[Moledude]

This is my first Walstad tank I just set up yesterday evening, a 5 gal Fluval Chi with a 75W LED light.

Plants:

• Pygmy Chain Swords
• Crypt. Parva
• Anubias Coffeefolia
• Bolbitis heudelotii
• Vesicularia montagnei
• Blyxa Japonica

Water Readings:

• pH 7.2
• Ammonia 1.0ppm
• Nitrite 2.0ppm
• Nitrate 160ppm
• KH 71.6ppm
• GH More Than 214.8ppm

My question is: Should I add java moss to this tank?

I did a test run of this setup with the same soil mixture (50% Scott's Organic Miracle Gro + 50% Safe-T-Sorb) and some generic plants I got for free and the tank was doing okay. But when I added some Java moss the plants began pearling rapidly after about 3 days. I believe pearling is a good thing, evidence of the plants producing Oxygen. My fear is the Java Moss will "out-do" the other plants, or I might be adding too many plants.

Also, Nitrates and General Hardness are off the charts. I live downtown of a major city, so water is as hard as can be. I am hoping 50% water changes over the next several days with Seachem-Prime-treated water will help stabilize the tank specs.

I have a Hydor Koralia Nano 240gph powerhead behind the log, but I thought not to turn it on until the Anubias attaches to the wood.

Any advice is much appreciated, thanks!

 

[LittleTinGod]

Do you not have a layer of gravel on top of that 50/50 mix? You need a cap of at least 1". You can use straight Safe-T-Sorb, 2-4mm gravel is the gold standard cap but Safe-T-Sorb will work for a cap from my understanding. Maybe i'm just blind and you do have one but it doesn't look like it.

I just started my own 10 gallon using the same mix but i have small gravel over it.

 

[Michael]

Welcome to APC!

It won't hurt to try some Java moss, as long as you realize that you will probably need to do a lot of thinning later of all the plants. Pearling is a sign that the plants are healthy and photosynthesizing rapidly, but it is probably just a coincidence that the pearling started after you added Java moss to your test tank.

 

[JG06]

I think Diane Walston would probably advise you to toss it in and see what happens. If I recall correctly, she advocated allowing you aquarium to find its own balance and commented that some plants would eventually out compete others.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

 

[Moledude]

Great! I'll put it in and keep monitoring.

And yes, I do have a cap using tube sand, it's just some of the substrate mix accidentally dusted on top of the front part of the tank after being stirred up from adjusting the log. I will have to gently vacuum it out