Lmandrake

Greetings:

I am planning to do a 55 gallon tank from scratch eventually but thought I would break myself in by planting in an existing 20g tank. The tank is now lit with two 35 watt 6500K spiral CF bulbs adapted to the original hood. Substrate is the original "clown barf" gravel that should be very mulm rich after several years of goldfish. Plants right now are Wisteria, Water Sprite, two swords and Idunnowhattheheckitis. No CO2 injection as yet. Tank has an undergravel filter, but I've turned off the air, so nothing is pulling water through the gravel now. I have a magnum 350 providing filtration otherwise.

Water Sprite is growing like mad. Wisteria is happy but not growing, swords are growing slowly and the mystery plant is growing out ok. After 10 days of new lighting, no real algae probs.

I plan to start DIY CO2 soon.

Here are my questions:

I am not dosing at all, nor I have i stuck any fert in the substrate. What should I do - buy a premix and learn with that or go with pmdd? Should I be using plant food sticks in the "Clown Barf"?

The undergravel filter ain't coming out. Should I run air at night to keep flow through it or leave it be?

What test kits do I need? Who makes decent ones?

Can I stockpile mulm for my 55 from maintenance work on my 20? Does "blackwater" and associated bacteria freeze well? (Mulmsicle - Yum!).

Thanks

oRiN999

one option to fertilization being that i would consider your tank to be medium light due to the spiral bulbs is take little tupperwares and add a good subtrate into those like flourite or ada aqua soil. then push the tupperware into your current gravel and plant in those. another option is dosing plantex csm+b and your other nutrients i wouldn't recommend using premix pmdd just because you will have algae problems because you can't control everything separately. i would recommend duing liqiud and adding the new substrate unless you just replace all of the clown barf

no need to run the air at night unless your pumping a lot of co2 in the plants will create the o2 needed to keep the fish alive

i use red sea test kits they work and are not too expensive

as for the mulm don't really know the answer to that

John N.

There are a couple of stickies in the Fertilizing section to help you decided what the easiest fertilizing method would be for you.

I agree with dosing things separately, and also not running the air at night in your setup due to outgassing.

I don't think you freezing would be the optimal way to transfer bacteria and nutrients. Simply squeezing out old filter floss in your new tank would get things started quickly.

I personally would try to remove the old UGF, since when your plants do root, they'll be rooted deep into the grill, and will be hard to relocate the plants, and also the fact that the grill is jus another obstruction for root growth.

-John N.

Bert H

I second John's suggestion to try to remove the ugf. It can be done, I did it on a 29gal. Here's some basic references which you might find useful.
http://www.aquatic-plants.org/articl...ges/index.html
http://www.rexgrigg.com
http://www.barrreport.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2062