Someone help my 4 ft tank!

[weshawn]

Bought my 4 ft tank last year, plants had been dying all the time. Tank was re-setup abt 3 times.
set-up comprises of:

1 PL light (55W x 2 u-turn bulb)
1 FL light (2 x 36W)
2 x 4.8kg of ocean free substrate fertiliser
1 cooler fan
external filter
CO2 cylinder with 4bps

Plants had been dying n hair algae growing before plants actually started growing.

Steps taken before each setup,
1. washing the canister
2.changing the pipes cos it's full of brown stuff sticking inside it

However I 'm not giving up. I'm going to re do my tank again. I think that my base fertiliser is not enough during the initial set-up. So i will have to take out half of the gravel and wash it. Put in new substrate fertiliser and cover it with the washed gravel. the other way is emptying all the gravel and buy aqua soil for the tank so that i need not buy separate fertiliser.

Guys, any comments? Please help cos I'm quite sad to see each time my set up fails..

[goh]

Don't touch the substrate and base fertilizer first.
You did not mention anything about dosing liquid fertilizers, am I right to assume that you did not dose? That is more likely the problem than not having enough base fert.
182W with CO2 for 4ft tank is a high-tech setup. Without dosing fertilizers to the water column, it is inevitable that you have algae problem and the plants are not able to grow well.

[weshawn]

i did add liquid fertiliser..i'm getting quite tired already..don't know light not enough or fertiliser

[goh]

Light is definitely enough.
If you did dose liquid fertilizers, please tell us what you dose / how much / how often.

[weshawn]

I used Prolife...add 2 capfuls (abt 10ml each) used it whenevr i changed water every 2 weeks

[ah tong]

Hi bro,

Noted your post at my old message.

If i may suggest,

1 Start with heavily planted tank
2 Keep lights less than 8 hrs first week, slowly increase to ten or 12 hrs
3. Stay off the liquid fert first cos they always give me algae problem.
4. Water change 1/3 every 10 days or two wks


To answer your question,
I used 6 sets of 36W PL lights on them for 8hrs only, with one fan blowing temp average is about 28C with lots of moss, will post an update soon.

[lorba]

[quote:488ec03191="weshawn"]Bought my 4 ft tank last year, plants had been dying all the time. Tank was re-setup abt 3 times.
set-up comprises of:

1 PL light (55W x 2 u-turn bulb)
1 FL light (2 x 36W)
2 x 4.8kg of ocean free substrate fertiliser
1 cooler fan
external filter
CO2 cylinder with 4bps

Plants had been dying n hair algae growing before plants actually started growing.

Steps taken before each setup,
1. washing the canister
2.changing the pipes cos it's full of brown stuff sticking inside it

However I 'm not giving up. I'm going to re do my tank again. I think that my base fertiliser is not enough during the initial set-up. So i will have to take out half of the gravel and wash it. Put in new substrate fertiliser and cover it with the washed gravel. the other way is emptying all the gravel and buy aqua soil for the tank so that i need not buy separate fertiliser.

Guys, any comments? Please help cos I'm quite sad to see each time my set up fails.. [/quote:488ec03191]

What base fertilizer did you used the last time? What are the plants you usually have? You light is pretty fine if you dont go for demanding stems plants.

How about modular, low light set up. With this, you have no worries about base fertilizer. Use root monsters wherever you need them.