Planted Tank tips.

[chris]

Hi guys and girls Ive owned Discus for around 3 to four years now,
I keep basic tanks, Driftwood with plants on them gravel bottoms, But every time I put Swords in my tank they Die off, the leaves go brown then they lose all colour, after seeing some the fellow forum beatifull planted tanks I think it about time I make my community tank into a nice display tank.

I think I need tips in ferts, Lighting I have no problem in purchasing a C02 kit.


Here Is a Few pictures of my tank currently.

[revkev]

Try some fert tabs azoo,flourish tabs ect just push them under the gravel next to your plants but don't disturb them or you mite get algae if tabs exposed above the gravel also try seachem flourish excel see( seachem flourish excel, any good?) topic just below your topic.
Kevin

[Suc_Sid]

Hey Chris,

I agree with RevKev, start out with some Flourish tabs for the gravel and some Flourish and Flourish Excel. Be careful with the Flourish - better to dose daily (small amounts) than one dose per week.

Flourish Excel works best if dosed daily, though i find every 2nd day to be sufficient.

Additionally, how many lights have you got? How deep is your tank? Once you hit the 2' depth, I would suggest a minimum of 4 tubes over your tank (from front to back that is). Reason being, light has a lot of trouble penetrating water that deep, so you need more at the surface to have some reach the bottom - in an ideal world, we could all afford Metal Halides for our tanks.... :(

How much gravel have you got? Ie, how deep is it? I find plants like Amazons will require sufficient gravel to dig their roots into, I would suggest about 7cm deep.

For a long time i had heaps of trouble growing amazon swords - they kept going brown an dying. My problem was insufficient lighting and no gravel fertilizer. I can now grow them quite well.

PS: You fish look awesome!

HTH

S_S

[duck]

While seachem range is good but looks like you got large tank and it get costly after a while.
How much light have you got now?
Get some substrate ferts and as the other have said,CO2 always helps no matter how much light you have,Try to aim for 2-2.5WPG nothing over the top.

[chris]

Thanks for the prompt response my tank is 5 X 2 x2 I use two globes, I have three foot reflector and a 2 foot reflector single globes, Ive been told to use fert drops are they any good.

Try to aim for 2-2.5WPG nothing over the top not sure wot does this mean Duck....

[SirClutzz]

WPG means Watts per Gallon.

[vince]

Hey, chris:

Nice tank, mate!

How do you prepare your water(add any buffer?) What is the PH in your tank?

by the way, i find to grow sword plants, the minimum light for your tank would be double of your existing light.

many thanx

[bushie]

another big problem people have with swords is that they plant them too deep.
if a swords crown ( growing tip ) is buried below the substrate they will slowly brown off and die.

[AussieStar]

go cheap as you can diy is the way unless u have deep pockets, if u want Metal halides go to a electrical supplier so much cheap, just read and ask question i do, ill had a planted tank for almost 2 yrs and u can never know enough about it

[AussieStar]

For a long time i had heaps of trouble growing amazon swords - they kept going brown an dying. My problem was insufficient lighting and no gravel fertilizer. I can now grow them quite well.


i dont have any ferts in soil but do add ferts to water coloumn once a fortnight and have mhs above and never jad a problem, about 3 inchs of tiny gravel, works a treat