And then there was an empty 33G long tank!

[BillHN]

Looks good!

Be careful with "EI" dosing without CO2, especially when dosing phosphates.  I turned a couple of my tanks into algae nightmares doing that.  And keep an eye on your nitrates as well.  Nitrate to phosphate ratio should be about 10 or 20 to 1 and phosphates should be pretty low - 0.5ppm or less.

lus1:

 

[cichlid-gal]

Looks good!

Be careful with "EI" dosing without CO2, especially when dosing phosphates.  I turned a couple of my tanks into algae nightmares doing that.  And keep an eye on your nitrates as well.  Nitrate to phosphate ratio should be about 10 or 20 to 1 and phosphates should be pretty low - 0.5ppm or less.

Ahhh...I didn't know that. Thank you so much for the heads up pbmax. Well, if I stay with the liquid ferts what is a good dosing regime for them? Is daily Excel dosing necessary? Do you just watch your plants to make that decision? I haven't started the dry ferts yet so I can hold off on that for a bit to see if the liquid ferts will work good. Someone had recommended the EI dosing as being a good way to go so I was game to try it but I don't want to have to do CO2 at this time

 

[pbmax]

Dry ferts are great - they're super cheap and they get the job done well. But you also have to know exactly how much you want to dose and what your nutrient targets are in order to use them properly. It's been a bit of trial and error for me over the last year or so, but so far I've found that less is more.

Start here:

http://calc.petalphile.com

And shoot for something slightly below "EI low light / weekly". Then if things are going well in a few weeks or you're seeing signs of deficiency and algae growth isn't going nutty, start stepping up dosage. You can use a nitrate test to make sure you're not dosing your nitrates though the roof. An API phosphate test ($8 on Amazon) can help you make sure you're not over-dosing your phosphates.

I would add less than 1ppm per week of phosphates, personally, at first. If I had it to do over again I'd buy a phosphate test kit years ago. I had a tank with 5ppm phosphates - it's no wonder my algae was off the charts! :affraid: 

That said, you can't go wrong dosing at recommended starting points with seachem liquid ferts. But you can pay a lot more money.

I dose excel a couple of times a week. I see it more as an algicide than a "liquid carbon supplement" or whatever they say it is. Excel is a toxin - it can help in small amounts, but one has to be careful with it. I don't dose it in tanks where I have snails I care about, for one. I'm sure there are folks on here who would disagree with me, but after using it for about 3 years now the only real benefit I've seen is slightly less algae. It doesn't kill shrimp at recommended dosage levels, but my mystery snails hate the stuff. I think of it as an algae-prevention safety-net for imbalanced dosing of macro ferts.

I don't use CO2 in any of my tanks.

I'll dig up what I dose shortly and post it. Gotta do the math first.

 

[cichlid-gal]

Thanks pbmax...as always...excellent info

 

[pbmax]

For macro ferts, Currently, I dose KNO3 and KH2PO4 2x a week to add:

3 ppm NO3
2 ppm K
.68 ppm N
0.3 ppm PO4

With each dose. That's turned out to be too many phosphates in some tanks - my plants aren't consuming enough and/or I'm over-feeding to the point where phosphates in the food are becoming a problem (this isn't uncommon, from what I've read). My nitrates are also high in the tanks where the phosphates are high - this is almost certainly due to over-feeding.

You really can't overdose K, so I've switched to dosing just K2SO4 for a target of 10ppm per dose in my tanks where nitrates and phosphates are high. It's a fairly nigh dose of K, but I have some leaf holes that I'm hoping to fix.

To answer your earlier question - I keep an eye on algae growth as well as plant growth, holes in leaves, etc. as indicators of possible dosing issues. Right now I'm experiencing an unexplained die-off of plants (mostly pygmy chain sword) in one of my nicer tanks that I'm attempting to resolve - quite possibly due to high nitrate and phosphate levels that I'm actively working to reduce. This happened when I first tried "EI"-level dosing and obviously had no idea what I was doing.

So - keep an eye on nitrate and phosphate levels. Don't let these get too high. And keep your nitrates at 10 - 20x your phosphates.

 

[pbmax]

Thanks pbmax...as always...excellent info

You're very welcome; hopefully you can avoid the mistakes I've made! :shock: :cheers: 

 

[cichlid-gal]

I'll just be happy if I can minimize things...and I have a phosphate test kit. We got that way back when we first started our tanks. It's just been sitting and waiting for a job.

 

[cichlid-gal]

Update...tank was overrun with brown stringy algae.  Lost a number of plants.  Stopped all dosing and put some snails in.  Still had huge amounts of algae which I siphoned each day with my fry siphon.  Could barely keep up.  Cleaned the tank, raised the light, added some new plants and some mollies....the tank has been holding for about a week now without a huge outbreak of the brown stuff.  

Brought home some more plants and added them today.  Baby mollies born last Thursday are doing great.  Also added some Congo Tetras (lost one of my rams, moved the other so we will see how it does in another tank...it didn't like the mollies at all).  All water parameters have been 0 and nitrates are minimal.  Haven't tested the phosphates in a while (should probably do that).

Going to do this one step at a time.  Every few days (maybe every 3rd) going to do a daily dose of Excell.  Putting root tabs in for the swords.  No EI dosing until things stablize.

Wish me luck...here's the update

[flash=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/v/uNESs4nffcQ" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true[/flash]

 

[PokeSephiroth]

Good luck, Donna! It was a pleasure seeing you two last Tuesday

 

[Cory]

Wow, where did you get those black mollies with the long pectoral fins? I want some

 

[cichlid-gal]

Wow, where did you get those black mollies with the long pectoral fins? I want some

Petco finds...I love the white on them...stands out so. They have white mouths and white around the eyes too. These were the last two in the tank...wish they had had more.

 

[cichlid-gal]

Update...two weeks later.  Still looking good.  I've been dosing the dry ferts again so hoping this time I start to get some growth in the tank.  The Congo tetras where trying to spawn this morning but the mollies and pleco were chasing them everywhere (I think they might have been eating the eggs right behind them...hmmm...will have to think on this a bit and see if I want to try to get a keepable spawn from the Congo's).  It was fun to watch them though.  I'll try to piece together a little video later.  Anyway...here's the tank update.

 

[bronzefighter]

Wow, that looks great! What is that plant spilling over the top?

 

[cichlid-gal]

Thanks bronzefighter. The plant is a mini peace lily. I water hardened it in a window after removing all the soil and putting it into some water. It's been in the tank now a couple of weeks and I've already had to trim the roots. It loves it. I have it rubberbanded to a piece of manzanita wood and try to keep the crown out of the water so that just the roots are beneath the surface. So far so good.

 

[Anonymous]

 :shock: .oO 33 long? I   W A N T   O N E . . . .

Looks good Donna.

 

[dwarfpike]

:shock: .oO 33 long? I   W A N T   O N E . . . .

33 Gallon Longs rock. Especially for dwarf cichlids. Will always rather have one than a 55 gallon any day.


cichlid-gal - I like how it looks like two different tanks ... the bright heavy planted side and the almost blackwater dark side.

 

[cichlid-gal]

Thanks gents...and yes, I hadn't really noticed how strong the light difference was on each side...the one side has floating plants...the other side has too much flow for them. I've thinned the floaters once already...probably need to do that again...

 

[Livebearer]

cichlid_gal,
I was looking at the last pic U posted and wondered if you have the center brace still in-tact?
What is the floater plants on the top right? seems to be blocking out alot of light in that area...I should set up my 33L. as it still sitting in the carprot wrapped up in a tarp!

 

[cichlid-gal]

cichlid_gal,
I was looking at the last pic U posted and wondered if you have the center brace still in-tact?
What is the floater plants on the top right? seems to be blocking out alot of light in that area...I should set up my 33L. as it still sitting in the carprot wrapped up in a tarp!

Yes, the tank has a center brace but the plants can pass under it for the most part. It's the higher flow on the left side of the tank that keeps the plants at bay over there as that is where the eheim spraybar exits ... from the left rear of the tank towards the front so it pushes anything in its path out of its way. I just thinned all those plants and the lighting looks better.

For floaters I have water lettuce, salvinia natans, and showing up with a force .... the dreaded duckweed. I think it came in on the salvinia as I never had it with my water lettuce alone in my other tanks.

And yes...get the 33G set up. I really like this size tank.

 

[cichlid-gal]

Update....3 weeks later.  

Still using dry ferts, added CO2 (Fluval 88g canister setup ... I had looked at the CO2 in December but decided to wait and in January took the plunge).  I don't even know all the terminology for CO2 but the bubble counter is doing 11-15 bubbles per 10 seconds most days.  Fish seem to do ok with this.  I do have to turn the unit on in the mornings and off at night (don't like this but didn't feel ready for a DIY co2 setup or purchasing something fancier as this is my 1st attempt using it).  So plants are growing lots.  I have to clean out the floaters regularly.  I still have that algae moss stuff but its not spreading in the tank...its just growing.  The congo tetras love to spawn over it (i'll have to get a morning video of them...its beautiful).

I've had to prune the lily as I had stems almost to the surface (pruned off 3 of them the other day...trying to keep it lower in the tank)

and this one plant has this happening to it...I'm not sure what is causing this (I found some info that seemed to point to possible potassium  problems?  I also dose macros every other day along with the dry ferts...I wonder if I need to up the dosage on something?