Nitrates, light and plants in a new aquarium

[Andrew H]

Hi all, I have gotten my new 60 gallon long aquarium set up and heavily planted. I am running a large canister filter per Mac Z's suggestion, and have the output flow spread across a long spray bar to minimize current. Right now the only inhabitants are 7 rummynose and a mystery snail. I'm in no rush, but my longer term goal is to introduce some apistos, perhaps Borelli (Ben R.'s suggestion as I will be working with our local tap water, meaning my pH will be just under 7 with hardness in the 100-200 range). I'm trying to understand the tradeoffs between plant and fish care, with respect to lighting level and nitrates. Questions:

1) What is an acceptable nitrate level for Borelli and would addition of a complete fertilizer life Thrive affect this significantly (current level is 5 ppm, 4 days after first dose of thrive). Fish heath first, but would love to get good plant growth as well.

2) I know apistos like dimmer lighting. I made a mistake and bought an aqueon LED light where you can either adjust intensity OR set a schedule (who thought this up???). This means that the only sustainable option right now is full blast lighting. I could get a different light potentially, but I am wondering if it is feasible to just get a lot of plant growth (floating and stem plants) before introducing the apistos to create significant pockets of shade?

Thanks for any advice!
Best,
Andrew

 

[Ben Rhau]

Hi Andrew,

1) I don't think nitrate will be a problem for your fish in the range you're quoting. Here's what I would recommend: EI dosing calls for 15 - 20 ppm per week. I would start my dosing at 1/4 EI. Nilocg's standard dose of 2 ml per 10 ml water volume is 6 ppm, so about 1/3 EI. Close enough. If, a week after dosing, your nitrates continue to rise, you can dose a little less next time until you reach a somewhat steady state.

@dw1305 does it a different way, by using the <"Duckweed Index"> since nitrate measurement isn't incredibly accurate at hobbyist kit levels. But the principle is the similar. If there's a deficiency, dose more.

If you find you're burning through that bottle, you could also switch to dry dosing for a tank that size. That's a lot cheaper, but it's nice to see that you're getting the results you want before buying a ton of reagents.

2) All of your planned fish will appreciate dim light. Floating plants will help some, but I think you're likely to get black beard algae in that scenario. Couple things you can do:
(a) Add a tinted window screen between your light and coverglass
(b) See if an inline dimmer is compatible with your connector type. I use the NICREW programmable inline dimmers. They also work on many non-NICREW lights.
(c) Just buy a different light. Low powered LEDs aren't that expensive. And use an an in-line dimmer.

Cheers

 

[Andrew H]

Thanks Ben for all the tips. RE the light, as a temp measure I just put three layers of wax paper in between the LED and the glass cover and that seems to cut the light by about 50%.