Taking care of plants AND apistos?

[Bunnie1978]

I have been a planted tank enthusiast for some time, and I'm pretty good at taking care of any type of aquatic plant. However, the methods that I use to provide the fertilization in my community tank raise the hardness quiet a bit more than I want in my apisto tank.

Does anyone have any suggestions on maintaining the two together? What types of fertilization regimine are you using in high tech planted apisto tanks - and what are the results?

 

[jose_vogel]

Please, read the following post:

http://forum.apistogramma.com/showthread.php?t=9972

 

[Mike Wise]

Consider keeping apistos that are more tolerant to water values. Most clear- and whitewater species will happily live in water you use for aquatic gardens. If you're interested in breeding some of the more demanding species, then plants aren't really needed. Most apistos come from waters that have no aquatic plants, only some bog plants and submerged terrestrial vegetation.

 

[Bunnie1978]

Thanks! So far I've been able to keep my TDS at about 50-80 range. My PH isn't dropping like I would expect though. I've seen that tanks are supposed to be "leaf littered." Do I just go outside and get some leaves off the grass? That doesn't seem safe.

 

[Bunnie1978]

Oh, and I've been using EI+Fe modified a little for quite some time. I don't need to test, but I also don't want to have a buildup of excess, so I did some testing on Nitrate to determine the proper levels for my display planted:

I have been looking at PPS (perpetual preservation system) and it seems a little more along the lines that I would want to maintain softness. It does not require many water changes, but lots of testing. Lots of testing. I still need to try to understand a good ratio balance between the macros/micros/Ca-Mg. Any input on these?

 

[Bunnie1978]

Here is my current set-up for my apistos.

 

[Bunnie1978]

Also, I'm keeping in this tank 2 Ancistrus, 3 German Blue Rams (one pair, plus an extra female - observed some breeding behavior yesterday!!) and currently have 2 A. Cacatuoides triple red, 1 female A. Trifaciata, 3 A. Panduros. I have 4 more coming tomorrow. They are all very very small right now.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
That's a lot of cichlids, I think you are going to need at least 3 tanks for all of them, even after your scape has grown. The panduros are the fish that will need the lowest TDS/pH conditions.

You can grow plants successfully without CO2 and at very low nutrient levels, it does reduce the range of plants you can grow, and the speed of growth.

My suggestion would be to reduce your light (probably lighting period and intensity), EI and CO2 down progressively until you are CO2 free and adding about 1/10 of the fertilisers you were using with EI. Those who know will tell you that the light intensity is the thing that matters and high light needs high CO2 and EI, but as these are reduced you need to reduce light as well (personally I've kept low tech. aquaria successfully under 400W Son -T grow lights 16 hour day, but I practice severe nutrient depletion).

At this point it would be easier to use a liquid mix rather than dry powders (amounts added will be very small). Have a look here http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/allinone.htm. All James' pages are well worth a look, he is a correspondent with at least 2 of us on AF, and he recently told me that he is now keeping his fish with much lower fertiliser dosing and CO2 than he used to, and he is convinced they are healthier than they were.

You can carry on with the "EI" 50% water change or go over to a smaller change daily (5 -10%). Again those who know will tell you that water changes lead to fluctuating CO2 levels and algae, but I remain very sceptical about this. I think PPS will be difficult to manage long term, which is why Tom Barr went to EI, it is much easier with no testing because of the large R.O. water change re-setting the tank back to a known datum.

The reduced nutrient conditions will lead to slower plant growth, and inevitably some algae will appear (usually some green filamentous "fuzz" and the 2 red algae, BBA and Staghorn). You need to thing of these as the wholly beneficial "biofilm", rather than the formerly hated "algae". You will find the slower plant growth means you need to do much less gardening, and many of us don't do any tank maintenance at all, other than the regular water changes, and an occasional filter clean.

Your new set up will be a lot more stable than your old one, and you will be able to leave it for several weeks, without problems occurring, without any maintenance at all. Personally I don't really do any regular testing, other than an occasional conductivity, and I don't feed my plants regularly just a very occasional addition of KNO3 and traces, based on leaf colour. I' ve started adding 5% leaf mould, 5% clay and a sprinkle of "Vitax Q4" to my silica sand substrate (to increase CEC, and add a trickle of nutrients).

Have a look through the threads for leaves, oak and beech are probably the most favoured (and alder cones), I do literally just pop them in the tank, but you could always wash and them freeze them if you are worried.

cheers Darrel

 

[Bilbo]

I have had a number of low to mid light planted tanks with apistos as well and they work quite well but I don't know if you can have a successful high tech planted tank with very soft water fish. You either have to compromise optimum conditions for the plants or the fish.


I also think you are going to have to either have a huge tank or separate the cichlids into species tanks.
I wouldn't recommend keeping 3 types of apisto's as well as blue rams in one tank regardless of its size.

 

[Bunnie1978]

Thanks -

I have about 20 tanks and nearly 500 gallons, so as the fish grow and I get more confident in my abilities to meet their needs, I will certainly be spreading them out. I also need to get rid of some of the fish I just don't really care about anymore.

This is what I'm doing now, let me know what you think:
I checked the water report to find the calcium in my tap water (40ppm) That's a little high for just calcium, so I made a proportionate GH booster mix which I mix with water and tested to determine how much Ca/Mg I need to add to bring hardness in the 20-30 range (TDS) That gives me the water to add to the tank, and I fert from there. I'm still able to maintain the TDS I'm looking for but I don't know if it's an ideal mix of solids/carbonates/alkalinity. If anyone can give me target ranges for TDS, GH, and KH - that would be helpful. I have those dropper tests for GH/KH.
I'm noticing that my plants are growing a bit slower, and I have some algae, but not serious problems. Could be serious later. Lowering photoperiod is absolutely not an option. I have to be able to sit and look at the tank all day!!

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I checked the water report to find the calcium in my tap water (40ppm) That's a little high for just calcium, so I made a proportionate GH booster mix which I mix with water and tested to determine how much Ca/Mg I need to add to bring hardness in the 20-30 range (TDS) That gives me the water to add to the tank, and I fert from there. I'm still able to maintain the TDS I'm looking for but I don't know if it's an ideal mix of solids/carbonates/alkalinity. If anyone can give me target ranges for TDS, GH, and KH - that would be helpful. I have those dropper tests for GH/KH.

I wouldn't add any additional buffering, it depends on the species, but a lot of Apistogrammas are from water with virtually no calcium content or buffering at all, you are often looking at conductivity values as low as ~ 15 microS. (so 10 ppm TDS).

Your requirement for buffering is really related to the CO2 addition, the buffering is there because of the carbonic acid formed from the dissolution of CO2. If you carry on using CO2 you need to carry on with the 4dkH buffering, but if you stop using CO2 I wouldn't worry too much about the values. Have a look through the posts but a lot of people are maintaining their fish in very low conductivity water with virtually no GH or KH at all.
You do get swings in pH, but these don't appear too worry the fish.

cheers Darrel

 

[Bunnie1978]

Thanks, Darrel.
I do have to add some Calcium and Magnesium if I'm using RO water for the plants. If I were using tap water, I would not have to because it's already present in tap water. Ideally, I could determine a mix of additives that would have me starting with pure water and adding each day what the plants can absorb fully - meaning, a proportionate mix. I know that I could add a little excess of each (the EI method) to allow for optimum growth, but in this tank (and my Angel tank) I would prefer slower plant growth but still without any algae inducing build ups. Tall order - I know!

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Ideally, I could determine a mix of additives that would have me starting with pure water and adding each day what the plants can absorb fully - meaning, a proportionate mix.

That would be the perfect answer, but really tricky to do. Best of luck. I've always grown slow growing plants (mainly mosses and ferns) and aimed for severe nutrient depletion (so basically the just enough nutrients to support growth, I think of it like growing epiphytic orchids or bromeliads), but there are several aquascapers on here who are also successful Apistogramma keepers.
cheers Darrel

 

[Bunnie1978]

Well, I've been taken over by BBA!!!! It's rough! I have decided to tear down and rebuild the 29 housing all my apistos (and some angels temperarily and some L-333s, and 3 rams, and a fresha I think). Not right away because there are too many other projects right now. I also think it would be a good idea to go ahead and seperate my different apisto species, and also my Angels. I am getting 2 new 55 gallon tanks with my tax return, so eventually I'll have much more space to move folks around, but for now I'm thinking that I will leave my rams (trio, pair already had first spawn, but it fungused) some of the Angels (probably my 2 parabias) and some of the apistos (maybe the trifasciata and panduro since I can't really tell them apart very well) and move my blue angels (3) and the cacatuoides in another 29g. I have already rescaped the 29 - put in some caves using clear flexible vinyl tubing. I got the tubing that is 1 inch and 1 1/4 inch internal diameter and cut some 4-6 inch pieces for caves. I have them so that one end is buried under the substrate. I spent all of about $3 on what amounts to a dozen or so possible caves to spread around.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all

Well, I've been taken over by BBA!!!! It's rough! I have decided to tear down and rebuild the 29 housing all my apistos

.
I wouldn't worry about the BBA, it is a red algae and a slow grower. It is your tank, but I would strongly recommend leaving the tank to see what happens, in the long run it will eventually stabilise and you'll have happy fish and a successful planted tank.
cheers Darrel

 

[ed seeley]

The liquid carbon supplements you can buy such as Seachem's Excel or EasyCarbo are excellent for removing BBA. You just take your daily dose in a syringe, add a bit of water and squirt it over the BBA. In a day ot two it bleaches and then dies. IME BBA is the result of fluctuating CO2 levels and can be very persistent.

 

[Bunnie1978]

I have pressurized CO2 on this tank, so other than the normal fluctuations that happen with the day/night cycle, it's very consistant.

Also, the notion that CO2 is responsible for any algae is somewhat misleading. What CO2 is responsible for is fluctuating and inconsistant growth rates for plants, which also means fluctuating levels of nutrients. In the case of cyanobacteria, the rise and fall of nitrate creates the appropriate conditions.

Unfortuately for me, I've had this algae since I bought a plant at Petsmart, like 6 months ago maybe. I never see any algae in my display tank because I have hundreds of algae eating fish and inverts. When I move a plant from there, I take the algae spores that live on it with me! Duh, George!!

Maybe I will try to treat with Excel. That is easy, and it's always best to treat the whole tank anyways. I will do some more research as to appropriate amounts though. I've never had a problem treating with H2O2 either, even with my Angelfish, but I am not willing to that with the amount of money I have in fish in the Apisto tank!! L-333s and Apistos and Rams, Oh MY!!

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Freshwater red algae (like BBA) are a natural component of the flora of nutrient poor waters, have a look at Ruki's (Lukasz) excellent post on his A. sp. "Breitbinden" at:
http://www.forum.apistogramma.com/showthread.php?p=50925.

It depends what you want from your fish keeping, but if you can maintain stable low nutrient, high quality water conditions for your Apistogramma and L333 they will live long and healthy lives.

cheers Darrel

 

[joraan]

I have been a planted tank enthusiast for some time, and I'm pretty good at taking care of any type of aquatic plant. However, the methods that I use to provide the fertilization in my community tank raise the hardness quiet a bit more than I want in my apisto tank.

Does anyone have any suggestions on maintaining the two together? What types of fertilization regimine are you using in high tech planted apisto tanks - and what are the results?

Apistos are fine with EI dosing method. Since you will change 50% water weekly...
Since you have BBA...surely and safely increase your co2.....but make sure no fish shows any illness...

Since I can't attach Since EI dosing method here, this link will explain you everything.

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forum...ghlight=Estimative+Index+Fertilization+Method

Btw, these 3 thing needs to be kept in mind all the time

1. Spot Algae usually means P deficiency
2. BBA and BGA usually mean N deficiency
3. Hair algae is almost always CO2 deficiency.

 

[Bunnie1978]

Just thought I would update a little for you... I'll have pics soon. I've been doing 2x/week 50% w/c with at least half RO and dosing EI-light... Instead of 3 doses per week, I'm doing what amounts to 1.5. Everything is going well except for some green fuzz algae, but it's only in the areas with minimum water flow. I also have my cacs and trifasciatas in the 29g, the Panduros are by themselves. I'm going to see if I can get more females because I think I have 3 males and 2 females now.