# Quag's Temporary Nano 'possibly experimental?'



## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

After toying with 5.5 gallons and 10 gallons for the last few years, the opportunity finally came around to set up my 30 long I've had sitting in my basement for the last 5 years. I have a general idea of what I want to do with it, but I'm far from a finished plan, but are we ever truly "finished" on tank plans? :wink2:

Equipment:
30 gallon long, 36"L x 12"W x 16" tall (a little room for my stem plants to finally breath).
200 watt hydor inline heater.
Eheim 2213 (flow rate is a little low for the tank size, but it was brand new, complete with media, just asking to be used).
Redsea CO2 kit with paintball regulator, 24 ounce paintball cylinder (I've had this kit forever, never failed me yet so I'm not bothered to upgrade just yet).
DIY simple inline CO2 reactor. 
Fluval Fresh & Plant 2.0 (ordered, should arrive shortly) much thanks to @Seattle_Aquarist for providing some nice reviews and PAR data on this fixture.

Current plants (see photo)
ammania bonsai
rotala macrandra
rotala walichii
staurogyne repens
AR mini
anubias nana petite
green wavy buce
Ammannia gracilis 
ludwigia repens
cryptocoryne lutea "hobbit"
hygrophila pinnatifida
red melon sword

I'm sure I missed a few with that list, potential additions to that list include: Proserpinaca palustris, Rotala 'Colorata', Cryptocoryne undulatus, Gratiola viscidula, Myriophyllum tuberculatum,blyxa japonica and likely a monto carlo or HC carpet.


As for stocking, I've got a dwindling low grade orange neo colony I could transfer over, and a handful of boraras brigittae, or I could do something completely new. I'm not set on any stock as of now. Possibly a pair of dwarf cichlids, rams/apistos with a school of smaller fish, or some dwarf rainbows, celestial pearl danios, emerald rasbora. I'm open to suggestions, some stuff a little out of the norm would work. 

See pics for the layout.... open to suggestions on that for sure.... 

If I missed anything I'll swing back and add it in.


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## NueoK (Oct 24, 2017)

What kind of substrate is that?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

NueoK said:


> What kind of substrate is that?


It's 3/4" "seasoned" flourite black with some extra granule ferts mixed in, capped with 3/4"-1.5" new flourite black.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Little update, 

Light shipped, expected tomorrow.

Made it to a LFS, good and bad experiences with this store lately. 
Found most of the plants I wanted, picked up the following:
Proserpinaca palustris TC
Rotala 'Colorata' TC
Gratiola viscidula TC
Utricularia graminifolia TC
monte carlo TC
Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig' portion (very ill looking portion, was not impressed, same thing when I originally bought ammania gracilis)
Myriophyllum mattogrossense portion
I also grabbed some dry micro's and dry monopotassium phosphate to go with my other dry ferts.

but, I also picked up a substantial snail population, and a generous amount of hydra! So I've ordered some fenbendazole dog dewormer and will be treating the tank when that arrives, hopefully late this week, and then work on a plant dip for future use, my mistake.

So, given I will have to wait a bit for the hydra treatment, I decided to take half the UG and attempt a small scale dry start, hopefully getting it moving (my hopes aren't high here). But at lest there's something in the tank now. That's all for now, still undecided on stocking however.


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Ive got a 2213 on my 11.4 and the flow even right after a cleaning is pretty weak... with a reactor inna 3 foot tank I would strongly suggest a second filter.. an AC50 would work. With all those stem plants you're going to be battling dead spots. It's going to be a cool tank!! I've got some dwarf cichlids in a 75 with Celebes rainbows and my 11.4 has Gertrudes that I'm breeding. I really love dwarf rainbows and dwarf cichlids... but I also love big groups of tetras... there is only one real solution... more tanks.
I'll be following so keep the updates coming!!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

The Dude1 said:


> Ive got a 2213 on my 11.4 and the flow even right after a cleaning is pretty weak... with a reactor inna 3 foot tank I would strongly suggest a second filter.. an AC50 would work. With all those stem plants you're going to be battling dead spots. It's going to be a cool tank!! I've got some dwarf cichlids in a 75 with Celebes rainbows and my 11.4 has Gertrudes that I'm breeding. I really love dwarf rainbows and dwarf cichlids... but I also love big groups of tetras... there is only one real solution... more tanks.
> I'll be following so keep the updates coming!!




I figured as much, I got the 2213 expecting to use it on a 10 gallon or smaller, but this 30 was clawing at my leg every time I walked past it. There’s plenty of room for media, I’m going to skip another filter for now, but I’ll pick up an appropriate sized circulation pump to help keep things stirred up, I’ve got some gift cards to a LFS from Christmas to use up (it’s not a very good store so a circulation pump would be a good use for those gift cards). My stocking will likely be light, but if plans change I’ll surly source a bigger filter. 


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Light was delivered today, I have to give petsandponds credit here, fast shipping and very well packaged goods as usual. Another happy customer ordering from that website. 

As for the light, very well built in my opinion. It feels built better and of much nicer quality compared to my current sat+ and aquatic life T5-HO fixtures. Looks sharp, emitted light colour seems good and very strong/bright, time will tell how well it can grow my plants. The power cord is the nicest cord out of any aquarium related equipment I have ever used.... very very long, and small enough to fit through small holes in a stand. As for the much talked about "touch" button control, I have zero issue with it, and I actually think it works very very well, but that is only my opinion anyway. 

That said, there are some things I do dislike. 

1) It smells horrible.... I'm not joking with this.... It just smells of dingy basement/old musty warehouse... not sure if that's the light's fault or the supplier....
2) The legs aren't locking, so anytime I move the fixture forward/backward they loosen off and the light is sloppy/loose on the tank rim, so I have to push them tight every time I move the light.

I slightly adjusted the scape, the one rock seemed too close to the light and I figured it would turn into algae haven. Not sure if I mentioned it or not but I picked up some hygrophila rosanervig that was in rough shape, but after a few days in my 5.5 gal it has bounced back nicely. I need to hurry up with my 90 gallon so I can get rid of this glosso, its starting to choke out my cryptocoryne lutea "hobbit". My poor attempt at a UG dry start method looks the same, if not worse than it did from day 1. Not too worried if it doesn't catch. 

Next step is to treat the 5.5 for hydra, and then its time to start transferring plants. Oh, btw the glass looks scratched in the pics, but it isn't. Its a combination of filter floss/hard water residue stuck to the glass.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Small update: Day 0 has begun, tank is filled and everything is plugged in. Small drip from the brass reducer on the reactor, 16 hours later it seemed to have stopped by itself, but I am going to tighten down the brass pieces a little more and keep an eye on it. 

I completely changed the scape, I was not happy with it. It is now much less complex, and I will be focusing more on the plants rather than the scape. As plants fill in I will likely remove some of the rockwork that is consumed by plant growth, I also have a fanatic Buce keeper with decent pricing, so remaining rocks may be eventually covered in various Buce species, we will see. 

I have put in a request at a LFS for some plants, resulting in following species as my final plant list:
ammania bonsai
rotala macrandra
rotala walichii
staurogyne repens
AR mini
anubias nana petite
green wavy buce
Ammannia gracilis 
cryptocoryne lutea "hobbit"
hygrophila pinnatifida
red melon sword
Proserpinaca palustris
Rotala 'Colorata' 
Gratiola viscidula 
Utricularia graminifolia 
monte carlo 
Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig' 
Myriophyllum mattogrossense 
Barclaya longifolia 'red form' 
Blyxa japonica 
Cryptocoryne albida 
Ludwigia arcuate 
Ludwigia palustris 
Mayaca fluviatilis 
Myriophyllum tuberculatum 'Red' 
*Nesea pedicellata 'Golden'* sub for Ludwigia Cuba if not available

Now this seems like quite the jungle of plants, so I will attempt to use small numbers of individual species, but have many species in attempt to emulate a larger tank. What doesn't fit I will have no trouble selling off. 

My little 5.5 gal is getting a little out of control, but my fenbendazole (according to Canada Post) is sitting in my mailbox, so this weekend I will treat the tank, and next week planting shall proceed. 

As for the filter, I was surprised how well it flows, the whole tank has no dead spots... for now. The HOB is just a spare aquaclear full of filter floss to clear up the flourite dust, and the rock dust. And yes, I am using a sock as a spacer because the filter was leaning too far backward... When I transfer the shrimp and fish, I will transfer the existing HOB and wait for the ehiem to be seeded. 

I picked up 12 CPD's that I threw in my 90 gallon, they seem happy and are spawning much to my suprise. We will see if I eventually move them into this tank.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Jan 14th

Tank is planted with species I had, all went smooth as can be. Treated my 5.5 for hydra, I used 100ml of water, dissolved 1 gram of Safegaurd into it, and proceeded to dose 5mL of that solution into the 5 gallon 3 times over 48 hours, all hydra are wiped out, the only inhabitant I lost was a CRS I forgot I even had, I don't think the treatment killed it though, but me ripping out all the plants plus the treatment may have done it. 

Going to start out running 1.75 bubbles per second into the reactor, this seems to be a decent starting point, but without any stock in the tank I can play and find a good rate.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Day 12

Wow, only 12 days, feels a lot longer than that. Anyways, most plants are doing well, A. gracilis, AR mini, R. wallichii and S. repens took quite hit but I see new growth so I'm hoping they will start to take off. I'm noticing some green dust algae and some hair algae (have never seen hair algae in my 10+ years of planted tanks, interesting). R. macrandra is a nice pink colour, however I'm hoping for it to start to darken up. 

I started dosing some Flourish Iron on top of CSM+B because of my pH (7.4), I've also noticed some twisting in plant leaves (CaSO4 ~ 3.5 gH and MgSO4 ~1.5 Gh = 5-6gH remineralized RO) so I've just started using come Calcium Gluconate on top and most twisting has gone away within a day or two. I also increased my photo period to 7 hours on full intensity, with CO2 turned on 1.5 hours before lighting turns on. I'm thinking I'll up this to 2 hours before, I'm not convinced 2bps is getting the job done before the lights come on, any faster than that and it's impossible to keep track off (counting bubbles that is). My el-cheapo needle valve plus expensive stainless steel check valve is less than ideal for consistency. I see the most pearling/plant health nearing the end of my photo period. 

Transferred all chili rasboras, most shrimp, and all biomedia from the 5.5 gal to the new tank a week ago. Last night I added 4 of the 12 CPD's, I will probably wait a week, add 4 more, wait another week and add the remaining 4. Of course this will be changed if I test any ammonia/nitrite. I don't feel like transferring filter media from my 90 gallon because of my battle with cyanobacteria in the 90, I don't want any chance of spores getting in the tank. 

Couple pics below.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Well, thanks to @ Greggz and a slow work day I got around to using the excel fertilizer charts (attached pic) and found out I am under dosing as per EI. Looking back now, when I first came up with my numbers, I hadn't quite finished my morning coffee, so I'll blame the error on lack of caffeine and a half awake dummy calculating these numbers. 

Rotala Butterfly numbers for gH are lower than my measured values, might be because of the extremely fine powdered gypsum I use? More bulk density over granular products = more weight per Tsp?

Anyway, here is my dosing regime (under dosing). If anyone is interesting in custom tabs let me know and I can build an analysis up for you. You would think making fertilizer recommendations for a living would make growing planted tanks easy, nope, only the basics really apply to growing aquatic plants, the practice is far different from what I am used to.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Well you have definitely fallen down the rabbit hole! No turning back now.

Will be following and looking forward to seeing where things go from here. 

I wouldn't be afraid of getting that pH drop down even further. 

Good luck and I think you have a great start there.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Yep, more CO2 is in the near future, it’s all part of my fine tuning strategy. Green dust algae is starting to laugh at my cleaning efforts, clean clean clean, wait a day and it’s back. I expected it tho, 100 average PAR and a fresh tank... errr basically asking for algae off the get go. I’ve never had a problem dialling in a balance after the first few months. 

I’m considering keeping CO2 lower for now while I stock the tank, just to limit acclimation stresses. None of my current plants are extreme demanding anyway. Part of the deal with setting this tank up was to get some fish my other half likes, I get the sense I’m not the only one who needs to keep their other side happy. I’m more of a planted tank with fish person rather than a fish tank with plants person, kind of her opposite.

Things are moving now, I’m starting to trim and sell off some faster growing stems, more updates to come!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Day 15 or so, what a mess. 

Algae has taken over, I figured I would get some eventually just not like this. Staghorn, hair, green dust and diatoms are taking over., I'm just waiting for BBA and green spot to show up any day now... I've increased CO2, adjusted my dosing to rotala butterfly's recommendation, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5-20. All shrimp have died and the tank physically looks "sick" because of the brown/yellowy green hues the algae is giving off. I think a clean up crew is next on the list, oto's (although I do not have good luck with them in higher tech tanks for the most part) and amano shrimp are what I'm thinking of. 

On the other side, since increasing CO2 levels, plant growth has been fantastic. 

What do you figure? 

1) Drop back to the lower recommended rate (half of what I'm dosing) of EI
2) Maintain current levels of EI (picture) and wait this out, consider adding some clean up critters?


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Quagulator said:


> ..
> 
> What do you figure?
> 
> ...


It depends what you really feel caused the algae. I'm sure you mentioned it but what kind of light are you using. I saw 7 hrs full intensity after 12 days that seem like a lot if it's a high light.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

houseofcards said:


> It depends what you really feel caused the algae. I'm sure you mentioned it but what kind of light are you using. I saw 7 hrs full intensity after 12 days that seem like a lot if it's a high light.


Fluval fresh and plant 2.0, I'm thinking of taming it back, might try and raise it too because the back corners are fairly dark.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

I really have no experience with LED lights. But I do see your tank is only 16" deep.

You are listing PAR at around 100 in the spreadsheet. Do you have any idea how good of an estimate that is? At 16" might be even higher?

And either way, if it is 100 PAR, that is a lot of light for a new lightly planted tank. And I know you have lots of plants, but not lots of plant mass yet. 

Like Houseofcards mentioned, it might just be too much light too soon. Might not be ferts at all. 

And do keep the CO2 level up. Many drop 1.3 or 1.4 pH with no effect on fish. Just keep an eye on them while you dial it down.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> I really have no experience with LED lights. But I do see your tank is only 16" deep.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Seattle measured the same light on the same tank for me, 130 peak par dropping to around 100 at the edges.

The more I think about it the more I’m thinking light is a big player here. It’s awfully intoxicating to keep it high because of the plant growth I am seeing, but I’ll be willing to dim it to 60-70 % and watch for a bit. 

The main reason I like it full on is to keep the corners lit up nicely, it’s a big eye sore to have the middle of the tank looking great, and then the corners looking dull and dreary. Maybe I’ll toss some R. rotundifolia in the corners to provide active plant mass in the lower lit areas, and move the more demanding species into areas with adequate light (even with the fixture dimmed). 

It’s a shame that even on a “higher” end light a 36” model is truly only 32” at best, otherwise the corners would be lit up nicely. 


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Seattle measured the same light on the same tank for me, 130 peak par dropping to around 100 at the edges.
> 
> The more I think about it the more I’m thinking light is a big player here. It’s awfully intoxicating to keep it high because of the plant growth I am seeing, but I’ll be willing to dim it to 60-70 % and watch for a bit.


Is that 130 PAR at the substrate? If so, you are playing with fire there. Especially in a new tank. 

I would really tone that down until things get going a bit. Get some mass built up, then start slowly raising it back up. And I don't know if I would ever run it full out at 130 PAR.

Good luck. I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Is that 130 PAR at the substrate? If so, you are playing with fire there. Especially in a new tank.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




130 @ substrate is correct. Aquarium co-op also did a PAR reading and got 135 @ 12-14”. 

I’m not shy of extremely high light, but I think I got ahead of myself on a new tank. It’s been a while since my last “real” tank greater than 5 gals. 

Anyway, I think I’ll go ahead and run the lights on a dimmer setting, and increase CO2 gradually. 


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Almost 1 month since planting, things are going fairly well.

Diatoms are gone, green algae is subdued, staghorn has stopped spreading and hair algae is hardly there since I reduced light to ~75%. Picked up 3 oto cats, 5 amanos and tossed a handful of juvy orange Neo shrimp in (whatever was left in the 5.5 gallon this tank replaced). Seen a few adult male orange neo's, but all adult females are dead so we will see if a surviving population is left after a couple of months... 

S. repens is showing steady growth
AR mini is starting to bounce back, although very seldom very very dark coloured growth, interesting. 
R. wallichii is hardly growing, although there is _some_ new growth 
H. pinnatifida is down to 1 healthy stem, lack of light in the back corner.
H. polysperma 'rosanervig' is nothing but a weed, not showing any red colour, although I'm going to let a few stems go and see if they will colour up closer to the light.
L. repens is a weed, again not really very red, some near the surface but that's it.
R. macrandra is growing very well, just not as red as I would like .
Proserpinaca palustris is growing very well, no red colour as of now.
Added some R. rotundifolia as space filler in the shaded corner, growing well
Myriophyllum mattogrossense is nothing but a weed, had to hack it way back as the bottoms were shaded and the tops were shading too much, I'm likely going to remove this plant, using it as filler atm. 
Gratiola viscidula is completely stunted, very little new growth and old growth is an ugly, pale colour. 
MC carpet is growing well
UG is showing some new growth, old growth is looking rough but there is new growth so... who knows. 
Crypt lutue hobbit is growing very well, crypt parva melted horribly, but is showing new growth.
All other plants are basically space filler until I find a supplier with some selection I want... My LFS has gone through 2 orders and hasn't brought in any species I requested, despite requesting plants directly off their suppliers sheet.... Oh well. 

Helanthium is flowering, pretty cool! CO2 drop is right around 1.0, any more and I get a gas bubble built up in the reactor. Amazon screwed me with my surface skimmer, so for now water changes are the main way of reducing my surface scum.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Small update, I've been making some small adjustments but that is basically it. Plant suppliers have been stressing me out for the last month. Everything from bad stock to wrongly sold items. Finding something in stock has been a nightmare, and not a single supplier seems too interested in taking my money to order something in.... Unfortunate really. 

So, that said the H. poly sunset is not sunset, just regular poly, so for now it's space filler. Other space fillers include L. Repens, Myriophyllum mattogrossense, R. rotunifolia, hemianthus micranthemoides. Not sure what or when I'll be ordering plants I actually want to keep. Started dosing extra CSM+B because, well why not! Going to increase my Ca dosing as well to try and fix a few twisting stems, Pogostemon stellatus was twisting bad before I cut it back. 

I raised the light 2.5", see photo, going to run it @ ~ 70-80%. Much better light spread and I love looking in through the top. I will be painting the bracket I made black to match the tank trim. I also turned CO2 on an extra hour early, I couldn't increase the rate without getting an annoying gas bubble in the reactor so I figured I'll increase the time CO2 is on instead. No gasping fish as of now. Also, I've started dosing 2.5mL Metricide 14 daily, not sure if it is needed but it may help with algae ??? It certainly isn't hurting anything. 

As for algae, hair and staghorn are still giving me issues. All diatoms are gone and any green spot algae is within my "comfort" level, I'm hoping the extra hour of CO2 should keep me in a safer spot while the lights are on. 

As for plants:
AR mini is starting to show promising growth.
Star. repens is growing steady now.
R. wallichii looks like I can save it, down to 5-6 x 3" stems. 
Gratiola viscidula doesn't seem stunted anymore, I'll have to thin it out this week.
R. macrandra and Pogostemon stellatus I cut way way back, to much growth and bottom leaves were dying back. I moved the macrandra to the center and the stellatus to where the macradra was, the rocks should hide any leafless stems on the stellatus as it grows. 
R. Bonsai seems to be growing again.
MC carpet is filling in.
Rotala colorata is slowly growing. Nothing impressive yet. 
Hygro. polysperma is just a weed, I sold a bunch off but i find I'm cutting it back twice weekly. 

The more I think, the more I want to just place an order or two for plants I would rather have, doing so should keep motivation higher and I would have less to complain about!! That's all for now, I may be thinking of adding some dwarf neon rainbows.... maybe.... shrimp population is unlikely to grow so I may as well enjoy some active fish!

Going to go H2O2 spot treat a bad area of staghorn now, anything to try and stay on top of it I guess.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Nice update! 

I would contact some of the usual sellers here for plants.

To me it's the best selection, plant health, and value.

Keep the updates coming. I am enjoying following along.


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

> H. poly sunset is not sunset, just regular poly


For me, it seemed to disappear over time. My used to appear as 'sunset' for about a year and a half. Now mine are almost pure green. Same plants and parameters.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Nice update!
> 
> I would contact some of the usual sellers here for plants.
> 
> ...


Being from Canada makes buying form this forum tough  I'll go ahead and post a wanted ad, but I never see Canadian folks swapping much. We need to change that!


Well, 2nd update for the day. I went and spot treated some staghorn algae with H2O2 and decided to test NO3. This is AFTER my 50% water change from yesterday, API NO3 kit gave me well past 80ppm! Again, after a 50% water change! So, I shook the living hell out of the bottles and tested again, plus my tap. Tap was 0, tank was pushing 80+ ppm again, so I did a large water change and got those numbers down. I'm in the 10-20ppm range now, so tomorrow I'm thinking of another 25% or 50% as a final reset water change, and get back into my routine afterwards. 

Water change TDS - 190ppm
Tank after 2 large changes - 250ppm
Tap - 420

So given those numbers I would assume my NO3 dosing is the source. I do weekly 50% water changes, so obviously I am dosing too much. 

What I am planning on doing is going back to my roots and making up a liquid solution of fertilizer. I have done this in for the past 5-6 years with great success, and now I have fallen victim to "why change what isn't broke syndrome". Basically I follow aquariumfertilizer.com's mix and dose according to plant mass and algae growth. If I see good growth and algae, I cut it back, if I see no algae and slow growth, I bump it up until I find a balance, and slowly increase dosing as plant mass builds. Usually I see great growth and colour and only have to scrub algae every 4-5 weeks. Weekly 50% water changes are the normal. See pictures for a few past tanks using this dosing method. 

I'll likely keep up with increased micro's as that seems to be a hot topic... no science to it, just an extra dash of CSM-B 3 times weekly and see how things go. 

Oh, I guess I should acknowledge the stocking in the tank.

~ 10 CPD's
7 x chili rasboras (never see them, I'm removing them at some point)
1 x Powder blue dwarf gourami (girlfriend wouldn't let me leave the store without it....)
3 x oto cats
5 x amano shrimp
1 struggling orange neo shrimp colony
1 x juvenile purple mystery snail from the damn things breeding in my other tank.

Bump:


vanish said:


> For me, it seemed to disappear over time. My used to appear as 'sunset' for about a year and a half. Now mine are almost pure green. Same plants and parameters.


I figured it was something along the lines of that. Oh well, I have a home for the H. polysperma whenever I want it gone.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Couple crappy Iphone pics from today, I also finally got a hold of a seller on some "local" classifieds with a decent selection, so I have 5 or so species ordered, should be replacing the "filler" plants I was talking about.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Not much to update, most plants are growing really well, I'm constantly trimming + selling/giving away the more aggressive plants. I'm spot treating any algae hot spots with H2O2 3% and then matricide immediately after. For the most part I'm ahead of the algae, there isn't any "new" hot spots, only older ones that I'm clearing up. Running lights reduced to ~80% currently lifted 2.5" from the water surface. 

My pH pen lost calibration, it read this tank as 7.8, aged RO water with 9.0 ppm TDS at 8.4 and my saltwater tank at 7.7.... so I'll go back to liquid tests while I get some calibration fluid. 

I've attached my weekly totals not accounting for microbial/plant uptake. 

I'm not too happy with the Macrandra colour, it's kind of washed out pail orange on the leaf top, and then a lighter pink on the underside. I think it was from reducing my overall dosing, so I'm looking into increasing my ferts again.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Update time,

Staghorn is still my main enemy at this point, although I've since gone through the tank and removed the large Helanthium which was the literal definition of an algae magnet. A lot of plants were stunted/covered in staghorn so out came the scissors and everything stunted/algae covered was removed and either topped or replaced with non-stunted plants from a holding tank. Stunted growth was definitely related to me being stubborn with my current fert program, so I went ahead and picked up some straight KNO3 and am now dosing straight Rotala Butterfly EI based off of 22 gallons 3 times weekly, once after water change, once the day after and another partly through the week. If that's not enough I'll go ahead and do a 4th dose.

As for CO2, I have it cranked right up now, more than the reactor can take, nasty gas bubble stays in it for 2 hours after the solenoid closes but I'm going to try and run it like this for now and get some pH drop measurements. I may have to splice in a ball valve post reactor to increase back pressure and hopefully dissolve more into the water, but I think I'm at my limit of flow reduction as is, and I'd rather not have a pump in the tank. Might move to an in-tank diffuser, although my regulator is not the best for higher pressures to punch gas through a good diffuser. 

I adjusted the flow so as to NOT be so linear, I was noticing distinct areas were algae loved a constant, directional flow. I'll watch and see if this improves. 

I keep catching myself cranking up light intensity, only to drop it back down to 70-80% so I'm going to stick with it for a while, force myself to keep light reduced and watch algae response. 7 hour photoperiod. 

More amano shrimp are in the future when I get around to it. 

Anyways, here's a FTS after Sunday's 50% WC. Not much to show off, like I said I did quite the hack 'N' wack job, it was well needed.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Had some time yesterday around the house to get some before/during/after pH readings along with kH + gH and I was again a little shocked. Today's task is to make up a batch of WC water, let sit to degas and test pH / kH /gH this weekend. 

Current Parameters:

pH 7.7 (much higher than I would have thought, my tap:RO mix is 11% tap water : 89% RO, remineralized w/ MgSO4 + CaSO4)
kH 4.5
gH 9

pH drop w/ CO2 1.1

I adjusted the vertical position of the reactor to a more angled position, instead of being 90 degrees up/down, its about 70-80 degrees (so slightly more horizontal now) and immediately I heard a lot more CO2 being tossed and turned, so I knew I was on to something. I again opened the needle a tiny bit, just fast enough for the bubbles to be too fast to count accurately, I'm thinking almost 3bps (not that bps means much anymore). Anyway, because of the fittings I used and the original positioning of the reactor, I was not taking full advantage of the flow, this was causing a large bubble having the water flow passed the one "side" of the bubble. Now, there is no large bubble, after I adjusted the position the water breaks apart the bubble / tosses + turns the gas. This resulted in an immediate increase of dissolved CO2 and NO GIANT GAS BUBBLE at the end of the day. I have the CO2 come off 1.5 hours prior to the lights, and just as the lights shut off I can't hear gas in the reactor. 

I also put in a bypass to this damn water softener:

kH 15
gH 17

I may, or may not, play with a mix of the non-softened water : RO and see what I can come up with. Maybe make up a mix using the same recipe as normal just us non-softened water instead. Only issue here is I would have to heat the WC water because the non-soften line does not go through my water heater. (My current mix allows for the 11% of tap to be hot hot hot and the RO to be room temp which = close to tank temp, no issues with temp swings). 

One step at a time....


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Update. 

Now I'm not sure I'm aloud to use this word, but I believe I've got some Micro Tox happening... from over doing it with CSM+B. Symptoms are badly stunted Rotala rotundifolia, macrandra, colorata, nanjenshan with deformed and small/irregular new growth, old growth is less affected but is showing poor colour. Proserpinaca palustris completely melted back and is showing no new growth after 2+ weeks. The rest of the plants are doing marginally OK, but are not stunted or showing distorted new growth. I've attached a pic of the macrandra (sorry about the quality, but you should be able to make out the distorted growth). 

I have a few reasons to believe I was over doing the CSM+B. I tested NO3 after last weeks 60% water change and it was a deep orange colour, so 40-80ppm+. I was following rotala butterfly's EI dosing regime for 22 gallons of water so in theory I would have been over doing it with the CSM+B as well. So, I stopped dosing NO3 for a week, performed another 60% WC and tested again which resulted in 20+ ppm NO3, so I was certainly over doing it with the fert program. I'm thinking the volume of water is more 18-19 actual gallons just based off water changes and my mini measuring spoon set it un-accurate. So I've ordered a 0.001g scale with calibration weight to ensure I am dosing the correct amounts for the future, likely base it off 18 gallons. 

I also dosed 1 week of Flourish comp. in hopes of supplying other forms of micros apart from CSM+B, which likely only added to the issues. So my plan is to either do a couple reset water changes or reduce dosing for a week, test again to see what my livestock is adding weekly. I believe I am medium stocked with medium feeding amounts. 

I am now using a mix of un-softened tap:RO @ 1:3 plus gH boosting that mix by another 3 dgH @ 3:1 / 4:1 Ca:Mg. I switched to this for 2 weeks because I figured the Na in the soften water was causing some toxicity issues, but after switching to un-softened water for 2 weeks, there has been no positive response leading my to think CSM+B over dosing. 

pH drop - 1.1
kH - 4.5
gH - 7


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

After cutting out NO3 for 2 weeks and KH2PO4 / CSM+B for 1 week and a few 50%+ water changes, it was pretty clear that the tank was in need for a reset. I saw positive responses across all plants, so now I am back to square 1 for figuring out dosing amounts, but that's okay with me. 

But, no algae outbreak, no high NO3 values and some new growth on previously stunted plants has me a bit more excited to get things going again with the tank. 

What new? Added some Praecox rainbows, not the best bred fish, a lot of them just "waste" away, but they were "on sale" and didn't look too bad at the fish store, so I'll take a chance with them for now. Also added an Aquatic Life Modular LED strip which is a combo of 460nm blue and 10,000K white. To me it really made the green plants pop and did not affect the red colours in a negative way. It also really helped wash out the slightly yellow hue from the Fluval 2.0. It is strictly for viewing, with very low output LED's, so it either sat collecting dust in storage, or I could try it out :wink2:

I think I am going to front load macros, and dose by the textbook for micros, might do EI "light" with the micros until I see some real growth from the plants. 

TDS is around 145ppm for my water change water, which after this week's 60% resulted in the tank having 190ppm, so mostly "reset" in terms of ferts + waste that was in the water a few weeks ago. I think I saw the best growth when it was just above 200ppm after 2 doses of macros + micros, which it should be after I front load today. 

NO3 is right in between 5 - 10ppm, so I feel comfortable dosing KNO3 again, I'm still slightly surprised I had it 80ppm+ without me knowing a few weeks ago. Fish waste + plant uptake seems to be fairly balanced, after last weeks water change NO3 was 10-20ppm, and this week is 5-10ppm with no KNO3 dosing and a 60% WC. 

I may have also seen some Fe deficiency, so I'll try out some Flourish Iron to combat my >7 pH. Check out the pic of the R. macrandra, I wonder where the stunting was.... Still not the best new growth, but certainly an improvement. 

Gh - 7
pH - 7.5 w/ 1.1 drop to 6.4 w/ CO2


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## Luciferene (Feb 7, 2018)

Hello fellow Londoner,
Great looking tank and journal!

How many pots did it take for you to carpet?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Luciferene said:


> Hello fellow Londoner,
> Great looking tank and journal!
> 
> How many pots did it take for you to carpet?


Hey thanks, PM if you want some clippings some time. 

1 stem of MC or HC can get you a carpet, I've done that before after my plant shipment got lost in the mail and literally 1 stem of HC was usable, took about 2 months to fill in a 10 gallon.

As for this tank, I used 1 Hortilab TC cup of MC, cut it / ripped it into small pieces and planted along the entire front, evenly spacing each clump by 2" or so. Took about 2-3 months for it to fill in but honestly, I think a carpet fills in faster when the plants have room to grow and aren't competing with each other for space/light availability.


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## Luciferene (Feb 7, 2018)

Quagulator said:


> Hey thanks, PM if you want some clippings some time.
> 
> 1 stem of MC or HC can get you a carpet, I've done that before after my plant shipment got lost in the mail and literally 1 stem of HC was usable, took about 2 months to fill in a 10 gallon.
> 
> As for this tank, I used 1 Hortilab TC cup of MC, cut it / ripped it into small pieces and planted along the entire front, evenly spacing each clump by 2" or so. Took about 2-3 months for it to fill in but honestly, I think a carpet fills in faster when the plants have room to grow and aren't competing with each other for space/light availability.


For sure! Do you sell on kijiji by any chance? I feel like I've seen a tank that looks similar to yours on one vendor's page.

Ah I see, thank you for the tips. My tank isn't high tech though, so I doubt I can go from 1 stem. I've also heard spreading it out more, the faster it spreads. Do you know if I can break the tissue cup into as small single stems or would that be just waste of time?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

So the tank is almost 4 months old, looks like solving one problem leads into the next problem.

NO3 is under control, the plants certainly consume more than the tank produces. I started the week at 5-10ppm, dosed it up to 20ppm and did not dose KNO3 the rest of the week. After a 60% WC, NO3 was smack on 5ppm, so it would have been 10-15ppm prior to the WC. That's good news as before recently, the NO3 would creep up to 80+ ppm. I'm hoping I can now actively dose KNO3 without the nitrates overly accumulating. 

TDS is also spot on, and like the nitrates I did not see it creeping up this past week, the 60% water change reset it perfectly. I really backed off the tapwater this week, 1:7 tap:RO. Resulted in kH 2 and gH 2 which I boosted back up to 6 dgH. I used my scale instead of mini measuring set and noticed I was under boosting Mg, I was only using about half of what I should have been using. Nice catch, lets hope for a plant response. 

The rest of the ferts (KNO3, KH2PO4 and CSM+B) were fairly close measuring with my mini spoon set vs the scale. But I will continue to use the scale to ensure the correct amounts are being dosed. 

I'm surprised how much water is actually displaced by rocks/substrate. 2 x 18L pails is around 60%, so I'll base dosing off roughly 20 gallons. 

Macros and Micros will be dosed 2 x weekly. Micros are split 1/2 EI w/ CSM+B and 1/2 EI Flourish Comp. 

Not much has changed in the plant growth. Certain species are still stunted with odd growth while others seem to be thriving. One trend that has really annoyed me is the "bending" growth of most stem plants. They just don't seem to grow up, instead they grow at angles, sometimes completely horizontal. Very un-sightly to have stem plants criss-cross every direction. This is why the tank is a mess at the moment. I want to get everything growing the way it is supposed to before I really start making it look nicer. Hopefully with the recent discoveries / changes I have made the plants will begin to cooperate. See photos for the odd / sideways growth. 

Overall I did a general tidy up, removed the R. Bonsai and thinned out, removed a lot of MC that was growing where it shouldn't be, the micro sword got the same treatment as the MC, runners where going everywhere. Used some plastic to make substrate barriers to as the keep things where they should be (or at least make it "easier" to keep things growing where I want them). 

Cleaned out the canister, found 20 or so baby shrimp, so I released them back into the tank. Likely won't last long with the fish... but at least I know the colony is actually breeding despite my constant changing of parameters. 

Any ideas on why the stem plants are growing sideways/curly/not straight??


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Any ideas on why the stem plants are growing sideways/curly/not straight??


Don't know for sure, but in general plants will lean towards the brightest light.

For instance, some with puck lights have noted plants all start leaning towards the pucks.

I see it in my own tank with some species, as light is brighter near center than the edges of the tank.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Don't know for sure, but in general plants will lean towards the brightest light.
> 
> For instance, some with puck lights have noted plants all start leaning towards the pucks.
> 
> I see it in my own tank with some species, as light is brighter near center than the edges of the tank.


I'll have to snap a pic of some of the worse off species. The light is completely even across the tank and there is no sunlight reaching it either. I read Mg will cause some distorted growth, maybe my increase in Mg will help, who knows. 

Topping seems to help, only until the stems reach 3/4 of the way up the height of the tank.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Today was a big day for me, cleaned out my pond + acclimated the pond fish from a rubbermaid tote in my basement to their summer home. I added a bunch of easy going plants from my low tech tank... Lets see what natural sunlight does to them... I also made it to my local aquaria auction and sold off a bunch of plants, not much of a plant crowd there today though.... usually these bi-annual auctions have a great plant selection + active buyers, still had a good time seeing some interesting fish up for sale. I still made time for this weeks water change on the 30 gal, and to my surprise NO3 and TDS were perfectly reset to the same as 3 weeks ago, so that means the last 2 weeks of dosing plus fish waste plus my size/frequency of water changes is finally working out to a "stable" pattern. 

The only thing I have changed this past week was turning the lights up to 100% and wow.... growth was crazy on the non-stunted plants. The last hour (just as the CO2 shuts off) looks like sparkling soda... not water. Drop checker is just on the verge of yellow, still "green" but almost a light yellow, fish seem fine, the gourami takes a gulp of air every once in a while nearing the end of the CO2 period, but the rest of the fish are happy. 

This week will follow the same treatment, however I may add a third dose of macro + micros at a half rate to see if there is a response. Currently I was doing 2 x weekly macro and micro doses, so this week I might add a third dose at 1/2 the rate. I'm still doing the micros @ 1/2 CSM+B plus 1/2 Flourish comp (also add an extra shot of Flourish Iron). 

Macrandra is halfway to normal again, a few stems are showing normal growth but a few are still stunted. Mermaid weed is coming back nicely finally, I was down to 2-3 decent, 1" stems, the rest melted away to literally nothing. The other rotala species are doing okay, the wallichi is buried underneath the colorata, basically melted away to nothing. All stems seem to be at least trying to grow vertical again, much less sideways / horizontal / twisted growth which makes me VERY happy. So, if the plants are beginning to cooperate again I think I'll start fine tuning the layout and make it a little more presentable, but I want to give it another week or two to make sure I am having success again before moving too many things. 

I removed the small melon sword, it's in the pond (was getting too big, which I was expecting). Moved some blyxa for now and found a decent sized java fern I forgot I had in there... It was growing underneath / behind a rock and the top was covered by rotala, so I tossed it in my shrimp tank and they ALL .... I mean every single shrimp in the tank.... immediately crawled on and started grazing, it was a really cool thing to see. (maybe I should feed them more if they are THAT excited for some new biofilm to munch on...)


Anyways, light on max again this week, but any sign of algae and I'm backing off again. Work is really heating up now that farmers in my area are getting onto their fields, so hopefully I'll have enough time to monitor + adjust if I need to. Day job is to help farmers grow a good crop and kill weeds.... night job is to grow healthy plants and kill algae.... 

Oh, one last thing! I've been noticing a bunch of members on here all seem to have a plant that they just cannot grow, mine seems to be pogostemon helferi (at least in this tank, usually it's nothing but a weed in my previous tanks). Had 6+ healthy stems melt back to nothing within a week. I want to blame my juvy mystery snail.... but 6-7 stems is a lot for that little guy to eat over a few days.... 2nd time trying that plant in this tank with the same melting. 3rd time's the charm perhaps??? Anyways, a couple pics:


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Oh, one last thing! I've been noticing a bunch of members here all seem to have a plant that they just cannot grow, mine seems to be pogostemon helferi.


Yeah I've heard about that not being able to grow certain plants thing:wink2:

Now as to Pogo Helferi, I was successful on my THIRD attempt.

So keep in mind, things do change. And just about everyone has a certain personal frustration plant.

Even Burr.......he killed Pantanal many times over, but eventually got it right (hope you don't mind me saying so Joe, it was one of my favorites to follow in your journals!). 

So point is, it happens to everyone.

And tank is coming along very nicely! Great pics.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Yeah I've heard about that not being able to grow certain plants thing:wink2:
> 
> Now as to Pogo Helferi, I was successful on my THIRD attempt.
> 
> ...


I think my problem is coming from the H2O2 dip I now do with all plants I bring in. After a few bad experiences with cyano / hydra and other pests, I dip all plants. I'm thinking the pogo helf is not a fan of the peroxide. Once work slows down I'll be making a trip to a really nice not-so-local fish store who carry a decent selection of TC plants (no dip required!!) I'll pick some TC pogo helferi and try them out. 

Thanks for the kind words, and yes, I was fully aware of a few species you and some of the other active members cannot / struggle to grow > 

I think I threw everything but the kitchen sink at this tank and it was just too much all at once, hence the ups and downs I've been having with it. I've now taken a step back and gone to "normal" dosing with bigger water changes and more filter cleaning / more general cleaning. Makes a big difference. Speaking of that... I noticed half a dozen orange neo shrimplets before today's water change so I gave my siphon a day off and just drained water / no vacuuming of the MC carpet or detritus hot spots in hopes of saving a few shrimps for the dwindling population. Next week I'll have to get back onto removing crud, hopefully the shrimplets are big enough / smart enough to move away from the siphon by then.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> I've now taken a step back and gone to "normal" dosing with bigger water changes and more filter cleaning / more general cleaning. Makes a big difference.


You've said a mouthful there.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Couple pics of some previously stunted plants finally showing promising growth. 

P. palustris is looking good, no colour yet, but at least its growing.
R. macrandra is looking okay, not the greatest, but at least it's growing again. 
nesaea pedicellata is finally showing new growth, it has sat there with absolutely no new growth for 2 months almost, every water change I threatened to take it out, but I really want to grow this plant so I left it. Nice to see "some" new growth coming in. 

Definitely going to up my ferts a bit, I'm not sure I am dosing enough to keep up with the nutrient demands. TDS has decreased throughout this week despite moderate feeding and a second macro / micro dose so.... plants consuming more than I am supplying?? 

Random pic of one of my female apisto agassizii 'fire gold'. I have 2 females and a late added male who needs to colour up yet. Both females are picking on him quite a bit, I'm hoping that feeding some decent food to fatten him up will get him to bully back a bit, he was in rough shape at the fish store, but was only 1 of 2 males they had. I'll snap a pic when they are getting frisky and he is displaying his finnage. 

Might hook up my auto doser and dose flourish comp for 1/2 EI daily + flourish iron for EI daily. Front load macros and 3 x weekly the other 1/2 micros from CSM+B. (I hope that makes sense). I have been noticing that after a water change and front loading macros + 1 x micro dose the plants do much better, but slowly lose vigor over the rest of the week. So by supplying micros daily and a front loaded concentration of macros I'm hoping to see more vigor late in the week.


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## Beccanne (May 4, 2018)

This tank is beautiful!!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Beccanne said:


> This tank is beautiful!!


Thanks, I still have a long way to go yet. Plants are finally starting to grow a little nicer, so I'll have to start thinking about better groupings / placement of certain species.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Not much to update, plants are beginning to cooperate, about 50% of the previously stunted stems are growing again, still having that "sideways" growth, rotala species are the worst. I'm just removing them completely now if they are showing sideways growth, I've given up on trying to correct it. I'm also noticing a lot of new shoots bring produced from nodes going up the stems of a lot of species, bacopa and ludwigia are the worst. Very un-sightly, I would much rather have 1 healthy stem growing to the surface without all the new shoots going up each node. 

Any way to fix this? Could spectrum be causing sideways / new shoot growth?

Over all everything is doing well, still waiting on my male apisto agassizii 'fire gold' to start showing his colours. Shrimp population is slowly growing which is nice, found some more in the filter today during the cleaning (surprisingly clean clean clean inside the filter, 2 polishing pads are doing their job I guess). 

Hacked the MC carpet way back, would I do another carpet? Likely not.... 2.5" of MC carpet is nothing but a nightmare, what a mess that was.

What stayed the same:

Dosing EI 'daily' rotala butterfly recommendations, with 1/2 flourish comp. and full flourish Iron. 
Dosing 3 x weekly of 1/2 EI CSM+B. 
Running a lot of light now (justt for fun) 1 x 36" fluval 2.0 @ 100%, 1 x 36" Aquatic Life modular LED strip 50/50 cool white / actinic and 1 x 24" current satellite LED+ @ 100%. No algae 1.5 weeks into running this setup. 

What has changed:
Front loaded 3 x macro doses.
Adding my auto doser (waiting on pump heads in the mail) to ensure I am dosing micros daily. I'll likely add a daily metricide dose just because I have an extra slot in the auto doser and extra metricide laying around. 
Still 7 hour photo period, getting a gas bubble built up in the reactor, so I adjusted the positioning to hopefully stop that, still getting the 1.1 pH drop, drop checker is light green all day, and just turns yellow as the last 30 minutes or so of CO2 in on. 
I've been slowly removing rocks as plants fill in, this is giving me more room for plant species and placement. 
Got rid of all java ferns and most anubias, they were just not growing the way I was hoping for, tossed them in my 5.5 shrimp tank and of course they are loving the new biofilm. (just has another encounter with hydra in that tank, nuked it with fenbendazole). 

Lastly, I added 100ml pouch of Purigen, I figured now that the plants are cooperating / adjusting the scape I should get the water looking pristine. Anyways, here's a couple pictures, FTS and a mamma shrimp in some blyxa.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

What a roller coaster this last week has been. 

May as well start with the ugly first. 

Worked very long hours last week making it tough to find time to keep my eye on the tank. I ran the tank fairly normal because I knew I would be busy most days. First thing I noticed after the weekly WC was some green algae beginning to show up on hardscape + old leaves. Next thing I noticed was (what appeared to me) a water column bacteria bloom causing slight (but noticeable) cloudy water. Green spot algae growth was noticeably accelerated along the glass this last week as well. Some plants quit growing, others continued, some melted back oddly. Finally, I noticed 50% of the fish in the tank had long stringy waste, varying from white - clear - light brown - dark brown. So, overall not a great week in terms of the tank's health. 

So, what I did in attempt to fix the ugly.

1) Ditched the extra light and only ran the Fluval. 
2) Upped my inconsistent doses of Metricide 14 (in hopes of combating water column bacteria???).
3) Increased flow velocity by adding an output nozzle to the canister return.
4) Began feeding some cooked peas and quit feeding my normal foods. If this doesn't help the stringy waste I'll go ahead and look into medicated parasite food or other meds. I'm not a fan of using meds, but I'm not against it either (if I know I have the right diagnosis + treatment). 
5) 60 % WC as per normal, manual removal + topping and cutting back algae covered plants. 

Results of my efforts:

1) Algae growth has halted and plant growth has resumed (mostly). 
2) Water is now sparkling clear and has noticeably more over all flow / movement. 
3) Fish have yet to respond to pea feeding, but according to my sources it takes more an hour to notice a response .... :icon_roll

What I think caused the ugly:

Sometimes I can hear the gas bubble trapped in the reactor and it drives me insane, so I'll turn it upside down and let the bubble escape to finally give me peace. The lights are generally out when I do this, so I can't see if anything is going wrong. In the past I have noticed that a bunch of crud came out of the reactor after I was cleaning the filter one day, I bumped it fairly hard and all of a sudden the entire tank was loaded with small floaty pieces of organics. So I was thinking that maybe me turning the reactor upside down released a bunch of crap while the lights were out, and sure enough when I started looking there was pieces of organics all along the bases of plants / rocks / in the carpet, mostly in the areas where the filter flow hits first. So that could be one cause of the bacteria + algae bloom. Light also didn't help, reducing it cut the algae growth back significantly. Also, because I was so busy with work and never home, I had a family member dose the micros daily. I was free at lunch a few days and dosed the tank myself, but forgot to tell my family member NOT to dose on those days! "cue forehead smack and Homer Simpson "DOH!!" " ! I'm thinking the tank got 3 or 4 days of double Flourish Comprehensive and double Flourish Iron. So with extra light, tons more micros and loads of rotting crud, I was due for some algae + bacteria. 

Now, does this have anything to do with the fish being sick? I'm not sure... probably didn't help matters. Anyways, my dosing pump heads come in the mail and I got the auto doser set up so I shouldn't be double dosing anytime soon. Running the Fluval and the 50/50 strip for now. to 50 / 50 strip really brightens the tone of the tank and adds some "crispness" to the overall colour. Here's a full tank shot, I did a fairly big top + replant on most plants and they were all getting pretty tall. 

Also a couple pics of my "95% no maintenance" low tech 90 gallon. (first time using Imagur so hopefully it works)


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Found this interesting, Canister outflow is above water line, yet drop checker is as green as it always is.

https://i.imgur.com/VEWLOqc.mp4


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

So after some discussion related to lighting and fertility, see here http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/10-lighting/1271609-t5s-bring-out-some-reds.html

I have decided to go ahead and make some changes. 

First thing was swap the under powered Eheim for a much larger filter. The Eheim was great at the beginning, but despite regular cleanings it wasn't pushing near as much water as when it was new. 

The new filter is a Rena XP3, and it pushing way more water. I have it Y'd off on the return allowing for 2 outlets in the tank, flow + surface agitation was greatly improved. Overall I am currently happy with the larger filter, but it was nothing but a nightmare to swap out. 

First I re-routed / plumbed everything for the new filter, then I cleaned out the Rena (from being in storage) and noticed 1 out of the 4 lid clips was broken off, so I looked and looked but could not find the clip. I figured "heck, 3 out of 4 will do the job". WRONG! Hooked everything up and started the siphon to fill + prime the Rena and water came pouring out of the corner with no clip. SO out came the towels and fans as I cut the siphon off. 

My engineering, urm... "expertise" came into play, I grabbed a ratchet strap from my truck, strung it around the filter and tightened it down, and sealed it up. See photo lol. 










Next order of business was the reactor... I got everything going and turned on the CO2 to see what happens. I saw a bunch of bubbles coming out the return. Being frustrated I immediately figured the reactor is too small for the increased filter rate. I grabbed an old ceramic diffuser, stuck it on the tank and cranked the working pressure all the way up, opened the needle valve 90% open and got roughly the bubble per second I was after, and a nice mist coming from the diffuser. As I was cleaning up my mess, BOOM, the tubing blew off the diffuser and everything went to hell. Long story short I played with the positioning of the reactor until I was noting only a few tiny bubbles were making it into the tank and thought "well that is good enough for me". At least there wasn't that anoying gas bubble there after my little test fun... fingers crossed it stays that way, today will tell the tale as I have all the timers set up per usual. 

Also noticed this morning that the auto doser was doing its thing at 6:30 AM instead of 15 minutes before the lights turn on at 3:30 PM. No clue how long it was been doing this, could be a source of some of the issues I am having. Ferts not sticking around during the 7-8 hours of being dosed and no light?? Anyway, got the time reset. 

Couple more photo's, notice the lack of color on the Macrandra and Lud. mini super red. 










Macrandra










Macrandra









Lud. mini super red









Lud. mini super red









AR mini


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

One common trend I have been noticing is that this tank really likes water changes. During the later part of each week is when I am noticing most "problems". Pearling slows to a crawl, I start to notice algae, and the overall look of the plants / fish don't seem as healthy / vibrant as they do after water change day. I'm contemplating a second load up of macros midway through the week, but I'll run an NO3 and PO4 test to confirm. Test today and then test again Wed/Thurs and see if I notice a drop off. 

Still dosing Flourish Comprehensive @ 0.1ppm Fe daily. 

I've been overdosing the Flourish Fe unknowingly, so I'm going to drop that back or strictly rely on the Comprehensive for the Fe....

This weeks task is to elongate the reactor. I'm currently sitting at the max amount I can inject into the reactor without causing a lot of larger bubbles making their way through the returns and off-gassing within the surface of the tank. Good news is the gas bubble trapped in the reactor is gone within 30-40 minutes, so I can run the CO2 longer and hopefully stay at sufficient levels throughout the photo period. The amount I am injecting now is not quite getting me the pH drop I'm after, so a taller reactor is definitely warranted at this moment. 

Really liking the increase in flow.... So far no major leaks are coming from my ratchet strap filter lid clamp... But I am keeping a stern eye on it daily because during my last water change my foot got wet, looked down and noted it was leaking through the corner where there is no clip. I placed the filter in a plastic tote and will check it twice daily just in case.... 

I did a big hack job on everything that was stunted and / or distorted and / or algae covered. I drastically reduced the clumps of a lot of plants, but that's okay. Mostly on the right side of the tank. Hopefully things will start to grow nicely again (as long as I can get some consistency in keeping my levels stable). I posted an RAOK for my fellow Canadians for the off trimmings but so far no bites... 

I also added the 24" satellite LED plus non-pro back to the tank, but I am only running the red channel @ 100%. Whites/greens/blues are all at 0%. The added red certainly helps some of the red plants, but I'm still currently attempting to get the CO2 re-sorted out and the ferts adjusted to the tank need before I go too far into adjusting lighting. See pic for the current LED arrangement.... 

See the Lud. super red mini pic, much more vibrant red after the water change....


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

I'm no fert expert and it probably won't make a difference, but is it possible your K is a little low? 

I think a lot of people keep their NO3:K about 1:1. There's often a decent amount of K in GH boosters. I dose my own Ca and Mg like you, so I add a bit of K2SO4 after water changes to even it all out.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

MCFC said:


> I'm no fert expert and it probably won't make a difference, but is it possible your K is a little low?
> 
> I think a lot of people keep their NO3:K about 1:1. There's often a decent amount of K in GH boosters. I dose my own Ca and Mg like you, so I add a bit of K2SO4 after water changes to even it all out.


Could be some truth to that, I may have to pick up some K2SO4 and give it a shot. I picked up the stuff to make the reactor longer, so I'll see what some more CO2 does first, then play with ferts, and then maybe look into lighting. 

I already had the MgSO4 and CaSO4 was cheap so I figured no need to fancy gH boosters. 

That could make sense as to why the tank was doing very well to start.... I had a bunch of my root tab mix sprinkled amongst the fluorite when I first set the tank up, likely a bunch of K was leaching out over the first month or two.... Maybe I should toss a tab in somewhere and watch for a response... If there is a significant one I know I should be dosing a little more for the whole tank perhaps. 

NO3 rests around 40ppm dropping to 20ppm after a waterchange, dosed back up to 40 etc etc. so K should likely be that high too.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Mild update. Up's and down's continue.

Some plants continue to be stubborn, but that is turning out to be equipment issues. I have been noticing the line feeding the Flourish Comprehensive has been losing its prime, and therefore back siphoning back down through the auto doser into the container. So, in typing this I have reminded myself I should go swap in a new check valve.... Oh the fun of spilling Flourish everywhere. 

Also, the CO2 just wasn't getting to decent levels. Not sure how I went from a 1.0 drop to max 0.6 - 0.8 pH drop, but I will continue battling with all I've got. Who knows, it was probably just testing errors on my end back when I was getting the 1.0 drop. So, yesterday I build a new larger reactor to clean up the inside of the stand, allow me to run the filter @ 100% output and so far no bubbles are being blown out the returns of the filter. Go figure the CO2 tank's pressure has started dropping and the store isn't open until Wednesday, so hopefully no EOTD and hopefully it will last today and tomorrow. But, fresh CO2 tank + fresh filter + fresh reactor = fresh and exciting new start. 

Now, the bigger issue it the darn MC carpet, I hacked it way back about a month ago and algae was the main thing that was growing back. So I hacked + siphoned the carpet really really well (sorry shrimplets), and if it does not grow back nicely this time I will start the painstaking process of removing the carpet. (see pick of mowed MC). 

Other than that I cleaned up some of the stems that were actually growing, found some Rotala wallichii that was growing, so I left a little spot for it, moved some stems around and did a general tidy of mulm.

Oh, and the fish have stringy waste again so I'll have to remove the Purigen and treat again, maybe do 3 doses instead of 2 this time and hopefully get them healthy. 

AR mini










MC carpet











New reactor


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Couple pictures after the main light shuts off for the day

So:
1 x 24" Current Satellite LED plus non-pro - Reds only @100%
1 x 36" AquaticLife 15W Modular LED strip - 50/50 10,000k / actinic - @100%

Rotala colorata









Cryptocoryne lutea 'Hobbit' (my personal favourite crypt species)









AR mini









Rotala macrandra


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## Wobblebonk (Feb 13, 2018)

I've got a silly question, I have a rotala that someone gave me free with some other stuff. It looks almost exactly like your macrandra but I always thought macrandra had bigger leaves? It's got like little midget rotala leaves... is it like mermaid weed with wildly different leaves based on conditions or is it 2 different types of rotala?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Rotala mini butterfly perhaps? 

Usually the macrandra has much larger leaves, but I've been playing / changing way too many things on this tank to give it a change to fully bounce back. That is my mission for this week + next week, bring back consistency and give the plants a chance to grow without me changing something.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Not much to update this week. 
CO2 dialed at a 1.0 drop.
Added a dose of K2SO4 to get the K ppm up.
Macros are being dosed 75% up front and 25% mid week. 
Plant growth was much better, so I will go ahead and do the same this week. 
Might try and increase the CO2 and look into a bypass for the reactor as the gas bubble is still in there 4-5 hours after the lights go out.
Still undecided on the MC carpet, it pearls like crazy, but I'm not seeing much regrowth, so time will tell. 


Ignore the gourami photo bombing, one thing I've learned is keeping the other half happy is extremely important, and she HAD to have that fish. I'll admit, the gourami is entertaining most days 

Overview









FTS









Left side









Right side









Cryptocoryne undulata 'red'


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Things are looking great. Plants look happy and healthy.

Nice work!!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Woah.... Uh, thanks Joe lol


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Still keeping most things the same. 

Rotala nanjenshan and Didiplis diandra are very stunted still, I've got a few new species mailed out today so I will be removing and replacing them mid week. 

Rotala macrandra, Proserpinaca palustris and oddly Pogostemon erectus are slow going, but not stunted. 

I moved around a few things too, trying to find something that I like to look at. Although the Bacopa var. "compact" and Blyxa japonica are getting very thick... Even after thinning the Blyxa out. 

Overall I did a plant tidy up, remove + trim. Trying to keep the ones that are growing and replace the ones that are not. MC carpet is growing back better this time around, however the old cut stems are still algae magnets. I think I'll go ahead and remove some to expose some substrate. I've got some Hygrophila araguaia in that plant order I want to try out up front. 

FTS all lights:











FTS Fluval OFF:











Top of tank showing light arrangement:











Cabomba furcata super leggy growth... but it is growing fast and is staying a nice orange / red colour:











Orange neo shrimp in the Blyxa:










Tank Overview:











Looking back at all the LED talk and bringing out the red in plants, I'll share some pictures of my "95% no maintenance" 90 gallon running a single Fluval Fresh and Plant 2.0 @ 100% 10 hours a day. Tank is 22" tall, about 20" to substrate, ultra lean dosing and 1 x 25% water change every 6 weeks or so. 

Ozelot Sword var "red"











Ludwigia super red "mini"











AR mini:











Rotala rotundifolia:










Not the craziest of red, but not bad for low tech / low-medium light / low maintenance.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Oh the joys of a cheap needle valve. 

It does not stay consistent (temp variations, a cat nudging it, loosing its suction to the side of the tank causing the tubing to bend turning the needle valve left or right, the Earths position relative to the Sun who knows....) so I'm always adjusting it. Needless to say the bubble counter is basically useless at this point, as soon as I am incapable of actually counting the bubbles I open the valve slightly more and call it good. This gets me to a decent CO2 level, but obviously it is not consistent. 

Would a flow meter help correct this?
Is a flow meter worth it?
What model Dwyer are people running?
Any decent in-line needle valves? 

My ancient CO2 "kit":
https://www.bigalspets.com/red-sea-co2-pro-system-deluxe-with-solenoid-valve.html

Anyways, I opened the valve up a bit to try out more CO2, came into the room and didn't notice any fish were swimming around. Upon closer inspection:










So off went the CO2 and on came the airstone. I've been running an airstone at night for 5 days now, not sure it's doing much, maybe the fish just got used to the extra O2 at night couldn't cope with the limiting amounts during the day?

Anyway, checked pH and it was 6.2 (normal 1.0 drop level) so I found that odd. Checked degassed in the AM .... 7.6. So a 1.4 drop. No idea why my pH is fluctuating from 7.6 - 7.2 degassed. I'll have to keep an eye on that from now on. 

Other than that not much has changed, picked up some Pseudomugil luminatus (red neon rainbow) and I love them.

Here's a suffocating male 2 days after adding to the tank:










And some more pics. 



















Love the Cabomba 'red'










Mac looking a little more "pink"



















AR mini looking a little "LED washed" these days.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Oh the joys of a cheap needle valve.
> 
> It does not stay consistent (temp variations, a cat nudging it, loosing its suction to the side of the tank causing the tubing to bend turning the needle valve left or right, the Earths position relative to the Sun who knows....) so I'm always adjusting it. Needless to say the bubble counter is basically useless at this point, as soon as I am incapable of actually counting the bubbles I open the valve slightly more and call it good. This gets me to a decent CO2 level, but obviously it is not consistent.
> 
> ...


Yes, the flow meter should help. You just keep the needle valve pretty much wide open and then use the flow meter to regulate flow.

I can only speak for myself, but for me it is well worth it.

Most likely the Dwyer RMA 151SSV would work for you. That meter measures 5 to 50cc/min, which I am guessing you would fall into. There is a thread here somewhere on flow meters where different people list their actual flow rates. It might be worth looking it up to see what others with similar sized tanks are using.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Plants are growing fairly well, the best growth in a few months actually, so by nature now is the time to change things.... 

First thing was cut back my macros by 1/3. Did a random NO3 test after a 60% WC and the tube was a healthy red colour, so I cut back macros a bit this week, I'll test again after the next WC to see if I can keep NO3 20ppm and then dose it up to 40ppm for the week. Didn't bother testing PO4, maybe I should just to see where I'm at. Needless to say, the extra K I've been dosing is helping things I believe. 

CO2 and auto dosing pumps have been consistent this week too. I haven't touched the needle valve once, and I haven't had to re-prime any of the 3 fert lines coming from the auto doser. The only issue I had was I accidentally dumped 2 days worth of Flourish Fe in after my water change, it certainly didn't hurt anything. Maybe I should bump micros up a tad. Simple as putting a few extra seconds onto the dosing time. Maybe next week... 

I have a spare 20g long in my storage room with a nice T5-HO light and a custom stand I built, I was going to sell that tank/stand/light and use the cash for a new filter ... run the original under powered Eheim 2213 strictly for the CO2 reactor and buy a 2215 or 2217 to run with some media or vise-versa.

But, while looking at that 20g long, I saw an ancient Marineland Magnum 220 canister filter that still works sitting next to it, so I got to looking at it... It's a cylinder shaped canister, water enters in through top, is "spun" around a center positioned media basket. Water enters all 360 degrees of the media basket, goes through any media I would have there, and then exits down through the impeller, does a 180 degree upward turn and exits the canister through the top. Essentially it could be used as a cerges style reactor, so I may end up trying to see if it would work, run that canister for the CO2 and then run the Eheim 2213 with some media. 

Reason being I don't trust the ratchet strap holding the filter lid on the Rena.... Plus it would be awesome if it works as a reactor, so for anyone with an old school Marineland Magnum 220 or 350 they have an instant CO2 reactor, as long as they aren't planning on running any media in it. High hopes, but it will be fun to experiment with. (See last photo)

Picked up some more cryptocoryne lutea 'hobbit' (can't get enough of this dwarf crypt), R. wallichii, P. palustris, Pogostemon helferi, Gratiola viscidula all in TC cups and then grabbed some emersed R. macrandra to try and see if it will grow "normal" unlike my previously stunted Macrandra population. 

Couple pictures:

Flowering Buce:












"old" Macrandra:











"New" Macrandra:











Rotala colorata:











AR 'mini':











FTS:











Marineland Magnum 220 Canister Filter Drawing


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Well, had to do what I've never done before. I noticed my girlfriends Gourami wasn't looking so hot for the last week or so, but just prior to this weeks water change he was looking really rough:










Unable to swim, was barely breathing, so I did the right thing and took him out of his misery. He wouldn't have made it another 24 hours. No other fish are showing any stress. I wasn't too attached to this fish, no big deal. I told her when we bought it that Dwarf Gourami's are very prone to incurable random diseases, so overall she was fine with him passing. Of course I did the ah... physical work of euthanizing, she couldn't quite accept that part of the responsibility lol. 

Plants are doing well. I cut back Macro dosing by 1/2 this week and after a water change the NO3 reading was a nice light orange:










So I resumed my previous dosing for this coming week. Also, I began reducing kH values with the last 2 x 60-70% water changes. My water change mix should be roughly 1.66 degrees kH, but the tank is still staying stable at 4.5 degrees, so it must be the Seiryu stones or Flourite acting as a buffer. Degassed pH was also 7.6 as per usual.... Overall TDS was unaffected as well, so I'll continue the reduced kH water change mix and track progress. I removed the largest stone for more room, the remaining stones are mostly acting as borders to separate plant species. 










Plants are doing well, I did a large cut + top / replant. Not much else to update.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

A few days of inconsistent CO2 (changed working pressure by mistake while changing out tanks, so it took a few days to dial back in) and a forgotten does of my weekly 25% macro's is enough for some plants to show ill signs. I noticed some algae starting on leaves, new TC walichii was growing well, now the tops are now stunted, macrandra old and new aren't looking hot, but other plants seem fine. 

One good thing I noticed was to do with my auto doser. This should explain why I kept having it back-siphon on me despite check valves. Hopefully this cures the inconsistency. 

I noticed both the Flourish comp and Flourish Fe were running low. So I opened up the jars and there was a slight vacuum because I did not have any way of air getting into the jars as product was being pumped out... So I filled them up and punched a small hole in the lids to allow air to enter as product exits, hopefully this is easier on the pump heads and allows the same amount dosed every day.


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## Wobblebonk (Feb 13, 2018)

it makes me smile when other people have frankensteins monsters lighting their tanks like me. I feel like I should go to the aquatic experience and see what they think of a scape with 4 completely random bar leds on it :/

Except moving tanks is a huge pita.
Also apparently additional lighting is against the rules


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

I wouldn't call them Frankenstein lights 

The Fluval alone was too yellowy green, so I added the AquaticLife and it really helped offset the yellows. I wanted to bring out some more reds so the Current was put on with reds @ 100% which helped with showing off some of the orange / reds. The real PAR driver is the Fluval with well over 100 @ substrate, the other 2 lights are just for colour. 

Okay maybe it is a Frankenstein light setup .....


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Nice Pics!

A few minor problems you will get resolved, but all in all I really like the way the tank is being presented. 

Funny how it looks like you have either removed many of the rocks from your first pics or they are hidden. In my tank I had lots of rocks and driftwood and gradually they all disappeared except for one large piece. Needed the room for more plants!

You've come a long way in a relatively short amount of time. Nice work!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Nice Pics!
> 
> A few minor problems you will get resolved, but all in all I really like the way the tank is being presented.
> 
> ...


Thanks!

This has been my first tank that I have really played with in terms of adjusting everything. Before I was just running a 50/50 mix of RO and tap water with enough CO2/light to make the plants pearl and that's about it. 

As for the rocks, I started with lots, expecting to make a nice scape etc. But as time went on I was more or less interested in great looking plants being the main focus instead of a great looking scape. I'm no aquascaper, so I figured I should just remove rocks and allow more room for plants. Beside, most of them now are completely hidden. 

I want to remove them all and try to get the kH down from 4.5 to 1-2, but the rocks are great at separating plant groupings. I'm not sure if it's the rocks or Fluorite that is buffering the kH up, if I'm bored I might toss a rock into some straight RO in a pail and test the next day. 

What has really been getting to me throughout this tank is that I can use all these products at rates that work very well for others, but for whatever reason species X will do not do good in my tank despite doing great in someone else's. Probably a million reasons why. Lesson is: we can follow the textbook line by line, but what really matters is what works in EACH specific tank. I just need to find what truly works in mine... I'll get there eventually, small steps should help return large benefits. 

Then:












Now:


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## Wobblebonk (Feb 13, 2018)

I have the exact same "problem"? The hardscape is basically there for the initial stages until my overzealousness with planting things that grow big around them hide the hardscape and I'm all... well I guess I should just take that rock out and plant more things. If I knew what I was doing I would plan for like small plants in open areas but pfft... as if that's ever going to be a priority! Even for aquascaping it's like setting a specific date/target for the tank to look right and then what tear it down and start over? I could plant like a total jackass in aquatic experience style contests too because it's just planting to look good right now basically... and it'll practically have to be torn down right afterwards too.

I may have gone out of my way to have the wood sticking out of the water and covered in buces /rhizome plants in my most recent tank just because I know if I don't do it that wood is coming out in a matter of months to make room for more plants. Though a lot of the rocks were basically in there to hold up the hill... which is basically invisible due to the "open" side being full of tall stem plants heh.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> What has really been getting to me throughout this tank is that I can use all these products at rates that work very well for others, but for whatever reason species X will do not do good in my tank despite doing great in someone else's. Probably a million reasons why. Lesson is: we can follow the textbook line by line, but what really matters is what works in EACH specific tank. I just need to find what truly works in mine... I'll get there eventually, small steps should help return large benefits


Very well said and very true. 

Every tank is different. Finding what YOUR tank likes takes time and attention to detail. I haven't seen a recipe yet that works for everyone. If it was that easy, every new tank would be growing Jumanji style! But usually that is not the case.

But I do believe there are common elements to successful tanks. Taking the time and effort to get things right like light level, CO2 concentration, maintenance, and a willingness to experiment with fert dosing will increase everyone's odds. 

I remember you mentioned a while back that once you took maintenance more seriously your tank went to a new level. Get things like that right and fine tuning everything else makes more of a difference.

By the way, the tank sure looks bigger than 30G. Nice use of space.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

The carpet grew in quite nicely. Have you trimmed it all all? I feel like my MC carpet struggles to get lush and green. It gives hits of wanting to get there, but falls short in some places.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Grobbins48 said:


> The carpet grew in quite nicely. Have you trimmed it all all? I feel like my MC carpet struggles to get lush and green. It gives hits of wanting to get there, but falls short in some places.


I'm contemplating getting rid of it as its almost 3" in some spots. It is a huge PITA to trim, I've trimmed it twice over the last 6 months and it takes forever to grow back nicely again. While it's recovering it is a HUGE algae magnet. This is probably the last carpet I'll do for a while. 

It is however, a perfect place for shrimplets to grow out in. Perfectly tucked away from any fish's mouth. 

If I do another one it will be HC. I find HC is more compact (see photo of my old 10 gal). It grew back a lot nicer after a hefty trim.


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## madcrafted (Dec 23, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> It is however, a perfect place for shrimplets to grow out in. Perfectly tucked away from any fish's mouth.
> 
> If I do another one it will be HC. I find HC is more compact (see photo of my old 10 gal). It grew back a lot nicer after a hefty trim.


Who needs mosses for baby shrimp when you have a carpet like that? haha

I agree, HC looks pretty good, even when being negligent with pruning... as long as it doesn't start floating on you.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> I'm contemplating getting rid of it as its almost 3" in some spots. It is a huge PITA to trim, I've trimmed it twice over the last 6 months and it takes forever to grow back nicely again. While it's recovering it is a HUGE algae magnet.


This is exactly what I am experiencing. I really, really love the look of it in my tank (though could never do shrimp with my stocking), but am questioning the long term viability of it in my tank... 

Keeping it for now... thanks for the info. I'll be following along to see what you end up doing!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Not much has changed. Just waiting on a few sloucher plants to bounce back from last weeks CO2 and Macro inconsistency. Algae is all gone though! 

Might add another dose of macros throughout this week.... I've been driving the tank really hard and I want to try and see if macros are holding me back. Actually, in typing this sentence I just convinced myself I'll do just that. So, 40% macros up front, 20% 2 days later and another 20% 2 days later it is. Hopefully I'll see a positive response. 

Really cut back on the Tap:RO..... with 18L pails my mix is 17L RO to 1L tap... Tank kH is still 4.5.... degassed pH is 7.5. Boosted gH with Ca / Mg SO4 slightly more to make up for cutting more tap water out. If the rocks/flourite (although flourite is completely inert....) are acting as a buffer I may just run straight RO with and not worry about kH.... we will see. 

R. macrandra
R. wallichii
R. colorata

All 3 are not growing very well, so I topped the stunted ones hoping for fresh growth. (See photo of wallichii for reference of non-stunted to stunted stems).











P. helferi from TC cup is finally taking off:












Shrimp in the MC:












Shrimp with some Gratiola viscidula:












FTS:





















Oto's (they LOVE the airstone at night) 













And.... Now a sneak peak at what I've been up to with my up-coming redo of my 90 gallon tank. New stand is taking shape:

Old:












New (still working on front doors):


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Nice pics and good looking stand build.

Based on success of the 30G, expecting great things from the 90G.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Nice pics and good looking stand build.
> 
> Based on success of the 30G, expecting great things from the 90G.


I don't see CO2 in the future of that tank, but its certainly not out of the possibility. Should be a solid "medium" tech tank to start. 

30G is staying around, 5G is being taken out of commission. 

Between kitchen reno's, new windows and summer activities, things have been slow on redo-ing the 90. 

Shouldn't be long now.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Quagulator said:


> 30G is staying around, 5G is being taken out of commission.


Maybe not.... 
Was home for lunch today and noticed the dwarf water lettuce in the 5G has some ill looking roots, not surprised at all, so I investigated anyway. I saw something move, wasn't a shrimp and was much bigger than all the other snails / creatures I have in there, so I looked a little harder. Turns out it was a tiny little fry! No idea what it could be.... There hasn't been fish in this tank for 10 months. 

My best guess is a CPD egg made it into the tank after ripping out some moss from the 30G and immediately tossing it into the 5G. Who knows, more could have made it?? I'll continue to watch it, could be more in there. Always exciting to find a surprise like this from time to time. I had the same thing happen a few years back in a 20G I had running. No pics of the fry, too fast while I fumbled getting my phone out of my pocket. Hopefully enough crustaceans made it through my latest blast of fenbendazole to feed the little guy, he made it this far so I'm unassuming he it finding enough to eat.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

2 weeks since an update I think? 

Went back to a higher Tap:RO mix. 4L tap : 14L RO, boosted with CaSO4 and MgSO4. 

I was rocking the super low kH mix for a while, the stone in my tank is acting as a buffer. I wasn't really seeing any improvement in the poorest species, and I saw no improvement in the best off species. So I'll go ahead and use a higher kH mix for now, and watch for results. 

I backed off on the Macro dosing. 100ppm TDS increase over where I was running the tank prior to upping the Macros. Good plant growth, but I need a "refresh" week as my 60-70% WC only dropped NO3 to 30ppm. So this week I'll cut 25% of the Macros out. 

1 of my female Apistogramma agassizii 'fire gold' was in really rough shape. I noticed her floating around during the WC -- no energy, sunken belly, no response to me picking her up out of the tank. To be honest I thought she had died a few weeks back because I could never ever see her. Oh well, I figured this would be the case when I bought them. The stock was really poor looking for the most part. 

The MC carpet is in dire need of a complete trim (which I am dreading). See the photos for the ugly mess underneath the thick mat. 

I'm not liking the right hand side at all. R. macrandra won't grow, Limnophila aromatica won't grow, R. wallichii is slow growing, P. palustris is slow growing, so I think I'll go back to basics and throw some B. caroliniana and R. rotundifolia there for now. R. colorata is completely stunted too which is odd. 

FTS before WC:











FTS after WC:











Carpet:




















Left Side:











Right Side:











Top:


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Wow, that is thick MC carpet. And looks pretty healthy a couple inches down too, impressive!


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## Bazzar1986 (Sep 7, 2018)

Great job tank looks awesome, I can only hope my 30g long turns out as nice as yours someday.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Bazzar1986 said:


> Great job tank looks awesome, I can only hope my 30g long turns out as nice as yours someday.


Thanks! best advice I can give is watch YOUR OWN tank the most. 

It's easy to get lost in someone else's journal and try to duplicate what works for them. It certainly is true with certain "big picture" aspects, but trying to copy someone else's success is asking for problems. Watch your own tank carefully, make and document small changes that work or do not work, and over time you will build up a full tool box of ideas that work or do not work with your specific set up. 

My biggest issue is trying to make 1 poor looking plant species happy, and by changing to suit it's needs, I end up stunting or slowing 2-3 other species, then it takes 2 weeks to get them growing again. Certain plants just don't work in the same parameters as others, so don't lose hope, just switch up the flora list. 

I should do an update on this tread and my other tank too, water change today or tomorrow.... then I'll update.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Watch your own tank carefully, make and document small changes that work or do not work, and over time you will build up a full tool box of ideas that work or do not work with your specific set up.
> 
> My biggest issue is trying to make 1 poor looking plant species happy, and by changing to suit it's needs, I end up stunting or slowing 2-3 other species, then it takes 2 weeks to get them growing again. Certain plants just don't work in the same parameters as others, so don't lose hope, just switch up the flora list.


Well said.

I've been keeping a detailed spreadsheet along with comments on plants species for years. Really helps to look back and see how changes affect things. If I didn't I would just be throwing darts against the wall.

Taking time to find species that do well in your parameters, and letting some go has been a common theme in a lot of threads lately. You just can't please all the plants all the time, and trying to can have negative consequences for others (unless of course you are Burr!:wink2.

Tank is looking better and better each time I see it. And great job with the journal too!


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Am I a jerk for being a little happy that the new macrandra didn't do much better than the stuff I sent you?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

MCFC said:


> Am I a jerk for being a little happy that the new macrandra didn't do much better than the stuff I sent you?


I'll grab a picture of the stuff you sent me 

None of that algae covered, rotten crap made it into my nice clean tank!  lol

Kidding aside, all of it went into the 90 gallon, looks good for a low tech tank. 

I'm thinking I'll just go ahead and rip out this macrandra and start with a fresh batch or find something else, recommendations on another red plant???


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Really not much to update.

Macrandra didn't make the cut.
Walichii didn't make the cut. 
Next on the chopping list is Colorata and Cabomba 'red'. Only problem is I really like this Cabomba and it was doing really good, but not so much now. 

Picked up some Hortilab tissue culture P. stellatus 'broad leave', D. diandra, H. palustris and R. vietnam 'h'ra'.

Rotala's seem to not like my water for whatever reason, but I'm hoping to turn that around by slowly going back to slightly harder water like I've always had in the past. Usually rotala's are my go-to and have been for a while. So lets see how these new species do. 

Like I was saying, I'm slowly moving towards a lower RO:Tap ratio. I did the super low kH and not much came of it, so I figured I'll try the other side of the spectrum. 
My new mix is 12L RO : 6L Tap, or 2:1, boosted a couple more degrees with CaSO4 and MgSO4. No idea what the kH or gH of this water is, but it's likely around 10-12 for each. 

Before WC:











After WC:











cryptocoryne undulatus 'red':










I still have to tidy up the crypts with some carefully-placed zip-ties to have them more "upright" and to shade the neighbouring plants less. 

The MC carpet is on its last legs. It's growing fine, but it's just messy and I'm not seeing any shrimplets anymore to justify to keeping the carpet... Maybe I'll rip is out who knows. 

NO3 at water change seemed to be 60ppm or so, dropping to 20-30ppm afterwards, that's good news I guess, but I'll cut one dose out this week to try and not let NO3 climb too much past 40ppm. I am feeding a lot and have a high stocking level plus dosing so... I expect a higher NO3 reading most days.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

We are getting somewhere. I'm not sure what I've done, but things are coming along nicely now. 

I've started dosing a super small amount (1mL / week) of an amino acid / organic acid / plant stress hormone mix that I took from work. This mix is also 4% urea by weight. My hope was to provide the stunted plants a hormonal boost to get them to overcome their stunting, and I think it's worked! 

I've also switched up to Flourish Trace instead of Flourish Comprehensive. Not sure if this fixed anything, but the plants are looking great this last 2 weeks or so. Maybe this plus the product from work I am dosing?? 

Lastly, I've stuck to my mix of 2:1 RO:Tap. I'll likely keep true to this mix until I see an issue. gH boosted a few degrees on top of the mix. 

BTW, who was saying "over the counter" LED's can't produce reds??? 

AR mini











Cabomba 'red'











P. Palustris










R. colorata












I've read somewhere @Greggz wishes he could keep shrimp  This is a steady colony in tank full of dwarf rainbows.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> I've read somewhere @Greggz wishes he could keep shrimp  This is a steady colony in tank full of dwarf rainbows.


Beautiful pics of the plants, and very nice color display.

As to shrimp, it's not the Rainbows, it's the Clown Loaches. Those guys can clear a tank of snails and shrimp in no time.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Beautiful pics of the plants, and very nice color display.
> 
> As to shrimp, it's not the Rainbows, it's the Clown Loaches. Those guys can clear a tank of snails and shrimp in no time.


Yep, I've tried keeping some with loaches before, 24 later you never would guess I added 50. Learnt from my mistakes. 

I do find male shrimps dried up next to this tank, the males getting swimming around chasing females and the dwarf rainbows gang up, chasing them around until they jump. But I've never seen a fish with a shrimp i its mouth.... yet


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Had the lights turned down for 3-4 days waiting on the paintball store to open so I could get a CO2 refill... Man I need to grab a bigger tank. I posted on a local Facebook page asking for good locations to fill larger tanks, hopefully someone responds. But, judging from the local auction plant selection / pricing I think us plant geeks are a rare breed lol. 

No algae or reduced plant growth from the limited CO2/lower light. So that's a plus. First try with the refilled bottle got me a 0.8 drop in pH and after 1 adjustment I got to a 1.2 without any fish gasping! So, that's where it sits.

I dropped the lights right onto the rim, I was getting a little tired of the spill over. Small noticeable drop in spread (back corner stems seem a little less bright) but a big increase in pearling throughout the center of the tank. No noticeable algae growth.

Degassed pH is 7.9.
During Photoperiod 6.7. 
Daily dosing Flourish Iron, Flourish Trace, Metricide 14.
Front loading 20ppm NO3, 4ppm PO4, 20ppm K, 3.5ppm Mg, 10ppm Ca.
Tank sits at 300-350ppm TDS.
Tap:RO is at 1:2 ratio. 
Tapwater sits at pH 8.2, gH 17, kH 15. So very hard. 

All plants seem "happy" at with these levels. Stunted plants are living, just not thriving. They include R. colorata, P. helferi. Cabomba Furcata has 2 stems growing very well, and then 4-5 stunted stems. Seems I can't get more than 2 stems actually growing, topping them and leaving the stump results in the stump rotting away 50% of the time, and the other 50% it sprouts a new stem that is very short lived. It either stunts or stunts / melts away. 

Gratiola viscidula











Single decent stem of R. colorota:











FTS:


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## AgMa (Jan 19, 2017)

So what's your total ca and mg concentration?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

AgMa said:


> So what's your total ca and mg concentration?


No idea, I tried running specific targets of gH / Ca / Mg and I wrecked countless plants. So I went back to basics and run a tap : ro mix and then just gH boost another 2-3 degrees at roughly 3 or 4 to 1 Ca to Mg. I'll check my gH tonight after work, but that won't tell us the Ca / Mg concentrations, just the overall amount. I'm going to guess my gH is 10-12 degrees.


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## kaldurak (May 2, 2010)

Have you called around to any home brew supply places or welding supply places in and around london to try and source co2?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

kaldurak said:


> Have you called around to any home brew supply places or welding supply places in and around london to try and source co2?


I've got a few responses from the Facebook post. I'll need to source a regulator / tank still yet. 

Or an adapter to convert my paintball reg to the standard fittings for 5 / 10 lb tanks.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Little update, no pics for uh... secret reasons lol 

I've neglected the tank over the last 2 weeks. No horrid results yet... Reason being is my pile of #$&*^%&$!$*^&$% needle valve was having yet another moment, plus I ran out of CO2, so 1 week worth of fiddling to get me past a 1.0 drop and stay consistent. $100+ CAD for a Dwyer RMA 151 SSV up here in the great white north.... Anyone following that is Canadaian have a cheaper source? or do I bite the bullet and just pay up??

Anyway, I'm painting the room the tank is in, so I had to move my auto doser, turns out there's a thing called gravity and my entire jar of Flourish Trace was siphoned into the tank... 200 ml's or so. 3 days in no ill results, no fish deaths / shrimp deaths / algae or any sign that I dosed that much ferts lol Turns out the rumors are true, Flourish is overpriced water!

So, thanks to @burr740 I've (hopefully) got a custom micro mix on route to my door. I'm finally down that rabbit hole. Going to make some up and just manually dose it daily for now, then maybe calibrate my auto doser / build a nice bracket to hold it at a later date. 

Oh, almost forgot. I noticed some fin rot on some fish, lost 3 Pseudomugil spp. rainbows and 2 dwarf neons, so I've done a week of med dosing and left CO2 off for a few days with the lights turned down to hopefully get that cleared up. Looks good thus far.... hoping for the best. 

I'm also considering restarting it with fresh black sand, the darn Flourite is so hard to plant all the delicate plants I've got. I doubt I'll do the substrate swap, but it is an option.

EDIT: My next and immediate hill to climb is increase surface agitation and try for a higher pH drop without gasping fish. Currently playing with that at the moment.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Ah! Algae! 

LOL totally should have knocked on wood when I said I don’t get BBA! Oh well, algae isn’t scary to me (just yet anyway) 

























Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Just posting here to document some stuff for my own sake***

Water report from last year stated 267ppm CaCO3 -- 15.61 degrees according to the report. No idea if they are referring to kH or gH, but either way my tap is kH - 15 and gH - 17. 

Converted CaCO3 into Ca2+ and got 111ppm x 34% (66% RO : 34% Tap) = 37.91ppm Ca2+. So I'm currently getting roughly 35 - 40 ppm of Ca from my tap, and using a formula I found from a thread a while back I'm at 4-5 ppm Mg. 

I attempted to replicate this with an API saltwater Ca test kit and got 185ppm. 20ml water, 5 drops solution 1, 34 drops solution 2. Not sure if the test measures Ca2+ or CaCO3... I think I'll stick with the township water report and assume Ca is in check. 

So, now I'll start dosing MgSO4 = 10ppm Mg in my water change water to ensure I've got that covered. Turns out my ratio of Ca:Mg was around 6:1. I'll drop it back down to the 3 or 4:1 ratio for now. 30 - 40ppm Ca and 10-15 ppm Mg.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Just posting here to document some stuff for my own sake***
> 
> Water report from last year stated 267ppm CaCO3 -- 15.61 degrees according to the report. No idea if they are referring to kH or gH, but either way my tap is kH - 15 and gH - 17.
> 
> ...


Could you repeat that in English please?:grin2::grin2:


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Could you repeat that in English please?:grin2::grin2:




I’m keeping my current RO:Tap mix, skipping the CaSO4 dose but increasing the MgSO4 to yield 10ppm Mg and roughly 30-40ppm Ca for my weekly water change. 

That English enough for you?  


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Okay, thanks @Greggz for the spreadsheet. Of course I had to modify it a little to accommodate my tank, but like anything else every tank is different. I think I like the addition of the "current tank goals" section at the end. It's an easy way to keep track of what we were doing / why we were changing things before we cause a chain reaction of algae, dead plants and stinky water: We can look back and figure out what the **** we were thinking lol!

As you can tell I was way over doing it with the Fe. I'm hoping that because it is ferrous gluconate that it would *not * stick around long enough to cause too many issues. The other micro's seem to be low as well. Maybe that is the source of some of my issues? Regardless I'm doing a daily spitz of CSM+B after my pH drops to <7.0 for the day until the custom ingredients arrive.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Okay, so in wake of intense talk about pearling, I reduced flow in my tank, increased pH drop by 0.1 and viola, tank was soda water as per expected lol... It's been a while since I've had this much pearling. I kind of like it.... for now. 

Anyway, it was kind of by accident. In attempts to drop pH even more, I finally reached my reactors breaking point and noticed bubbles were escaping into the tank and immediately off gassing at the surface. There is more than enough flow in my tank, so I closed my ball valve after the reactor slightly to reduce flow, increase back pressure in hopes of 1) keeping CO2 in the reactor only and 2) increase the pressure to dissolve more CO2 (is this a thing??) regardless I got an extra 0.1 drop in pH and no bubbled escaping the reactor, loads of pearling, and only the dwarf neon's gasping.... other fish seem fine. I'm hoping they can adapt. 

Brought my temporary dosing of CSM+B to 0.1ppm Fe. Dose is when the lights come on or shortly after at a pH of 6.7 (1.0 drop). Brought Mg up to 10ppm (estimated from rotalabutterfly) because I'm fairly sure I've got some Mg deficiencies. 

I've always hated cleaning my filter. Not because it's hard or time consuming, but because I feel bad if I don't save the dozens and dozens of shrimp that get sucked into it. So I added an intake sponge to keep shrimp in the tank and not in the filter allowing me to clean it more frequently and not have to worry about saving shrimp the whole time. Plus, this should keep my colony at higher pop's in the tank because I'm 100% sure all the ones I "save" from the filter become dinner for the fish. The one's that grow up hiding in the tank are "smarter" than the ones that grow up in the filter.


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## houstonreef (Aug 24, 2018)

Quangulator,

i remember you mentioned that you mix tap and RO water and you add minerals back to RO. can you explain why you add minerals back?

Thanks


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

houstonreef said:


> Quangulator,
> 
> i remember you mentioned that you mix tap and RO water and you add minerals back to RO. can you explain why you add minerals back?
> 
> Thanks


My tap water is essentially liquid calcium. It has a very high amount of CaCO3 (267ppm of CaCO3 of my 418ppm total dissolved solids).

So, converting to degrees of hardness, 15.6 degrees of my taps total 17 degrees is CaCO3. 

This leaves less than 1.5 degrees of hardness from Mg, so I must add more -- 10ppm or so. Plants require a decent level of Ca and Mg in a "ballpark" ratio of 3 or 4 to 1 Ca to Mg. So converting CaCO3 to actual Ca, then taking 34% of that (because I use 34% tap : 66% RO) I get roughly 30-40ppm of Ca (my math says 38ppm). So, staying true to the 3 or 4 to 1 ratio, I need to dose roughly 10ppm of Mg to my new water for a water change. 

I use RO because if I don't, my water would have a gH of 17, a kH of 15, pH of 8.2 and TDS of 418ppm. Now my tank has 4.5 degree of kH, 8 degrees of gH, a degassed pH of 7.7 and 300-350ppm of TDS after I've front loaded 3 other macro nutrients for the entire week. 


I hope this makes sense....


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## Blacktetra (Mar 19, 2015)

You briefly asked a couple days ago if increased pressure will increase CO2's ability to dissolve. The answer is yes. I'm sure you probably already know what I'm about to say, but just in case let's teach all the newbies who might follow your journal:

When CO2 gas is put under pressure (quite a lot) it becomes liquid, like in CO2 tanks.
Most things that are gas on earth, when put under enough pressure, will become a liquid.
The great thing about water and much of the gas in our atmosphere, is that they get along pretty well. Even without any additional pressure than our atmosphere provides, some of most of the gases in our atmosphere will dissolve into water, though as we know, this is not in high levels, (3ppm CO2 in water means 0.0003%, not much). When we use injected CO2, especially with a cerges reactor or something similar, we exploit two natural phenomena to dissolve extra CO2 into the water. We use motion to help disperse the CO2, like you do when stirring sugar into your tea, or coffee (which works best with small crystaline bits/misty bubbles as opposed to large solid chunks/large bubbles). We also use the slightly increased water pressure to help press on the gas, encouraging it to mix and dissolve. In a cerges reactor we get a lot of mixing, and a little pressure, and combined we can increase this very small amount (0.0003% up to 0.003%) but as soon as the water slows down, and loses this little bit of pressure, the gas particles begin to collide with each other, form bubbles, and rise to the surface when they are able. Typically it is easier for the CO2 to escape all the H2O molecules by "hiding" near other molecules, which is why the bubbles are often seen to cling to surfaces. (plus those that aren't attached to a solid find their way to the surface and escape fairly quickly.

I'm not a physics professor though. I just paid a lot of attention in highschool, so I'm sure there are nuances in there that are oversimplified. Thanks for allowing me to pretend I was a professor @Quagulator.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

It's funny how we all are working on similar things right now. I want to explore closing the ball valve on my cerges and see if I can prevent bubbles from escaping. Maybe over the next week I'll do so now that my pH pen is calibrated. A pH controller would be helpful!

With that said, I cannot remember, are you using one?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Grobbins48 said:


> It's funny how we all are working on similar things right now. I want to explore closing the ball valve on my cerges and see if I can prevent bubbles from escaping. Maybe over the next week I'll do so now that my pH pen is calibrated. A pH controller would be helpful!
> 
> With that said, I cannot remember, are you using one?


My CO2 "Kit" was exactly that, a complete "kit" that came with er... everything? I needed? .... Or so I thought (it was actually a gift to me years and years ago). Anyway, the box said it was a complete kit, ready to go onto this tank:










It came with: A regulator for paintball tanks, inline bubble counter, inline needle valve, drop checker, drop checker + color indicating solution and an in-tank reactor that creates a vortex inside a clear plastic housing that the bubbles would get trapped in --> they spin around and the CO2 enriched water is output though a thin slit in the plastic housing at the bottom. So a reactor nonetheless:










So what's missing? Well Basically everything. I quickly found out the reactor is pathetic and runs out of runway at about 2.3 - 3 bubbles per second. The needle valve is more or less a PVC ball valve, no 4dkH solution (instructions said use tank water -- so at the time 15dkH) and the bubble counter is prone to CO2 degradation.... LOL!!!

So, I now have an over sized glass bubble counter, a properly built 3" x 22" griggs reactor, no drop checker -- calibrated pH pen from Amazon and I'm continuing using the regulator, 24oz paintball tank and the junk needle valve. Every day lately, as soon as I'm home from, work, I check pH. I know my degassed pH is 7.7, and 1 hour after the lights have been on (when I get home from work) the pH is consistently at a 1.0 drop. Within another hour or two I'm at a 1.1 drop, and another hour or two I peak at 1.2. Now, is this my exact readings? Probably not... but are they consistent and showing positive plant growth + algae suppression? YES. So that's what I care about most.... For now anyway. I will eventually grab a Dwyer RMA 151 SSV and a pH controller. Flow meter for this tank, pH controller for when I inevitably go bigger (when life allows me). Anyway, I'll grab a picture of my equipment setup and post it here with the current specs when I can.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Well, I had some explaining to do when I got home from work yesterday, quite an assortment of ingredients showed up at my door. 

ps: Yes.... that is half eaten cake. I think of myself as a healthy eater and a fairly active guy.... But some days you have to be a little chubby  it's good for the soul!

Anyway, thank you @burr740 

Shipping took 10 days, with 2 days of Canada Post being on strike in my area. Not too bad. 











So, here is my equipment setup. 

Sleeping tank:











How it looks on any given day at any given moment:











All cleaned up for a picture:











Inline needle valve / bubble counter:











Return lines with 'Y' fitting:











Lights (wow... camera flash makes them look dirty! They look black and CLEAN to my eye):










Lights, Camera, Action! :










I double dosed MgSO4 to get the tank up in Mg ppm up fast, worked very well. Leaves are standing tall, no droop, L. super mini has come out of stunting, everything seems to have perked right up. 

Couple random pictures:

Crypt lutea 'hobbit' :











one of my outflows. This one is pointed at the surface:











TC cup Hottonia palustris finally going strong:











Female Amano:











And finally, can you spot the reason why I'm having a hard time getting rid of my MC carpet? Perfect hiding place:


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> Well, I had some explaining to do when I got home from work yesterday, quite an assortment of ingredients showed up at my door.


Much easier on the home front when hobby items get shipped to work! 

Great photos, the plants look very nice, I especially like the photo from the top.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Small update, nothing crazy. But first:   










Thanks for the heads up mother nature :|

Tested Ca with the API saltwater kit, made it out for 5ppm increments. Colour wanted to change at 7 drops -- 8 definitely did it, so 35-40 ppm Ca, exactly where I estimated it from my local water report + my RO:Tap mix. It's always nice when math works out on paper the way we want it to! 

Increasing Mg woke the tank up without question, I wish I tried raising Mg a lot sooner! Going to try it out on the low tech tank too... Custom micro's are on the 4th day, too early to tell exactly. One thing I've noticed it the AR mini tops are starting to have 'variegated' shaped leaves?? Not sure if it's healthy or not, I don't mind it though. 



















Flowering Buce:


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> One thing I've noticed it the AR mini tops are starting to have 'variegated' shaped leaves?? Not sure if it's healthy or not, I don't mind it though.


Any pics of the AR mini? And what do you mean by variegated shaped leaves? My AR variegated leaves are almost identical shape to my regular AR, it's the colour and pattern that are different...


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

MCFC said:


> Any pics of the AR mini? And what do you mean by variegated shaped leaves? My AR variegated leaves are almost identical shape to my regular AR, it's the colour and pattern that are different...


No pics at the moment, I'll get some tonight after work.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

I've been fairly busy lately, but I finally managed to make it to a LFS to check out their plant order. Long story short I took the "throw some spaghetti at the wall" approach. And by that I mean "throw it at the wall and whatever sticks, sticks" 

So, my total species count is through the roof, I have no idea what's in there (I do, just too many to list), but whatever grows will stay, whatever does not grow will be moved. Daily custom micro's stunted a bunch of plants. but also un-stunted a bunch. So I'll drop to 3 x weekly and use that as a baseline. The thing is, the newly stunted species were hurt on the growing point, but are shooting out a bunch of new stems from the upper most nodes now, so are they really stunted or just adapting to new micros?? I don't know, hence my current strategy of seeing what likes my tank and what doesn't. It's super obvious, so I'll adjust as needed. 

If you notice the title, I finally got around to actually measuring the tank (I was curious, because a 10 gallon water change dropped the water level past half, so the tank _can't_ be 30 gallons). Turns out, it's only 14" tall, not 16" making it a 25 gallon 'long'. So from not on I will base my levels off of 20 gallons.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Managed to grab some pictures. I was holding off on showing any until the new stem's grew in a bit, but that's no fun. So I snapped some pictures after hockey last night. See below. 

The tank is in drastic need of a water change, currently on day 9 since my last one. I wanted to do one on Sunday, but ended up moving furniture all day, Monday I laid flooring, Tuesday I set up some of the furniture I moved plus had an evening hockey game, and here we are on a Wednesday.... yes my legs and back are quite sore thanks for asking  hopefully I can sneak a water change in tonight.

Plants look to be in better shape. No micro dosing since my initial 4 days of daily doses (stunted certain plants, so I backed off. Stunting seems to have stopped). 

I will go with 3 x weekly for now. Starting after my next WC. 

Lighting coverage is starting to become annoying. I've tried every combo of LEDs I have at my disposal. So I"m thinking of turning to the dark side and swapping the 24" Current Sat+ non-pro for a Sunblaster + nanotech with a florasun / pink style 5000k ish bulb. This should give me good coverage, and light the corners up a little nicer. I can always turn the Fluval down some, and I have the 50 / 50 10,000K / Actinic LED to offset the pink bulb. I was thinking of running it directly over the rear stem plants, and the Fluval in the middle or front with the 50/50 LED in the middle or front. We will see.... I need to source some tubes first. 39w support is er... limited. 


Pictures:

Full Tank:










@Greggz , remember your dead rainbow? Here's a group of orange pumpkin neo's devouring my dead rainbow  sorry for the poor quality pic. Damn Iphone's.... Not sure why it died. I bought 16 dwarf rainbows a while back, maybe 8 lived... Genetics and arriving with some fin rot really took a toll. Quarantining is about to become mandatory for any new fish now. I've gotten away without it for years now, but it's time to start ensuring I don't have another kill off. Anyone have recommendations for quarantining medications? Or a Melafix / Pimafix combo should work?? coveres bacteria and fungus...











Crypt parva 'carpet' is going away (into the 90 gal to see if they can recover) never bounced back after I moved them in this tank:











Crpyt Lutea 'hobbit' , I can't get enough of this dwarf plant. I highly recommend it to anyone high or low tech!











Male shrimp, I never see these guys. M:F ratio must be 1:4 in my tank....











Nesaea crassicaulis:











hygrophila araguaia











MC Carpet:


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> @Greggz , remember your dead rainbow? Here's a group of orange pumpkin neo's devouring my dead rainbow  sorry for the poor quality pic. Damn Iphone's.... Not sure why it died. I bought 16 dwarf rainbows a while back, maybe 8 lived... Genetics and arriving with some fin rot really took a toll.


That's typical of Praecox Rainbows. By far the weakest strain, and has been for years. 

Even the ones that made it probably won't be long lived. They seem to just stop eating and wither away one by one. Seen it loads of times, and will never buy another. 

The one I lost recently was an Albino, also notoriously short lived. I thought maybe this time would be different, but that was a foolish hope.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> That's typical of Praecox Rainbows. By far the weakest strain, and has been for years.
> 
> Even the ones that made it probably won't be long lived. They seem to just stop eating and wither away one by one. Seen it loads of times, and will never buy another.
> 
> The one I lost recently was an Albino, also notoriously short lived. I thought maybe this time would be different, but that was a foolish hope.


The dwarf rainbows I was referring to were pseudomugil spp. Poor quality stock is EVERYWHERE. Combine that with high CO2, competition and some fin rot ... well you get a pretty big die off such as the one I experienced. 

They exact fish was a female Pseudomugil ivantsoffi. They came with some pseudomugil paskai and both their numbers were cut in half within a week of adding them. Then I lost 4 Pseudomugil furcatus and 3 Praecox


But yes, usually only 1/2 of the Praecox I've ever bought will live over a year. They look so good, then one day you notice something is "off" and then they wither away within a week, and you have to make the call to cull ... or wait it out and hopefully find the body before it has time to rot away.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

I finally got around to doing a water change. I still have lots of work to do though. 

Finished:
Water Change
Filter Cleaning
Macro Front Load
1 x Micro Dose
Removed Biomass + Plant Grouping Tidy Up

To do:
Scrape Glass
Remove Amblystegium serpens (Do not buy this 'moss' if you don't want it growing EVERYWHERE in your tank)

What's New:
100% RO - KHCO3 for kH + K, CaSO4 / MgSO4 for gH = No K2SO4 front load.
Sunblaster T5-HO 39W replaces the 24" Current USA Satellite LED+ non-pro. 
Spreadsheet Update (see below) 

No real reason I replaced the LED with a T5. It currently has a 6400k stock bulb in it. Canada post says a ZooMed FloraSun has reached a London postal office, so it should be here today or tomorrow. I guess the main reason(s) for the T5 was 1) rear corner coverage and 2) the plants were "leaning" into the main Fluval light (positioned towards the middle of the tank) instead of growing straight up. So the T5 is positioned directly above the rear stems, with the 50/50 LED right next to it to help offset the pink from the FloraSun and then the main Fluval positioned in the middle of the tank.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Nice update and tank is looking great.

And nice use of the spreadsheet too! Im glad to see it being used.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Nice update and tank is looking great.
> 
> And nice use of the spreadsheet too! Im glad to see it being used.


Took a nice little break during a Monday morning to play around with the spreadsheet. I think I've gotten it to the point where any and all questions (regarding the tank, not specific's about plants / fish / shrimp) should be able to be answered by reading the spreadsheet. 

Lots of last weeks new plants have transitioned to submerged and look to be healthy, so hopefully 1-2 weeks from now the stems should take off. The tank was looking really ugly and beat up before I ripped out all the old biomass and did a much needed water change.


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Nice looking tank and that spreadsheet makes it look even better!! I like that you've made some spreadsheet mods, glad to see folks using it and tweaking it for what's important for them to see.

I have 10 of the Praecox, I've had them for seven months , haven't lost any yet but I've heard they don't last as long as the other rainbows so I have my fingers crossed.

I appreciate the amount of effort you must give to keep the tank trimmed with the 14" tank height, that would be difficult for me to do.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Ken Keating1 said:


> Nice looking tank and that spreadsheet makes it look even better!! I like that you've made some spreadsheet mods, glad to see folks using it and tweaking it for what's important for them to see.


Thanks! Every tank is a different setup, how can we be expected to all use the exact same spreadsheet with the exact same information?... It can't happen because we all have different setups and schedules! So I adjusted as I saw fit... 



Ken Keating1 said:


> I have 10 of the Praecox, I've had them for seven months , haven't lost any yet but I've heard they don't last as long as the other rainbows so I have my fingers crossed.


Usually I see 50% not make it. I've had some reach full maturity and size, they are wonderful. Especially the males when they flare up. If you have some die, just replace from whatever source you can. Eventually you'll have some good genetics in your tank. My Praecox actually bread in this tank, I now have a 1/4" female Praecox swimming around in this tank, unaccounted for in the spreadsheet. I'll try for a pic... No promises though, she is still very small. [/QUOTE]



Ken Keating1 said:


> I appreciate the amount of effort you must give to keep the tank trimmed with the 14" tank height, that would be difficult for me to do.


LOL x 1000 !!! It's not that hard when the plants aren't growing  I maybe trim / top / replant 1 species a week.... Only the mermaid weed, Ludwigia red mini and Pogo erectus need trimming. The rest of the plants don't grow.... Hopefully They will now of course


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

FloraSun in, Mermaid weed instantly (24 hours later) went pink / red:










Notice how the T5 reflectors are 're-reflecting' the reflection from the LED's ???


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## kaldurak (May 2, 2010)

Ooooh, seriously jealous 🙂 I've been mulling around getting a second light for my 20 to even out the light. My single fixture does also cause my rear stems to reach to the middle of the tank to be under the light. I could probably get a t5 fixture for the back and slide my finnex more forward and turn down the intensity....hmmmm


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

kaldurak said:


> Ooooh, seriously jealous 🙂 I've been mulling around getting a second light for my 20 to even out the light. My single fixture does also cause my rear stems to reach to the middle of the tank to be under the light. I could probably get a t5 fixture for the back and slide my finnex more forward and turn down the intensity....hmmmm


So exactly what I did 

Them sunblaster fixtures are cheap too....


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## kaldurak (May 2, 2010)

Where did you acquire your sunblaster? Unless I missed the comment stating it.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

kaldurak said:


> Where did you acquire your sunblaster? Unless I missed the comment stating it.


Amazon Canada. $50 or something, comes with a rather nice looking 6400K bulb. Make sure to get the one with the nanotech reflector. It should come with a set of hanging / horizontal mounting brackets and a set of vertical mounting brackets. Reflector looks to be (in my opinion) on the better side of "decent" . Not perfect but not junk either.


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## dragger (Nov 29, 2018)

This tank is very well done, as is your documentation as well!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

dragger said:


> This tank is very well done, as is your documentation as well!


Thank you very much 

I'll never be truly happy with it, I'll keep changing 1 thing to make it better, and ruin another thing, full circle. lol


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Lets do some comparing:

LED only:










1 week under a T5 tube:











Content beyond belief with the addition of that T5.

Now, does anyone know how to train your fish to leave my other pets alone??!!


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Makes you wonder why you ever went LED in the first place, eh?

T5HO FTW!!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Wow that is quite a transition. 

That mermaid weed is looking beautiful, nice work!

And good to see some more T5HO on the board. 

You are building a pretty strong case for it there, that is for sure.


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Looks like a Sunblaster with a FloraSun lamp just got added to my Christmas list! 

How have the other plants reacted?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Ken Keating1 said:


> Looks like a Sunblaster with a FloraSun lamp just got added to my Christmas list!
> 
> How have the other plants reacted?


Really well. 
I'm still seeing some "lean" and off-branching on some of the stem plants, Rotala species being the worst culprits, so I switched off the 15w 50/50 10,000K/Actinic LED to see what happens. 2 days in so far... I honestly haven't bothered to look for a change yet, I've just fed the fish and haven't paid much attention to the tank since Sunday's WC. Nothing seems stunted at this point, I'm hesitant to target 0.15 Fe daily because once I did the initial switch to custom micro's - targeting 0.15 Fe daily x 4 days I stunted a bunch of plants and caused the growing points to die, shooting out 2 new stems from the first non-stunted node. I don't want to do that again, but dosing 0.15 Fe every other day seems to be too little. 

I think I will go 4x weekly, and eventually work up to daily??:

Sunday - WC + Macro + 0.15 Fe
Monday - 0.15 Fe
Tuesday - Hockey
Wednesday - 0.15 Fe
Thursday - Christmas Shopping
Friday - 0.15 Fe
Saturday: Chicken Wings, Beer, Sports on the TV

Repeat.


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## kaldurak (May 2, 2010)

My flora sun bulb arrived today, can't wait to see how it looks!


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## FischAutoTechGarten (Jul 11, 2003)

Quagulator said:


> No pics at the moment, I'll get some tonight after work.


Try this out:

https://boonedocks.net/fishtank/

Created way back in the day but runs fine under Windows10... It's quite useful.

Sorry, the website misquoted... I was trying to quote you when you cited confusion over the volume of your 30 gallon tank....


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

ODwyerPW said:


> Try this out:
> 
> https://boonedocks.net/fishtank/
> 
> ...


There is no confusion, it was sold to me used as a "30 gallon long" and I never thought anything of it. 

10 gallons of water would drop the level of the tank a little past half way, so I new it wasn't 30 gallons. I measured the dimensions and plugged them into an online calculator and got 26 gallons.... So I base my levels off of 20 gallons for a nice round number. 

I was over looking at my old man's "reef" (more a cyano + macro algae tank.... lol sorry pops!) and got to looking at his sump, which I KNOW is a 30G long (I bought / picked it up for him many years ago) and it looked taller than my tank. So that sparked me to bust out my tape measure and take some notes. I guess my calibrated eyes don't lie, as my tank is 14" tall instead of 16" tall like a true 30G long. So now it's called a 25G Long


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Okay, no changes, just some pictures because it's Friday and I'm procrastinating lol.

Plants first, then fish.

Myrio tuberculatum (1st pic) and Myrio mattogrossense (2nd pic) leaves went SUPER thin 2" from the surface, 3" from the T5 tube. Likely better suited for lower tech than high light. 




















Bacopa caroliniana has never looked this good:











Mermaid weed looking fine as per the T5 switch up:











R. macrandra stunted, but shooting off side stems from the lower nodes:











P. erectus really taking off, @Jmarth you can have a bunch of this plant, just shoot me a text and we can meet up  :











P. helferi looking "meh" does it prefer harder water?? I think I read that somewheres..:











Last remaining stems of Cabomba piauhyensis I'm trying to salvage:











R. Vietnam 'H'ra' mass that I need to thin out:











R. wallichii stems that I'm going to top / replant to salvage:











L. Super red 'mini' starting to bush / branch like usual:











Now on to fish:

Apisto agassizi 'fire gold' female. I need / want to get her a male, but she was so aggressive to the last male I had in there for her... I'm not sure I want that to happen again. 











Only Male praecox survivor from my fin rot incident:










That's all for now, just working on arrangements / building up inventory on most of these plants. I've got a shipment coming next week with a few other species to try out. There's some grouping in the tank now that are on the chopping block lol


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## kaldurak (May 2, 2010)

See that green 'clump' of the rotala? That's what it does (did) in my tank all the time until I have up on it and tossed it all. Any guesses why some of your tops look fine and that one is a ball of stuntedness?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

kaldurak said:


> See that green 'clump' of the rotala? That's what it does (did) in my tank all the time until I have up on it and tossed it all. Any guesses why some of your tops look fine and that one is a ball of stuntedness?


Seems rotala species in general do not like my water. I will not give up! lol not yet anyways


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## kaldurak (May 2, 2010)

Quagulator said:


> kaldurak said:
> 
> 
> > See that green 'clump' of the rotala? That's what it does (did) in my tank all the time until I have up on it and tossed it all. Any guesses why some of your tops look fine and that one is a ball of stuntedness?
> ...


You are a better man than I. 3 tries across 3 tanks, each time, that green clump was as good as my rotala walichii got in my water/fertilizer regime. 😞


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> Myrio mattogrossense (2nd pic) leaves went SUPER thin 2" from the surface, 3" from the T5 tube. Likely better suited for lower tech than high light.


Fwiw my Myrio mattogrossense has no issues when it grows close to my 6 T5HOs, so I don't think too much PAR is the problem.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

kaldurak said:


> You are a better man than I. 3 tries across 3 tanks, each time, that green clump was as good as my rotala walichii got in my water/fertilizer regime. 😞


I'll thin out the nastier looking groups of Rotala and go from there... I've got a narrow leaf var. of Macrandra on route next week, I think some more wallichii too, that will be my last kick at the Rotala can. If they wither away, they'll find themselves in the pond-fish winter holding tank to be eaten by my goldfish lol

Ludwigia 'ovalis' 
Ludwigia peruensis
Cabomba var. 'purple'

Also coming. 




MCFC said:


> Fwiw my Myrio mattogrossense has no issues when it grows close to my 6 T5HOs, so I don't think too much PAR is the problem.


I don't mind the thinned out leaf look TBH. It breaks up the broader leaves stems. I'll keep some around I think. But the mattogrossense does look better when it's more "full". Maybe if I trim it once every other day and keep it as a midground - shorter plant it will stay fuller.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> narrow leaf var. of Macrandra
> Ludwigia 'ovalis'
> Ludwigia peruensis
> Cabomba var. 'purple'


Where did you order from?



Quagulator said:


> I don't mind the thinned out leaf look TBH. It breaks up the broader leaves stems. I'll keep some around I think. But the mattogrossense does look better when it's more "full". *Maybe if I trim it once every other day* and keep it as a midground - shorter plant it will stay fuller.


At least haha! It's a freaking weed once your tank gets rolling. As a background plant I'm still pulling it out every two weeks and replanting only a few nice tops. I'd go mad trying to keep it in the midground, and that's with ~20" to work with haha!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

MCFC said:


> Where did you order from?
> 
> At least haha! It's a freaking weed once your tank gets rolling. As a background plant I'm still pulling it out every two weeks and replanting only a few nice tops. I'd go mad trying to keep it in the midground, and that's with ~20" to work with haha!


https://aquascaperoom.ca/

$20 shipping for ON anyway


Ya, I was only kidding there... I trim mine 2 x weekly essentially 1.0 - 1.5" per day growth lol

Now... A better option would be to use them stupid stunty prone Rotala's as a midground... keep them trimmed shorter before they have a change to send out side shoots or "lean" or stunt... hmmmm......


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

kaldurak said:


> You are a better man than I. 3 tries across 3 tanks, each time, that green clump was as good as my rotala walichii got in my water/fertilizer regime. 😞


If it helps, you aren't alone.

Wallichii has never done much for me, or most Rotala's for that matter. But strangely, Rotala Macranda Var. always does well. Go figure??


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Go figure, I finally get things growing well and water prepared to do a WC on time right @ 7 days since my last one, and I notice a ton of Hydra on the plants. 3rd time in the last 11 months dealing with Hydra! Oh well, Fenbendazole was mixed up and I've already dosed twice, 2 more times in the next 24 hours should do, then WC the next day. I haven't been seeing any juvenile shrimps lately, I wonder if the few survivors the fish don't get are being bullied by the Hydra?? Fenbendazole was already in my cabinet, so I don't mind wiping out the Hydra again. Plus I plan on giving away most of my trimmings and I don't feel like spreading Hydra to everyone else. I was slacking of on dipping new plants lately.... 

On a positive note, 0 algae growth to report, plant's are still leaning a bit, but I'll continue to NOT turn on the 50/50 White/Actinic LED. L. super red mini is looking like it's self again. I bought some emersed R. rotundifolia and it looks surprisingly well in this tank, new growth has a light yellow - orangey brown colour with some faint pink under - leaves. I've topped + left stumps + replanted tops once already. I'm wanting to get some more Crypt parva.... and try it out again, but this damn fluorite is such a pain with delicate plants like that. ANNNNNNDDDDD great, now I'm considering a substrate swap.....


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## kaldurak (May 2, 2010)

Hydra suck 😞 I had a bout with them in my 10 and the dog fenbendazole worked great. All my 'pest' snails thankfully survived. I don't know which is worse - losing a couple cherry babies to hydra or accidentally wiping out all your inverts and dealing with the fallout of that much dead snail carcass rotting at the same time 😕


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

kaldurak said:


> Hydra suck 😞 I had a bout with them in my 10 and the dog fenbendazole worked great. All my 'pest' snails thankfully survived. I don't know which is worse - losing a couple cherry babies to hydra or accidentally wiping out all your inverts and dealing with the fallout of that much dead snail carcass rotting at the same time 😕


Believe me on this one.... My neocardina colony genetics are top notch... Grade 'A' quality. They have survived / bread in a tank where the only gH source was from my CO2 breaking down some stones (before I knew about water softener stripping the water of all Ca and Mg), then being dumped into an 'uncycled' tank with 0 biofilm, then having to live with high nitrates, CO2, 50% water changes and fish terrorizing them daily.... All while going through 3 x Hydra treatments with Fenbendazole (snails all lived too)..... Hopefully they can pull through for me on this one


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## kaldurak (May 2, 2010)

My cherries, too, have been beasts and lived through the wars. I am contemplating fixing the seal in my spec v and creating a low tech setup just to breed them faster. They 'breed' great in my 20....the babies though.....I am lucky if 2 or 3 survive each hatching. My Chilis and cpd's have discovered baby shrimp are as just as easy to hunt as any other micro fauna.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

New plants came in, they are getting a 24 hour bath in a 0.4g / 10 gallons (4 x normal dose) fenbendazole solution to ensure I am not adding more hydra to the tank, I'm sick of having to treat the entire tank time and time again. Water change tonight hopefully.

I forgot to include a picture of the Praecox rainbow fry I somehow managed to raise:










The adult females are all swollen, but without any moss in the tank that I used to routinely remove and toss into a 5 gal holding tank I doubt I'll ever get more survivors (that's the only way this young one made it).


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Okay, I said screw it and hacked everything way back. Left a lot of stumps behind to continue building inventory. I'm going to shoot for 0.15 Fe daily to see what happens (currently on day 5 of doing so) no real surprises just yet.


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## OVT (Nov 29, 2011)

What's up with that spreadsheet? I'm seeing it popping all over the place.
Personally, I would not let Microsoft anywhere near my tanks


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

OVT said:


> What's up with that spreadsheet? I'm seeing it popping all over the place.
> Personally, I would not let Microsoft anywhere near my tanks


I tried to make mine as informative as possible, a snapshot of exactly whats up with my tank at that time. Apple already has my fingerprints, facial recognition and banking info, so I'm pooched if they feel like framing me, I figured having some fish tank info on the interweb shouldn't be all that bad....


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

OVT said:


> What's up with that spreadsheet? I'm seeing it popping all over the place.
> Personally, I would not let Microsoft anywhere near my tanks


I put together that spreadsheet and posted it up to a Google Drive a while back. 

The idea is to be able to post a snapshot of your tank, making it easier for others to see what you are up to.

Anytime I make changes, I take a snapshot and date it, so I can go look back and see where I was at any particular time. Cells outlined in red are calculated from other entries.

Link is my signature, and anyone is welcome to use it and modify to their needs.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Been a while -- Super busy with the holidays, off work for a while, damn life getting in the way of my fish tank again! >

Been dosing my micro levels daily for 3 weeks now (I think) and mostly having goods results. Some stunted tips on plants I topped + replanted: Mermaid weed and P. erectus. The mermaid is bouncing back, P. erectus is taking it's sweet time. Rotala's seem to be dosing "OK" but they are bending over / showing interveinal chlorosis. Ludwigia species are absolutely loving my water, same as myrio. AR mini is struggling, so it P. helferi, but overall I'm seeing decent growth across the board. 

Interveinal chlorosis - I checked CO2, I was only getting a 0.8 pH drop, got that adjusted to a 1.0 drop but will continue to increase back up to at least a 1.2. Going to dose 0.05ppm Fe from gluconate on top of my 0.15ppm Fe DTPA from the micro mix. I'll watch for a response. I should bust out the NO3 and PO4 liquid kits for fun, see where I'm sitting... 

I noticed some surface film beginning, so I got a cheap surface skimmer that I'll try out. My dual filter outlets are basically 90% one side and 10% the other, so I'm going to install an Ehiem quick connect valve onto the 90% flow side to balance out the flow, likely increasing back pressure = more CO2 dissolved as well. I'll do that when I hook up the surface skimmer (I'll monitor pH after and watch for additional off-gassing). 

Picked up 4 x skull creek rainbows, 2 male (adult) praecox rainbows, 6 more pseudomugil paskai and 6 more threadfin rainbows. All in good health. This brings me back up to heavily stocked after I lost half my fish to a fin-rot incident. Found a berried female orange shrimp as well, first one in a long time. 

Intake filter sponge is a must for anyone with shrimp. Filter maintenance was SUPER easy when I wasn't worried about flushing 25+ shrimplets from the filter onto my front lawn. All the sponges in the filter were fairly clean, so the additional intake sponge is doing WORK. Weekly cleaning of the intake sponge has given me no troubles at all. Plus, it's an instant cycle for any new tank if need be. I always have a stockpile of the Fluval Edge Prefilter sponges on hand. 

FTS:



















Cabomba "purple"



















Rotala colorata bouncing back:










Spreadsheet:











Video:


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## CMcNam (Dec 5, 2018)

That is stunning! What kind of skimmer did you get? Does it hook up to the intake? I may be looking for one as well.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

CMcNam said:


> That is stunning! What kind of skimmer did you get? Does it hook up to the intake? I may be looking for one as well.


Not sure, the writing is in a far eastern language... it's a 100% identical knockoff of the Fluval one. Comes with some super shady adapters / parts for a true "make it fit" solution. Literately some different sized green hacked up Ehiem tubing and Fluval flex hose LOL it was $15 free 2 day shipping from Amazon so I'm not complaining. I originally ordered a "Lilly Pipe" glass surface skimmer, got scammed on that but Amazon refunded me plus left me with a neat non-skimmer 1/2" glass intake. I'll get a pic / vid once up and running. 

Next step after getting the plumbing figured out is thinning out my species list. I've got some more cuts to make to the roster >


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Nice update Zach!

Tank is looking fantastic and enjoyed all of the pictures. 

Of course, I also enjoyed seeing the Bows in the video. Looks like they are very happy in your tank.

Looking at your dosing, your relatively high K might benefit from a small boost in N & P. But honestly, things look pretty darn good so I wouldn't change too much. 

And it looks like you are at a place that I think many tanks get too. Tweaking things to get the most out of some plants vs. pleasing everything. IMO, it's difficult to bring everything to a peak, as different species of plants have different needs. 

Just saying don't feel too bad if you have trouble with some species. Sometimes it's easier to concentrate on the ones that do.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Nice update Zach!
> 
> Tank is looking fantastic and enjoyed all of the pictures.


Thank you, as always!



Greggz said:


> Of course, I also enjoyed seeing the Bows in the video. Looks like they are very happy in your tank.


I'll always have a soft spot for them as they were my first grouping of fish in my very first "real" planted tank, way back when... before I went off to university. My parents thought I was crazy LOL



Greggz said:


> Looking at your dosing, your relatively high K might benefit from a small boost in N & P. But honestly, things look pretty darn good so I wouldn't change too much.


Yep, 100% agree. I changed a bunch of things on impulse and it either worked or didn't. No real rhyme or reason, but I'm going to get down and serious with putting a "why" to my "what" . K does seem high, I can always adjust if needed -- drop kH by 0.5 degree = less KHCO3 etc. or I can bump N and P slightly first and see what happens. 



Greggz said:


> And it looks like you are at a place that I think many tanks get too. Tweaking things to get the most out of some plants vs. pleasing everything. IMO, it's difficult to bring everything to a peak, as different species of plants have different needs.
> 
> Just saying don't feel too bad if you have trouble with some species. Sometimes it's easier to concentrate on the ones that do.


Again, I agree 100%. That is why most rotala's are on the chopping block, and some of the real weeds (Pogo gayi) are likely going to go. I'll focus on the real stunners that are showing strong health in my water. It comes in waves, they do well and then just completely melt back, leaving 2 or 3 salvageable stems only to taunt me and do the same thing a month later, cycle starts again.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Almost 1 year old!

Surface skimmer -- What a disaster. Will not buy a cheap one again, I thought it was an exact replica of the Fluval branded one, but I was wrong. The materials used are sub-par compared to the Fluval. The adjuster screw that controls the amount of water taken in through the water column completely seized. I MEAN COMPLETELY. I hooked up my 18V impact gun to it and let it go... well I got it to come loose but uhrm..... you can figure out the rest, it's somewhere in the trash now. 

Moving on, the surface film has receded anyway and has not returned over the past 1.5-2 weeks, so I'm not too worried about surface skimming at this time. 

CO2 / pH continues to taunt me, sticking at 0.8. I've opened the needle valve a bit more... I'll continue to monitor. 

Now on to fertilizing:

Took some readings Pre-water change (delayed 3 days = 10 days since my last WC)

NO3 - 20ppm
PO4 - 2ppm

So, I'm thinking these are a little low and the plants are running on a lean mixture later in the week... I will add a mid week 10ppm shot of NO3 and 2-3ppm PO4 plus whatever K ppm comes with KNO3 and KH2PO4 (I dropped KHCO3 dosing to target 1.5 degrees of kH thus lowering K a bit --- still super high though) - See summary spreadsheet. 

Now onto micros:

I saw no response the daily micros, I'm going to ease back and target 0.2ppm Fe 3 x weekly and observe. See summary spreadsheet. MIGHT do 4 x weekly. 

Culled and thinned and replanted a bunch of stems, some of the thicker areas were really hurting flow, they were noticeably colder in the thick of them compared to the open areas of the tank... 

Noticing more and more BBA. I think I'm getting a small build up of organics in the tank. It might be time for a true rip apart, clean and replant. That will be a big job saving shrimp, catching fish and then cleaning up the substrate without disturbing too - too much. Full weekend job I would think. 

Anyway, some pics:















































Rotala I was mentioning last week:











Ludwigia ovalis:


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

I really like the part of taking the impact hammer to the skimmer! 

The tank looks good. Where is the BBA occurring? I couldn't see any in the photos.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

That picture of the Ludwigia Ovalis makes me miss mine a little bit...

And that Monte Carlo is THICK... I know we talked about it in the past, but if you do rip everything apart do you think you would replant it?


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Something I've noticed lately.

Some of you guys have got a way of making a smaller tank present itself as much bigger. 

Nicely done!


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## Rush3737 (Jan 15, 2013)

Greggz said:


> Something I've noticed lately.
> 
> Some of you guys have got a way of making a smaller tank present itself as much bigger.
> 
> Nicely done!


Agreed, I tend to look at journals for 55-90 gallon tanks for information that will be similar for my 75g, but when I do pop into threads like this one I am amazed at how when aquascaping is done so well it can really make things look so much bigger than they are. It really comes down to not expecting to see so much details in something smaller, but it's there and the results are so impressive.


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## kaldurak (May 2, 2010)

Greggz said:


> Something I've noticed lately.
> 
> Some of you guys have got a way of making a smaller tank present itself as much bigger.
> 
> Nicely done!


😉 it's these 20 and 30 gallon long tanks where we stuff them with plants to the point where you only see the substrate from the front of the tank 🙂 we dont know when to stop packing them in, and severe collectoritus.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Ken Keating1 said:


> I really like the part of taking the impact hammer to the skimmer!
> 
> The tank looks good. Where is the BBA occurring? I couldn't see any in the photos.


Thank you, I'll have to grab some pics of the BBA I guess.
Just for the record I only let it grow in strategically chosen spots to avoid online forum criticism 
Well I got a new impact gun for Christmas... and I "needed" an excuse to use it! Guess what?.... It works very well >



Grobbins48 said:


> That picture of the Ludwigia Ovalis makes me miss mine a little bit...
> 
> And that Monte Carlo is THICK... I know we talked about it in the past, but if you do rip everything apart do you think you would replant it?


I was surprised at the leaf shape and color of the ovalis. I only bought it because it was something "new" but I really like it. It's definitely staying around for a while. 

As for the MC. No, if I ever remove it I will not add it back. "If I do" it will be a small amount and no way will I let it get so thick again. Chopping it now is a waste. Better to just remove the whole clump / siphon away the crud and replant if I so choose to use it again. HC would have been a smaller choice, it stays more compact in my experience. But, I've never kept MC before this tank, so I wanted to give it a try. 

Crypt lutea "hobbit" + Crypt parva + Hygro araguaia would up the majority of the foreground if I were to do it again. 



Greggz said:


> Something I've noticed lately.
> 
> Some of you guys have got a way of making a smaller tank present itself as much bigger.
> 
> Nicely done!


Thank you! I really like the footprint of this tank. I would prefer the extra 2" of height found in a true 30G Long, maybe even the extra height and depth of a 40 breeder... Although the stand "is" big enough for a 3' 65G ... hmmmmmmm :grin2: I've got spare filter and my lights already fit a 3' tank... more Sunblaster fixtures are only free 2 day shipping away.....



Rush3737 said:


> Agreed, I tend to look at journals for 55-90 gallon tanks for information that will be similar for my 75g, but when I do pop into threads like this one I am amazed at how when aquascaping is done so well it can really make things look so much bigger than they are. It really comes down to not expecting to see so much details in something smaller, but it's there and the results are so impressive.


The "25 gallon" is fairly misleading, because it is a full 36" long... Much better for stocking, and gives the illusion of a large tank. I picked smaller plants on purpose. The larger plants throw off the scale. Crypts/Swords/Helanthium/Lilies all were once in this tank but, they got massive in a hurry, so I opted out for finer plants. The aquapscaping was just trial and error. Lets not forget where this tank came from:





















kaldurak said:


> 😉 it's these 20 and 30 gallon long tanks where we stuff them with plants to the point where you only see the substrate from the front of the tank 🙂 we dont know when to stop packing them in, and severe collectoritus.


Yep, the "long" is what sets them apart. Same scale as the 4' and 6' tanks in terms of Length X Width X Height

Collectoritus is real... I have a shopping cart saved on theplantguy.ca ready to go... But I told myself on New Year's I have to stop spending money on "certain" things.... brb going to find my wallet :wink2:


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

@Ken Keating1

As promised, here are some pictures of my strategically placed BBA tuffs  I'm not too worried about a little bit of algae. H2O2 will have to come back out at each water change and I'll take out any I see. 

Sorry for the low quality photo's. I was rushed and couldn't be bothered to grab high quality photos of my ugly bits lol

I'm going to reduce feeding as well. I was feeding fairly heavy to try and get some size on some various pseudomugil spp. that are looking thin, but... I think a few of them are plain poor genetics, withering away after a few months while others are thriving. 

Front corner of glass:











Jaba Fern 'windelov' I can easily remove older leaves that are affected:











Deep down within the plant mass on a rock I have:


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

A teardown for that trivial amount of BBA? naww, you must be mad! See, you made the mistake of providing pics and thus validated its existence. Remember, "pics, or it didn't happen!"


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Quick, delete Post #166 before anyone else sees it!!!

All joking aside, it's helpful to post or mention the negative side of our tanks as it's a reminder to all that BBA is always there, lurking in the background, and ready to pounce at any moment the conditions are right for it. I have BBA tuffs here and there, some at the output of my sump nozzle near the top of the tank, where the light is the brightest and the flow is the fastest, and other tuffs at the bottom of the tank, under the java fern, where the flow is the slowest and the light is the lowest. And like you, I have some tuffs on the tips of the java fern. One would not notice it if looking at the tank or photos, but it is there, you just have to go looking for it.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Gave the tank a midweek shot of 10ppm NO3 and 3ppm PO4. Hopefully that will allow levels to stay in a more preferable level for plant uptake. I'm fairly sure I was running out of macros and carbon for how hard I am driving PAR at the plants. 

I forgot when I doses micros, so I'll go ahead and dose tonight for sure, that will either be the 3rd or 4th dose targeting 0.2ppm Fe. Now, I have a small dry-erase whiteboard that I'll leave with the tank so I can check off when I dose for next week. 

In other news, I ripped out the Myrio tuberculatum. Trimming 3x weekly is getting annoying, but I left the Myrio mattogrossense. The mattogrossense is a little more forgiving because it does a lot of side shooting so I never have to replant tops, just trim away the tallest stems and let the smaller side shoots take over. Efficiency is not laziness people 

The MC carpet was starting to really float up, so I simple pressed down on it with my hand and it seemed to stay put... If it doesn't I'll use some sort of tooth-pick to secure it down to the substrate. Or rip it out entirely... ugh that's a big messy job, not to mention a lot of shrimplets would be lost in the process. I added some substrate barriers to keep the MC out of the Crypt lutea 'hobbit' and the Hygro araguaia. 

Thinned out the L. cardinalis and Hottonia palustris, man the H. palustris is a weed once it gets going, but it does't side shoot and only needs trimming once a week if not once every two weeks. 

H2O2'd any visiable BBA, and thinned out old growth on the Java Fern 'windelov'. I'll keep the syringe and H2O2 at the ready for the next few water changes. 

I've got the tank to a 1.0 drop in pH. Going to attempt to get back to my 1.2 drop that seemed to be the most favorable. Maybe I'll back it down to a 1.1 because looking back, my praecox rainbows were gasping from time to time at the 1.2 drop. 

I was looking at my CPD's too, I think I should bump their numbers back up to 12. The tank is already overstocked, but the CPD's occupy the planted areas where as the rest of the fish occupy the mid-top range of the water column. With the large filter (rated for over 100+ gallons), frequent cleanings and large regular water changes I see no harm in being overstocked... 

I added the 50/50 10K/Actinic 15W LED to the front of the tank again, just for viewing pleasure of the fish. I'm noticing less and less plants leaning in, if the leaning returns I'll yank that LED off and not use it again.


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

Lookin good! I like that you've incorporated so many species in such a small area. This gives hope for a pack rat like me. Of course, like you said, being a 'long' format of your tank helps. In particular, the 'rolling hills' of monte carlo is smart. Gives a lot of character to it. I might have to 'borrow' that idea -- and others. And that pink mermaid weed. Very nice!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Mid-week macro boosting seems to have shown a good response. I did not see a single issue with the tank all week. 

I dialed in a 1.1 drop in pH, no issues (hopefully) for now. 

Removed all BBA I could see and scraped the glass (usually do about once a month). 

Anyway, nothing else was changed from last week, hopefully I can keep myself from adjusting anything else and wait the tank out with these levels. 






Java Fern 'windelov'











R. Macrandra (a couple surviving stems hopefully bouncing back):










AR 'mini' with that odd leaf shape I mentioned a while back, it's super slow growing and any tiny changes seem to slow it even more:


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Finally got to measure degassed pH while I stopped in at home for lunch today, 6.9 was the reading. It "should" be 7.1-7.2 after remineralization so maybe my calibration is off? Regardless, I'll use that to measure my pH drop. 

Found a Pseudomugil (I think it was a P. ivantsoffi) dead underneath the MC carpet because it floated up again and the poor fish got trapped, I'm in the market for some more crypt lutea 'hobbit' and will likely work away at removing the MC carpet. Anyone want an RAOK for the MC, PM me or else I'll throw it on Facebook market place / local aquarium group pages.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Oh yea, I almost forgot. I was posting on another thread regarding a Flow Meter over a Bubble counter for a tank slightly larger than this one. This tank is borderline pushing it for what a bubble counter can handle. 

So, I came up with a way to more accurately give me a BPS value. 

Go to your app store of choice and download a free Metronome app (used for playing music).

Open the app and start the counter at a reasonable rate, ensuring the "beat" is in beats per minute. 

1 bubble per second = 60 beats per minute. 

Now, for my tank it was fast, so I matched the Metronome speed to the sound of bubbles entering my reactor (I can clearly hear each bubble pushing through my stainless steel check valve). 

Once you are certain the "beat" of your bubbles match the "beat" of the Metronome, divide the beats per minute by 60 and that will give you a fairly accurate bubble per second reading. 

My 25 gallon tank achieving a 1.1 drop in pH was running 4.66 bubble per second, or 280 beats per minute.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> Oh yea, I almost forgot. I was posting on another thread regarding a Flow Meter over a Bubble counter for a tank slightly larger than this one. This tank is borderline pushing it for what a bubble counter can handle.
> 
> So, I came up with a way to more accurately give me a BPS value.
> 
> ...


Neat little trick, I like that. I also wonder if the high speed camera settings on most new phones would work (slow motion). I do not have a bubble counter, but on my Galaxy S8, a 5 sec slow motion video gave me 36 sec of video, so that may work well enough to really count the bubbles and multiply out.

Still like my Dwyer though :grin2:


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## chayos00 (Sep 22, 2013)

Grobbins48 said:


> Neat little trick, I like that. I also wonder if the high speed camera settings on most new phones would work (slow motion). I do not have a bubble counter, but on my Galaxy S8, a 5 sec slow motion video gave me 36 sec of video, so that may work well enough to really count the bubbles and multiply out.
> 
> Still like my Dwyer though :grin2:


When I first started before the flow meter, I was using my Pixel XL camera on it's high speed setting and then counted the bubbles based on the video time clock and I was in the 6bps range. Then the flowmeter was put into use and that's a much better option LOL


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

You guys in the States don't realize how lucky you've got it in terms of prices on everything related to this hobby, when I hear about your "deals" and whatnot down there, I'm in awe over how much MORE we have to fork up in Canada for the exact same thing. Even with the dollar exchange, it's still 125% - 150% the price you American's pay  if not more.... 

A Dwyer here is ~ $100 CAD plus shipping were as you guys can get it direct for like $50 US and likely free shipping  I'll eventually break down and buy one...

Anyway, a few pictures of the tank becoming overgrown:



















MC carpet lifting up....










Myrio, notice the red (more noticeable to the naked eye) internode "flowers" or whatever they are.... 










Current Lighting situation:


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Looking good- super clean and healthy growth all around! I know we say this often, but that tank looks so much larger than it is with how you have scaped and take care of it.


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> AR 'mini' with that odd leaf shape I mentioned a while back, it's super slow growing and any tiny changes seem to slow it even more:


You may want to give some serious thought about replacing the AR Mini with another plant that performs. I had AR Mini, and for the first 3 to 4 months it grew extremely well. Then I increased the ferts and all other plants showed great improvement, but the AR Mini went downhill. I let it stay for a couple of months, and finally decided to get rid of it and afterward I wished I would of removed it earlier. My current thinking is some plants just don't do well under certain conditions, and if they're not doing well while all the other plants are doing great, then the non-performing plant gets the boot and replaced with a plant that does well in the tank environment I have.

Bump: Watch out for the raised MC and the dwarf rainbows. Mine raised also, and over a seven day period two of my dwarf female rainbows got trapped under the carpet and died while I was at work. I'm not sure how they got underneath, mine raised similar to yours, near the glass, but somehow they got underneath and couldn't get out. I removed my MC last weekend.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Ken Keating1 said:


> You may want to give some serious thought about replacing the AR Mini with another plant that performs. I had AR Mini, and for the first 3 to 4 months it grew extremely well. Then I increased the ferts and all other plants showed great improvement, but the AR Mini went downhill. I let it stay for a couple of months, and finally decided to get rid of it and afterward I wished I would of removed it earlier. My current thinking is some plants just don't do well under certain conditions, and if they're not doing well while all the other plants are doing great, then the non-performing plant gets the boot and replaced with a plant that does well in the tank environment I have.


All over that already  The AR is growing, and not showing any bad signs of algae accumulation on old leaves, so it's staying for now. Any other red midground plants to recommend in it's place??? 



Ken Keating1 said:


> Bump: Watch out for the raised MC and the dwarf rainbows. Mine raised also, and over a seven day period two of my dwarf female rainbows got trapped under the carpet and died while I was at work. I'm not sure how they got underneath, mine raised similar to yours, near the glass, but somehow they got underneath and couldn't get out. I removed my MC last weekend.


See post 172 



Quagulator said:


> Found a Pseudomugil (I think it was a P. ivantsoffi) dead underneath the MC carpet because it floated up again and the poor fish got trapped, I'm in the market for some more crypt lutea 'hobbit' and will likely work away at removing the MC carpet. Anyone want an RAOK for the MC, PM me or else I'll throw it on Facebook market place / local aquarium group pages.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Ken Keating1 said:


> Then I increased the ferts and all other plants showed great improvement, but the AR Mini went downhill. I let it stay for a couple of months, and finally decided to get rid of it and afterward I wished I would of removed it earlier. My current thinking is some plants just don't do well under certain conditions, and if they're not doing well while all the other plants are doing great, then the non-performing plant gets the boot and replaced with a plant that does well in the tank environment I have.


+1 Ken.

I can grow a lot of things, but AR mini isn't one of them. I can keep it hanging in there for a long time, but every so slowly it deteriorates and I end up pulling it. 

Don't know exactly why, and may never find out. Like you said, have learned to focus on things that do well in my soup. I've learned over time not to adjust things for one plant when others are flourishing.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

I should make it clear that I will certainly not alter anything at the moment to please the AR. If it gets worse, I'll toss it. But it is still growing and the leaves are not being overrun with algae, so it doesn't bother me. I like not having to trim the mid ground very often, the slow growth of the AR keeps the grouping consistent and not reaching too high up. 

Now, the other plants are starting to grow way faster, I'm starting to feel the pain of a 14" tall tank....


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Now, the other plants are starting to grow way faster, I'm starting to feel the pain of a 14" tall tank....


Wow all the time I have been following this thread I never realized the tank was only 14" tall!

My goodness that must be a LOT of trimming on fast growers. On the other hand, probably good for color because they are always near the light. Mine have to get over 2' tall to get there. 

Very interesting, as depth of tank is not often discussed. First thought is that both tall and short tanks present their own challenges and benefits. Is one better? Don't have a clue, but good food for thought.


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> All over that already  The AR is growing, and not showing any bad signs of algae accumulation on old leaves, so it's staying for now. Any other red midground plants to recommend in it's place???
> 
> 
> 
> See post 172


I missed Post 172, not sure how.

I've been thinking about getting some different midground red plants as the only red plants I have are Ludwigia Sp Red, but I need to do some more research and see what I think will work. Unfortunately I don't have any recommendations.

Bump:


Quagulator said:


> Now, the other plants are starting to grow way faster, I'm starting to feel the pain of a 14" tall tank....


You know, a quick visit to the LFS and you could make that 14" pain go away!!>>


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Ken Keating1 said:


> You know, a quick visit to the LFS and you could make that 14" pain go away!!>>


ENABLER!! :laugh2::laugh2:


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Right next to this tank is a 55 gallon... I also have that 90 gallon... But I would need a tank / regulator / lights / flow meter / RO system so... I'm content with the 10 gallon a week water changes and equipment I've got  for now...


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> Right next to this tank is a 55 gallon... I also have that 90 gallon... But I would need a tank / regulator / lights / flow meter / RO system so... I'm content with the 10 gallon a week water changes and equipment I've got  for now...


I know the 90, but what do you have in the 55?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Grobbins48 said:


> I know the 90, but what do you have in the 55?


Patsy (fat, fancy goldfish) and Steven 2 (feeder goldfish .... don't ask what happened to Steven 1  ) plus a handful of rosy red minnows for mosquito larva control. With -20 degrees Celsius weather and an 18" deep pond they wouldn't last the winter, so I pull them in until April / May.

Total cost for this setup, $65 and a bunch of old junker equipment that otherwise would be in storage or thrown out


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Well, that MC finally had it's way with me, so I had my way with it > 

Ripping it out exposed how much other plant mass there was, Blyxa was out of control, so I ripped 3/4 's of it out, R. Macrandra was buried in there, so I ripped it out (bad stunted growth never really bounced back), Ammania / Rotala Bonsai was also in there, so I removed it, topped it and replanted it in a different spot. Bacopa 'compact' mass was massive, so again, I hacked out back by 3/4 's. Cleaned up the S. repens that was stretching for light. 

I've got some more lutea 'hobbit', H. araguaia, Ammania / Rotala Bonsai to use in the now open front / mid section. The Blyxa will take over again, so I'll keep on top of it this time. 

I removed massive amounts of organics doing this too. The tank was an absolute mess afterwords, so I ran a Tetra 10 gallon HOB jacked full of filter floss on it for 24 hours, then performed my weekly water change. I didn't have time to clean out the canister, but the intake sponge trapped tons of organic material, so it shouldn't be too bad inside. I'll clean it for sure this week however, just to make sure. 

The rest of the plants got a tidy up, Bacopa caroliniana is leaning too much and sending out too many side shoots, so I'll scrap it (Bacopa loves my 90 gallon anyway) and try out Limnophila hippuridoides. 

I tossed the P. erectus and replaced with green Lloydiella. This is a bulletproof stem plant that stays a nice light green colour.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

@Grobbins48 

Time for some persuasion >

Here are a few pics from plants sitting under the FloraSun 

Proserpinaca palustris 6" from the T5:











Proserpinaca palustris 8" from the LED (not T5):











L. super red mini:











L. glandulosa 10" from the T5:










L. ovalis:










I'm almost considering running one on both the front and rear of the tank with the Fluval 2.0 sitting in the middle..... :grin2:


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

@Quagulator I am getting close to pulling the trigger... And then I'll likely need to add a few things to bring out some more reds!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Great pictures!

And the difference in color adding the T5 is amazing.

Can't say I am surprised.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Well, perhaps I may have been talking that T5 up too much and forgot to touch wood.... BBA has moved from being "there" to being "everywhere" :surprise:

A few reasons I think it has started to get worse. 

1) Obviously I turned up the light quite a lot adding that T5. I was running it the full 7 hours of the photoperiod.
2) Those darn pseudomugil spp. I got stuck with could not put on any size and withered away. Despite quality foods and regular feedings, lots of tank room and water changes etc. They never ever grew, just got skinnier and skinnier. 

Anyway, those fish are super tiny, and I've caught a few ones that perished, but I know for a fact I haven't removed all of the ones that I've lost. This means a decent ammonia source every once in a while for the algae to utilize. 

I also just lost the pearl gourami I had. Same story with it... it was always skinny, despite me watching it eat every time I fed, no size was ever put on and it withered away. Big box stores are out of the question for any further livestock purchases in my near future. Live and learn. The remaining stock is mostly from a Ma and Pa store that is into ADA stuff, breeding select fish and actually carrying quality planted tank supplies, so I will direct as much business as I can towards them for the time being (not that I'll be looking into more livestock atm, but for the future  ) 

Now, I performed a water change, came back the next day to huge amounts of surface film, so I new something was off, sure enough there was the gourami on the bottom of the tank lifeless. I removed it, and added my Odysea surface skimmer jacked full of filter floss. Sucked in a few more of those pseudomugil:| they lived, but lord only knows how stress will act on them moving forward in the next 24 hours. The surface film is all cleaned up now though. 

I dropped back the T5 from 7 hours - 3 hours near the end of the photoperiod, CO2 should be well into it's max concentration by that point.

I finally found some Crypt Flamingo too, so I'll remove the AR that is struggling (to my surprise there was tons of new growth underneath the raggedy stunted top AR canopy) and put some flamingo there. Also, the cabomba var. 'purple' is growing like a weed, so I picked up some more cabomba 'red' to try out again. These are ordered, not shipped yet though. The rest of the tank received a big removal / trim / replant good tops / save good tops to sell / fertilize the lawn with junk plant pieces. 

Pictures: 




























Ready to sell:


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Sorry to hear about the struggles with the BBA, and the loss of a few fish.

That is one of the things that is holding me back from adding the single T5HO right now- I have been fighting off a staghorn invasion in my tank in a few select spots and species- and slight BBA. Traveling this week, but did some back to back water changes, heavy Glut/H2O2 treatements (pre water changes), massive trims, and removal of the wood. These seem to be helping- but we will see how things look after being unattended for the past 4 days when I get home!

Besides lowering the light, anything else you have planned to tackle the BBA? And as for the fish deaths, could they have had an internal parasite or anything that took them out?


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> Well, perhaps I may have been talking that T5 up too much and forgot to touch wood.... BBA has moved from being "there" to being "everywhere" :surprise:


Interesting about the BBA. Last night I was looking closely at my tank and noticed it had more BBA that it every has, some BBA is even showing up on plants. I started running the Sunblaster with the 6400K bulbs 12 days ago, 6 hours per day. The Sunblaster most likely is the cause. I'm going to bump the Sunblaster photo period down to 2 hours/day and see if the BBA starts to recede.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Grobbins48 said:


> Sorry to hear about the struggles with the BBA, and the loss of a few fish.


It's all part of the game  You can't learn by not participating in the hard stuff you don't want to be a part of!



Grobbins48 said:


> That is one of the things that is holding me back from adding the single T5HO right now- I have been fighting off a staghorn invasion in my tank in a few select spots and species- and slight BBA. Traveling this week, but did some back to back water changes, heavy Glut/H2O2 treatements (pre water changes), massive trims, and removal of the wood. These seem to be helping- but we will see how things look after being unattended for the past 4 days when I get home!
> 
> Besides lowering the light, anything else you have planned to tackle the BBA? And as for the fish deaths, could they have had an internal parasite or anything that took them out?


I'm hesitant about H2O2 treatments, other than SMALL spot treatments. This is because I wiped out an entire 20g Long full of CPD's a few years back doing major H2O2 work. 

Glut will likely come back into the daily regime @ 1mL Metricide 14 per 10 gallons or so. 

I doubt they were sick. I treated the whole tank with Melafix and Pimafix for both fungus and bacteria for a week straight a while back, no change in their abilities to put size on. I haven't noticed any stringy fish waste, off coloured fish waste and they are certainly eating and all active, but the combo of high CO2, high ferts, big water changes and potentially being genetically handicapped may not mix well together. 

Like I said, most of the living stock I've got now are not from bigger chain stores, but Ma and Pa style stores with good reputations. I've also read that pseudomugil species aren't long lived anyways, with short lifespans. So maybe I picked up old and tired fish? Who knows. Survival of the fittest seems to be the current trend...


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## Omar EAZi (Aug 5, 2015)

Wow I've been looking at that MC carpet all long and was like wow this carpet is so thick how is it not rooting up.. till I saw this hahahaha :grin2:



Quagulator said:


>


Great tanks though bro.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> I'm hesitant about H2O2 treatments, other than SMALL spot treatments. This is because I wiped out an entire 20g Long full of CPD's a few years back doing major H2O2 work.
> 
> 
> 
> Glut will likely come back into the daily regime @ 1mL Metricide 14 per 10 gallons or so.


Sorry I should have specified, it is spot treatment that I am doin; just heavy spot treatment, let it sit a bit, then vacuum that space and perform a water change. 

I do also (when I am home) dose some glut every week a few times a week right now. Things are mostly under control, just a few stubborn spots left.


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## tredford (Jun 29, 2018)

Quagulator said:


> I finally found some Crypt Flamingo too, so I'll remove the AR that is struggling (to my surprise there was tons of new growth underneath the raggedy stunted top AR canopy) and put some flamingo there.



Congrats on finding some Crypt Flamingo! I finally found some too (Theplantguy), now just waiting for the shipping, so hopefully it shows up in good condition. I'm interested to see if we can get it growing a few places in Canada! :grin2:


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

tredford said:


> Congrats on finding some Crypt Flamingo! I finally found some too (Theplantguy), now just waiting for the shipping, so hopefully it shows up in good condition. I'm interested to see if we can get it growing a few places in Canada! :grin2:


Funny you should say that, I'm waiting for John to ship my plants as well... Usually he doesn't take this long.

EDIT: This is why


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

This week marks a full on BBA fight mode.

I'll accept that as this tank ages, some BBA will always be present, I'm okay with "some".... I'm not okay with "loads". 

So, H2O2 dip on the large Java Fern 'windelov'
Large trim on impacted leaves
Final removal of all Rotala species (they hate this tank, but love the pond fish tank with 0 ferts and low light, go figures LOL )
Daily H2O2 spot treatments
Metricide 14 Daily dosing -- Need to research the upper end of "safe" amounts. I used to go 3mL's per day, not sure how much higher I can / want to go. 
Going to watch CO2 / pH again and ensure I'm getting to the drop in pH I need. 

Other changes:

Going to rung a heater in my water change water, as the cold water is starting to shock my livestock (see the photo of the rainbows below). I noticed over the last few water changes the temp swing was bugging the fish, and I could feel a very noticeable temp swing with my hand / arm. 

T5 remains @ a 3 hour late photoperiod blast. Stem plants have lost a tad of red colour, but otherwise are looking good. I missed 1 x micro dose and my midweek shot of macros as well, plants overall did not like that. Hopefully John from theplantguy.ca ships my plants this week, and I can remove the Pogo. gayi (it's becoming a bit of a hassle).

Lots of gH talk over the past week or so. My RO water:

100% RO
35ppm Ca - CaSO4
15ppm Mg - MgSO4
20ppm K - KHCO3
1.5 degrees kH - KHCO3

TDS = 148ppm (I check @ every water change to ensure consistency, + / - of 2ppm TDS) 

Macro front load of:
20ppm NO3 - KNO3
5ppm PO4 - KH2PO4
24ppm K - KNO3, KH2PO4, KHCO3

Mid week Macro shot of:
10ppm KNO3 - KNO3
2.5ppm PO4 - KH2PO4
7ppm K - KNO3, KH2PO4

Mon, Tues, Thur, Sat Micro dose of:
0.150ppm Fe - DTPA 11%
0.050ppm Fe – Seachem Flourish Iron
0.050ppm Mn – MnSO4.H2O
0.045ppm B – H3BO3
0.040ppm Zn – ZnSO4.7H2O
0.002ppm Cu – CuSO4.5H20
0.0017ppm Mo – Na2MoO4*2H2O 
0.0005ppm Ni – NiSO4.6H2O

**The extra Fe from Flourish is a top-up only to give me the values I wanted withing mixing up a new batch of ferts** I dose this separately from the main micro mix. 

Pics:

Cabomba var. 'purple'










Ludwigia ovalis:










Rainbows stressed out from the cool water:


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Nice photo of the Cabomba var. 'purple!

Interesting about the T5 and dropping your photo period down to 3 hours. I've dropped my down to 2 hours, mainly because BBA started to crop up in places it'd never been before. Plus when I had it going for 6 hours some of the green plants were getting lighter in color, I'm thinking maybe they didn't need as much chlorophyll since they were getting so much more light.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

The met 14 and H202 were what helped me fight the good fight. That and some more frequent water changes for a week or two. Daily direct spot treatments, then going heavy before a water change (being careful not to burn the plants... sorry to my monte carlo in some spots... oops!).

Been traveling the past couple weeks, and when I got back last week it looked almost better than ever. I am sure you will be back to normal in a couple weeks!


Nice pics btw!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

I did some researching on old threads, it seems you can go quite high with the Metricide 14 dosing without issues, people claiming a full dose into a 55 gallon accidentally went into their 10 gallon without issues, so I did the math and I could go 9mL daily assuming 25 gallons of volume. I'll start @ 6 mL per day, and jack it up to 9mL after next water change. 

Anyone following from Canada (Ontario specifically) know of a place with Amano shrimp? I've only ever seen them for sale at 1 store over the last 6 months to a year.... I'm wanting to pick up a few more.


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## Hendy8888 (Mar 6, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Anyone following from Canada (Ontario specifically) know of a place with Amano shrimp? I've only ever seen them for sale at 1 store over the last 6 months to a year.... I'm wanting to pick up a few more.


Shrimp Fever in Toronto has some in stock for $3 on their website and they ship too.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Hendy8888 said:


> Shrimp Fever in Toronto has some in stock for $3 on their website and they ship too.


Unfortunately Tommy send me some rainbows full of fin rot, took out 1/2 of all my fish within a week. So I will not be buying from him anytime soon. 

It's a shame, he is a really nice guy with good selection, but the sick fish got on my nerve.


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## Hendy8888 (Mar 6, 2008)

I don't blame you for not ordering again, that's horrible. I have only picked up a couple batches of shrimp at the store twice and had good experiences. I did order from SKA shrimps out of Calgary I think and they normally have Amano's. If you order when its cold make sure they put in heat packs and ship it to a ups pick up location instead of a residential address. Apparently your package will sit on a cold truck all day and be delivered to you in the evening after all the business drops are done....would have been nice to know before I made my order.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Algae and Potassium Update.... and no, I'm not jumping on the reduced K dosing bandwagon just yet  100% for it, I'm just not going to jump on it when plant growth seems to be doing so well. 

With that said, I'm certainly going to try reducing K eventually as I'm sitting at 44 ppm per week. 
Anyway, looking back I could always grow Rotala's with ease, but this tank is a death zone for them. But, in my 90 gallons that see's way less K, 55 gallon that see's 0 K and all my previous other tanks had seen very low K dosing all the Rotala's always did so well. 
Even at the beginning of this tank's life, I was dosing way lower K and the Rotala's grew like weeds.... Something to think about on my end. (Of course, this would mean yet another order of plants after a reduction in K to test, or I go scavenging through my jungle in the pond fish tank and recover the few stems of scrap I've got in there). 

Now onto algae; new BBA growth seems to have been suppressed while old growth is still there. Spot treated tuffs are a nice deep red colour (so satisfying  ). Staghorn has seemed to take its place however. So, I reduced the Fluval LED by 20% or so (no display on the older 2.0 models) and the T5 remains @ a 3 hour blast late in the photoperiod. Met14 doses @ 6ml's daily, and spot treatment of H2O2 3% whenever I get time to, once per day max. 

Received some more plants and gave them a 24 hour dip in fenbendazole @ 0.1g / 1L. No pictures, I want to let the new plants grow in a little bit


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## Blacktetra (Mar 19, 2015)

Keeping tabs on your battle. Struggling with BBA and clado. Currently up to 2.5ml of Metricide in my 20 gallon and slowly raising. I want to see if I can find a place that kills the BBA without killing my Val's, mosses or Java fern I've got.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Blacktetra said:


> Keeping tabs on your battle. Struggling with BBA and clado. Currently up to 2.5ml of Metricide in my 20 gallon and slowly raising. I want to see if I can find a place that kills the BBA without killing my Val's, mosses or Java fern I've got.




So far I’m winning my battle. Absolutely no new BBA growth, existing growth is slowly being removed and certainly not spreading.

Stag horn was really making a comeback, but since dropping intensity on the main Fluval LED it’s come to a halt. Lots of Stag horn there still, but I’ve got it’s growth under control. 

My steps:
1) Lower light. Easily the biggest factor in getting ahead of algae. 
2) Manual labour. Get your sleeves wet, yank bad growth, rip out bad plants and either throw them out the window or give them an H2O2 bath and clean them up with scissors and fresh water. 
3) Remove in - tank organics to limit inviting new spores to germinate. 
4) Love it or hate it, but start using Excel / Met14 on the high side of the “safe” range. 
5) Ensure you’re at your tank’s max pH drop if using CO2. 

I’m currently doing all of those. I want some red back in the stems, so I bumped the T5 an extra hour per day - so 4 hours per day mid photo period. But the LED remained @ around 80%. 

Btw glut won’t kill your java fern. I’ve always used it and java ferns have never been hurt by it. I recently dunked my java fern into some diluted H2O2 without issue for 10-15 minutes. No more BBA on the fern for now. 

My next step it to thin out the echinodorus tenellus. It’s loaded with algae and crud from letting it grow in too thick. AR mini got yanked, H2O2 blasted and thinned right out as well as half of my hygro araguaia. These kinds of clean ups do wonders in higher problematic areas of the tank IME. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Have you tried treating the staghorn with an excel & H2O2 mix? I found spot treating that way was super effective for me when. I had the issue over the past two months.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Grobbins48 said:


> Have you tried treating the staghorn with an excel & H2O2 mix? I found spot treating that way was super effective for me when. I had the issue over the past two months.


At this point I have yet to spot treat with both H2O2 and glut. 

With that said, I would have a lot to spot treat... staghorn is covering most of the slower growing non-stems. Last time this tank had staghorn, cutting back the lights was the trick, and then slowly ramping them back up, about a 2-3 month swing or so. 

As of now, the plants are all growing very very well. Just not as fast nor have as much colour as they did with the LED @ 100% and the T5 on for the full 7 hour photoperiod. I'm okay with that for a short while, while I get the algae taken care of.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> 1) Lower light. Easily the biggest factor in getting ahead of algae.
> 2) Manual labour. Get your sleeves wet, yank bad growth, rip out bad plants and either throw them out the window or give them an H2O2 bath and clean them up with scissors and fresh water.
> 3) Remove in - tank organics to limit inviting new spores to germinate.
> 4) Love it or hate it, but start using Excel / Met14 on the high side of the “safe” range.
> 5) Ensure you’re at your tank’s max pH drop if using CO2.


I like the list, should be helpful to many. Most skip #2, but good old fashioned elbow grease is under rated.

Did you ever get a chance to measure your light? Curious as to how much PAR the T5HO is adding.

And good luck with everything. Looking forward to seeing where things go from here.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

A few other points / observations. Ignore if you want, there might be some blabbering 

First, I noticed after slightly adjusting CO2 some fish were gasping, nothing too crazy, only a handful of my livestock were at the surface. Did a pH test, and it was a solid 5.9. Assuming degassed 7.1 - 7.2 that puts me @ a 1.2 - 1.3 point drop. My tank was previously most happy @ the thicker end of a 1.1 point drop. So, instead of backing CO2 off like I normally do, I grabbed my assortment of filter parts and fished out 2 spray bars (one for each of my outputs). I installed them like many of you other folk have yours installed pointing towards the surface. After 2 days of this, no gasping fish so out came the pH pen and it was hovering right at the tipping point of 5.8 / 5.9 still! Perfect, I may have achieved a good pH drop with proper gas exchange / O2 levels! Continuing to monitor... 

Second, the newest batch of plants I received are doing fairly well. From Tissue Cultured portions came Crypt Flamingo and L. hippuridoides. Flamingo's original growth is melting back badly, but teeny tiny new leaves are emerging, and they are a nice pinky red colour  Exciting! Now, the L. hippuridoides melted back really bad as well, and it REALLY took it's time (overshadowing Cabomba and Didiplis + less photoperiod from the T5  ) to come around, but this week it is really putting on some size. Hopefully in another week or two it will poke up above the Bacopa sp. compact and finally SEE THE LIGHT! 

Every stem of Ludwigia arcuata I planted has already pumped out a new node worth of growth, and it a nice orangy red colour. Ludwigia's really like my water so I wasn't worried about it. Now, because my Cabomba sp. 'purple' is doing so well (almost @ 3 trims a week  ) I wanted to try Cabomba piauhyensis again. All of those stems shed the lower leaves, and I'm not seeing much new growth a week in, but from my experience and with my water Cabomba's take a while to settle in. Fingers crossed with the piauhyensis.

So, some pics, please excuse the poor quality on many of them, Iphone problems lol:

FTS:











Flamingo, look for the baby new leaves! :




















Ludwigia arcuata:











Cabomba piauhyensis:











AR 'mini', these were baby offshoots deep within the original canopy, so they are quite pale still:











Some sort of Buce, note the moss intertwined, I gave up on trying to remove the moss:











P. helferi (it was loaded with staghorn, now it's not so bad  ) :











Staghorn in some Crypt lutea 'hobbit' :











Huge gross mat of Echinodorus tenellus:










One of the spray bars / surface agitation: 












Greggz said:


> Did you ever get a chance to measure your light? Curious as to how much PAR the T5HO is adding.
> 
> And good luck with everything. Looking forward to seeing where things go from here.



Nope, no readings yet. I'm assuming an extra 20-30 PAR @ substrate level, and maybe 60-80 PAR right at the surface. I've got it mounted right above the back stem plants, but there's plenty of light spill into the rest of the tank, I'm sure of it (algae issues LOL  )

Thanks for wishing my some luck, I'm excited to try and get all the stems at their peak @ once for a nice picture + visual. That is my goal (after algae is taken care of, of course) !


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## RLee (Sep 21, 2008)

One other thing you might want to try in your battle with algae. I use a 5/16" i.d. vinyl hose zip tied to a 3/8" wooden dowel to selectively suck out any gravel substrate that has algae on it. The smaller diameter hose allows one to be pretty selective on how much gravel is suck up. Then I use H2O2 to nuke the gravel then rinse and put back into the tank. This helped alot in the over all battle plus made things ascetically more pleasing.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

RLee said:


> One other thing you might want to try in your battle with algae. I use a 5/16" i.d. vinyl hose zip tied to a 3/8" wooden dowel to selectively suck out any gravel substrate that has algae on it. The smaller diameter hose allows one to be pretty selective on how much gravel is suck up. Then I use H2O2 to nuke the gravel then rinse and put back into the tank. This helped alot in the over all battle plus made things ascetically more pleasing.


I do that whenever I get in on substrate, only issue right now is my substrate is clean as a whistle  otherwise I would do that. 

Even if you disturb the substrate, you'll bury a bunch of algae covered granules. No light = dead algae.


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## RLee (Sep 21, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> I do that whenever I get in on substrate, only issue right now is my substrate is clean as a whistle  otherwise I would do that.
> 
> Even if you disturb the substrate, you'll bury a bunch of algae covered granules. No light = dead algae.



Oh ok only reason I mentioned it is because I saw a bunch in front of your P. helferi in the pic you posted. Burying the algae does not work all that well. The spores are still there and will find their way back up top.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

RLee said:


> Oh ok only reason I mentioned it is because I saw a bunch in front of your P. helferi in the pic you posted. Burying the algae does not work all that well. The spores are still there and will find their way back up top.


That's GDA in front of the P. helferi. Burying has always worked for me  Any tank is littered with spores at all times, I'm more worried about burying the nasty visual stuff rather than actually attempting to rid the tank of spores.


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## RLee (Sep 21, 2008)

Lots of healthy plants in there you are definitely headed in the right direction.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Did a big clean up, removed the chain sword, it was becoming an algae pit. Thinned out the L. cardinlis and Java Fern 'windelov'. Deep substrate vacuum as well. Many plants got a big trim, so the tank isn't in it's most pretty state. 

Algae populations continue to decline, I'm hoping in a week or two I can bring the lighting back up to where I had it. I miss the deep red's and faster growth of some species. The flow in the tank is drastically better now that the giant mat of chain sword it gone. I continue to dose Met14 daily, I'm @ 8mL / day. 

I also took the time and updated V3.0 of the SS. I did the math and I was way off with my water change amounts. 

Inside tank w/o substrate measures 35.5" x 12" x 11.5" = 21.25 gallons. Filter claims to hold 2 gallons, plus pore space in substrate, plus reactor volume, minus filter media set me @ 23 gallons or so. Outside tank dimensions = 26 gallons. 

2 x 19L pails = 18.5L of water per pail - 9.8 gallons total water changed per week. 

During clean up:










1 day later:










SS:


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Glad to hear the algae is subsiding. FWIW, I shut down my Sunblaster/6400K fixture on Sunday; there was BBA starting to pop up on my C. Parva and on the gravel in a few spots. Initially I had it running for six hours, then down to two and the BBA was still cropping up, so offline the Sunblaster went. I'm already seeing an improvement. I'll start it again once everything gets back to normal, as I feel the peak lighting added by the Sunblaster helped plant quality. It may only be on for 30 minutes a day, but I'll need to experiment to obtain best plant growth with minimum BBA.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Ken Keating1 said:


> Glad to hear the algae is subsiding. FWIW, I shut down my Sunblaster/6400K fixture on Sunday; there was BBA starting to pop up on my C. Parva and on the gravel in a few spots. Initially I had it running for six hours, then down to two and the BBA was still cropping up, so offline the Sunblaster went. I'm already seeing an improvement. I'll start it again once everything gets back to normal, as I feel the peak lighting added by the Sunblaster helped plant quality. It may only be on for 30 minutes a day, but I'll need to experiment to obtain best plant growth with minimum BBA.


I dropped mine from being on the full 7 hours to being on for only the last 3 hours of the photoperiod. All my red plants suffered, and all plants slowed in growth dramatically. 

I now bumped it up another hour, so 4 per day, and they are slightly better. But I agree, we both had our light balanced out, and then the addition of the SunBlaster threw our balance out of whack, and we have to experiment to find our new sweet spots.

I've got the main LED turned down too, my next step is to bring the T5 hours back up, leaving the LED slightly choked back, allow the tank to "stabilize" if I can, and then slowly ramp the LED back up


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Okay, updated SS. 

Notice in the gH/kH boosting column I added a "23 gallon ppm" section. That is the ppm of gH/kH boosting if I were to dose the amount into the tank volume, not the water change volume. I would switch over to all things into water change volume, but I front load 66% and then mid-week 33" boost my macros. 

Also, I was dosing a lot less K than I had originally thought, and no one called me out on it  If you take the amount of KHCO3 and dose it into 23 gallons instead of my water change water, you get much much less K.


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

OK @Greggz, hop on this and get this into the member dosing spreadsheet!!! >>


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

As I mentioned in the Shared Dosing Thread, I'll do my explaining here instead of adding more clutter into an already cluttered thread  (BTW it's all GOOD clutter!) 

So, punching my numbers into the NO3 accumulation SS assuming plant uptake = livestock production (or 0 uptake and 0 production) my levels would peak at 65ppm ... Higher than I would like it. NO3 test confirmed this, PO4 test TBD in a few hours. 

So, what are my options?
1) Larger water changes of course, but that's a pain! I don't have the house plumbing focused on my tanks unfortunately! Temp shock, RO remineralization etc. etc. not a fun job to lug buckets!
2) Jump on the Bandwagon -- Target dosing -- 40ppm tank w/ 40ppm incoming water = 40ppm stabilized tank target level. This option looks interesting. 

So, what's in store:

Back to back water changes to reset the tank. 

NO3 test
Dose NO3 to 40ppm
Test again to make sure I'm at least "close"
Do the same with PO4?? Maybe... baby steps. 

Run the tank for a week and make the following water change a 40ppm targeted water change dose. Continue to monitor. 

While I'm at it, I'll try and track my TDS daily and watch for uptake / accumulation. If NO3 is decreasing should I make minor doses to ensure constant levels? Maybe... PO4 too? Maybe... Set pre-determined feeding and weight out how much I'm feeding? Could be an interesting piece of data. 

Also, I'll drop to 3x weekly micro doses. I'm dropping macro's a bit so it makes sense to drop micro's slightly too. My levels are on the high end of everyone else's in the "Master Spread Sheet". 

BTW, anyone run an Eheim 2224? I've got a local hobbyist wanting to trade my that filter (age unknown) for some plants plus cash on my end... I think it's a good deal, but I want to see if other people have run this filter? Same rated flow as my current filter, but my current filter is held together with a ratchet strap (I'm 100% serious, that is not a joke) and I'm having to plug in / un-plug / plug back in a few times to get it restarted after I shut it off for a water change, I'm worried my current filter is on the way out.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Okay, so a pair of back to back water changes proved to me the API NO3 test is useless. On the left is the tank after the first WC but before the second water change, the tube on the right is after the second water change:










If I'm bored I'll make up a stock solution... if I'm bored

But, regardless the tank has been reset, so I'm moving forward with targeted water change dosing, and 3 x weekly micro doses as follows:










I made a few other measurements -- drawing my water out of the tank @ its max capacity -- LxWxH = 11.1 gallons removed. So, I now know I'm performing a 48% water change after calculating net system volume. 

Now, a few random shots:

Sophisticated heating system for the new water:










Cutting edge holding tank for trimmings to sell / give away:


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Was playing around with a clip on lens for the Iphone... Didn't make a difference IMO. I'll have to take more care for future photo's or start looking into the settings. 



















1) Ludwigia arcuata 
2) Crypt lutea 'Hobbit'
3) Gratiola viscidula
4) Rotala indica (Bonsai) 
5) Cabomba piauhyensis (too short to see)
6) Ludwigia ovalis
7) Starougyne repens
8) Crypt Parva
9) Bacopa sp. 'Compact' 
10) Didiplis diandra
11) Limnophila hippuridoides (too short to see)
12) Proserpinaca palustris - Mermaid Weed
13) Eleocharis Parvula - Dwarf Hairgrass
14) Hygrophila araguaia
15) Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea' - Lloydiella 
16) Ludwigia glandulosa
17) Crypt flamingo (too short to see)
18) Blyxa japonica
19) Pogostemon helferi
20) Lobelia cardinalis
21) Alternanthera reineckii 'mini'
22) Ludwigia sp. 'super red mini'
23) Myriophyllum mattogrossense
24) Microsorum Pteropus 'Windelov' - Java Fern 'Windelov' 



















Crypt Flamingo:











Mermaid Weed:











Lloydiella - Only taller stems will produce aerial roots @aqua-botanicae




















Ludwigia glandulosa










Die Staghorn DIE! :










and @Greggz , Here is my current up-to-date dosing, all variables discussed assumed:


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Does the iPhone have a 'Pro Mode' or app you can use? That way you can control the ISO, White Balance, Shutter Speed, and what I find most important, manual focus. The manual focus keep the camera from jumping from fish to fish for me on my Galaxy S8- it has really changed the game for capturing accurate and crisp photos.

I wonder if pro setting along with a macro clip for the phone would give some good details? I have always wanted to try one of those macro clips but have yet to pull the trigger on it.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Grobbins48 said:


> Does the iPhone have a 'Pro Mode' or app you can use? That way you can control the ISO, White Balance, Shutter Speed, and what I find most important, manual focus. The manual focus keep the camera from jumping from fish to fish for me on my Galaxy S8- it has really changed the game for capturing accurate and crisp photos.
> 
> I wonder if pro setting along with a macro clip for the phone would give some good details? I have always wanted to try one of those macro clips but have yet to pull the trigger on it.


I haven't had time to look through the settings on the Iphone (still have the "old" 7). My clip on lens is a cheap one I got for free from a supplier's company, it does work but... I wouldn't spend money on one. More practice to come...


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Quick NO3 test is roughly in line with what I expected:

Before reset: SS claims stable @ 65ppm

50% WC = 32.5ppm - Test kit "roughly" showed this

50% = 16ppm - Test kit showed 0.... 

Dosed tank w/ 15ppm (30ppm in 50% water change water) - Test kit showed an orangy - red ... so not 20 but not quite 40... doing the math works to be 30ppm which it should sit at, assuming plant uptake = livestock production. 30ppm in, 30ppm out, net fish / plant uptake = 0. For now. I'll continue to monitor. 

Yes, bottle 2 was beaten unconscious before use


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

This was a good week. 

I noticed an increase in pearling, certainly a bump in 95% of plant species's growth, colour remains subdued because lack of T5 for the full photo period. I've now bumped it another hour, so 7 hours of light - T5 on for the last 5 hours. Fluval 2.0 remains around 80% or so. Algae is virtually taken care of, but I'm not jumping right back into 130ish PAR (estimated from other member's actual readings). Met14 @ 8mL's / day. Filter cleaned, again SUPER clean inside... I've never had a filter this clean before. 4 weeks since my last filter clean. Seals are getting tired... lots of lube on them still which has me worried. Daily leak checks for now.

Target dosing has been going well. I've been monitoring it this week. 

On the left is the tank at the END of the week, on the right is the tank 1 day IN to the week:










On the left is the tank at the END of the week, on the right is the INCOMING re-nourished water change water @30ppm NO3:










If math works like it should, I am seeing a plant uptake / fish load net NO3 production in the negatives - plant uptake > fish load. That is okay with me because 48% water change. (Probably less, my filter certainly holds more than 1 gallon of water). Will continue to test. I will leave the re-nourished tube as reference to a measured 30ppm NO3. I should have done the same for PO4 but I ran out of tubes lol. 

Pre-Trim:











Post Trim:










Crypt lutea 'hobbit' - I did my best to enhance the photo to make it look more like it does to my eyes, but it's still not right. In person is more a maroon / purple colour:











Mermaid Weed not quite as red as it used to be under 7 hours of T5:











Bacopa sp. 'compact' featuring CPD photobomb:











P. helferi finally looking good:











L. super red 'mini' - I can't get those leaves to stop curling, but I'm over that:











AR 'mini' looking good again. No stunting, looks way for red in person. Damn serpens moss is driving me nuts...:


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## Jamo33 (Feb 18, 2014)

It's looking great in there Quag. I only wish my AR would put out red red like that!!!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Some quick photos. Notice the leaf hooking, increase Ca perhaps??


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## tredford (Jun 29, 2018)

The colours on the Buce and the Hobbit are subtle but awesome. Looks like a nice flower on the Buce, too!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

tredford said:


> The colours on the Buce and the Hobbit are subtle but awesome. Looks like a nice flower on the Buce, too!


It's tough to get a photo the actually represents the hobbit's true colour. I swear it's almost purple some days. It's also tough to get it looking clean there, being in a corner it gets dirty with crud fast, and I usually forget to wave the siphon over it / forget to clean the glass near it. I want to get some more to thicken the patch, just trying to figure costs as I really only "want" more of that plant and nothing else really.


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

Think u need to futz with white balance on the camera to get the color you want because the auto white balance on most cameras has no idea what to do when it encounters our trick lighting.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Surface film has been driving me insane, and after running the UV unit on my 90 gallon, I noticed it cleared the surface film too. So I threw it on this tank last night, but the flow was a little too much so I made a few mods:



















Top rewards for anyone who can identify this "pest" :










Not too happy with D. Diandra. Colour just isn't there... :










Flamingo coming on strong, noticing some slight leaf hooking, but growth is there:


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Well, fail central thus far into changing things up. 

UV light didn't touch the surface film, oh well. My hopes were not that high. Water was crystal clear at least. I tried playing with skimmers, but throttling back the filter plus the reactor and having a skimmer just wouldn't work, especially with an intake sponge.

Plants are hurting 3 weeks into the reduced macro dosing. Could be that K is quite high compared to N and P, could be I'm flat lining NO3 at weeks end. I'm sticking to it for another week, but if growth rates don't improve I'll begin dosing more. 

I'm not seeing deficiencies, just growth rate and color are suffering. 

Other things I was looking at, but have no pulled the trigger on, is using Calcium Nitrate, or Magnesium Nitrate for gH and NO3 and to reduce K, using Calcium Gluconate for Ca or switching to some non-softened tap water for some Ca and kH thus lowering K (no kH boosting). I'll make my mind up... Maybe. 

Picked up 4 more TC cups of Crypt Lutea Hobbit for a manually planted "carpet". Hopefully these ones take better than my last attempt (BBA and Staghorn got the best of the last batch).


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Plants are hurting 3 weeks into the reduced macro dosing. Could be that K is quite high compared to N and P, could be I'm flat lining NO3 at weeks end. I'm sticking to it for another week, but if growth rates don't improve I'll begin dosing more.
> 
> I'm not seeing deficiencies, just growth rate and color are suffering.
> 
> Other things I was looking at, but have no pulled the trigger on, is using Calcium Nitrate, or Magnesium Nitrate for gH and NO3 and to reduce K, using Calcium Gluconate for Ca or switching to some non-softened tap water for some Ca and kH thus lowering K (no kH boosting). I'll make my mind up... Maybe.


Interesting update. 

You probably saw that Burr bottomed out on NO3. Could be the same for you. I am dosing similar level, but have a heavy fish load as well. 

As to K, I have been using Magnesium Nitrate for a couple of months now, and it works just fine. 

And similar to you, I am not seeing deficiencies, but am seeing slower growth. Not that it is necessarily a bad thing, as plants are still healthy and colorful. My guess is you just need some minor tweaks. 

Looking forward to seeing where things go from here.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Was not too happy with the lower dosing. Small amounts of GDA on glass, worst it's been in a while, NO3 well below 20ppm @ weeks end and PO4 roughly 1ppm. Many plants not liking it, only a select few are liking it. 

This water change was now targeted (into water change water, 11 gallons) 40ppm NO3 from KNO3 and 10ppm PO4 from KH2PO4 and whatever K that provides. Micros will continue @ 3 x per week. 

Increased the Fluval 2.0 up to 90% or so, any sign of algae and I'll turn it right back down. 

Other than that, no real changes to report. 




























Skimming surface film:











Jave Fern kept floating away on me, not no more!




























Limno hip finally showing colour:










Last remaining stem of cabomba piauhyensis










Cabomba purple slightly rebounding:










Oto, and annoying hairgrass moving into hygro araguaia



















TC crypt lutea 'hobbit'










How it should look after a few months:



















Sneaky Java fern I ripped out 8-10 months ago is making a comeback:










Bonsai not looking too hot:










Length - wise right to left:










Left to right:










Ludwigia ovalis not looking the greatest:











Ludwigia arcuata










Slow growing Blyxa and some "ok" looking flamingo:











Fun little shot of the lights:


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Interesting to see so many similarities at around the same time. How long are you running the sunblaster right now? And still using the flora bulb?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Grobbins48 said:


> Interesting to see so many similarities at around the same time. How long are you running the sunblaster right now? And still using the flora bulb?


We just had a mild snow event, likely someone took on a hydro pole with there car and we lost power for a while, so I have no idea. Mechanical timers don't keep the time when the power is out I guess 

I think it runs 6 hours of my total 7 hour photoperiod. 

From 4:30 / 5:00 pm ish to 10:30pm or so, maybe 11:00pm. 

Yes, running the FloraSun still.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Well, was minding my own business eating lunch when the power flickered yet again, I finished what I was doing and cleaned up the dishes, thinking I should check that Rena XP3 because it has been being stubborn trying to restart after cleanings. Good thing I did, it was not running - had been roughly 30 mins since the power flickered, so I attempted to restart it. My best efforts were unsuccessful so I dissembled the impeller assembly and it was very very hot to the touch, cleaned it and still nothing, noticed the lid / motor housing was also quite warm, so I figured it was fried. Spent the next hour swapping fittings to fit the little Eheim 2213 (the only canister I've got) making a big mess in the process.... 

Anyway, I left CO2 on... hopefully the reduced flow can dissolve it all, I may run the surface skimmer I've got to aid in flow until I figure out a more long term plan. I've got some hang on back filters brand new in the box, but do I really want that? I guess I could run an intake skimmer on a small HOB filter plus the 2213... Just bump up my CO2 rate to compensate.... kill off that stubborn surface film at the expense of an ugly HOB filter. 

Problem is I think I want to upgrade, and will likely run a sump if I do so no need for a larger canister in the future....


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## chayos00 (Sep 22, 2013)

Quagulator said:


> Well, was minding my own business eating lunch when the power flickered yet again, I finished what I was doing and cleaned up the dishes, thinking I should check that Rena XP3 because it has been being stubborn trying to restart after cleanings. Good thing I did, it was not running - had been roughly 30 mins since the power flickered, so I attempted to restart it. My best efforts were unsuccessful so I dissembled the impeller assembly and it was very very hot to the touch, cleaned it and still nothing, noticed the lid / motor housing was also quite warm, so I figured it was fried. Spent the next hour swapping fittings to fit the little Eheim 2213 (the only canister I've got) making a big mess in the process....
> 
> Anyway, I left CO2 on... hopefully the reduced flow can dissolve it all, I may run the surface skimmer I've got to aid in flow until I figure out a more long term plan. I've got some hang on back filters brand new in the box, but do I really want that? I guess I could run an intake skimmer on a small HOB filter plus the 2213... Just bump up my CO2 rate to compensate.... kill off that stubborn surface film at the expense of an ugly HOB filter.
> 
> Problem is I think I want to upgrade, and will likely run a sump if I do so no need for a larger canister in the future....


Well a sump with a skimmer for the overflow ought to fix your surface film issue too.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

chayos00 said:


> Well a sump with a skimmer for the overflow ought to fix your surface film issue too.


I do have a little 5.5 gallon I could make into a simple sump, I would need to build / buy a hang on back overflow and a pump.... leave it around 3 gallons full allowing for 2 gallons of buffer space when the power goes out....

EDIT: Forgot to add, the little 2213 is doing a pretty good job on full throttle, I noticed a huge gas bubble last night, I figured it was all CO2, but when I got looking there was a lot of air trapped in the intake line and air bubbles were being sucked into the filter, chopped up by the impeller and then spat into the reactor, so I cleaned that issue up and I'll watch it again tonight to ensure there isn't a giant gas bubble at the end of the photoperiod. 

Another option would be to just buy a nano wavemaker, run the 2213 throttled back to increase back pressure on the reactor - more dissolved CO2 and let the nano pump do the main circulation. 

I was surprised though.... I got all the media except 1 course sponge and filter floss into the tiny Eheim from the much larger Rena...


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## Hendy8888 (Mar 6, 2008)

Don't forget water top off becomes more crucial since the return pump can run dry. I think long term some form of ATO is worth the price.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Hendy8888 said:


> Don't forget water top off becomes more crucial since the return pump can run dry. I think long term some form of ATO is worth the price.


I'm well aware  

I doubt I'll make a little sump for this tank, I'm leaning towards running the little Eheim for the reactor and running either a small HOB or just a nano wave maker for more flow in tank.... Goals have changed slightly... (moving to a new house in the mid-future). 

Sump would be for an upgrade... Currently planning out the next 6 months.... I want to become a member of the 6' club, space and residence permitting of course. At that point I would be looking into all the toys - wifi power strips, ATO's, sumps, pH monitors, a "real" CO2 system etc etc.


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## Hendy8888 (Mar 6, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Sump would be for an upgrade... Currently planning out the next 6 months.... I want to become a member of the 6' club, space and residence permitting of course.


Can't wait! Consider a used controller too, if you find a deal it can replace alot of equipment.

Do you still want some trimmings? Anything specific let me know and I will send you a package. Depending on species I may have to farm a bit first.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Hendy8888 said:


> Do you still want some trimmings? Anything specific let me know and I will send you a package. Depending on species I may have to farm a bit first.


I'll have to take a look and see what you've got that would interest me. 

Anything in particular that you've got lots of? I'll pm you when I get a change to look over your species list


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Dropping macros has turned to be a very bad mistake. 

Hair algae has popped up, staghorn is coming back as well, so I dropped the lights again and will be dosing Met14 daily again as well. 

After my Rena quit, I lost 3 smaller fish despite keeping all the biomedia. I'm currently running the Eheim 2213 throttled slightly back to run the reactor, and an Aqueon QuietFlow (LMAO at the "QuietFlow" should be called "RacketFlow") with a surface skimmer. I had to turn up the CO2 to achieve more than a 0.9 drop in pH, now back to a 1.1. Aqueon rep claimed the unit must have shipped without the impeller being lubed ... quality control at it's finest. He recommended Vaseline on the impeller shaft, which only slightly shut it up. Hoping filter mulm / biofilm will further quiet it down. 

pH offgassed: 6.8 (some how, but consistent)
pH w/ CO2: 5.7

Flow seems decent, and NO SURFACE FILM. Plus when the plants are grown in you can't really see the ugly HOB filter. Saves me from spending money on a new canister... for now. 

Plants are struggling. Essentially all species are not doing so hot. Slow growth, stunting, algae, poor coloration just a mess. So I have swapped back to higher macros and my old gH boosting regime - see below. Did a massive trim / replant and got rid of junk, picked up some A. nana 'petite' for the front corner (very shaded / dark), come Ludwigia 'Cuba', Ludwigia repens 'Rubin' and Lagenandra meeboldii 'Red' just to try out. Removed D. diandra, R. bonsai, thinned out L. arcuata and most other stems to a more manageable size.


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## Jamo33 (Feb 18, 2014)

Hair algae or not. This is still a stunning tank mate.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Interesting things going on there.

Did you happen to test for ammonia when you had the filter problem and lost the fish? Just saying a small spike in ammonia can bring on hair algae, and could be something in addition to the slow growth, etc.

Look forward to seeing the next update and if the dosing improves things.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Interesting things going on there.
> 
> Did you happen to test for ammonia when you had the filter problem and lost the fish? Just saying a small spike in ammonia can bring on hair algae, and could be something in addition to the slow growth, etc.
> 
> Look forward to seeing the next update and if the dosing improves things.


Yes, that ran through my head at the time I just forgot to mention it in the update. 

I did not test for ammonia as I was ready for a water change the following day, figured it should be fine. 

I'll have to start testing again to see what the lack of fast growth over the past 2 weeks was letting build up.

One interesting thing to note was the cabomba purple was super sick and slow growing, but when I pulled them up they had massive root mats, I've never seen cabomba with that much root mass before. Interesting.


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## AgMa (Jan 19, 2017)

Same here, I noticed fuzz algae when decreased no3 from 15 to 7.5ppm weekly.
Don't know why is this happening, maybe some kind of plant's unhappiness or reaction?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Haven't updated in a while. Tank has been slow to respond to increasing my fertilizer dosing. 

Back up to where I originally was when things were growing very well:

Into WC water: 40ppm NO3 - 10ppm PO4 - Whatever K from KNO3 and KH2PO4

Plus mid-week shot of 10ppm NO3 - 2.5ppm PO4 - Whatever K from KNO3 and KH2PO4

NO3 was well below 10ppm at weeks end without mid-week boost.

Micro's 3 x per week
Met14 Daily @ high rate (0.37 mL's per gallon actual water volume)










Elbowed my pH meter into a bucket of water, tried to save it but no luck. It needed calibrated anyway, so I'll order a new one plus extra calibration fluid. 

Mermaid weed is last to respond to more ferts. Everything else seems to be bouncing back nicely. GSA being a pain but no BBA or Hair algae at all. See last pics for GSA on lagenandra meeboldii and L. Hippo


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

GDA seems to continue to grow like crazy. Met14 is doing nothing, I'm being stubborn atm and not reducing light, although staghorn is starting to pop up again, so I may reduce lighting shortly, but I don't want to give up that easily this time. Fluval 2.0 running @ 90%, SunBlaster on for 6 hours of the 7 hour photoperiod. 

The EXACT SAME stem mermaid weed 1 week apart....










1 week later:



















This tank never fails to baffle me. Most plants are doing better now that ferts are bumped way up again. Inconsistent CO2 is my largest issue. 

Next step: find a reasonably priced "Y" connector to run both my Eheim 2217 and 2213 into the reactor, and throttle them both back using the quick connect valve AFTER the reactor. I'm getting a nasty gas bubble in the reactor and my pH drop is not getting where I need it to. 

I picked up the 2217 after me Rena XP3 fried itself. I also grabbed a 2215 for $30 from a recent local auction, but I figure a 2215 + 2217 will be too much flow. I'll start with the 2213 + 2217 first, and if I need more, I can run the larger paring. Coast to Coast spray bar provides a great flow pattern, and I'll add the second intake to the opposite end of the tank.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Have you considered using a small powerhead to mist CO2 into the tank rather than using a reactor on such small canisters?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> Have you considered using a small powerhead to mist CO2 into the tank rather than using a reactor on such small canisters?


I used to use ceramic diffusers, but quality control has been a joke with any diffuser I bought. The only ones that were usable were the Fluval mini black plastic ones, of which would blow the lines off because of the amount I was trying to pump through them. 

I don't want any more equipment in the tank, which is why I built the reactor. 

It was all fine running my Rena XP3, it has only been an issue after it blew and I had to swap to the Eheim.


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## chayos00 (Sep 22, 2013)

I've got a 2211 and a 2213 on a 10g tank and it doesn't seem as bad as it sounds. I would imagine a 2217 & a 2215 on a 25g won't be as bad as you think.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

chayos00 said:


> I've got a 2211 and a 2213 on a 10g tank and it doesn't seem as bad as it sounds. I would imagine a 2217 & a 2215 on a 25g won't be as bad as you think.


Problem is I have to throttle them back so as to not spit bubbles out of the reactor into the tank. Throttling back dissolves more, so either way (2213 or 2215 plus the 2217) I'm running the same flow in the tank - throttling back either combo to where CO2 is no longer being lost out the bottom of the reactor. 

The other problem is finding a "Y" fitting that will work. Only place I can find are non-franchise aquarium specific / pet stores that offer plumbing parts (looking for 1/2" "Y" barbed connector). 

$4 fitting ... $15 shipping... plus tax (13%) welcome to Canada everyone  :surprise:


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Quagulator said:


> Problem is I have to throttle them back so as to not spit bubbles out of the reactor into the tank. Throttling back dissolves more, so either way (2213 or 2215 plus the 2217) I'm running the same flow in the tank - throttling back either combo to where CO2 is no longer being lost out the bottom of the reactor.
> 
> The other problem is finding a "Y" fitting that will work. Only place I can find are non-franchise aquarium specific / pet stores that offer plumbing parts (looking for 1/2" "Y" barbed connector).
> 
> $4 fitting ... $15 shipping... plus tax (13%) welcome to Canada everyone  :surprise:


What're your thoughts about putting the reactor on the intake side, if you haven't already?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> What're your thoughts about putting the reactor on the intake side, if you haven't already?


No way to control back pressure if it's on intake (surface skimmer won't work / stay constant enough if I'm messing with intake flow, not to mention I don't want to throttle back flow before the filter impeller) also don't want bubbles escaping the reactor into the filter. 

It's a simple fix, more flow into reactor, throttled slightly back after the reactor, 1.3 point drop in pH with no gas bubble build up. I've done it for months on end with the Rena, just need more flow from the Eheims. I'm not buying a larger filter as of yet because I am moving houses and will likely be getting rid of this tank in favor of a larger one within the next while. Exactly why I haven't bought a flow meter / pH prob etc. Renovations to the new house are taking priority over 20 gallons of water and some plants


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Ah, I was thinking you were using a different type of reactor.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> Ah, I was thinking you were using a different type of reactor.


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## chayos00 (Sep 22, 2013)

If flow through the reactor is too much, you could always modify your reactor to have a larger diameter tube to allow the CO2 an easier chance to dissipate in the reactor. I'm running a 4' tall 4" diameter one myself with a pretty heavy 400-500gph flow through mine. Or you could do one of those staggered size ones, have like 1" to 2" to 3" as it goes from top to bottom to help it dissolve the CO2 without getting a big gas bubble built up.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

chayos00 said:


> If flow through the reactor is too much, you could always modify your reactor to have a larger diameter tube to allow the CO2 an easier chance to dissipate in the reactor. I'm running a 4' tall 4" diameter one myself with a pretty heavy 400-500gph flow through mine. Or you could do one of those staggered size ones, have like 1" to 2" to 3" as it goes from top to bottom to help it dissolve the CO2 without getting a big gas bubble built up.


See quote  No more building for me. 

Again:

*Flow is not an issue, never has been. 
CO2 was not an issue - when I was running the XP3: no bubbles in tank, no gas bubble in reactor, 1.3+ drop in pH capable. 

All I need is to increase my flow to what the XP3 was cranking out, hence running another canister into the reactor, both outputs into the coast-coast spray bar. Eheim quick connect for flow control. *

Inconstant CO2 as of recent was because of the XP3 blowing itself up, and then the tank ran out of gas shortly after during a super busy week. I paid the price (GDA, diatoms, hurt plants etc.) Which has now been cleaned up + major trim + filter clean + substrate vac. 



Quagulator said:


> I am moving houses and will likely be getting rid of this tank in favor of a larger one within the next while. Exactly why I haven't bought a flow meter / pH prob etc. Renovations to the new house are taking priority over 20 gallons of water and some plants


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Massive trim + replant (Met14 + water soaked most stems for half hour or so).

Filter clean, glass scrub, good substrate vac, bumped up CO2. 

Massive algae outbreak, brown algae + green algae both of which came off no problem, GDA as well, but not nearly as bad as the other kinds. 

All because:

Filter broke, took me 2 weeks to dial back in with new filter. (still need more flow, but "ok" for now). 
CO2 tank ran dry, took 2 days of messing with CO2 prior to end of tank dump symptoms, and then 1 full day without CO2 at all and no one home to turn lights down + a late water change. 
Another week or so to get CO2 re-dialed back in. 

The struggles of cheaping out and using old equipment. When I set up a new tank, whenever that will be, I'm moving up to a full quality system - Reg, tank, control-ability and redundancy. 

Now, ready for my next move? Idiotic or not I'm doing it. Swapping back to 100% non-softened tap water. Life is getting too busy for the time being to mess with 100% RO, even only with 11 gallons worth per week for water changes + another few gallons for top-offs. 

Tap readings:

15 degrees kH
17 degrees gH - of which 15 degrees is Ca
8.2 degassed pH

Now, I recently did a 50% water change using 75% RO / 25% Tap. Next water change will be 50/50, then 25 RO / 75 Tap, and finally 100% tap on week 4 water change. 

I've kept great tanks at these levels before without any issues - heck I could actually grow Rotala species with ease at these levels. I'm sure some plant's won't like it, but oh well. I've had my fun with RO and looking for a slightly new adventure.

I am assuming tap has 5ppm Mg, and will be boosting it 10ppm, no additional Ca obviously. Micro's will stay the same, although I may need some Ferrous Gluconate for the high pH. 




























Random pic of the pond tank (soon be going back outdoors). No ferts, few water changes, medium PAR, messy fish:


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## gjcarew (Dec 26, 2018)

Have you thought about using HCl instead of RO? If there's one thing I took from Vin's talk at AGA it's that plants tend to do worse in high KH. Anyways, I'm excited to see what happens.

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

gjcarew said:


> Have you thought about using HCl instead of RO? If there's one thing I took from Vin's talk at AGA it's that plants tend to do worse in high KH. Anyways, I'm excited to see what happens.
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk


I've had my fun playing with desired water parameters, and am moving to a more basic approach. I am well aware plants seem to do better in softer water but all of my previous tanks were just fine in liquid rock:


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

OMFG Quag, those look terrible! Hurry, you must subscribe to La Methode du Jour! 

Oh, I'm full of [censored][censored][censored][censored]. You picked plants that clearly do well in your water and the tanks look great!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Plants got nuked somehow. Massive stunting, no growth, algae seems to have stayed away for the most part... 

CO2 is back to being consistent, lighting is moderately high, but not too high like I have been running it. Life and work have been crazy these last 2 weeks. 

I tested NO3, was deep red. 50% water change and then a full week of no dosing at all - No macros, no micros. I figured something was being built up and it finally reached a point where most plant species were succumbing to some sort of toxic reaction. Twisting and stunting of new growth, literal melting of older stems and leaves etc. 

Tested NO3 after a week and it was a solid orange. Not light orange, but not deep orange / red. So I performed a 50% water change and dosed 20ppm NO3 + 5ppm PO4 and whatever K that gives me. Micro's will be dropped by 25% this week. 

I will perform another 50% water change early this week - today or tomorrow - and hope that will reset the tank farther. I am not at 100% non-softed tap, and so far no issues. 

Tank was sitting 25ppm TDS above the tap after my last water change using 3:1 Tap : RO. Tap TDS reading is 305ppm. 

Might just swap back to CSM+B and Flourish Iron for the time being, just trying to get the plants to make it through until I grab a new (and larger  ) tank and start fresh. Now that I'm at 100% tap water again, I can increase my water changes - not sure if I want to change more once a week, or change 50% twice a week... Still debating that in my head. No pictures for now, not much growth has occurred anyway....


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Okay, algae is not bad, but plants are really bad... Completely unsure as to what is happening. The only major thing I have changed would be swapping back to liquid rock tap water, but the symptoms are not lining up... 

The bottom of most stem plants, I'm talking the bottom 2"-3"-4" above the substrate are completely melting, and if the plant is only 2"-3"-4" tall... well it completely melts, and I mean completely, 0 left... complete mush:

Ludwigia arcuata:









Ludwigia inclinata var cuba:









Cabomba:









So, what am I dosing? 

Tank total volume front load:

20ppm NO3 - KNO3
5ppm PO4 - KH2PO4
12pp K - KNO3 / KH2PO4

No gH boosting - gH of tap water = 17. May need to dose 5ppm Mg... 15 degrees of the 17 is built from Ca according to API tests and rough napkin math. Okay, 5ppm shot of Mg when I get home from work today. 

3x weekly:

Fe DTPA 0.15000ppm
Mn 0.05000ppm
B 0.04500ppm
Zn 0.04000ppm
Mo 0.00175ppm
Cu 0.00200ppm
Ni 0.00050ppm

Now, after this week's water change and removal of the mulm, I decided to go back to some extra K. Why? well lowering it seems to work from everyone else, but because I help farmers grow corn, and corn likes to fall over when they don't get enough K (the stems get weak JUST LIKE MY PLANTS and wind snaps the stem near the base) so I matched NO3 dosing and K... We will see this week. 

Going to bump CO2 as well... 

All is not bad though, at least the dog and mother nature are cooperating


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

Now, I would be out here every morning with a cup of coffee. Beautiful view and an amazing dog.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Did you go back to tap all at once?

If so, my guess is that might be the cause. IME, plants don't like sudden change. Always better to ease into things like that, and give them time to adjust.

It's similar to plants I get sometimes from tanks with completely different parameters. Not uncommon for them to just flat out melt. And mine have done the same in others tanks. It's like plants get into a groove doing the best with the parameters you are providing.........then change it up too fast and uh oh look out. 

As to K, 12 is on the low side, but that's still 24 ppm in the water column figuring on 50% water changes. I was down to about 10 ppm, and noticed growth was much slower, but nothing like you have going there. Bumped it up to 13 ppm and growth became normal again. 

I'd try to trim and save what you can give and give it time. Hopefully they will adjust and bounce back.

Now all that being said, who knows could be the new tap or low K.......a combination of both......or maybe something completely different. When it comes to advice around here you get what you pay for!!:wink2:


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Discusluv said:


> Now, I would be out here every morning with a cup of coffee. Beautiful view and an amazing dog.


She is quite a handful, and believe me when I say it would be a miracle if she would actually wake up in time to sit with me while I have my coffee. She seems to enjoy sneaking onto the couch when no one is looking and sleeping until 10:00am  



Greggz said:


> Did you go back to tap all at once?
> 
> If so, my guess is that might be the cause. IME, plants don't like sudden change. Always better to ease into things like that, and give them time to adjust.


No, I made the swap over a course of a month. 

50% water change made up of:

Week 1 - 75% RO 25% tap + gH boosted 50% normal rates, no kH boost
Week 2 - 50% RO 50% tap + gH boosted 25% normal rates, no kH boost
Week 3 - 25% RO 75% tap
Week 4 - 0% RO 100% tap

Water is pre-heated to roughly the same temp (according to my calibrated hand) as the tank and conditioned with Seachem Safe. Macro's are dosed into the incoming water. 

This was happening just before the swap, but the swap definitely made it very, very noticeable. 

I do agree, pick the plants that enjoy what you're serving. That is the next step. Hopefully they can bounce back, what is left anyway and I get to go shopping again >


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Stems still melting... Thought long and hard about what else I may have changed prior to the lower stems beginning to melt. 

FLOW! I added the coast-to-coast spray bar and adjusted to flow... So, I added a small Eheim 2213 for circulation purposes with the intake on the opposite side as the main intake / filter driving the heater and reactor and the output directed across the back of the tank.... 

Adjusted temp slightly up and noticed fish gasping at the surface once it got up to temp, I'm assuming I'm about maxed out on the CO2 if a small temp swing can cause gasping fish. I dialed the temp slightly cooler and the fish are now fine. pH pen is still sitting in Amazon's warehouse, I haven't bothered to order a new one yet... Likely end up with a pH controller anyway once this tank is retired.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Are things looking any better these days?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> Are things looking any better these days?


Maybe 15% better if I were to try and out a value on it. 

Ludwigia super red mini bottom of stems melting back, but on the other hand I'm seeing new growth on mermaid weed, Lloydellia, crypts, L. hippo, Cabamba 'purple' 

Lost all the red cabomba... stunted ludiwiga ovalis... Lots going on still. 

I also switched to 6 x weekly micros (DPTA Iron) with the same net total as 3 x weekly. 

5 mL doses daily Monday through Saturday instead of 3 x 10 mL doses Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Still might need to switch to Fe gluconate to deal with my 8.2 pH.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

4-5 days of no CO2, LED lights dimmed down and no additional T5-HO supplemental light... The tank is looking better somehow? Reds obviously are losing out on color but everything else seems to be doing okay. Something "bad" in my CO2 maybe? I have been using a different supplier the last 6 months or so...


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Interesting for sure.

But 4 or 5 days hard to make many conclusions.

I'll be interested to see what happens in weeks or months. 

I'm guessing some will be fine but others might rebel.....but only a guess. 

Looking forward to the next update.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

1 week of no CO2.

What I have adjusted to deal without:

Lighting - Reduced Fluval 2.0 to 75% @ 7 hours per day. No T5-HO, no 50/50 Actinic/10,000k LED. 
Front Load Macros - 10ppm NO3, 5ppm PO4, 10ppm K.
Daily Micros totaling 25% of what I was dosing (75% reduction, I'm pretty sure I was over doing it with the micros to begin with).

Growth has been fairly good... some "greener" looking reds, slower growth, and the usual amount of algae - which I'm okay with. Hair grass is looking down, not too bad, just off. Gratiola viscidula needs thinned out bad... it's looking the worst, and surprisingly mu bulletproof Myrio mattogrossense is looking ill as well. 

I added more Cabomba 'purple' from the 90, and some Myrio tuberculatum and some Bacopa caroliniana, going to toss some Rotala rotundifolia from the pond fish tank (yes I know, it's now the first day of summer and I have YET to clean out my pond and transfer the fish back into it, I have the mosquito population to prove it too  ). 

Shocking news, Anubias nana 'petite' and Crypts are still doing fantastic without CO2 and lower light. :nerd:

Going to continue to bump PO4 with each water change, just to see what happens. Keeping NO3 "lower" and K = NO3. Metricide dosing at "normal" rate likely to start happening... might move some ember tetra from the 90 into this tank as the tank is slightly under-stocked at this point. 

Pictures:

AR mini looking good in the FTS:









S. repens took a hit, but has since bounced right back:









Gratiola viscidula looking rough, needs a big trim:









Bacopa 'compact' looking good as usual:









L. hippo surprising me, steady growth - no real colour, but steady growth:









Pogo helferi bounced back nicely, blyxa taking it's time and crypt flamingo is just "surviving":


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## gjcarew (Dec 26, 2018)

I'm digging the experiment, but what made you switch to no CO2?

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

gjcarew said:


> I'm digging the experiment, but what made you switch to no CO2?
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk


4 fold really.

1) Working insane hours - not having a day off in 2+ weeks, then working most weekends while the tank was experiencing massive melting and stunting. It's officially been the slowest / latest planting season in North American history which means my busy season at work is that much longer. 
2) I'm smack in the middle of house reno's - Basically all my free time away from work is spent on this at the moment. My other free time is cut between a quick water change + trim (quick being the key point there) while doing my laundry at the same time. No real time to keep the tank in pristine conditions, mix up RO water batches, dose consistently etc. etc. 
3) My CO2 tank is now expired meaning I have to buy a new one + fill it. With house reno's going on, I'm financially focused not on the planted tank, against my best wishes of course  
4) This tank is being phased out shortly in favor of a larger tank when the reno's are complete, selling off the 90 gallon as well, so I do not wish to keeping spending money on "fixing" and "up-keeping" this tank - more focused on keeping the plants and fish around for easier access during the upgrade, while saving some money to splurge on nicer equipment later on  

Other thoughts: I've had a good time running this tank through it's up's and downs, from the get-go I new it would be a 2 ish year project before a make-over was needed. So this tank has begun, grew / aged, peaked, and is now on the down-slope, heading for an inevitable remodel, in this case, an upgrade. I'm not sure what size or style of tank I'll go for - but I have a few ideas bouncing around in my overly exhausted and worked mind > Stay tuned for those... House reno's first. I won't be able to keep a nice fancy tank without keeping the Missus happy first :wink2: I'm sure people can relate >

If she had her way, I would have a big, non-planted tank full of blood parrot cichlids or fancy goldies. That is a battle among itself. Don't worry, I'll persevere and be keeping plants still :wink2:


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Was re-reading through this journal and all I can say is WOW!!

I'm confident I am the most impatient member here... changing something week after week after week.... 

Updates to come with this tank...


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> 1 week of no CO2.
> 
> What I have adjusted to deal without:
> 
> ...


 Are these the Praecox rainbows in this tank- not sure... But, whatever variety they are they are very beautiful. 

Love this tank.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Discusluv said:


> Are these the Praecox rainbows in this tank- not sure... But, whatever variety they are they are very beautiful.
> 
> Love this tank.


Thanks for the kind words. 

Yes, they are. There is 1 male and 2 females I got from a box / chain store - poor quality stock - plus 1 small female that was bread from these that I raised up, and then 2 males I purchased from a reputable LFS that were already 90% fully grown - much better quality. 

2 male and 1 female skull creek rainbows are joining the Praecox currently. All get along nicely.

Feeding a mix of 100% fish flake, 100% fish pellet and 100% kelp/algae flake + the odd frozen bloodworm treat. Planning on a large school of this mix of dwarf rainbows when I set up a larger tank. Thinking males only... I'll see what the LFS can do. That reminds me.. I should ask where they get their stock from. Usually they are open about where their fish are bread / imported from.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> Thanks for the kind words.
> 
> Yes, they are. There is 1 male and 2 females I got from a box / chain store - poor quality stock - plus 1 small female that was bread from these that I raised up, and then 2 males I purchased from a reputable LFS that were already 90% fully grown - much better quality.
> 
> ...


I just picked up a group of 6 at a local aquarium society meeting. Not sure what composition of male/female- they are still juveniles. 

I hope mine grow up as nice as yours.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Discusluv said:


> I just picked up a group of 6 at a local aquarium society meeting. Not sure what composition of male/female- they are still juveniles.
> 
> I hope mine grow up as nice as yours.


Hopefully they were bread from a strong line and well kept up-until you got them, they should be slighter stronger than the ones found at the big chain stores. 

That's why I liked the ones that were 90% fully grown... Usually the poor stock don't make it that big before they start withering away. Praecox are notorious for being over-bread resulting in poor stock EVERYWHERE. 

The females are as flashy as the males during the majority of the day, with slight yellow in the fins. Males have bright red fins and are much more flashy when they get worked up.

Having more blue / red lights will help bring out more color. Standard 6500k don't do them justice.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> Hopefully they were bread from a strong line and well kept up-until you got them, they should be slighter stronger than the ones found at the big chain stores.
> 
> That's why I liked the ones that were 90% fully grown... Usually the poor stock don't make it that big before they start withering away. Praecox are notorious for being over-bread resulting in poor stock EVERYWHERE.
> 
> ...


 I was told they are F4 Gary Lange stock when bought them. Hopefully this is true. 

But, I don't know these breeders well enough to vouch for it for sure. Just become a member of this aquarium society. But, seemed honest enough [shrug]



Also, wouldn't know what was good or bad stock by eye because have never had rainbows in 3 decades of fish-keeping. The washed out, anemic examples at the LFS just never looked appealing. I can say mine do not look anything like tthe LFS versions- even as juveniles! 



I didn't know this about the color differences in the sexes, Ill go take a look at mine. :smile2:


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Been a while since the last update, how have things been going? Still no CO2?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Grobbins48 said:


> Been a while since the last update, how have things been going? Still no CO2?


Yep, no CO2, the occasional week of PPS-Pro + heavy Met14 dose, I'm actually going to start spot treating the BBA on the daily, going to try and save my tissue culture crypt Flamingo's because they are hard to fin in Canada. House reno's are coming along nicely, after the dust settles I'll be rewarding myself with a new fancy tank  

Random pics over the last month or two:


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Good to see an update Quag! The tank is looking good, I like the no CO2 aspect. Does the tank have a lot less maintenance? Also, those flamingo Crypts are looking great, how long did it take them to grow to that size?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Only took a couple months from the TC bag to get them that big. They aren't really growing too much anymore since CO2 and ferts got cut. 

Tank is 0 maintenance, water change whenever I get to it, top offs with RO, ferts whenever I remember (usually I don't). It would be a lot nicer if I had my auto doser set up, it's just a pain to get all new tubing, check valves, clean it, re-calibrate it to the new tube lengths / head pressure / check valve pressure. I should really sit down and get that sorted out, Met14 dosing would help a lot too.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

These are in stock anyone in Canada wanting some, they are the ones I went with a few months back:

https://theplantguy.ca/collections/waterscapes-nursery-plants/products/cryptocoryne-flamingo-bag

SKA shrimp on facebook has the same ones.


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## CRS Fan (Jan 14, 2010)

As opposed to spot dosing the Met14, I would suggest a Crossocheilus reticulatus (Silver Flying Fox) to eradicate the BBA. They will decimate it even if they also eat the usual aquarium fare.

JMHO!

Stuart


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Algae pretty bad, 80% BBA 20% hair algae, 0% GDA. 

Went home for lunch, ripped out the really infected plants, tossed them on the front lawn. 

Dunked the salvageable in a water / H2O2 bath for 10 minutes or so, spot treated the Pogo helferi and crypt flamingo with Met14, and got the auto doser hooked up. should be 8-10 mL's Met14 daily. 

Will start a 1 x weekly dose of PPS-Pro solution at a reduced rate for something the plants can use, nothing scientific about it.


I'll also start to get some small water changes mixed in. 

I'll also need you all to keep bugging me on updates so I actually follow through with putting some effort into the tank instead of all on house reno's


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> I'll also need you all to keep bugging me on updates so I actually follow through with putting some effort into the tank instead of all on house reno's


Consider yourself bugged!!:grin2:

Now get to it and shape that tank up!

How's that? 

Well, it's a start anyway.

I'll be back.:wink2:


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

I enjoy seeing pics of bad algae? >>>


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> I'll be back.:wink2:


You'll be back when your're out of a turkey coma 




Maryland Guppy said:


> I enjoy seeing pics of bad algae? >>>


Should be a nice red shade as of now  Crypt flamingo doesn't like Met14 spot treatments in case anyone is wondering.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Woah... a water change.... Had some time/took a break... Arms / shoulders a little sore from mudding/taping/sanding drywall for a week:










50/50 RO / Ca boosted softened tap (Mg in in the macro solution I mixed up)

Going to pick up a bunch of crypts / low tech plants next time I'm around Little Al's, I remember @Williak had a sweet tank full of crypts, that should work well for this tank in the time being... 

Want some algae pics? Okay...


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Want some algae pics? Okay...


Impressive!

But still got a ways to go to keep up with MG's latest algae battle.:grin2:

Keep up the fight. Hopefully the extra attention gets things turned around for you.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Lost a praecox rainbow male yesterday... looked completely healthy, my best guess it a hot shot of Met14 was too much and unfortunately this poor feller took the hit. Reason I think so is because the algae is virtually all gone... doesn't usually disappear that quickly without chemicals... But, on the other hand, all other fish are well, even the oto cats which I would have thought would be affected first. Mysterious. 

Water change was only 25%, so unlikely any damaging parameter swings... I saw breeding behavior after the water change leading me to think all was well, could it have been a weak individual maybe? ... I'll never know, nonetheless I dropped the Met14 dosing down to be on the safer side of things. 

Things are night and day difference as of now, I should do some testing and see where the NO3 is sitting, maybe the algae murder caused an ammonia spike? again... that male seemed very healthy and no other fish affected... 

Last thought - All of the rainbows have been noticeably skittish for a few weeks... I mean darting to the back corners, hiding, small jumps whenever I approached the tank. It quickly turned "fine" once I brought the food container into sight, but still abnormal behavior. Could it have darted right into the glass killing it after being spooked? Possibilities. 

Enough of a kick in the rear for me to get back on a decent water change schedule. Pics to come when I remember to take some...


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Praecox are a known weak breed in the hobby.

That being said, they rarely die suddenly.

Usually they stop eating, start hanging toward the top of the tank, and whither away. Takes time.

Once the process starts, I have never seen it reversed.

But in your case with a more sudden death.......who knows?


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Sorry to hear about the loss. I've lost fish in the past due to hitting the glass, fortunately, I was near the aquarium when it happened and saw which fish it was. A day later it died, had I not seen what happened I would of had no idea what caused it to die. 

My rainbows get skittish every once in a while for a few days, for no apparent reason, and then go back to normal behavior. Odd, but I've yet to figure out why they do this.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Yea I've had many experiences of the typical withering away of poor Praecox stock. This time it was sudden, with an otherwise completely healthy fish (minus the weird skittish behavior). So, best bet is on Met14 mistake or a run into the glass causing injury / death. 

Tank caught my eye when I was home for lunch with just the 15w LED's on, so I snapped a pic (I really need to get a new Iphone or a real camera one of these days) :


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Looks good! I know we have discussed lighting over and over in multiple places on this site (and I continue to do so right now!), but it is amazing how the lighting impacts how we view our tanks.

For me, there are times where I really enjoy the strong, brilliant lighting. There are other times where I just want to relax and be more mellow, and at that point a warmer light is exactly what I am looking for.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Lost an ember tetra... Makes me think Met14.

He / She looked dead for a day or two, so same time as I caught that praecox dead. 

Dropped Met14 dosing down and will keep a sharp eye for the coming days. 

Noticed this in the shop at work, same stuff I used in my 90 gallon... Might have to swipe them when no-one is looking >


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Well, 2 weeks of consistency has already paid off, another small water change and plants are looking healthy again (for the most part) growing well, and algae is managed for now. 

BBA is 99% gone.
GDA has started to slightly show up.
Hair algae has quit growing and is only noticeable if you go looking.
Staghorn is only present deep down in the moss / java fern mess, again, you won't notice unless you go searching for it. 

I'm happy for now... 




























Got the 55 back up for Patsy and Steven 2's winter retreat.

95% water change, gravel vac, completely new filter with a nasty old sponge I had in the pond pump and some random dried out sponges / bio media from the basement "fish tank corner". Ehiem 2215 I picked up for $30 at a local auction last year. 

4+ months in complete darkness, except for ambient light shining on it from the planted tank and yet moss, crypts and 1 lonely crown of Helanthium are still alive... I posted a wanted add on a local Facebook group asking for dwarf sag, vals, crypts and some swords to toss into this winter retreat 55 to add some extra life. Using a throttled back Fluval 2.0 on for 5.5 hours per day for now. 100% softened tapwater Ca and Mg boosted. actual water volume closer to 40 gals judging by my bucket counting skills. Might start a journal about it for fun, likely random mumbling like this post along with simple updates on a bare-bones planted tank. Thoughts?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Picked up some Rotala Mac (all emersed growth) for this tank, should be fun to try and see how it does in lean water + no CO2 and moderate / high light. 

Got some crypts and a sword (I'm going to root tab these into orbit I think) and 50+ little jungle val suckers for the winter retreat goldfish tank.. we'll see how that goes. Still want a carpet of dwarf sag too. Should be a cool low tech low maintenance easy going tank. I can see why people like goldfish tanks, so much activity and personality. Swimming through my hands as I try and push plants into the substrate. 

Pics to come when things start transitioning / growing.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Not much has changed, the holidays are usually a big time of the year for me when it comes to tanks / equipment, but I took it easy this year, as no immediate plans / upgrades are needed this year. Plants are growing slow and steady, algae is at bay, things seem well balanced. P. helferi new growth is looking pale and bleached, it took a Met14 spot dose pretty hard and stunted it, and a few other plants are showing signs of starvation, so I'm now dosing the full amount of PPS-Pro for 25 gallons to see if things spark up any. 

I did manage to make it a LFS boxing day sale, picked up some Blyxa japonica for this tank and some micro sword for the goldfish winter retreat, we will see if it takes hold. I did however notice the R. macrandra I bought a few weeks back was now labeled R. mac "narrow leaf" while the other portions in the holding tanks were clearly emersed R. mac and labeled as such, likely the same species but who knows. Oh, and couldn't go into the store and not have to correct an employee stating anubias / java ferns and crypts are not to be buried in the substrate or else they will die, obviously attempting to sound the least rude I could when correcting her. Usually the employees are pretty good with advice, old school advice but usually sound. 

Anyways, pictures:

Anyone who's kept praecox rainbow's knows the tell sale signs and symptoms:























































Picked up a few amanos for algae aid:










My home made root tabs for the goldfish winter retreat:


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Anyone who's kept praecox rainbow's knows the tell sale signs and symptoms:


Yeah sadly that is typical of the mass bred Praecox. Such a beautiful fish when healthy, but once they start with those symptoms, unfortunately can't be saved.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Greggz said:


> Yeah sadly that is typical of the mass bred Praecox. Such a beautiful fish when healthy, but once they start with those symptoms, unfortunately can't be saved.


I have never kept Praecox, so not sure exactly what it is I am looking for in this picture? I initially wanted to keep them but read they are short lived and quick to go.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Grobbins48 said:


> I have never kept Praecox, so not sure exactly what it is I am looking for in this picture? I initially wanted to keep them but read they are short lived and quick to go.


Yes, it's widely known in the hobby. Praecox are easily the weakest commonly sold breed.

The thing is, it's kind of the luck of the draw. You buy six, in a year you might have 3.....or 6....or none. Some stay healthy longer than others. At some point, they stop eating, hang out near the surface, and slowly waste away. Once it starts it's over. 

There is a new variety that Gary Lange brought back from a new collection site. They are referred to as "Pagai". It's a new pure blood line that should be much healthier. 

That being said, they are a beautiful addition to a tank. You just need to know you will probably be replacing them down the road. When? Hard to say it's random.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Unfortunately 3 of my 4 skull creeks have suffered the same fate, down to 1 male skull creek and 3 (soon to be 2) male Praecox + 2 female and 1 juvy female Praecox. 

Clamped fins, sunken belly, limited feeding and hanging out at the surface are what you're looking for, once you see it more than once you'll soon recognize it right away. Takes anywhere from 1 months to a few months for them to finally give in in my experience with them.


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

Quagulator said:


>


those crypt flamingoes! so jealous!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

*Quag's 3' 25 Gallon*



ipkiss said:


> those crypt flamingoes! so jealous!




I’m pumped I’ve gotten them to look and stay like that! I found them on one of my favourite Canadian websites for plants / ferts, only came in tissue culture bags from a new-to-me company at a reasonable price, a few dollars more than a Tropica pot of crypts let’s say. I got 4 of the 6 or so in the bag to live and now I’ve got that nice grouping. Only company that sells them that I’ve found here is the one I used (name slips my mind atm) and I’ve only ever seen it on 2 websites. 

People in my local aquaria club are selling a few at a hefty price tag so I’m quite comfortable with the ones I’ve got... for now  


EDIT: Pogo helferi is looking immediately better after bumping the ferts up by 50%, i was worried they would stay stunted and rot away on me. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Tank is moving along nicely, most plants are actively growing and looking good. Java fern and H. cara kompact have some pin holes and deteriorating lesions on older leaves, might have to actually start testing to see where some of me levels are at, but that involves an Amazon purchase as I'm out of NO3 solution. 

Noticed some slight curling and twisting of the flame sword new growth, probably the fastest grower I've got in the tank and a good indicator plants. I don't think I'm adding enough Ca, likely only around 15ppm or so, might have to adjust that up a hair as well. 

Please ignore the hard water staining on the glass, I didn't notice it until I uploaded these photo's. 

Quick before and after shot from ~ 1 month ago:





































Rotala rotundifolia slightly pearling with no CO2 and in the middle of the week: Not after a water change, all filter outlets are all submerged so no bubbles are being shot around the tank, and the first time I've ever noticed pearling in a "low tech" tank of mine:


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Everything as usual, slow growth, but decent colour:




























Macrandra low tech:


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## Matt69 (Jul 9, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> Everything as usual, slow growth, but decent colour:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Plants are looking great 
Are you still just using tap water


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Matt69 said:


> Plants are looking great
> Are you still just using tap water
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Thanks, the tank is due for a trim, I've been super busy ever since Christmas. Christmas is usually my favourite part of the year for aquariums, good deals everywhere, family members buying gifts directed at aquariums / gift cards, time off work to work on the tank / enjoy it, kind of like a reset for maintenance scheduling and re-setting motivation to keep the tank moving along etc. 

But, this year has been different, house reno's still on-going, RO unit croaked, trip to the Caribbean, and an urge to get a bigger tank after the reno's are done have been the last few nails in the coffin of this tank (motivationally speaking). So, it has taken to the back burner until I get some free time where I'll likely upgrade. 

Yes, outside hose tap is froze obviously, so I've been using softened tapwater, which is not the greatest but seems to be working... for now. 

TDS is high because I'm adding Ca and Mg back into the softened tapwater which had it stripped of Ca and Mg and replaced with sodium. 

Today is warm... maybe I'll see if I can crack the tap outside and fill up a few pails for a couple water changes.... >


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## Blue Ridge Reef (Feb 10, 2008)

Is that Crypt flamingo/pink panther? I've held off on getting that one after reading about people's tissue cultures dying but it looks fantastic!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Blue Ridge Reef said:


> Is that Crypt flamingo/pink panther? I've held off on getting that one after reading about people's tissue cultures dying but it looks fantastic!


Flamingo, it came from a TC bag... Aqua Botonica Canada. Had ~ 10 plants in it.. most of them made it. 

Quick snap shot I took when home for lunch (morning / evening lights only).

Like I said, it needs a trim, everything lower in the water column is getting ratty, java fern and moss needs a thin out.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Agreed, the tank needs a trim. But... it's looking pretty good all filled in.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Tank got a trim ~ week ago, light's shut off right after I took these pics before I could get a FTS, too lazy to fart around with timers to get one.




























Goldy winter retreat:


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## Nebthet78 (Mar 12, 2020)

Really nice looking tank.. can't wait to see it grow out more. 

Where did you get your Pogostemon Octopus? I've been looking for some of that everywhere online in Canada and can't find it, only the Stellatus and the Broad Leaf.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Nebthet78 said:


> Really nice looking tank.. can't wait to see it grow out more.
> 
> Where did you get your Pogostemon Octopus? I've been looking for some of that everywhere online in Canada and can't find it, only the Stellatus and the Broad Leaf.


"Sadly" these tanks won't make it to grow out any farther, but that's okay, they will be replaced. 

The octopus was from a London Aqauria Society bi-annual auction 100 yards from my front door. 

PM me when the weather warms up and I'll ship you what I've got for whatever shipping costs are ($15 - $20 for 2 day if I remember correctly).


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## Nebthet78 (Mar 12, 2020)

Quagulator said:


> "Sadly" these tanks won't make it to grow out any farther, but that's okay, they will be replaced.
> 
> The octopus was from a London Aqauria Society bi-annual auction 100 yards from my front door.
> 
> PM me when the weather warms up and I'll ship you what I've got for whatever shipping costs are ($15 - $20 for 2 day if I remember correctly).



Awesome, and Thank you, I will contact you for sure.. If I can get it growing well in my tank, I can always ship you a bunch more back for your own tanks and any extras from my own once they get going that you may want.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

The time has come to begin retiring this tank. I've lost motivation during my house reno's and other life events, however I have not lost motivation in planted tanks one bit.. Work is also just beginning to pick up, and soon I'll be working 24/7, no where near enough time to maintain an already struggling tank that I have no motivation for. 

*SO!:*


Final FTS of it in it's dying days:











I have dusted off the original 5.5 gallon you've seen in the first post in this journal, and will be using it to keep my crypt flamingo's alive and well until the time comes to set up my next tank(s). I've added some other plant's, not just the flamingos, to make it easier on the eyes / enjoyable. 

What I dug out of the basement:

5.5 gallon standard tank - $0.00
Current USA 24" satellite LED Plus (non-pro) - $0.00
Venturi style diffuser / reactor from a Redsea paintball CO2 kit (diffuser / reactor only, no CO2 on this tank) - $0.00
Shultz Aquatic Plant Soil (calcined montmorillonite clay) - $0.00
5 lbs of seiryu stone - $0.00
4 lb mono fishing line off my panfish rod - $0.00
Electronic wall outlet timer - $0.00
Random filter parts - $0.00

*So, doing the math, total investment into this tank is a whopping $0.00*


I started out by grabbing 5 gallons of non-softened tapwater from the outdoor faucet, treated it with Seachem Safe and started heating it up so I could plant the tank sooner:










I placed the diffuser / reactor (lets just call it a pump from here on, because that's what I'm using it for) in the back right corner, surrounded by filter floss, and then covered it all up with some seiryu stone. I then dumped in a few inches worth of dry, un-rinsed substrate (really dusty, oops) and filled with water. Placed the heaters back on to get it up to room temp as fast I could. Likely 1/2 - 3/4 of a gallon left in the pail after initial fill up, so actual volume 4.75 gallons. A few random SunSun and Eheim parts later, I fabbed up an upward facing outlet that puts a nice ripple across the water surface, and a surprising amount of in-tank flow. All plants are swaying away in a fairly calm fashion.:










Through some lights on and here's how it looks up close, I wouldn't mind using this stuff as a stand alone substrate in a nature style tank. It's fairly light, not too light, but Flourite is heavier. It's really easy to plant into, but you need to carefully bringing the tongs back up after planting otherwise you'll uproot the plant:










Initial FTS with 2 x 13 watt CFL 5000k bulbs in a DIY light hood (I didn't end up using these lights). Very dusty indeed, but the filter floss made quick work of it. 










Later Saturday evening:











Sunday morning with the Current USA light on it: 











Close ups:




















Finally, hanging the light a few inches up with my fishing line:












Next order was to dose it up. 15ppm NO3, 5ppm PO4, 17ppm K, CSM+B @ 0.2ppm Fe topped up with another 0.2ppm from DTPA 11%, and finally 10ppm of Mg from MgSO4 (my gH is sky high, but is 95% Ca from municipal reports confirmed by API saltwater Ca test "converted" into freshwater use). 

TDS initially was 500ppm! 2 days later and the calcined montmorillonite clay had eaten up some kH, ferts had begun to precipitate out, and TDS leveled out at 385ppm. Fresh, non-softened tap is 360ppm or so normally for me, so looks to be right. gH 17, kH 15, pH 8.2 (degassed tap readings). 

For stocking, 4 or 5 amano shrimp (whatever I have / can catch from the 25 gal), and that's about it. I wanted an oto or two in there, but there's no heater and it's not big enough for all my oto's, so I'll gift them or trade them for some plants or something when this virus allows us to do so again. All the plants in the 25 gal are up for adoption, or will be moved into my goldfish tank. They will be given away eventually.

Plants in the tank: 
Anubias nana
Anubias nana 'petite'
Marsilea hirsuta
Crypt flamingo (the only reason this tank is a thing is because locals want $25 a pop for poor examples of flamingo, so I decided to just keep my dozen or so. I had to bite my tongue fairly hard over on a local Facebook page over the flamingos for sale) 
Hygro poly 'sunset' because it's legal for us Canadians 
1 crown of dwarf sag, because well why not, and it wasn't doing very well getting chewed on by glutton goldfish. 
Java fern 'windelov' (I have to keep a portion of this at all times, it originally came from my very first planted tank ever, over 10 years ago now, you can just make it out in the bottom left here:












The tank will hopefully get a 50% weekly water change, front loaded with macro's and Mg, and a weeks worth of PPS-Pro micro amounts split into 3 doses via CSM+B / DTPA 11%. 

Met14 dosing 2.5mL's per day, but I will drop it when I add the amano shrimp to a more reasonable level. 

Photoperiod currently is not established, it's whenever I feel like turning the lights on / off. But I'll set the timer for 6 hours a day for now. 

PAR should be 35-40 @ substrate according to Current's 2017 website data. I'm only running whites, blues and reds, all at 100%. The tank looks way too washed out with green's mixed in. That's about it for now, more to come as I retire this tank and start planning for the next!


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## Nebthet78 (Mar 12, 2020)

Sad to see your larger tank being torn down, but glad to see you have something to replace it with. Hopefully the larger will be resurrected sometime in the future.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> more to come as I retire this tank and start planning for the next!


The plants look happy in their new home.

Now let's here more about the planning for the next one.

Back in the fruit stand business??:grin2:


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Quag I am glad to hear you will keep something little running while you plan for what is next. 

Really excited to hear about your plans, and hope you decide to document the journey- even if it is just thoughts and brainstorming right now! It is always fun to talk about creating a setup!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Greggz said:


> The plants look happy in their new home.
> 
> Now let's here more about the planning for the next one.
> 
> Back in the fruit stand business??:grin2:


Unfortunately no fruit stand, more along the lines of tulip fields in the Netherlands  I think i'll have to open up the share your bulb combo thread for some strange reason as well.... :grin2:












Grobbins48 said:


> Quag I am glad to hear you will keep something little running while you plan for what is next.
> 
> Really excited to hear about your plans, and hope you decide to document the journey- even if it is just thoughts and brainstorming right now! It is always fun to talk about creating a setup!


Grab the popcorn when it's time, you asked documentation, you shall receive >



Likely a 4' tank in the 80-120 gallon range. 

You also may be wondering about these "house reno's" ... reno isn't really the correct term. Gut and rebuild is more like it  Official move in date goal has been set. After the adjustment the fun should begin on a new build. :nerd:


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Unfortunately no fruit stand, more along the lines of tulip fields in the Netherlands  I think i'll have to open up the share your bulb combo thread for some strange reason as well.... :grin2:


Well you have got my attention now.....bring it on!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Plants ripped out of the 25 gal, temp storage goldy 55 gal until kijiji / Facebook sell / trade / free giveaway. If you want any PM me! I can ship so long as I'm allowed to by Canada Post.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Going to attempt to move the little 5.5 gal from the basement up onto the main floor... Either in the spare room or living room... 

While she is at work... >

Wish me luck :grin2:


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> Going to attempt to move the little 5.5 gal from the basement up onto the main floor... Either in the spare room or living room...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I have truly enjoyed our planted tank conversations these past few years. I wish you the best of luck!!

Hahaha!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Mission complete, awaiting the fallout of when she discovers it. It's in the spare room which she rarely ever goes into > 

Drink of choice for this event, a few pints of lager... missing sports with the guys apparently :grin2:

Couple pictures, nothing really to see. Apparently (this might come as a shocker) not setting the timer correctly causing the lights to be on 24 hours straight for 7 days will cause some algae (and some cool colour in hydro compact  ) 

Anyways, got the timer sorted out... the amano shrimp should enjoy the extra forage. Next step, hunting down a place to fill up my CO2 (non-essential business' in Ontario are ordered to be closed to the public currently, so it might be tough). Then a small upgrade, 7.5 gallon bow front maybe... standard 10 gallon, or a 17 gallon rimless.... not sure yet. I'm already hating 5.5 gallons worth of space, even though I'm only using it as a temporary tank to get me through atm.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Love when the hygrophila looks like that- after trimming mine we be like that for a week or so then be green.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Now why would this be sitting in the front seat of my truck....? Very interesting.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> Now why would this be sitting in the front seat of my truck....? Very interesting.


Buckle up for safety! 

Not sure how you power a 100+ gallon tank with that, can't wait to see what you do! ;-)


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Grobbins48 said:


> Buckle up for safety!
> 
> Not sure how you power a 100+ gallon tank with that, can't wait to see what you do! ;-)


I'm not sure how that little tank could either, and I'm not about to find out with this particular episode. It's for something less exciting for the masses, but it's something I've always wanted to try, I've just never had the time / tank to try it out on, until now.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> I'm not sure how that little tank could either, and I'm not about to find out with this particular episode. It's for something less exciting for the masses, but it's something I've always wanted to try, I've just never had the time / tank to try it out on, until now.


Haha yes! I am excited to follow along!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

There's a 180 gallon rimless Starfire tank for sale on my local aquaria club's FB page..... Must.... Resist....


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> There's a 180 gallon rimless Starfire tank for sale on my local aquaria club's FB page..... Must.... Resist....


You wouldn't post this if you were really trying to resist... just sayin'


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

When are you picking it up??:grin2:


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Plants ordered from 2 different suppliers, I should have some pics in the next week or so, currently trying to dial in my CO2, my cheap paintball kit is really being a PITA again, but I should be able to dial it in over the next few days (that should give you an idea on the size of this tank, as this CO2 kit was already stretched to its max on a 25 gallon tank  ) 

I'll likely start a new journal for this tank so watch for it if you want to follow, I'll link it here when i get it started. 

Also, any preferences on neo shrimp? I'm leaning towards high grade yellows, I've already kept red's, blue's and orange's and was going to try out something new, I wouldn't be opposed to rhili's either in a non-common colour. Caridina are out (I didn't bite on an aquasoil this time  ) 


That's all for now...


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Tried out 3 different diffusers, and despite not having an issue with them over several tanks in the past, I just could not get them to diffuse at 32 PSI working pressure, and I'm tired of throwing money at a luck-of-the-draw diffuser, so I'll have to build a reactor, not the worst thing but I was hoping to get away with a diffuser and maintain my filter flow. When I'm ready, the first thing I'm treating myself to is a "real" CO2 system 

Plants haven't even shipped yet, so I'm not too worried about it at this point... Pics / new build thread when I've got everything up and running where I want it!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Plants all arrived fairly healthy, despite me leaving them in the community mailbox under direct sun and for 2 x 32 degree Celsius days... oops... 

I've got to hand it to ABC plants, those are the nicest / healthiest tissue culture plants I have ever purchased, hopefully the transition to aquatic growth is good, and if so it's well worth the extra price. 

CO2 reactor was delayed by Amazon Canada... 3 in stock means none in stock I guess. I went with an Ista inline reactor instead of building one, I couldn't be bothered to build yet another reactor when the Ista is so simple / cost effective. It's sitting in New Jersey (Go Devils!) right now, should be at my door Wednesday. I'll plant the TC cups then (I want best chance for maximum survival for the TC plants). The portion plants are all emersed growth... I'm expecting mass die back but hopefully a few stems will show some promising growth. They were showing slight signs of heat stroke, but were far from mush. 

Current Flora List:
Crypt Flamingo
Crypt lutea 'Hobbit'
Rotala macrandra
Rotala Wallichii
Mermaid Weed
Ludwigia glandulosa
Ludwigia Super Red Mini
Ludwigia ovalis
Lilaeopsis brasiliensis
Hygro Poly Sunset (on the chopping block)

Future Flora Wishes:

Cabomba pulcherrima 'Purple'
Cabomba furcata red 'Red'



Stocking "Plan":

Chili rasboras x 15
Oto cats x 3 or 4
Amano Shrimp x 4
Neo shrimp colony (most likely yellow or blue rhili / carbon rhili, not sure yet)



No hardscape, plants only (this is new for me).


100% RO:

35ppm Ca (half from CaSO4 and half from Aquavitro Calcification - I wanted to try out dosing some Cl)
12.5ppm Mg (MgSO4)
1.0 dKH (KHCO3 - might drop this to 0.5 dKH)

Front loaded  for entire tank volume:
10ppm NO3 (KNO3)
3ppm PO4 (KH2PO4)
15ppm K (KHCO3, KNO3, KH2PPO4)

No micro's yet... likely will dose 1/3 or 1/2 Burr's latest recipe but will use all DTPA 11% Fe. 

55% water changes weekly.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

New journal set up here: https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/...13-quags-10-gallon-standard.html#post11355651

It's not the most exciting tank for everyone, but it's something I've never done before and I don't see a lot of people doing what I'm doing, so it should be interesting!


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Quagulator said:


> New journal set up here: https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/...13-quags-10-gallon-standard.html#post11355651
> 
> It's not the most exciting tank for everyone, but it's something I've never done before and I don't see a lot of people doing what I'm doing, so it should be interesting!


Looks like I have something new to subscribe to!


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