My first planted cichlid tank

[MrsE88]

I'm not sure, I would think that would help feed the plants. To what extent I have no clue.

That's amazing the plants have helped keep the nitrate in check like that.
How has the heavy stocking been working for the fish? Is there a lot of fighting? I only see one with some minor fin tears. Less then what I figured I'd see.

Your gt is a handsome boy btw.

 

[magpie]

Interesting doing the 2 light periods... I never read about that. I'll be curious how it works out. Basically for how much light - if your plants don't thrive and start to die on you, there's not enough light. If you get a ton of algae, there's too much light. I have 3 planted tanks, all are on LED lighting for 12 hours straight and doing well. I do have floating plants in mine which I think 'dims' it a little but I'm not sure how much. ?

As far as having an overstocked tank feeding the plants alone, I guess you can wait and see how they do. I've never heard of that but maybe it would work. You might be missing elements that are essential to the plants that you're not getting with waste and fish food, though. I personally would just use something like Flourish once a week. It's easy and a bottle lasts a long time.

 

[Tomt37]

I'm sure it will work without .. but all I can say is having tried both the growth rate with co2 is vastly superior which means Anubis don't take for ever to grow and plants recover from cichlid abuse quickly and draw in more nitrate .. there are some cheap co2 cylinder systems out there too

 

[tiger15]

All my tanks are set up for two photo periods, one in the morning for a two hours for me to feed the fish before I leave for work, and an evening period when I get home. With the planted tank, I just extended the morning period. So far I observe no algae growth but not much plant growth either. So I am going to extend the morning period to a total 10 hours to see how it does.

It's amazing even to me that my crowed 75 cichlid tank can be in harmony, I have two 10" GT and Bifas in a 75 that were raised together from juvies. If these two big guys don't get along, one will be dead very soon as there is no place for this size of fish to run or hide in a small 75. I have three breeding pairs of medium size cichlid (panamensis, EBA and nanoleutus) in the same tank that challenge the big guys and one another daily but no harm is done. My pair of EBA just spawned last week and self inflicted some fin damage from defending their spawning site but now recovering. I had to remove some troublemakers before, so just like plants, there is a balancing act to select the right type of fish to make it work.

 

[tiger15]

Here is how my tank looks like after 1.5 months. It looks more lush than it is, as the tank has a deceptive planted background.

I planted heavily and many variety to let them sort out and to out compete the algae. I provide two photo periods of 5 hr each in the morning and evening, so there is a dark period for CO2 to recover following Walstad's low tech approach.

The Crypto Wendi is barely alive with no new growth and a lot of BBA after half the leaves have melt down. I am thinking of tossing it out. The African fern (Bolbitis) and Java (Trident, narrow and broad leave) fern are making it with slow new growth. The various Anubias species are mixed. The Coffeefolia and Afzelli are dead, losing all the leaves. The Nana pettite are struggling with old leaves falling off or covered with BBA but there are a few green leaves here and there. The broad leave Barteri are doing best with about one new leave a week. My tanks always have BBA even without plants, and with plants the BBA tend to infest struggling or decaying leaves. I don't want BBA to get out of control, so I have been spraying impacted plants with peroxide. All my plants are mobile on the rock, so I can take them for treatment, and reaarange for the best look. I just ordered a gal of Metricide (a cheap substitute for Flourish Excel) from Ebay for systemic treatment of BBA or to provide liquid carbon to promote lush growth. Hope it will work and I'll leave it for my next update.

 

[tiger15]

A few pictures

 

[Stanzzzz7]

Interesting thread.
I hope the planting works out.
I have had many planted cichlid tanks.I have never managed to keep plants with veija species for long.They always eat them eventually. the only exception for me has been hornwart. I have yet to keep a cichlid that has eaten it.
I have been lucky with my planted cichlid tanks,as most have worked.
I have always been very low tec.Average t8 fluorescents and no co2.
I do however always use rabbit droppings as a root tab.
I know it sounds a little unorthodox but one dropping pushed in next to the roots has always improved growth for me.
Undisturbed in the substrate it has no negative effects on water quality and plants thrive on it.

 

[J. H.]

A few pictures

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I don't know if it is just because they are older, but your fish definitely look much more colored up in the second round of pictures. Beautiful. What size tank is it?

 

[MrsE88]

I really like the look of all the different types of plants growing together.
It looks good op

Stanzzzz7 Very interesting! Pet rabbit or wild droppings?

 

[Stanzzzz7]

I really like the look of all the different types of plants growing together.
It looks good op

Stanzzzz7 Very interesting! Pet rabbit or wild droppings?

They were from a pet rabbit that my wife's friend owns.