=Nick wrote:
Hi,

My name is Nicolas Munro and I live in Brisbane Australia. I've been
floating around a couple of aquarium news groups for a while now
looking for ways to get my plants to grow better.



Question is - What should I change or buy or do to make my plants grow
better?




My tank as it stands at the moment is:

192w Fluro lighting (2x 4ft on during day + 3x 3ft on for a couple of
hours each night and all day Saturday and Sunday)

Pretty good, medium light. You can grow lots of stuff with this. How
long do you leave your lights on?


300 L (90g) tropical freshwater tank

No CO2 - this is one thing I'm interested in starting not sure
weather yeast method is sufficient for my tank.

With a 90-gallon tank, I highly recommend pressurized CO2. That is the
one thing that will help your plants the most.

Yeast would work, but I found it labor-intensive on a 30-gallon so I
know your tank would be even more so. The best thing I ever did was bite
the bullet and get pressurized CO2. The initial outlay is expensive, but
refills are not, and you have to figure what your time is worth changing
all those yeast bottles.

BTW, I am a huge fan of Seachem's Excel; I use it in my smaller tanks
with great results, but on a 90-gallon this too could get expensive.


12 Tiger Barbs,
5 Silver Sharks,
Lots of Guppies,
8 guppies fry,
2 Sword Tails,
2 Mollies (they are great for eating algae/mold),

Guppies, Swordtails, and Mollies are all livebearers and will reproduce
prolifically!

1 Cory Dory (kinda sick at the moment),

Cories like to have friends. Get about 10 of them.

1 Bristle Nose,

-used to have a Yabby (Australian fresh water crayfish) but it escaped,
hid in my bedroom wall robe at the other end of the house and then got
mistaken for a cockroach and was squished.


3 crypts, 2x elodea.

The crypts are doing wonderfully but the elodea is sickly and can't
decide if it wants to turn yellow and melt or grow.

I echo what the other poster said: get more plants. If you have been
hanging around the local clubs, they can give you/sell you/direct you
toward more plants. Here's the Brisbane Plant Study Group:
http://bpsg.frell.org/ .



Currently I run my air stones from 8pm evening till 7am morning. I run
an air curtain 24/7 and have my 1200 L/H filter run when the air stones
are not.

If you get pressurized CO2, run the airstones only at night or not at
all. Surface turbulance caused by the airstones will dissipate CO2.


400w heater

I add Seachem Flourish and last weekend i brought Seachem Flourish
Iron.

Good stuff. You might want to think about a potassium source also, like
K2SO4.



I have just recently stopped adding ph Down cause some one said it
added phosphates to the water.

Good. But plants do need phosphorus. I don't use pH down, but I do have
to add phosphate with water changes.


Ph usually 7

Is this tap water or tank water? What is the pH of your tap water?

Ammonia 0 to 0.1
Nitrite 0 to 0.1

You might want to consider changing more water.

GH/KH can't remember think ones 14 and the other is 10 but according
to the test kit is moderately hard but ok.

This is fine.

Temp 22 to 24 degrees C

Feed the fish more than they really need.

That will also add phosphate to the tank. Good.


Water change between 20% and 50% weekly depending on my mood and how
much stuff I siphon off the bottom of the tank.

Don't vacuum the gravel around the plants, unless it is a light surface
touch-up. Plants like fish mulm. :-)


Cheryl Rogers
Membership Chair
Aquatic Gardeners Association
www.aquatic-gardeners.org