29 gallon Planted tank flow questions and improvements

[MonkeyTypeX]

Equipment - Fluval E 100, Finnex Planted+ 24/7, undergravel filter with 3 exhaust towers (meijer brand),  Aqua culture air pump dual output 20-60 gallon rating, Cascade 300 internal filter at 70gph, sponge filter unattached to air line

Plants - Hornwort floating, Anubis attached to driftwood and Java fern attached to plastic lattice

Decorations - Gravel mostly black non enhanced,  4 pieces of Malaysian driftwood accounting for + or - 30%  water space upright for pseudo cave look

Fish Stocking - 8 gold barbs (recently brought in from pond), 3 albino cori. cats, 2 clown pleco, 1 powder blue gourami, 12 ghost shrimps and random mystery snails from the plants

Chems - flourish comprehensive and flourish iron,  essentials bio boost, and Tetra Aquasafe 

Recently I closed my pond for the winter and brought my gold barbs inside before they succumb to the cold like my poor cori. cats and bristlenose plecos.  My plants were in the pond all summer and did well with some co2 boosters from flourish with the exception of my java fern.  The java fern is a ball of roots with small amounts of leaves are green but look beat up but no new baby spawns on it.  I checked my ph (8+, Ohio city water) and water quality on 10/10/2020 all is good  as I am finishing my bacteria cycle on new water.  The tank light is on the automated 24/7 cycle and it does its thing.  The fish are happy and I feed them spectrum flakes, wafers and pellets once weekly.  I have dosed half a cap of flourish comprehensive once each week and half cap of flourish iron once; along with a cap each week of essentials bio boost.  

questions or problems

My cascade 300 seems to only have enough water movement to keep the Fluval E 100 from low flow flashing if its exhaust tube is pointed directly at the heater. 

So what should I do without turning my low flow tank into a fast moving stream?  options im looking at are the Sicce Shark ADV 400 (106 gph) or 600 (158gph)  internal canister,  Fluval U3 (155 gph) series or the Fluval cp1 (265 gph) 

Should I use co2 or liquid Flourish Excel or go without and wait?

Last but not least I haven't figured out how to load a pic from google to the url and I don't have social media to link an image from else where to help further help.  Thanks in advance for taking your time to read this and offer up any suggestions.  Please note nothing is set in stone and I am very flexible with my tank ideas or equipment.

 

 

 

[Daniel]

On the photo part of your question, if you have a photo on the device you are posting from

Either drag or paste or select your photo using the link in the red circle.

[MonkeyTypeX]

[MonkeyTypeX]

brilliant thanks

[Daniel]

I love hornwort, so your tank looks good to me 🙂, but that sword plant probably wishes there wasn't quite so much hornwort blocking its light. Anubias are less picky about the light.

I bet that amount of hornwort just about handles all your biological filtration needs. Hornwort loves nitrates.

It sounds like your fish are happy, so in theory you don't have to make any changes or upgrades.

But in practice you are ready to try new stuff and up for new challenges. I suffer from chronic multi-tank syndrome (MTS) and usually when I get the itch, I will just add new tank (or even 3).

I am big fan of sponges filter over cannisters but that is just me, others prefer cannister filters and would be better to advise on this.

I would wait on the CO2 as though it can definitely be helpful on the margins, most plant growing success is  due to good lighting and not too much and not too little nutrients.

I wouldn't add any new fish and I would space any changes out over time and see what the result of a change is before making the next one.

 

[MonkeyTypeX]

MTS I agree.  One tank is never enough! As of now I cant set up my 55 in limited space; that and my 2 year old banging on my tank.