2 foot planted aquarium

Good day

So I have set up a 2 foot planted aquarium. I am running the following:

Standard 2 foot tank
T8 highglo light
Pool filter sand
Dophin HOB filter with sponge, bio rings and carbon. Running at about 400lph
100 watt heater running at 26 degrees celsius

Plants:
Java fern
And I would need some of you to help me name the rest.
The fine grass has started sending out plenty of runners, which is quite exciting.
I'm dosing with Seachem Flourish Excel.
I have a bit of trimming to do.

Livestock:
2 platinum angels
8 neon tetras
2 kuhli loaches
1 ancistrus
1 betta

Good to back into my favourite hobby

 

Niceeeee

 

looking very good! That one on the far left *that the angels nose is pointing at) looks like Elodea, I have a lot of it in my tanks as it makes a great floating plant that my betta's love to rest in.

*edit: Elodea can be planted like you have it or left floating as it gets its nutrients through the water.

 

Thanks Slade. Always good to increase the knowledge. I've kept that plant many times, just never know it's name...

 

Absolutely! I've only had plants a few months now, out of all of them this grows the fastest and the fish seem to like the best. Its a very low maintenance plant which is only a pro for me

 

So I made a bit of a aquascape change:

 

Looks very, very nice @Lowflyer7 !!

 

Looks good! Just my 2c, I would remove the carbon from the filter as it can strip needed nutrients from the water

 

Just realized I got Carbon in my aqua clear HOB....and plants. Is this bad.

 

Its not that bad, but it doesnt help either, at least in a planted tank

 

Thanks Amakawa. Will remove it

 

So, yesterday, after doing some aquascaping and making a 10% water change, I lost my Ancistrus and one Neon. Before this, the Ancistrus was eating well and the Neons showed no signs of stress. I treated the water beforehand and dosed with Seachem Stability. Any ideas?

 

Was the water temps similar?
I was watching Dustin's fish tanks yesterday and he said if your externals filters are off for an extended period. Dump the water from the filter, cos the bacteria dies and dumps all that bad ammonia back in ur tank. Not sure what the time frame for that is or how true that is. Just throwing ideas out .

 

Fortunately I can keep my filters running during the water change. I failed to check temperature differences though

 

Sorry man.....I did a water change on Saturday. I usually just does with anti chlorine and leave the water to sit in the bucket for 30-40 mins.

How do you do your water change.

 

@Lowflyer7
Lots if things could have gone wrong. Most important the temperature and the period of adding water. I store water for 24 hours before I do water changes, the temperatures will be more or less the same with a 1-degree play. Since I have been doing this, I do not have any fishys moving on to fishy heaven. In my 1.8 meter I do it straight from the tap but treat the tank water while busy and only do small amounts, never more than 15%.

 

I think really like to start doing this, storing water before a day or less before changing the water.

 

Start them young

 

True to a certain extent but takes a few hours for the bacteria to start dying providing the media is covered in water

I switch off all my filters and sump in water changes which usually take about an hour and no problems there

 

Is that rock not leaching... is it synthetic or something that can leach into your water - did you do the acid test on it if it is not synthetic?

Later Ferdie