4.65 WPG!!

I also picked up a group of ghost shrimp (Asked for 5, got like 8) so that hopefully I will get some babies for my GBR to eat so I can make sure he can get some protein to grow and colour up

I will post pictures if there is enough interest, so if you want 'em, ask for 'em :P

[Adorkable]

I VOTE PICTURES! XD

4.65 WPG?! No fair! I have like 0.00000004 WPG XD

[ishar]

haha well I might just for you Dorky .

A slight edit: when I put the shrimpies in... I forgot to count, but I think I got almost 12 :S.

[ishar]

Before and After


GBR- got a few decent shots- you can see some ghosties in one of them

[ishar]

Well I did a series water tests just to check it out as I haven't in months. The results are as follows:
amo: 0, trite: 0, trate: 20, GH: 10, KH: 5-6

With trate at 20ppm I think I have found a good dosing level for my nitrogen, so that made me feel pretty good . The ferts I am dosing and the amounts can be found in my sig, but the routine I follow is attached below.

On a different note, the glosso that was not looking so hot or growing like it used to.... is loving the new light! haha Every bunch of it has sent up a new pair of leaves in one day!

[ishar]

Well unfortunately I have a pretty big update for you all.

First,my internet has been down the past two days so I haven't been able to post this as it happened.

Now the story. Three days ago I noticed my filter was hardly moving any water, and I could not figure out why. I tried cleaning it and reassembling it and everything but all to no avail. Just a little dribble coming out. Obviously this is bad :P. Then the next day I say my GBR at the surface, mouth to the air- I assumed there was ammonia in my tank. Not cool. I resolved to buy myself a new filter the next day as it was too late by that time The next morning I woke up and the GBR was dead. So disappointing . But I went and grabbed the new filter- a Marineland 150 w/ biowheel. Heard so many good things about them here on MFT and figured they'd be worth a shot.It works great! I just hope it cycles soon, as in less than I week I need to move it all back home and replant everything and whatnot, so the sooner it is cycled the better. I also picked up some Rotala macranda- a nice leafy red plant, as suggested I should et by Avalon. I put it in the center where he suggested because it was the only spot left for it lol. But with the move everything is bound to get moved around for a whole new look.

I will get pictures of it tomorrow, but feel free to help me out with any ideas on how to move. I was thinking of emptying half the water into two 5G buckets. Then putting the fish and shrimp into them. Then the plants will remain in the tank with some water, and I will spray them with their own tank water with like a mister bottle on the drive (only about 1.5 hours to 2 hours).