as you know i have been tryign to plant my clown loach tank.

most of my anubias has been engulfed by black bearded looks ugly. and 705 of my amazons are covered so i removed them and trimmed.

My other swords jsut died.

Ferts i used were predominantly clay balls.

now, i have twisted vals - growing very well and i acn see one plant is now 3... shooters underneath has started to expand.

I want my tank to be over run by plants!

i want it to look like a junger:d to a certain extent, so there is some substrate to be seen but i want the plants to expand more.

faster.

What ferts is best to use in the substrate?

clay balls seem good but anything else ?

If you want your tank to be over run with plants, maybe get some faster growing plants;

Stargrass - delicated, so not sure if clown loaches will work

Ambulia

Indian fern

For substrate ferts;

Daltons aquatic mix - not sure if this will go well with your clown loaches

Seachem Flourite

Laterite

otherwise use some watercolumn ferts;

PMDD

Flourish

talk to p44 he knows all about plants

cant do liquid ferts, i can only use under gravel solid ferts. water change cycles are too aggressive for water col ferts to stay in system.

I like the grass look, i dont want plants over running the top..

i like the grass look. I tried star grass, didnt take wellt o my set up.

you could try co2 and T5HO lighting

If the val has started reproducing then they will get thicker quite quickly by themselves. The shoots just keep going until you cut the runner, they don't wait till they are full grown to put out another one.

Mine expanded well in my previous tank and up till nearly the end there was no fertiliser other than fishpoop. Maybe just buy some more of those to fill up some corners or wherever since you like them?

Whats your water change schedule henward?

You could try planting root tabs with tweezers every now and then....

PMDD is quite cheap so just dose it after your WC's. You'd be supprised how quickly the plants take the nutrients anyway.

my tank automatically replenish water and drain.

at a rate of approximately 1.1 to 1.2 litres per minute. It turns on 15 mins 24x per day. i can adjust it but thats the average daily cycle.

i just noticed that. a runner grew to 1 cm, just barely even a leaf and another running started coming out! i have one plant of twisted val with 4 runners now and another 3!

i thin its doing ok. maybe no need to boost it more

Wow that's alot of water (360litres/day)! Howcome you change so much each day?

mate if u can afford that, then you can afford the 2mls of pmdd that gets washed out a day ( I use .5ml pmdd + .3ml leaf zone for extra potassium on 100l tank/day)

talk to p44 he knows all about plants

I sent henward an email a while ago talking about growing plants in his tank. Not sure that I can elaborate on that again.

If nothing has changed henward, you'll just have to be patient with your plants. You can try PMDD if you like.

No point adding more light to a tank if your limiting factors are ferts and CO2.

you need some Hikari Plantivore to beef up your plants

you need some Hikari Plantivore to beef up your plants

LOL!!! :bounce:

your val will not like the flourish and neither will your clowns..be carefull with that sort of stuff

if you are getting that sort of growth Henward you might ..i know i know...just have to....i know...wait!!!!

Did you rig the halides up after you couldn't sell them? go on, you know you want to :lol: