I just set up a new 58 gallon tank (45 gallons of water) 8 days ago. It uses ADA Aqua Soil/Power Sand. I currently use 95 watt's of 6700K power compact lighting 8 hours a day. I do 40% water changes every 2-3 days. This tank is currently cycling; no fish in the tank. No dosing. Ammonia and nitrite are spiking; off the charts. Plant growth is okay. Small bits of brown and green algae here and there. I have another 55 watt 5500K power compact bulb in the hood as well. Would you turn it on or leave it off?

Sorry, I actually dose Potassium.

You need to dose Ca/Mg/K+, traces and PO4, even NO3.

Dose after each water change.
The brown algae will decline after 2-4 weeks or so, maybe less.

Why would the plants need any time to adapt as Amano suggest to a new tank?
Why would that not also apply to tanks that just got trimmed also?

That makes no sense to me.
He just thinks/believes that less nutrients are better and prevents algae, clearly that is not the case though.

My question to you is what would the plants do normally in an established tank if you all you added was K+ for several weeks vs a tank where you added all the nutrients?


Regards,
Tom Barr

How much light do you think I should run for now? 95 watts or 150 watts? I only run the 95 watts for 8 hours now. Being conservative.

Is that why Amano doesn't recommend to dose anything except K on a new tank? He thinks it will bring about algae?

That is what he said.
In person and in print.


Regards.,
Tom Barr

If you are fairly sure of CO2, either will be fine.
95 watts 10 hours a day on a 45 gal tank should grow most any plant you want.

Regards,
Tom Barr

I have noticed my Rotala Macandra (or at least when I bought them that is what the LFS claimed.) have been melting in the new tank. All the other plants seem to be okay. I was a bit suspicious of not dosing anything at first but the USA Amano distributors claim everything that the plants need are in the substrate plus the nitrite and ammonia spikes.

Perhaps my macandra is melting because of the lack of iron? Or is there iron in the substrate?

R macrandra certainly does well on a diet of water column ferts.
Discus tanks, other higher fish load tanks with stable feeding, + less light produced some of the absolute best R macrandra I've seen, not those high light ADA tanks.

Actually, I've seldom/rarely even seen nice large groups used well in any ADA tank.
I might be wrong, but it's certainly seldom ever used. And just a few as an accent or in the rear to hide scraggly lower leaves.

What I'm saying is that is not a good plant to make comparisons on.
Just because you distribute something does not mean you know what a plant needs, how it might behave nor have any experience growing nice thick large stands of this plant.

If you do and can show it, then you can say something.
Neil Frank many years ago sent large amounts in his puny 2 watt/gal normal output 24" deep tank with a decent fish load and CO2.

Steve Dixon also grew what I think was one of the nicest stands.
All without ADA or ADA AS etc, ADA did not even exist as far as folks here knew.

Obviously it can be done and can be done without any advice from ADA

That said, adding ADA AS will make it easier, but it puts no bearing nor credibility on claims that you do not need water column ferts(other than N certainly) and makes the point that those tanks had soft KH water, plain sand, maybe laterite which truthfully does not do much for this plant and these folks grew it for many years and tortured various water column dosing routines with it.

In general, good stable nO3, higher is good, some NH4 source, PO4/K/Traces/Ca/Mg etc.

Any ADA distributor or Amano himself that would like to show me how come folks do not have algae when they add KH2PO4/KNO3/GH booster/Traces, as in __a lot more__ that is required by any plant, still do not have algae, I'm all ears.

This includes ADA AS or PS combos, this includes sand, flourite, onyx sand, Flora base, EC, SMS, Kitty litter, soil/sand capped and about any other substrate you can cook up.

Such comparative testing takes many years. I do not think anyone has done this other than perhaps a few folks that are now "old timers".

So the new folks think it means something and don't have the test or experiences to draw on. Some think I'm crazy, I'm not, I just have a nasty habit of trying to stop history from repeating itself.

Anytime, anywhere Amano or any of his associates would like show causal or even correlative evidence why I do not have algae in the high light(or low light)/high KNO3/KH2PO4/high trace ADA AS tanks is welcomed to try.

I shall leave this challenge open as it has been for many years, still unanswered.

I'm an academic, I love scaping, but I cannot devote such time as Amano, that is his passion and he has spent a lot of time doing that and photography, mine is much more about why plant grow and how they work. I'm also just one guy, ADA has many people working for them, not so much for science, rather, the money money, it's a business. They need stuff that they can sell. That's not my motivation. I do this to help and not lose money. Big difference.

I do sell the ADA line to LFS's BTW
But that's business, not hobby levels stuff and personal one on one help other than the LFS owner etc.

I will never sell you any ADA stuff through this site etc.
I will suggest an appropriate product, but I do not view folks here as business to business.

LFS's need to make $, it's a business, but I will not lie to anyone if they ask either.
Instead, I amplify and augment their methods, or try and find a good use for various items I really would never use personally.
I suggest PS for LFS since they neglect tanks and never dose except maybe traces. By the time the PS runs out, the tank generally, hopefully is filled in well.

Then the chance for algae is much less, but I still see later they have BBA often times or GSA etc.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Thanks for the detailed response Tom.

For a newbie like myself, it is hard to determine what is the best way to go. There seem to be a few camps of thought on the best way to go when using the ADA substrate system when starting a new tank. The ADA only dose potassium camp and the dose everything from the start camp. It seems both camps have success. Its harder to determine who has the better way of doing it. I like most newbie planted hobbyists just want to try to keep the algae down as much as possible while getting good plant growth. When a newbie has virtaully no "experience" to go on, it is very hard to know what is best. For me, that is defintely the case. Maybe I should try both and see for myself what gives the best results? Try the ADA way on this startup, and at the end of the year try the dose it all at startup.

My limited experience in growing plants in my 20 gallon has proven to me that EI has worked (albeit it was not from the startup of the tank that I used EI). I was able to take a algae infested tank and virtually eliminate the algae and have good growth in a overstocked tank. For me personally, that 20 gallon tank has been my most successful planted tank.

To me, it seems the ADA substrate system is a bit different than the flourite only 20 gallon tank I have. I can't say I understand the ADA substrate system either. Being a newbie, I suppose I have to "trust" the maker of the product in their recommended way of doing things.

I also wanted to try the ADA fertilisers. To me, it seems to be a simple dosing schedule - a few squirts of 2 bottles of stuff. No measuring. Whenever I go on a business trip or vacation, the person looking over my tank feels the fertilizer regime is way too complicated. If I can just say make 4 squirts of this and 4 squirts of that, it can't be any simpler than that. What I think is very easy to do is not easy for somebody else to do (especially somebody who is not an aquarium hobbyist).