A Bit Of Guidance For A Planted Newbie

[Alm0stAwesome]

Ahhhhh! But I love my new lights and I paid £80 for them!! LOL

Oh boy, OK...I'm absorbing here...

So If my tank isn't "heavily planted" then I will be less likely to have these problems right? Also, it sounds like I could get away without adding carbon for a while for sure and if I'm lucky (say if I didn't plant heavily) I won't need it at all (I'm an optimist...)

Yeah the one little bottle of TPN+ I got was a stupid amount so I have started spying on mattlee's thread going at the moment to see what the deal is with mixing your own.

At the moment I'm not keen on the idea of floating plants - I like the look of bright clean tanks with clear lines. But my opinions are changing on pretty much a daily basis at the rate I'm going haha.

So what's the deal with liquid carbon? I mean say I go on vacation and I can't dose it for a week...does everything lose the will to live?

And re: bacopa I'm planning on putting it in the back right corner of my tank behind the big bit of wood, but I am nervous about the filter intake being there both for the sake of the plant and for the movement of water around the tank.

I'll post my abstract-fine-art-uber-awesome MS paint version of what I'm thinking so you guys know what's in my jumbled head at the moment!

So on the back left, behind the wood is going to be some vallis, on the right behind the wood is going the bacopa (was going to be something else....) along the front, in three groupings will be the crypts planted in an arc/following the hardscape. I'm then considering placing a small carpeting plant in among the crypts to define two triangle-ish shapes at either side. All of the wisteria is coming out.

Also, I think for the sake of flow (which I've been learning all about how important it is today!) I think I'm going to switch my spraybar to the other side, but this messes up my plants for the vallis, or does it? Advice?

I have never done any of this before so I imagine when I go to do it it'll not look anything like what's in my brain but, hey-ho!

Sorry for the endless questions guys, I have found your advice immensely helpful!

 

[FishFanatic04]

Don't worry about the intake with bacope. It doesn't collect debris like say: cambomba or water sprite. I had water sprite in front of mine and the water sprite caught more then the intake. should be fine.

 

[FishFanatic04]

Very clear on the drawing btw! Wish I was a good planner. Creatively I am always stuck in trial and error.

Do you want the vallis floating to the right? You'll have to think about that when placing your spray bar, I would think it's going to follow the flow at the surface. MY dwarf lily does.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Yeah...I know it's definitely a snag in my plans. Because I do really think that the spraybar needs to move, that back left corner is a dead spot at the moment, question is, how big of a deal is it?

It does annoy me because I get a collection of nasty stuff in that corner lol but I can clean it by hand...what are the other knock-on effects of having a "dead spot"?

 

[SO19Firearms]

question is, how big of a deal is it?...what are the other knock-on effects of having a "dead spot"?

With dead spots you'll end up with a lack of CO2 and Ferts = Sick plants = Algae....in general.
The higher the light the more of a problem. At a certain point on the light scale we can move up from deadspots and start to see problems with varying degrees of flow being the problem - Not transporting enough ferts/CO2 across the plant. You'll come across this in algae identification where you see lack of CO2/Flow as the problem.

IMO

 

[DrRob]

+1 to that.

It's why people use extra powerheads in planted tanks. You don't need the extra filter, but you do need to flow. Much like your UV steriliser, the plants get in the way and slow things down.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Yeahhhh....figured as much!

The other annoying thing is I trimmed the pipe from my filter to my spray bar to get rid of the excess so now I've got to buy a new one! Rookie mistake

 

[paulc]

If you decide to get a powerhead I can highly recommend the Koralia nano 900 - great movement of water and silent and its just a tad over £20!

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Thanks Paul! I have been thinking about it, how do you decide where to place those things?

 

[paulc]

Thanks Paul! I have been thinking about it, how do you decide where to place those things?

I kept moving mine around until I found a place where the majority of plants were swaying in the flow. For me this ended up being on the left side pointing slightly downwards towards the centre front. The flow seems to then move around the whole tank. I did try pointing it towards the back at one stage but my Vallis was blown flat! I have also found that several of the neons and platy's love swimming against the flow and its pretty funny to watch a cory suddenly swim sideways