Hi,

As a start in this hobby, i made a small planted tank, read through the
forums and websites. Bought plants, create yeast bottles and so on.

Now, after 4 weeks of staring at the tank, these are the things that
happened.

bad things

fern turning brown
fishes died from white spots
none of my yamato survived
tank especially dirty with alot of ashes like thing
ALGAE!!
SNAILS!!
one of my shrub like plants growing sideways towards the light

good things

clear water
clown loach especially healthy
my little shrubs like plants (2 different species) grew like crazy
anubias bubbling


so with all this factors, if I have to make a decision today, will it be a
failure or success?

Please feedback..

cheerios
VIncent

"news.so-net.com.hk" vincent0@signentdotcomdotsg wrote:

so with all this factors, if I have to make a decision today,
will it be a failure or success?

It would be a "Work in progress". But most tanks are.

Algae, while not a decorative choice that most of us would make, isn't
particularly bad. It usually indicates some imbalance of nutrients. It
takes a long time to find a decent balance that promotes plant growth
without huge algae blooms. I'm still working on it, though adding
potassium seems to be helping.

Snails may or may not be bad, depending on who you ask and what kind
they are. Malaysian trumpet snails are actually considered beneficial
by many in planted tanks, since they help aerated the gravel. I've
also got a good amount of pond snails, and haven't seen any indication
that they're damaging plants.

Bubbling plants are very good. Once I started adding potassium I
finally got some pearling, though it seems to only be on the under
sides of the leaves, and only on certain species.



--
www.ericschreiber.com

I struggled for some time before everything worked well.

I use a deep gravel deep with fluorite at the bottom half. 3-4 months is a
short time for this to set up biologically. Using a light timer, ph co2
controller in a wet dry filter and eheim liquidoser is all but maintanance
free. I doo water changes and refill the liquidoser after pruning the weeds
back.

Potassium will create nitrate defficiecy. I would recommend using PMDD
recipe next

I could not recommend the proper light on a small tank but 1 ml per week of
PMDD, kH 4, gH4 and 10 hrs of light per day will ork eerytime!! Don't give
up. I made green pea soup for months before things worked out. If it was
that easy it wouldn't give any satisfaction to own.

"Eric Schreiber" wrote in message
...
"news.so-net.com.hk" vincent0@signentdotcomdotsg wrote:

so with all this factors, if I have to make a decision today,
will it be a failure or success?

It would be a "Work in progress". But most tanks are.

Algae, while not a decorative choice that most of us would make, isn't
particularly bad. It usually indicates some imbalance of nutrients. It
takes a long time to find a decent balance that promotes plant growth
without huge algae blooms. I'm still working on it, though adding
potassium seems to be helping.

Snails may or may not be bad, depending on who you ask and what kind
they are. Malaysian trumpet snails are actually considered beneficial
by many in planted tanks, since they help aerated the gravel. I've
also got a good amount of pond snails, and haven't seen any indication
that they're damaging plants.

Bubbling plants are very good. Once I started adding potassium I
finally got some pearling, though it seems to only be on the under
sides of the leaves, and only on certain species.



--
www.ericschreiber.com