Mike Gast

I switched to use your product easy green all in one fertilizer and I have been using Thrive Caps to insert into the clay pots. I know by far I need more experience with plants. My intentions is to try and get the tank to the best setup so I can to move forward with a more advanced planted tank. I have been dosing the easy green per the standard instruction on the bottle at the moment for about two weeks now. I will move the plants I have currently from the clay pots to the river rock and see how they do. I attached some pictures of another plant I have in there. I believe it is some type of Ludwigia. Much appreciation on any feedback you provide, Thanks again, Mike Gast Can you link any other you tube videos I could watch as well to further my knowledge.

Hello, My name is Mike Gast. I currently have a 65 gallon Balloon Mollie, one dwarf bristlenose pleco, one longfin pleco tank setup and some cory cats. The tank has been going for over a year now and the livestock has been doing excellent. Along with the mollies and plecos I have mystery snails, nerite snails and some zebra thorn nerite snails. In the last month or so I have been adding live plants to the setup. I have three Anubias, three amazon swords and some Vallisneria. My current substrate is medium to coarse river rock. Doing some research, the river rock can be a challenge to handle plants. The plants I have in there besides the three Anubias are planted in the clay pots. I want to move to a better substrate so I can put the plants in the substrate instead of the clay pots. More background or information on my tank. When I started adding plants I removed the carbon from the filter and only run floss for polishing, I have a filter bag of crushed coral to help buffer the water for the livebearers. I have two large sponge filters operating in the tank as well. As of this message my tanks parameters are as follows 60-80 PPM NO3 5-6 dKH 7.8-8.0 PH 16-17 dGH - I know this measurement is a combination of magnesium and calcium moving forward would it be wise to check separate parameters? Tank temperature - I try and stay between 75 and 77 I upgraded to a 46 watts 6500K Fluval 3.0 light just this week. I have the planted tank program running for starters. This should give me good medium light. Watching some aquarium coop You Tube videos I am trying to determine the best substrate mixture. The last video I watched a seachem product came up called Grey Coast which I believe is more geared towards marine tanks but I liked the buffering aspect for calcium and alkalinity for the livebearers and snails. My first thought was a 50/50 mix between the grey coast and some Flourite or Flourite red. I was going to give 2 inches of depth in the substrate. My initial plan is to keep adding medium light plants both that feed from the water column and plants that feed from the substrate. I understand over time the nutrients will need replenished like with roots tabs and such. Also would this be a mix to move forward with eventually a more advanced lighted tank. Any feedback would be much appreciated! Thanks again, Mike Gast