my 4ft beginner tank. need help

[richgoh]

all,

wish to share my first planted tank after 1 month and wish to get input for some improvement. positive and negative comments are welcome

my setup: 4x2x2ft
eheim 2028 x 2
co2 3bbps
temp 24
GH 5
KH 4
PH 6.5

Water change once every 3days about 10%

my cherry is surviving well but not my crs. half of them gone

[eviltrain]

did you dose any fertilizer with copper? ?

[richgoh]

yes. 5 ml twice a week. i use seachem flourish. i just read from forum that copper will kill them. any other fertilizer can be used together with crs?

[eviltrain]

any fertilizer without copper is okay for CRS. thats why i keep my crs in US Fissiden / mini pelia only. i dose seachem excel in the tank only.

[richgoh]

may i know what fertilizer you are using?

[Rooster]

I think maybe at this point some Root Monster is in order considering you have rooted plants. I use oceanfree liquid ferts. There's no copper in that that can kill the shrimps - but please do check the labels first.

But first of all, I would put in some activated carbon for a few days to clear up the copper - to save more shrimps from dying. But remember to remove the carbon before putting in the ferts - because activated carbon can remove trace elements from the ferts - rendering them useless.

Just some suggestions.

[aquarius]

From your setup, you'll need to dose macro and micro ferts to ensure that your plants are healthy. I'm not sure whether are there any micro ferts that does not contain any copper but the copper in Seachem Flourish is very little and may not be the cause of your CRSs death. (Hope the pros here is able to confirm this)

The possible causes of death includes : 1) CRSs that you bought are already not in good condition 2) you did not introduce them properly into the tank 3) your tank is not fully cycled when you introduced them and being more sensitive shrimps, some of them died while your cherry is still doing fine. You mentioned that your tank is only one mth old which means that from my guess, you introduced them much earlier?

Though i've not kept CRS before, i noticed that alot of CRS keepers usually keep easy to keep plants like moss and ferns maybe because there's less issues to deal with like plants dying or not growing properly and causing a spike in ammonia or having to battle algae issues which may require large and frequent water changes to control the situation. All these will cause stress on the shrimps.

[richgoh]

thanks for all replies..

can someone enlighten me what is micro and macro fertilizer?

what is the different?

[Shadow]

Macro = N, P and K, needed by plant in large amount
Micro = trace element, seach for seachem trace if you want to know which element consider micro. Not needed in large amount but need to be there for plant health.

[richgoh]

Thanks bro shadow