troubled tank

[Rainy]

Im having trouble with my female betta tank

tank is 77cm long, 38cm high, and 30.5cm front to back and holds about 80ltr

its was running for about 2mths with an inch of gravel a sponge filter at one end (rated for 80ltr) and a warterfall filter (hang on) at the other end also rated for 80ltr has a fluro light (no idea what type so if you can tell me how to find out that would be great) and 100wt heater set at 28c planted with driftwood/annubis bananna lillys amozon sword and corkscrew val

no matter what i have done i couldnt keep the gravel clean and the plants keept rotting away i even added a liqued fertilser for them and that didnt work for this 2mths i would find a sick female once a week rangeing from white spot to dropsy and one girl just didnt look happy and was dead the next day with no symptoms

I got sick of gravel vac twice a week so i pulled all the gavel out and attaced the plants to there tunnels (plummers pipe smeared with scilicone and rolled in gravel) and bio balls with elastic bands so far there has been no problems but its only been a week oh and there is 10 adult females in the tank

questions : Is the tank over stocked?

I want to change the filtration what do you recomend?

I kind of like the bare bottom tank is there any easy to keep plants that live in pots or on drift wood other then annubis?

All my barraks are working fine so i dont think its the warter but the barraks are all bare bottom and only have a small amount of java moss in each i will try and post pic of them tomorrow

Any help will be greatly apriciated Sera

[Bettarazzi]

I don't think the tank is overstocked.

Which plants are rotting? A lot of aquarium plants are grown emersed, ie only partly in water. The leaves that they grow are quite different and when you submerge the whole plant in your tank they'll rot. However once it's lost all it's old leaves it should start growing new ones. The other possibility could be that the light you have is not suitable for growing plants. Can we get a pic of it? Is it a normal fluoro? Compact fluoro? T5?

There are lots of plants which you can get in terracotta pots: crypts, swords, hygro, lobelia. But we should probably figure out what's causing your plants to die.

Why is it that you want to change the filter? Is there a problem with it? What don't you like about it?

[Rainy]

the only plant that is not rotting is the annubis

the reason i am thinking of changing the filter is bcause the flow of the waterfall is too strong even with the warter leval as high as it can go and i am unsure if the sponge filter will be able to do a suficiant job iv only ever used them in breeding tanks at a quarter of there defined capasity

how many females would you say is to many for this tank? i really dont know about the fluro should i take it somewhere to find it out?

[y2jdaze]

I've got a 2 ft tank similar to yours, currently it has 5 or 6 girls, a heater, inch and a bit of gravel, some hornwart and a medium sized sponge filter.... I've had no problems with it (except my water quality issues) I had more girls in it without problems as well.

I'd say your plants are dying because they're not getting the right kind of light, and how often do you do water changes?

Even though the tank is cycled you still need to do a water change every so often and take out some old water, replacing it with new, otherwise you can get "old tank syndrome".

you could always get a bigger sponge filter if needed and hide it behind some plants it should be fine without the waterfall thing.

[Rainy]

I was doing 1/4 tank 2 times a week just to keep the gravel clean

what is hornwart?

[Bettarazzi]

You could bring your fluoro to the forum in the form of a picture. Hornwort is a plant.

[Rainy]

ok hears a pic of the tank ill get a pic of the light tonight after it cools down

[Bettarazzi]

But the light can really only be one of the following:

• a normal fluoro, 1 inch diameter, this is the most common kind of fluoro tube used in aquarium lights as well as homes and offices across the globe, also known as T8
  
• a T5 fluoro, is narrower than a T8, 5/8ths of an inch in diameter
  
• compact fluoro, same diameter as a T5 but usually bent back over itself
  

Next you need to identify what the brand is and what colour temp the tube has. On T5 and T8 tubes it's usually printed on the tube itself. Look for things like Philips, NEC, Sylvania, Gro-lux, Life-Glo, Power Glo, daylight, warm white, 6500K, 10000K. On compact fluoros it's usually on the socket so you might have to unplug the tube. Unplug it from the wall before you do it.

If you can find the brand and the model number you might be able to get the full technical specs from the manufacturers website so that you can find out the colour rendering index (CRI), colour temperature, lumens output etc

[Rainy]

ok i finaly rememberd to pull the light apart when it was cold this is whats written on the bulb

Mirabella FL18T8 Triphosphor 5000K Made in thiland

[Bettarazzi]

Ok so that's a normal T8 fluoro. If you've had it for more than 6 months it probably needs replacing. You can get a replacement from a lighting shop for about $6. You don't have to replace it with the same brand. Ask for a T8 fluoro tube with a daylight colour temperature as close as you can get to 6700 K. A single tube is probably only going to allow you to grow low light plants. So I'd stick with anubias, crypts and java fern.