Ok. One of the processes of weekly or bi weekly water changes is to vacuum
the gravel. This removes a lot of the fish waste which produces the poor
water quality in the first place. If you are just scooping the top of the
water your water quality will deteriorate rapidly as a build up of waste
increases and breaks down into the water. Also your plant roots do not liked
to be disturbed regularly. I have read that when a plant is planted it takes
3? weeks to settle in with out disturbing the roots before it is functioning
100%.

Lior T" wrote in message
...
Thanks,

Another question -

I do dailey water changes for several small reasons -
i have plants on my rooms' balcony, i water them every day or every
other day - since the aquarium water are good as fertilizer as well, i
use the aquarium water to water the house plants, and then refill the
aquarium with same ammount from the tap.

this way i keep the water changes regularly interval'ed (if very often)
and water+fertelize the plants.

i use a cola bottle cut exactly in half and fill it to 2/3'd of its
capacity.

can these water changes be too often for the plants ? will i drain
their nutrians too fast ? (i can do this procedure every 4 days or
more, but by calcuilations this seems to replace the same ammount of
water that my bi-monthly water changes do... and its easyer that way).

thanks
LT



xtr396472 wrote:

I'm no expert, and am still learning with plants as always one answer
may generate more questions.
Scrub the algae off as much as you can. Any decorations remove and
give then a hard time with the brush. You could soak them in bleach
and then clean again to remove bleach(search net "cleaning Plants
aquarium") I have used a wire brush on drift wood.

Adding one or two at a time is fine and better. Its better to loose
one or two plants than loose a tank full. You can take cutting of the
plants instead of buying more over time.

Co2 is not a must but does help. I have done the DIY co2 and it works
well but I cannot get it to produce consistent and end up with PH
swings. I am using Flourish Excell in a 165l tank and the stuff is
good a lot less tubes and plastic in tank to start with.

Test kits: Oh boy where do I start, why did I start more importantly.

I started getting algae on the slow growing plants and it frustrated
me so I brought lots of test kits. To understand what is happening in
my tank. High Nitrate and Phosphate help algae grow. So I test these,
Nitrate I think varies mostly by what maintenance you complete on
your filter. I have some huge nitrate spikes after cleaning the
filter and also using medication which I guess is killing the
bacteria. I also test FE (Plant fertiliser) To high again can cause
algae and wastes expensive product.

THE MOST IMPORTANT TOOL FOR A PLANTED AQUARIUM IS..............

A NOTEBOOK.

Record all your action and observations
date
Ph - weekly
KH - monthly
Gh- monthly
Fe- weekly
PO4- weekly
No3 - weekly
Water change 25%



If you can maintain your tank to a hi standard with regular
maintenance giving you consistent tests you can test less.






"Lior T" wrote in message
...
Hi,

I've read (some) about growing plants (thanks Charles for the
links), and I have some follow-up questions:

first, If my tank is over a year old, and has signs of algue do i
HAVE to take care of ALL algue before buying plants ?

second - is it recommended to plant all the plants at once ? i have
a plastic one i want to replace now, and then gradualy replace all
the other plastics over time . is that recomanded ?

third - Is CO2 injection a MUST ? im concerned as i have problems
getting the water tested (mainly, because i dont have the know
how/what and also due to very high costs of kits here)


four - can full-spectrum bulbs/flourecent be bought in a hardware
store or must they be specific for fish ?


thats it for now.

thanks in advance
LT