# The Return: Recommissioning of a 90 gallon planted tank... after 16 years



## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

My work on restarting with the hobby started with reading this forum and coming up to speed on the latest technologies.

Here's a link to my first thread where I got great input and avoided several mistakes...









Back after >15 years: Lighting -and stand/hood- for...


Hi folks, I've lurked the forum for years, but am only now actively planning for "the return." I've had fish for most of my life since I was a little kid, but following a work related move in 2005, never got around to setting up my tank again. Kids, renovations, work stuff, other hobbies...




www.plantedtank.net


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Yay welcome back!! What is that adorable spotty creature with a stripy tail in your first pic?


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## Chucker (Apr 9, 2011)

Some sort of _Botia_ loach.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

LidijaPN said:


> Yay welcome back!! What is that adorable spotty creature with a stripy tail in your first pic?


Ah! They are one of my favorite fish, the YoYo Loach! They come in various spot configurations. Many of them have a distinctive pattern where the spots spell out YoYo. The ones shown in this picture have more, smaller spots but others in the tank were typical YoYos. They are a species of Botia.

I've always had a thing for loaches. It started with Kuhli loach, which my young self thought was a worm at first, then fell in love with. Then I branched out to other loach species, eventually finding a preference for yoyos as well as kuhlis. 

Basically, I'm crafting a planted loach tank. With some tetras, rasboras, corys, maybe a spiny eel or two...


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Can’t wait to see it. Loaches are adorable!!!


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## Le duke (Jun 29, 2021)

I love my Yoyo loaches. 

I want to move from a 75 to a ~150 specifically to accommodate more of them. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

I also will be putting some angel fish in the tank as well. I haven't had angels since the 90s!

Meanwhile, per my other thread above, I bought a new stand. I ordered it from my LFS, based on this website:






Aquarium Canopies/Cabinets
 






www.dfwaquarium.com





The store has a deal with the makers at the site. It took about a month to be built, but I got it about a week ago. I got the Heritage in Spanish Oak. I wanted "Natural" but they don't do that lighter color anymore. Pics to come soon!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

OK, continuing the catch-up of my tank journal. With the tank (90 gallon with overflow, drilled in the back left bottom for filter tubing) and stand sorted, I turned my attention to the lighting. My old lights were metal halide and VHO fluorescent, but for this incarnation it was time to go LED. 

Based on the above thread (which divorced me from my plans to put the LED lights inside a closed hood, not a good idea due to electrical safety issues), and which helped convince me to abandon a hood/canopy, I got turned on to the Chihiros lights.

This thread helped me decide between the Chihiros Vivid II RGB and the Chihiros WRGB II. The winner: NEITHER! Instead I went with the brand new Chihiros WRGB II Pro!









Chihiros RGB Vivid II versus Chihiros WRGB II


Hi folks, I'm working on plans for the restart of my 48" wide 90 gallon tank. Main thread is here: https://www.plantedtank.net/threads/back-after-15-years-lighting-and-stand-hood-for-90-gallon-tank.1323121/ But, I've only recently come to the understanding that there are two different Chihiros...




www.plantedtank.net





As detailed in the thread, I got the lights delivered in mid March and they look fabulous. I still haven't decided about hanging versus using the included standoffs.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Meanwhile, it was necessary to wet-test the tank. It had come cross country 16 years ago, and sat dry for all the time since. Before filling it with water in my living room, I tested it in the garage (on the old stand).










It made it through the first night without any leaks, and the next day I hooked up my trusty Eheim 2217 to it:










Nothing leaking! Woo hoo!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Major progress over the weekend. The tank is in place and filled. Not much time so here is a quick picture. There's a lot of journey to report on in getting here:


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

OK, things happened fast and furious but left me little time to blog about it. Let's get caught up.

I needed to prepare the location for the new tank. This means bringing sufficient power, as well as some plumbing to assist with water changes. 

My water from the city is liquid rock (see this post about it) so I have set up an RO system in the basement, more or less under where the aquarium location. Here is a post about RO system configuration stuff.

I needed to pull some PVC pipes through the floor from the unfinished basement below. Actually, the tank is over a crawl space adjacent to the unfinished basement section. This wouldn't be such a problem, except that HVAC outgoing ducting, as well as the return air enclosed pathways, run underneath where the tank will be. With some difficulty, I wedged myself into the crawl space and identified a few inches of space where I could punch through. Here's a picture. Ducts and enclosed return air paths over all but 4 lateral inches...










Oh, and that cable is one I don't want to drill into... carries 100A of power feeding my basement breaker panel.

But I got it done! A new 15A breaker feeds a GFCI outlet, and a 3/4" PVC drain and 1/2" water feed line appear, like magic:


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

The tank is leveled by shimming up the left side by about 3/16." I have some residual concern because the stand doesn't have feet; the entire bottom surface (~48x18") is the foot. Shimmed, the actual weight is carried by the points of contact between the stand and left side shim/right side edge. I had nothing halfway as thick to shim in the middle of the distance.










I will add details to my threads about RO system/storage tanks and pump needed to bring the water uphill about 15 feet. But, suffice to say filling the tank didn't go smoothly.

When I tested the pump in the basement a week or so ago, it seemed to put out a mighty gush. However, when trying to push water uphill through pipe, despite being rated for 17 foot lift height (this pump), all I got was a trickle:










It looks like it's filling nicely, but that was at the very start, when the storage container had more than three feet of water in it. It quickly slowed to almost nothing. Then, to nothing by the time the storage container still had about 2 feet of water in it.

Since I still had my 20 year old pump from my old house, which adequately pushed water up a shorter distance, I decided to put the two pumps in series. My new pump which is submersible in the water tanks would push water up into the lines, priming the old pump which I could then turn on to help pull the water up. Some rapid reconfiguration of the PVC piping and connections ensued. Here's a picture of the mess that resulted:










This was a rush job and will need to be redone properly, as the feed pipe has a dip in it rather than a constant incline, and in my haste I connected things with the pump on its side. But, When I turned the system on:










It only took a relatively short time to fill the tank as much as possible from the 2 storage tanks (gray one on left is 32 gallons, black one is 45 gallons). I also topped off with some city tap water. In a separate post I will detail my plumbing nightmares, but the initial tank fill has a total dissolved solids reading around 85-90, compared to 515 for city tap.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

After letting the filter run for a few hours, and finding no leaks, I added my gravel. I used 20 lb caribsea eco complete planted tank (black basaltic gravel), two bags of Flourite Black, and 3 bags of Flourite Black Sand. Washing... well, it was a big job a week or two ago. I have a thread where I sought advice, but I wound up having to do the washing inside due to weather. Anyway, it was predictably very cloudy, gradually settling with each passing day.










In place, the flourite black sand looks gray. Not sure I like that. After planting the sand won't be a smooth layer on top of the other stuff; it will all be mixed, and hopefully look better.


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## rzn7z7 (Aug 17, 2013)

Congrats....looks like it's all coming together....that plumbing job looks herculean but RO will make it all worth the while


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Today I put some ammonia (clear white ammonia) into the tank to kick off a fishless (and so far plantless) cycle. I didn't measure carefully, just a good solid glug. The stuff is a year or two old, and it's a pretty big tank. An hour later I measured ammonia with the Salifert test and there was maybe 1 mg/l (equiv to 1 ppm). I put some more in, bringing it to the top of the range, around 2.5. I'll monitor daily and keep the ammonia up. I've got test strips that can detect nitrite and nitrate that I'll try in a few days. I've got an API master test kit coming I think Monday that should be better than the strips.

I also put a couple pieces of the spiderwood I bought (see this thread) into the tank. Mostly just to give the empty tank a little flair while I wait for things to get going in there, and partially to make room in my soaking bucket for a new piece of of Mopani wood that I fell in love with at the pet store. I went in there to get some air tubing (aerating my water storage tank) and filter fiber and saw a great piece that would be perfect for my look. Here it is:









It's pretty big, and has some dark gravitas to it.

Meanwhile, here's today's tank picture. I've put a powerhead with a sponge filter in there, too:










The wood I put in there might have had some cycling bacteria on it; it's been soaking for two weeks with occasional water changes; after some days it gets tannin brown, bubbly. Really percolating! 

The mopani wood was very dark and dense, and went right to the bottom of the soaking bucket.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Ghosts of fish tanks past. All sorts of ancient filter stuff, decomposing plastic bits, grimy air tubing, incandescent and basic florescent light hoods, and a big box in the back with two more old 10 gallon tanks.


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## Sculp1n (11 mo ago)

Nice job man. I just kicked off a similar setup as well. I'm excited to see how it all shakes out for ya!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

So, yesterday was a busy work day because I needed to get a lot of stuff done before my boss gets back from vacation on Monday 

Nonetheless I got some stuff done for the tank, at lunch and after I finished my work (I work from home).

First, see this thread about white slimeballs on some of my spiderwood. The consensus is that it's just mold/fungus but it seems very "egg sac" like to me. Time will tell. I scraped some off two pieces, and we will see if it returns or shows up on other pieces.

Next, the heater for my larger water storage tank arrived. An Eheim Jager 125W submersible heater. I meant to order a 100W; accidentally got a somewhat larger one. Oops. The 50W heater I had in it couldn't keep up with the heat loss for the 45 gallon trash bin storage tank. Let's see how the 125W does. I may eventually put some 1 cm foam on the storage tank outsides to reduce heat loss and lower heater power consumption, but the area it's in is usually about 17-19C (65F or a bit under). Gets warmer during the hottest part of the summer but only a little bit. Since my tank is targetted at 77-78F I want the stored water warm. I've got an airstone running to keep the water circulating to prevent the warm water stratifying at the top. My smaller 32 gallon tank has a 50 W heater also, but I haven't gotten a T for the air tubing yet and the water is hugely stratified there. [edit, just checked the 45 gal storage, and it's at 76F, I think stabilized there with the heater cycled off, much better than the 71 or so the 50W heater could do fully on all the time]

After work, I went into my crawl space and redid some of the booster pump plumbing. As you will recall, last week I did a hurried splicing of the booster pump into the water feed line since my main pump wasn't strong enough. But it was a mess and resulted in a dip in the line where water would stagnate. Here's a picture of after I cleaned it up:










Yes, the booster pump is at an angle held up by tubing  In part it's because that exact position of the outflow pipe is where it needs to be, and in part because the short pipe that connects to the flexible tubing was put on by me at the wrong angle and by rotating the pump a bit, I fixed it . Eventually I will make a wood block wedge to make that positioning more robust. Also note on the left side, the drain line, you can see a black handled valve that goes to nothing. Actually that's my siphon-start mouthpiece. I close the blue valve below, and with the black valve open, suck in on the open part to start pulling water out of the tank into the drain tubing. Then I open the blue valve (goes to the sump pit) and close the black valve; the waste water goes into the sump.

I also started cleaning up the mess of PVC and copper fittings from these plumbing projects, in preparation for returning of extras to the home improvement store, and started sorting through the mess of old aquarium junk I've had to unpack to get things going. It's time for a culling of old aquarium junk, but I will start a different thread on that.

As of yesterday the tank still had the ~2ppm ammonia from a couple days ago. I would have thought that it would outgas on its own and go down quickly, not even counting nitrosomonas and nitrobacter actions. I will test again tomorrow and see where we are. I would expect the first move to nitrite in a few days, particularly since my wood probably brought some wee beasties along with it and seeps a bit of organic matter into the water to goose things along. 

Today I've got a bunch of errands to run (including returning stuff to Walmart, and possibly Lowes and Home Depot), but I also plan to go the the nearby stream park and "shop" for natural stones.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

So, I went to the stream. Didn't actually find much that matched both the look and size characteristics I was looking for, and I quickly realized a) I wasn't dressed properly to wade into water to fetch rock, and b) rocks are heavy and the bag I brought could only hold a little, plus I'm weak (there's an arm injury I need to not aggravate). I did get a few pieces, but not sure if they will make it into my tank due to weight concerns. Damn this stuff is heavy.

So I went to Lowes, to pick up a few slate tiles. My idea was to break the pieces into shapes I can use to slope my scape, holding back the substrate. HAH! Lowes doesn't carry any slate tiles anymore. Slate-looking ceramic tiles, sure, but not actual rock. I'll have to go to The Tile Shop for some (and probably have to buy a whole box, unless I can buy a couple samples). I did find at Lowes some flagstone, and bought one (extremely heavy) piece:










While at the stream I did find one piece of weathered wood I kinda liked, but not sure if I can safely put it in my tank after cleaning:










Then I was too tired to do anything else.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Despite not coming back with a big load of perfect river rock, I will say the outing was worthwhile, just getting out on a beautiful mid-50's day:


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

While I know that one doesn't usually change water during fishless cycling, I decided to do a smallish change (~20 gallons) in part to test out my newly updated water pump system, and in part because my spiderwood is leaching color into the tank. I can always replace the ammonia I lost.

So, I set my drain tube into the tank:









I went downstairs to my outflow apparatus:











I closed the blue valve, to create a seal so I could start a siphon using my breath through the black handled valve. I gave it a quick suck and could hear/feel water rushing my way! Yay!

I opened the blue valve leading to the sump, and closed the black valve... wait! It doesn't close! A small stifled scream left my mouth. Everything happening in slow motion. I tried harder, and broke off the handle. I must have PVC-glued it stuck open! In the nick of time I stuck a finger in the hole as water rushed through the system and into the sump. Damn, I should have put another valve up top. Oh well. Also I should have tested the breath valve before using it...

I had nothing handy to stick in there, and didn't want to drain my tank so far down to the point where the siphon would stop. so I just took my hand off and accepted there would be some residual spatter out the hole while most of the water rushed straight for the sump. I put a bucket under it, and went upstairs.

After enough water was out, I removed the siphon:










Notice the scum. That's from the spiderwood, I believe. I'll need to do something about scum removal. Since I have an overflow tank I can run it such that the overflow helps remove it, but when watching TV I can't have the gurgling that that makes.

Filling up the tank was uneventful by comparison. Recall, I need two pumps to make it happen because my submersible water storage pump isn't strong enough. I bought some remote control switches to let me control it from upstairs:










I hooked these up so I could turn them off from upstairs via the remote.

Got everything plugged in downstairs, and used the manual on switch for the stage 1 pump. It started pumping right away.

Went upstairs to the tank, and no water was coming out. That pump is surprisingly weak despite vendor claims. No worries, second stage pump is connected in series:









New video by Marc Goldstein







photos.app.goo.gl













New video by Marc Goldstein







photos.app.goo.gl













New video by Marc Goldstein







photos.app.goo.gl





And yes, I had a backup plan in case the remote control failed to turn off the water!! The incoming water line has a valve I can turn off (and yes, I've tested it!!). In fact it is usually off just in case somehow a pump got activated inadvertently.

Woo hoo Water change success!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

My API master test kit arrived today. Here are readings from the tank after water change:










Left to right, between 1-2 ppm ammonia, no nitrite, no nitrate. As expected. I will kick the ammonia up a bit.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Oh gosh darn it. I was adding ammonia to my tank, and dropped the (sealed) bottle on the floor. To my horror it was full of bubbles from being jostled.

I've been using sudsy ammonia, not clear!!

Good thing I've got my water change system up and running. I've got a bunch of changes to do now. Plus I need to find some proper clear ammonia.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Wow the valve thing was quite the adventure!!! 😱 wait what does sudsy ammonia mean?? Like it got shaken around and made bubbles? How does that change things, makes it less effective?


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

LidijaPN said:


> Wow the valve thing was quite the adventure!!! 😱 wait what does sudsy ammonia mean?? Like it got shaken around and made bubbles? How does that change things, makes it less effective?


Sudsy ammonia is ammonia that has soap mixed into it. I've ever so slightly soaped my tank with detergent. Of course, the small amount of surfactant isn't hurting anything as there are no plants or fish in the tank (and, it's still making protein scum on the surface, so the soap is pretty dilute). But, it's annoying. It's possible the soap is slowing down establishing beneficial bacteria though, so it's time for some water changes this week. But first I have to replace that valve. I'm off to Lowe's right now to get a fitting I need.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Oh, is this some special sort of ammonia used for cleaning? Why is there soap in it? Isn’t it labeled as ‘with soap’ or whatever? So weird.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Usually sudsy ammonia is labeled clearly as such. Or called Cleaning Ammonia or something. But the shake test (shake it, see if it makes suds) will tell for sure. I never buy sudsy ammonia because most things I use ammonia for need clear ammonia. Not sure where this bottle came from.

Procured clear white non sudsy stuff from Ace Hardware last night. Lowe's didn't carry it.

I could rant about my dislike for highly combined products squeezing out component products, but there's only so much room on the Internet...


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Marc_G said:


> Usually sudsy ammonia is labeled clearly as such. Or called Cleaning Ammonia or something. But the shake test (shake it, see if it makes suds) will tell for sure. I never buy sudsy ammonia because most things I use ammonia for need clear ammonia. Not sure where this bottle came from.
> 
> Procured clear white non sudsy stuff from Ace Hardware last night. Lowe's didn't carry it.
> 
> I could rant about my dislike for highly combined products squeezing out component products, but there's only so much room on the Internet...


Oh I hear ya! The dreaded hunt for ‘convenience’ blurgh. That’s why I had to go up a mountain to dig literal earth with a spoon, since nothing marked ‘soil’ in any store actually contained any significant amount of actual soil 👿


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

So, to get rid of the soap, I did a 30 gallon-ish water change last night. That's about a third of the tank volume, more or less. So, soap level was at 70% of whatever I put in afterward. Today, I did a solid 45 gallon change (using water from my larger storage tank). That's about another fifty percent change, so soap level is now 35%. 

I did a test for ammonia and found after these changes I have just about 1 ppm maybe slightly less, per the API kit. I then dosed with a quarter cup of my brand new absolutely-not--sudsy 10% ammonia. I'm letting it settle in and will test again. I want to end up north of 2 ppm, and frankly just guessed about how much to put in just now, based on results obtained with the old sudsy stuff as a rough guideline. I think I undershot, and will put more in to bring it to where I want it. If I over shot, no big deal because I plan to do a 50% change every day or two for about 3 more changes.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Ok then. I didn't undershoot, I WAY WAY overshot. Current ammonia reads top of scale on API test. I just nuked any BBs that were getting established. 

I have about 30 gallons of water ready. I will do an immediate change in that amount, in hopes of lowering enough to avoid further killing anything that didn't die immediately.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

I thought it was sus when you mentioned quarter cup.... from what I usually see people count in drops 

It's ok tho, this is the time to make all the mistakes. It will all even out in the end.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

I thought that was drops per gallon, and I've got 90 gallons... So, close to a thousand drops is what I figured I needed, which is just a bit less than a quarter cup.

Also I put about a half cup of the other ammonia in (over time), and it only took me to about 2 ppm. I think it was .much lower concentration apparently. My new stuff is fresh, 10% ammonia.

Clearly I goofed on this one but little harm done. I needed to change water anyway, and no fish or plants were harmed! Just set back my tank cycling perhaps.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Oh one other thing. I think I'm going to replace my smaller water holding tank with a larger one matching my bigger holding tank. This will give me more water change capacity and allow, in extreme cases, a complete change with fresh water.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Marc_G said:


> Oh one other thing. I think I'm going to replace my smaller water holding tank with a larger one matching my bigger holding tank. This will give me more water change capacity and allow, in extreme cases, a complete change with fresh water.


oh that's a super good idea, bet there will come a time when you'll be thanking your past self for the forethought!!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

At lunchtime I did a 50% water change. I'm loving my water change system! 45 gallons or so drained and replaced in under 15 minutes!

An hour after the change, I tested my water for ammonia and it was down to around 4 ppm per the API test. Because these test tubes are cylindrical it's hard to be certain as you look through them. 

Since I've seen ideal ranges for cycling between 2 and 5 ppm ammonia, I'm considering my reading to be perfectly within range and will mostly let it sit now. It's possible I've just restarted a cycle, as I may have wiped out any bacteria yesterday. Time will tell. I will test again over the weekend.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Hey wow! I've got a bit of nitrite!

Yesterday it was unambiguously blue / 0, and today it's a bit purplish in the 0.25 ppm range. Woo hoo! I must not have killed the bacteria after all. Will keep monitoring.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Marc_G said:


> Hey wow! I've got a bit of nitrite!
> 
> Yesterday it was unambiguously blue / 0, and today it's a bit purplish in the 0.25 ppm range. Woo hoo! I must not have killed the bacteria after all. Will keep monitoring.


Good stuff!!! ♥


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Here is the test. Forgot to include it before.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

The API tests show my cycle is continuing. Ammonia is down to "maybe 2ppm" from "maybe 4 ppm" and nitrite is up over 1 ppm probably more like 2 ppm. Nitrate as expected is a hard zero.

Also used the API GH/KH tests, 3 for GH and 5 for KH. This is due to me tempering my RO with some city hard water. I can adjust easily by varying the proportions. I need to do some research to decide where I want it.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

I also did a quick test of my RO water straight from the RO system... as expected the first drop effected the color change for both GH and KH. I will tomorrow do tests on the city tap. I think it will be a lot of drops...


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

OK, results are in from city tap (not softened). Using the API test, GH about 13, KH right around 17-18. Liquid rock.

Meanwhile, I've still got plenty of ammonia in my tank, with nitrites gradually increasing and nitrate still 0. Will check again in a few days.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Wowza 😳 lotsa readings here make me grateful for my tap...


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Progress continues. I bought 30 pounds of dragon stone; it arrived today. See the link for some pictures.

I've now got 2 45 gallon trash cans that match for water storage. Yesterday I drained the new(est) one of its first fill; the water smelled a little plasticy since I didn't actually wash the insides. I used aquarium cement to glue the holder for my heater toward the bottom of the side of the can, and also glued a digital thermometer suction cup to the side. A new air pump drives bubbles to airstones in both storage cans. I'll write all this up in a separate thread that I've already started but here's a picture:









Airstone is held down at the bottom by the weight of a piece of PVC tubing.

Aquarium continues to make nitrite, though my ammonia isn't falling too quickly yet. No nitrate yet.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Had a few minutes between calls so I did dueling tests between my 90 gallon and a 10 gallon I set up over the weekend. 10gal will be a quarantine tank eventually. Tests on the left are nitrite and nitrate (still had plenty ammonia yesterday, didn't test today); on the right are ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite respectively.

Bottom line is my 90g is perking along but still slow going. Presence of nitrate detected by drop tests and the strip test is a good sign. I may have some contribution from the wood in the tank so readings may not be just due to initial ammonia. 10 gal as expected doesn't have much going on; I did squeeze a sponge filter from my 90 into it to innoculate it.

I see a lot of recommendations to keep ammonia around 5ppm to start ; as a microbiologist this seems odd to me because our desired BBs thrive at concentrations far less than the 0.25ppm minimum drop test detection threshold. I overdosed initially but will be keeping more like 1 ppm as a maximum while the cycle establishes. It's not just nitrosomonas and nitrobacter we want but a whole consortium of living things, many of which are deterred by several ppm ammonia.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

So, my tank has been sitting without water changes since recovering from my my fiasco a few weeks ago. And one doesn't usually change water mid cycle because the BBs wanna eat.

But I'm planning to work on scaping a bit this weekend, and here is what my tank looks like right now, no flash, just ambient room light plus the Chihiros on full white:

















it's basically a backwater tank. I'm going to change out much of the water so I can see what I'm scaping then top off the ammonia again. There will still be residual nitrite since it won't be a 100% change. No BBs gonna starve, I might just slow them down a tad.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Omg my rasbora would LOVE that vibe


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

OK, interesting day.

So I ran tests on my 90 gallon and the results were around 1 ppm ammonia, pretty high nitrite (around top of scale, hard to tell difference between 2ppm, 5ppm top of scale, or more. Dark purple!), and between 20-40ppm Nitrate. I've suspected that the spiderwood in the tank has been feeding ammonia into it, because my nitrite and nitrate keep going up far in excess of what the ammonia I've put in could account for. I forget the exact numbers but 1 ppm ammonia converts to something like 2-3ppm of nitrite and that converts to 4-5 ppm nitrate (since all this is by mass, mg/l, not number of nitrogen atoms).
So, I dipped my hand into the blackwater tank and extracted my spiderwood. Remember, I couldn't see much due to the very dark water. The wood was very covered in slimy fungus (per my "what are these slime balls" thread, but much more after weeks in the tank).










Clearly, the fungus has been degrading the wood a bit, and that's feeding my nitrogen cycle in excess of the ammonia I put in. So I used a hot water spray to clean a lot of the fungus on all the wood off, and put it all into a tub with bleachy water to soak for a while. I know many people told me not to worry about the fungus, but the wood that I sterilized at the outset and has been sitting in a tub in the garage didn't fungus up. So I'm resetting the wood by nuking it in bleach.

Meanwhile I put some more gravel (fluorite gravel and some leftover fluorite sand I never added to the tank) in there, then drained about two thirds of the dark water, as much as my drain tube could take out:










I refilled it with my water change system and put in some of my new dragonstone. The wood that remains is the mopani wood that never caught the fungus.










The stones and mopani wood are not scaped yet; I just put them in there to give me an idea of scale for when I decide how to set it up.

I've also got some lava rock I used in prior tanks:










I gave the tank some time for the water to mix around, then tested the water again. About half a ppm ammonia, more or less, and still quite high nitrite, probably over 2 ppm, and between 10-20 ppm nitrate.

At this point, with no degrading spider wood fungus contributing nitrogen, I'm expecting the beneficial bacteria I've got so far will probably clear the residual ammonia quickly. That's my intent: to see if now without another source of nitrogen the BB I've got can take my ammonia down to zero, and see drop in nitrate over time. Then I can keep feeding ammonia as needed.

Once my spiderwood is cleaned up an no longer mega fungussy I can put it back in the tank and see if my BB can keep up with whatever ammonia it puts out. I may start scaping with the rock tomorrow to try some things out.

Based on how things go I may put in some plants next weekend, to see how they do.

It's coming together for sure!


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

that's a lot of shrooms on that wood! Mine never did that because I boiled the life out of it.... but it takes a certain size to be able to fit into a pot on the stove..... I think it will be better now that you've nuked it. That mopani is really a beauty, love that type of wood.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Around noon I tested my tank water: Ammonia seemed down a bit, probably closest to 0.25ppm, nitrite and ammonia probably comparable to yesterday. I'll leave things be and test again tomorrow.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Ammonia was down a bit further; not exactly zero but pretty low. I dosed it back up to ~1ppm or so. Will test periodically to see how quickly it can get back down there. Nitrate is gradually coming up but it's slow going.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Basically perfect cycle progress ⭐


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

The tank ate most of the ammonia dosed on Monday; reading was between 0 and 0.25ppm. I dosed it back to about 1 ppm. Nitrite is pretty high, near top of the range, so as expected the nitrobacter haven't caught up yet. After 16 years I'm in no rush. The microbiologist in me is having a grand time watching these changes in levels happen over time.

I need to really kick up my plans for CO2 (here's my thread on investigating options). I am leaning toward adding my Eheim 2215 to the tank as part of this, in part to supplement biofiltration by my 2217, and in part to support a reactor.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

So, yesterday, Thursday May 5, my tank tested zero (bright yellow) for ammonia (yay! first time back to zero!) and maybe 0.25ppm nitrite, way down from just a day before. A little bit of nitrate, surprisingly little actually, under 5 ppm, closer to 2 probably. I dosed the tank back to 1 ppm ammonia.

Today, zero ammonia and zero nitrite. Oddly, the nitrate hasn't budged. This is a bit concerning, because 1 ppm ammonia eventually converts to about 4 ppm nitrate. So, the last two doses I put in should have given me a pretty big nitrate bump. Curious. There's nothing in the tank but water, rock/gravel, and the bacteria. No plants or algae to speak of. Hmmm. Anyway, I dosed it again. Let's see what tomorrow brings.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Yesterday evening, about five hours after dosing to ~1ppm ammonia, I tested ammonia and nitrite on a lark. Ammonia about 0.5ppm, and nitrite a solid purple, at least 1 ppm. Clearly the BBs were doing their thing, with nitrosomonas processing ammonia faster than the nitrobacter could eat the resulting nitrite.

This morning, both readings were back to zero. Here's a picture of ammonia, nitrite, nitrate with an extra test for nitrate from an RO water sample as a zero control, on the right.










I really struggle with interpretation of the nitrate colors. Based on the amount of ammonia the tank has eaten since last water change a while back, that nitrate test should be at least 20 ppm, but my reading of the dingy orangish color seems to be less than 5 based on my color interpretation. I used an API strip as well, nitrate showed somewhat more than 0, definitely less than 20ppm. Those strips aren't very good for determining low levels of nitrate...

But, the exact numbers don't really matter. This all tells me that the cycle has taken fairly well, but that I need to be careful since the nitrobacter haven't caught up in capacity to the nitrosomonas. 

This weekend, other than celebrating Mother's Day with my family, my plan is to get a secondary filter set up (well, really a tertiary filter) using my old Eheim 2215. This will add bio capacity but mostly add flow and drive a CO2 reactor of sorts, details TBD. I have some new tubing and assorted bits on the way, due here later today.

I'm also going to work on scaping a bit. I'd like to dose my spider wood, which has been sitting in tap water changed a couple times over the last few days, with Prime in case the roots soaked up some of the chlorine I soaked it in for a while.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Your cycle is done. You are probably losing nitrate to fungus and algae but it's all so minimal you don't really notice it. You can scape, plant, and add fish whenever you want.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Yup. Scaping today, after Mother's Day brunch!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

OK, here is "scape 1.0" which is really more like "beta scape 0.8" if I want to be honest, with apologies for poor photography and huge glare; tomorrow I will get a better picture:










First, I have little ego about this stuff so all constructive input will be gratefully accepted.

One major takeaway from this process is that the heater needs to go. It's too big to practically hide; even when plants are in there it will be ugly. I thought about concealing it in the overflow area but if the level there gets too low it's a problem. I'm going to research inline heaters. With the heater removed, the big sandstone rock right of center can go back about 2-3", bringing some of the spiderwood to the foreground that's currently behind the rock. However, to hide the flat cuts at its base it will be lower than it currently sits. 

Once that gets rearranged I can spread out things a bit more pleasantly; the dark Mopani wood chunk will remain on the right but may rotate a bit for more drama. The left side pile of dragon stone will likely get adjusted a bit, and the big piece of dragonstone in the center will likely move back a bit, opening the foreground space more. The right side needs to remain fairly open, because that's one of the main viewing angles. There's a couch to the right, and I'll be looking in lengthwise through the tank. 

Later this week I'll journey to the LFS and pick up some starter plants. Some swords, some crypts, some Java fern, whatever they have that looks decent. Not too much, just enough for me to play with and get a feel for things. I may well next purchase from users of this forum. That would be cool. 

I don't yet have my CO2 running; planning on making purchases this week. 

Water condition wise, it's GH 2, KH 3 (I can easily increase or decrease hardness based on how much tap I use to temper my RO water). Handheld digital pH meter suggests 6.6-6-8 pH. TDS in the 90s.

Since I did a 90% water change today ( to get rid of my brownish water) there's essentially no nitrate in the tank. Before water change, ammonia and nitrite were zero. I have some concern I will get contribution from the spiderwood so will be checking daily. Tomorrow at lunch, I'll do a suite of tests as a baseline; I expect zero ammonia / nitrite, maybe some nitrate but not much. I will then dose to 1 ppm ish and see if the tank can still eat that much in a day (if not, means contribution from the wood). 

Light is my Chihiros WRGB2 Pro at 70%. Dang, that thing is bright. Note, yesterday I put a second canister filter on, Eheim 2215 I had laying around, to give a bit more flow and bio filtration capacity, and I think I may use it as a CO2 reactor following an inline diffuser. Planning to buy the CO2ART stuff, jury still out on the controller. (see this thread). Leaning toward APEX but I'm fickle so who knows.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

I wish that stunning chunk of darker wood from the right side would come in towards the center, feels odd to have it be at the far end as the only markedly different piece of wood.... also it is so gorgeous I'd love to see more focus on it.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

LidijaPN said:


> I wish that stunning chunk of darker wood from the right side would come in towards the center, feels odd to have it be at the far end as the only markedly different piece of wood.... also it is so gorgeous I'd love to see more focus on it.


I can see this happening. I got it at Petsmart! $30 US. It has interesting shape and I can see the fishies playing around it.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

I really love those complex chunks and my fish adore them too. Much cooler for me than branches... lucky find.


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## CGY_Betta_Guy (Jul 26, 2010)

Does that dark chunk of wood on the right have more branchy goodness on the top? Cant tell from the reflection. You may also consider trying to keep wood and rocks an inch or so away from the glass for maintenance purposes... you will want to be able to clean off green dust algae if needed.

Also positioning the heater lower down close to the substrate and more horizontal will help to hide it if needed. I do that in my 60 gallon tanks even though I dont use the heaters often. They tend to get obscured behind plants anyways.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

@CGY_Betta_Guy good tip about heater placement. For now I've moved it to the extreme right back in a vertical orientation until I figure out what I want to do. I was planning on an inline heater but after reading many negative reviews of the Hydor one, including more than a few major leaks, clicking noises, and fail-on and fail-off stories, maybe I'll stick with my trusty Jager. Jury is still out. The back right of the tank is intended to be planted with tall plants that might do a good job of hiding it there eventually.

See pics I will post in a minute re: dark wood branchiness. No branches on top though.


All: Since I had some concerns about "ammonia contribution from my spiderwood" based on what was going on before I bleached it to death, I decided not to feed any ammonia into the tank yesterday, and see what my readings are today. Recall, yesterday I did an 80+% water change so I would expect zero for ammonia/nitrite/nitrate. And indeed that's what I got. See the three tubes on the left in this picture. The tubes to the right are from my quarantine tank that is presently cycling but obviously not done yet.










I fed both tanks about 1 or so of ammonia to keep the BBs happy after taking these readings. For the 90 gallon tank, I will be giving it daily 1 ppm ammonia doses (this is about 5-7 ml of 10% clear ammonia from a fresh bottle), until I get some plants in there.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Here is a picture taken of the tank this morning ; again, sorry about the glare but maybe I positioned it better this time. This is sort of a "first light" picture in that for the first time, my water is clear. No spiderwood brown, no particulates from mixing the gravel around, just pure clean water. 










So, at lunch time, I promptly moved things around to create scape 1.1










The heater is now toward the corner (the sponge filter on powerhead is temporary, I think...) You can't see it due to glare and angle, but the inflow from the second canister filter is toward the right (you can see the part that hangs over the rim). 
I moved the mopani wood a bit to the left and repositioned it for drmatic effect. Lots of plants will be in the back right, and I will adjust the wood that is back there when I get plants. Maybe some swords and such can hide the heater. When I make tanks, I often like to have features close to the front glass to bring the fish right up close. We'll see how it goes. 

Further comments on scape appreciated, but I probably won't mess with it much until I have plants to put in, because I will need to adjust for the plants at that time anyway.

I've ordered a CO2 ART elite series regulator/solenoid/bubble counter along with an inline diffuser (will go on the 12/16mm tubing from the Eheim 2215 smaller canister filter, using the filter itself as a reactor). Still haven't decided on a controller but for now I can just put the CO2 on a timer.

Oh, I really goofed when positioning the tank. Originally I was going to have 9 inches between back of stand and the wall. This was to allow a 20lb CO2 cylinder there. I forgot about this when moving the tank into final spot and now a 5 lb cylinder barely fits in the 5.5-6.0 inch space back there. Crap. No way to move the tank now.


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## lpsouth1978 (Jun 22, 2012)

I definitely like the new scape better. Only thing I would change, which has already been mentioned, is to move everything away from the glass to facilitate easy cleaning. You will be glad you did! Cleaning the glass of film algae will be a real PITA with all of those branches and rocks resting on the glass.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

lpsouth1978 said:


> I definitely like the new scape better. Only thing I would change, which has already been mentioned, is to move everything away from the glass to facilitate easy cleaning. You will be glad you did! Cleaning the glass of film algae will be a real PITA with all of those branches and rocks resting on the glass.


truth. I have trouble even just with plants growing leaning towards the glass, I have to get in there with both hands, sweep them out of the way and then scrub.....


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Good points. Will do next time I adjust the scape, when I get some plants.

Because the tank is pretty much cycled, I'm dropping back to just monitoring nitrite levels for now. It's easy with 5 drops and a shake.  When nitrite goes to zero I add ammonia. So, basically every morning, I'll be adding a ppm or two of ammonia.

Other than that, nothing going on tank wise today. Work is busy and I am also moving a bit slow. Got a vaccine booster shot yesterday and feel generally achy, with a particularly weird variant that the muscles around my eyes are relatively sore. Not enough to make me take acetaminophen yet, but I'm taking it easy today. Tank doing fine without me.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

*THE TANK LIVES*

Yesterday, Friday 5/13/2022, I did a final set of tests. I had done a 50% water change the prior evening, and there was no trace of ammonia or nitrite. pH just under neutral, just shy of 100ppm TDS, hardness just a few degrees. I decided I was ready to get some plants and starter fish if I saw anything I liked. I headed to The Reef, the main fish store in the Indy area, and worked with a really cool guy there. I got a bunch of swords, crypts, stem plants to get me going. And, I couldn't resist buying a school of 8 Colombian Tetras. Actually, when I got them home, there were nine in the bag. I guess they were so excited they bred. 

I just dumped the plants into the tank; I will sort them out later today.

Poked holes in the bag to let the fish acclimate, then after a bit cut the top off with plans to gradually tip more water into the bag every five minutes. But the bag sank and the fish escaped into the tank sooner rather than later.










Here's a video of the happy fish swimming:






And the best part: they were still alive and happy this morning. Fins erect, good schooling behavior, eating eagerly!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

First planting complete. We'll see how it goes.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Fish remain healthy. Water remains ammonia free and nitrite free. I've got the lights now on a time pattern for brightness; see here in my Chihiros WRGB2 Pro discussion thread.

Today is mostly non-fish-related activities, but if I get time later I may try setting up the inline diffuser and CO2 regulator and turn it on just for a little while. I don't yet have a controller. Jury remains out. Since I'm away much of the afternoon I don't want to set it up and let it run unsupervised.

Yesterday I eased into fertilizations with 5 pumps of NilocG which is somewhat more than half a dose. I'm assuming my water volume is between 80-85 gallons after factoring in substrate and scape. So, 8+ pumps would have been a full dose.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Didn't get to putting the CO2 on today. I did take the inline diffuser and with some hose pieces created a quick disconnect drop-in piece to go between an existing disconnect prior to the filter. Easy on, easy off if needed. Will deal with it tomorrow at lunch on break.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

OK, what's new?

My CO2 system is hooked up and bubbling, but with one or two bubbles per second, hardly moved the pH. See this thread. I'm going to stop CO2 injection for a couple days and let the tank degas, because MY CONTROLLER ARRIVES THURSDAY. 

I bought the Apex Wifi Controller, Yeah, it cost me. It's more than I need. I might eventually downscale to a more modest version and move this one to a brackish or salt tank one day. But I decided to go all-in and it has shipped and is due in a couple days. Probably do basic hookup on Friday, then get the CO2 started with it on Saturday.

Meanwhile the fungus blobs on my spiderwood have started growing again. But the fish remain healthy. Hoping to see some signs of growth on the plants soon.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

I do this a lot so forgive me if you’ve heard it but with Nilocg you really want to dose with a syringe, or at least check once that ‘one pump’ really delivers what it says it does. I was absolutely starving my plants dosing what I thought was 6ml by ‘three pumps’, since my bottle of Nilocg says ‘dose 1 pump or 2ml per 10 gallon’... when I tested with a syringe I found 1 pump was more like 0.3 ml.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

LidijaPN said:


> I do this a lot so forgive me if you’ve heard it but with Nilocg you really want to dose with a syringe, or at least check once that ‘one pump’ really delivers what it says it does. I was absolutely starving my plants dosing what I thought was 6ml by ‘three pumps’, since my bottle of Nilocg says ‘dose 1 pump or 2ml per 10 gallon’... when I tested with a syringe I found 1 pump was more like 0.3 ml.


Great input. I will calibrate the pump based on this feedback. To be honest, when I pumped last time, I thought it looked kinda low volume for two ml...


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Marc_G said:


> Great input. I will calibrate the pump based on this feedback. To be honest, when I pumped last time, I thought it looked kinda low volume for two ml...


Yap, don’t be me!!! My plants were visibly struggling and I was making posts like ‘what’s going on my plants look bad I’m dosing 6ml of Thrive twice a week, help!!!’ And then eventually I was like oh ok, that was more like 0.9ml twice a week, no wonder poor dears are hungry


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

I did a quick check, using the API testing tubes. Three pumps gave me five ml just about, so a bit shy of 2 ml per pump. I will also dona better study using a gram scale when I get some time.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

It has arrived! Might not have time for it until the weekend, but excited to start!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

So, I had a bit more time on my hands than expected last night. I was able to do a very basic installation and setup of the controller:










First I had to craft a 30 foot network cable. Could have used wifi but I prefer Ethernet cables for stationary devices.

That done, I got my ApexFusion account set up, and installed the hardware:










I ran through the calibration routine for the pH probe using the supplied 7 and 10 pH standards. I will redo it with 4/7 standard once I acquire them.

I'm letting it run today in monitoring mode only, nothing being controlled, to obtain a baseline on temp and pH swings. I also have the salinity and ORP probes hooked up and running, though the APEX base unit can't use the salinity conductivity probe for TDS mode (I think I need a PM2 module).

After settling down my pH has read 7.00 +/- 0.03 overnight. We shall see if there is a swing during the day with my lightly planted so far tank, with the co2 off for now. Tomorrow I will hook up the CO2 again and see what happens.










If time permits I will buy more plants and fish today.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

So, spent a lot of time with the tank this weekend but not much time to journal it. I got more plants on Friday, which I will detail in a later post. I also got 5 dwarf chain loaches, 8 rummynose tetras, and 5 of the smallest kuhli loaches you ever did see. I dumped the plants into the tank, and gradually, carefully acclimated the fish to the tank water. I didn't but should have, use my quarantine tank, as the only fish in the 90gal were my Colombian tetras, and I didn't think the 18 new fish belonged crammed together in my quarantine tank (which has completed a fishless cycle, and was fed ammonia just a couple days before).

Anyway, I woke up Saturday morning and it was clear one of the rummynoses wasn't happy. Something wrong with his dorsal fin:










I moved it to the quarantine tank (ripping up the main tank in the process... wow he was hard to catch!). Sadly, it was dead by morning today. (tested, no ammonia or nitrites in quarantine tank)

Then, this morning, I noticed another one of the rummynoses swimming weird, not schooling. It self-isolated into the overflow corner of my tank (not sure how it managed to get there) but died shortly afterwards. Two down. Loaches seem to be doing well, though of course I don't see them as much. They come out and do clean up duty from time to time.

Point taken: all new fish quarantine for several days before moving to the main tank from now on. 

I think I overdid it with CO2 yesterday, see this thread about me using CO2 while monitoring pH for the first time. 

Anyway, today I hooked up my APEX controller to the CO2 system for active monitored control; the pH is now 6.40-6.45, and I'm wondering if I should leave there overnight or let the pH swing up overnight. See this thread on the topic.

Here is a picture of the tank as of yesterday:











I was bummed at the LFS on Friday, because last time I was there they had zebra loaches, but this time they didn't. Zebra loaches are something I really want. I'm holding off on yoyo loaches as they may bug my intended angelfish.


I'm going to let the plants and fish settle in, no more additions of either for several weeks.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

My pH controller maintained 6.40-6.45 overnight which I plan to do until I get comfortable with the idea of big swings. As detailed in my thread on the subject, with 4 bps or so, it takes 2 hours to drop from 6.45 to 6.40, but only 40 minutes with the CO2 off to swing back up to 6.45. I will take data from today to see if plants using CO2 during the day make it take even longer for the pH to come down that .05 under the influence of CO2. I can always increase the flow, but slow changes are good for now.

Last night, just as the lights were fading, I noticed yet another dead rummynose, and I grabbed it out of the tank. One rummynose has been missing and presumed dead for a day; the other four seem to be doing fine. All other fish looked good during a brief review this morning, though of course the loaches are never all visible at once.

I can now document that my heater (250 W I think)isn't up to the task of maintaining stable temp in the tank with no lid. When I used it decades ago, with a lid on the tank, it had no problem keeping the temp rock solid (I had a digital meter reading out, it stayed within 0.2 degree swing all day/year). Now, with the unlidded tank and LED lights (instead of MH/vho setup), I get a degree or a bit more of swing on a daily basis:










Ignore the two brief dips; those are artifacts of the temp probe being uncovered during water changes. When it gets to 77.0 the heater maintains steady; it seems to be running mostly on at other times. My house in the summer is quite cool, as I'm a fan of air conditioning and need it cold at night in order to sleep. The house warms up to 73F during the day and is cooled to 69F by bed time (This is non-negotiable, between my need for cool and my wife's nighttime hot flashes...  ). Yesterday was a very cool day in my city, the house was cool all day, and in fact the heater never topped out. I don't think a one degree swing during the day is a problem, but I do plan to augment my Ebo Jager heater with a small Titanium or some such to a) smooth out the curve and b) provide some level of redundancy in case of a winter heating problem in the house.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Just noticed one of the tiny kuhlis I bought has taken up residence in the overflow corner:










I won't worry about it overmuch as there's nothing I can practically do about it. I put a couple of pellets of sinking food in there for it. Since this fish is so small in cross section it got through the gaps in the top of the overflow on the tank side. One thing I've found over time is "kuhlis gonna kuhli." They will go wherever they want and the best thing is not to try to "rescue" them. It usually can't get out on its own because the overflow is like a little waterfall.

About once a day, usually at night, I fill the tank enough that the overflow and tank are same level so it could swim out then if it chooses. In the meantime I will just make sure it gets a little food!

The same thing happened with some Amano shrimp long ago. They kept going into the overflow, and I would fish them out. Eventually just left them. They set up shop on the sponge filter and did quite nicely there for years.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

I've found my kuhlis happily hanging out in my canister on multiple occasions ha. I recently saw them referred to as the ferrets of the aquarium world and I found that comparison quite apt!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

So, I'm not sure where my "overflow kuhli" has gotten off to. Doesn't appear to be in the overflow anymore. That means it either found a way to wriggle back into the main tank (challenging, but far from impossible) or maybe it entered the intake of my secondary canister filter. That intake is the usual Eheim slatted plastic thing, with part of one slat missing, so it's possible the fish went into it, in which case it's hanging around in the bottom of the canister the way @Virtus fish did. I had meant to cover the intake with a sponge filter, as part of a re-do of the intake (replacing current plastic intake with one that will support a largish sponge filter, made with PVC). I have the PVC bits and pieces I need, I just haven't built it yet.

Meanwhile, just now I kicked up the CO2 rate a bit. I found that during the height of the plants' photoperiod, my CO2 bubble rate didn't result in enough CO2 getting absorbed to push the pH all the way down to the "low pH, turn off CO2" setpoint. As the day progressed, once the lights hit max intensity the "CO2-turned-on" time went from 2 or 2.5 hours to more like 4+ hours before the cycle would start again. Shortly after I kicked up the flow rate of CO2 a bit, the pH dropped low enough to shut down the CO2.

My lights have started fading for the day so I anticipate seeing more rapid cycles as the plants use less CO2. I will let the controller cycle on/off through the night to maintain constant pH. I got lots of good input that I don't need to do that, that the pH swing due to CO2 won't hurt the fish, but at least for the moment I'd rather not have to figure out how much earlier than "sunrise" I need to start bubbling, and program that in.

I also played a bit wit the ORP probe. Its value has drifted up over the last few days, and I don't know if that's due to probe-drift or actual evolution of the water chemistry. My guess is probe drift... I took it out of the tank for a little while and put it in RO water. The value it returned dropped a bit, but not massively, then started returning to normal. It has local maxima of ORP timed consistent with local pH minima, about as one might expect:












I'm still not sure I'm measuring anything useful with this (and it is not calibrated).


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

Any issues with your diffuser on the inlet so far and are you getting a lot of micro bubbles in the tank?


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Virtus said:


> Any issues with your diffuser on the inlet so far and are you getting a lot of micro bubbles in the tank?


No microbubbles at all. Zero so far. Gradually dialing up the CO2. Haven't heard "bubbles getting chopped by impeller" noises at all. As I increase CO2 flow rate this may change. Once I rework the tank outflow / tubing there should be even more length of tubing prior to cannister to help CO2 dissolve.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

So, I was making a mess in my basement all day and didn't know it.

Yesterday afternoon I wanted to fill one of my gallon jugs that I use for topping off the tank, so I put one of the RO outputs into it, and for insurance I put the jug in a bucket in case the jug overflowed.

Then I forgot about it for approximately 29 hours.

Yeah, the bucket overflowed. 😂😂










Fortunately, as hoped, the slope of the floor funneled the excess water to the sump harmlessly with relatively little mess. A water alarm on the other side of the sump stayed bone dry, and the air-conditioning / furnace leak detector wasn't in the path of the mini flood either.

All it cost me was whatever a total of about 800 gallons of water (RO plus waste) costs me.

I mopped a little bit mostly just letting it drain and dry.

Remediation will include an additional water leak alarm.


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## lpsouth1978 (Jun 22, 2012)

Marc_G said:


> So, I was making a mess in my basement all day and didn't know it.
> 
> Yesterday afternoon I wanted to fill one of my gallon jugs that I use for topping off the tank, so I put one of the RO outputs into it, and for insurance I put the jig in a bucket in case the jug overflowed.
> 
> ...


This is exactly why I now fill my buckets in the utility sink and my brute trash cans have floats installed. Forgot about the running RO system one too many times.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

lpsouth1978 said:


> This is exactly why I now fill my buckets in the utility sink and my brute trash cans have floats installed. Forgot about the running RO system one too many times.


Yeah. My trash can storage tanks have floats for auto turn off too. I just have an extra port I use for filling jugs and I forgot. Sigh. Oh well, no real harm done.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Hi folks,

It's been a week since my last update. There have been some ups and downs. 

Of the 8 rummynose tetras I added on Friday the 20th, only two remain. The first died Saturday night, presumably related to the damage to its fin. But then another went missing (never found), and one after another they would suddenly not school with the others, then lose control swimming and eventually expire. By Thursday, I was down to two. Meanwhile, no other fishes exhibited any trouble. 

Lesson learned, from now on I will be quarantining fish before they go in the big tank. I have no plans to add new fish for the next two weeks, but I am expecting some more plants in later this week. 

More plants will help me combat the algae an diatoms that are blooming. I've got lots of different kinds running the gamut. But nothing too terrible. The fungus on the spiderwood is dying down. The water is clear. I'm regulating pH between around 6.7 at night and 6.3 during the day. I'll be bringing it down another 0.1 this week. I have to up the CO2 flow a bit; it currently takes the better part of 4-5 hours to drop from the night set point to the daytime one.

I had plans to rework the 2215 tubing to reduce kinking but never got around to it this weekend. 










I've got good signs of growth on the Amazon Swordplants. They are sending vertical shoots which have leaves sprouting.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Bit of an update: my plants from member @ortkenj arrived, quite swiftly. He shipped them Tuesday, and I upgraded to priority service, and the USPS was on the ball. I didn't have a lot of time to mess with stuff so they spent the afternoon in my quarantine tank, then I did a quick planting tonight:










One may ask, why are some background plants in the foreground? Well, because I was in a hurry and didn't want to rip up my scape .

I've got some travel next week and all I really wanted was to get the plants safely rooted. I left a few stems floating; let's see if they grow a lot right up close to the light.

For anyone interested, I bought via this ad in the for sale section. The contents were:


\- 10+ Rotala H'ra

\- 10+ Rotala Rotundifolia Green

\- 8+ Stargrass

\- 8+ Water Wisteria

\- 4x Bacopa Caroliniana

\- 3x Dwarf Sag

\- 1x AR Reineckii 

If anyone wants to do a comparison with my picture from a few days ago, you could do sort of a "Where's Waldo?" kind of thing. Just, "Where's Bacopa? instead.

These extra plants hopefully will help outcompete the algae that is really starting to take off. An issue in my tank is very low nitrate, which doesn't help matters. But I'm not adding any more fish for a while.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

“Where’s Bacopa”, a new series of picture books for the botanically-minded toddler! 

Looking sweet ♥


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## Blackheart (Jul 5, 2011)

This looks awesome! I am jealous. Wish I had a 90 gallon tank! So much space! Only thing I wouldn't be thrilled about is that 24 inch height! It will look great filled in though!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Marc_G said:


> So, I was making a mess in my basement all day and didn't know it.
> 
> Yesterday afternoon I wanted to fill one of my gallon jugs that I use for topping off the tank, so I put one of the RO outputs into it, and for insurance I put the jug in a bucket in case the jug overflowed.
> 
> ...


Oh man, you just gave me a bad flashback to me doing this a couple times, in my kitchen, in an apartment I was renting lol. 

My process was to fill up 8 five gallon buckets with RODI, and then toss in 8 powerheads and heaters, dump in the salt and give it a mix, and then let it sit for 24 hours and do water changes on my reef tanks. At least on 3 occasions I began drinking beers and catching up on shows that I DVR'd. Even worse was turning off the alarm on my phone telling me to go check on it lol. Fortunately I maybe forgot for another 15 minutes but there were 2-3 gallons on my kitchen floor lol.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> Oh man, you just gave me a bad flashback to me doing this a couple times, in my kitchen, in an apartment I was renting lol.
> 
> My process was to fill up 8 five gallon buckets with RODI, and then toss in 8 powerheads and heaters, dump in the salt and give it a mix, and then let it sit for 24 hours and do water changes on my reef tanks. At least on 3 occasions I began drinking beers and catching up on shows that I DVR'd. Even worse was turning off the alarm on my phone telling me to go check on it lol. Fortunately I maybe forgot for another 15 minutes but there were 2-3 gallons on my kitchen floor lol.


 this gives me panic attacks just thinking about it! But also wow dedication with the 8 buckets and 8 powerheads, man.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> this gives me panic attacks just thinking about it! But also wow dedication with the 8 buckets and 8 powerheads, man.


The only reason I did that over getting a big rubbermaid container is I just didn't have room to store one whereas the buckets just stacked on one another, the heaters and powerheads went right into the top bucket, and that all fit in a closet. 

But yeah seeing a pool of water all over my floor almost gave me a heart attack. This was followed by me saying I'd never let it happen again, and then doing it again, twice lol.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Stand by for updates this weekend, including the rescue of three kuhli loches from my cannister filter. Of course, they didn't think they needed rescuing; they were perfectly content in there...


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Non-concensual rescues are the best kind 😂


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

OK, so a month ago, I noted that in the corner overflow section of my tank, there was one of my 5 or 6 kuhli loaches. Then, it vanished that same day. I assumed it got back into the main tank, but I always wondered if it got into my second Eheim filter (2215) that I use for CO2 injection reactor as well as filtration, through a hole in the strainer. Here is a picture of the strainer:








In 1998, when the filter was new, two tanks ago, I busted out that piece of the strainer so that I could put a CO2 hose in there to bubble CO2 into the filter as a reactor. In using the filter with my current tank, I never bothered to put a sponge filter over the strainer to block the hole.

Anyway, I did a bunch of tank work on Wednesday including taking out all the wood to clean it, and didn't see any kuhlis snaking around. Sure, they could be hanging around the rocks instead, but it occurred to me I hadn't seen them in a while. So I got out a flashlight, opened the cabinet doors and looked at the filter with some trepidation. I saw one kuhli swimming in the space at the bottom of the filter, and to my amazement, another wending its way among the Eheim ring material near the bottom of the filter. It's one thing to be in the centimeter or so of free space at the bottom of the filter, and quite another to be poking through the ceramic ring material. But, these fish had been there probably for weeks, so no emergency. Still, they belong in my tank. So the first thing I did was put a proper strainer (stainless steel mesh in this case) on the filter intake. You can also see the main sponge filter covering the intake through the drilled bottom of the tank. 











Then I took the filter out of the cabinet (thank gosh for quick disconnects) after turning off the CO2. When I got it onto my kitchen counter, I could see not one but two kuhlis swimming in the free space at the bottom:






I then got a big wide bucket and mostly filled it with tank water. I opened the Eheim filter, took of the top, and slowly and carefully laid the Eheim cannister on its side into the water in the bucket. I didn't want to crush my kuhlis. This was nerve wracking because I didn't know how many were in there or where exactly they were.

I then slowly dumped all the material into the bucket in a way I hoped would give the fish plenty of leeway to swim free of the material. But they weren't having any of it, I could (through dirty water) see at least one burying itself into the media, rings and the fracted glass stuff. So slowly, I grabbed handfuls of the material and put it into a bin, gradually separating rings and media, until all that was left was dirty water and my loaches. I dumped the dirty water through a net, eventually getting not two but three fish! Back into the tank they went!

I then carefully rinsed in tank water all the floss and other stuff, and passed all the water through the net in case more fish were discovered, but none were there. Eventually, I put the filter back together and hooked it back up. The hour or so all this (first some water change, then the rescue) took was enough time for the tank pH to rise from around 6.2 up to almost 6.5. The fish didn't seem to mind.

I now see the kuhlis periodically. I wonder if the other two or three died at some point. I did check the other filter (an eheim 2217) and didn't see any sign of them.

Next up: I'll document my algae situation and why I pulled the wood out of the tank to clean it (blue green algae!).


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Really quickly though, here's the tank a day before the kuhli rescue, cloudy due to water change just complete. Note the stargrass on the right foreground; it has grown double in height and 3x is volume since being planted three weeks before this picture!


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Fish are weird lol. ‘Here is a beautiful tiny world I have built for you with lush plants and your favorite foods!’ ‘No’ ‘Here is a dirty cramped sealed bucket’ ‘yes, amazing!’ 😂


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

For those following this tank, here's a post I made in response to someone else; it includes my recent pH log:









24 hour COII


I am setting up a 90 gallon tank with a 55 gallon Sump/Shrimp breeder underneath both will be planted and will be on opposing 12 hour light schedules. first do you think I will need COII? If i decide to do COII do you think with this set up I would be able to have the COII on continuously?




www.plantedtank.net


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Yesterday I bought six Siamese algae eaters. They are in quarantine for an undetermined amount of time. See thread here where I surveyed how long people keep fish in quarantine. 

Here's a picture of them in their bag, gradually getting more of the quarantine tank water added to the bag:










There's one piece of spiderwood in the quarantine tank (10 gallons) that had a huge amount of black beard (brush) algae on it (semi-visible behind the bag in the upper left). In the day the fish have been in there, they've decimated the algae about 80% removed. I'll keep them in there for some number of days, with me adding water from my 90 gallon main tank into the quarantine tank a gallon or so per day. 

The fish are fine so far. Hopefully they will be ok in quarantine until I put them into the main tank. The quarantine tank has been cycled and I periodically dose it with ammonia to keep the BBs going. I will keep my eye on water parameters. 

Meanwhile, about two weeks ago I took all the spiderwood out the main tank. There was a lot of algae growing in the tank, with a distressing amount of blue green algae among it. Usually blue green algae is present when there is a lot of decomposing organic matter, and I had a LOT of spiderwood in the tank. Some parts of it were breaking down. So I took it all out, and bleached it, but instead of putting it back in, I decided my rockscape was enough, along with my big piece of mopani wood which I did put back. I will save the spiderwood for another project and use it more sparingly there. 

Hopefully, that will take care of the blue green algae. I've been doing a lot of water changes, and it seems to be less of a thing now. And the SAEs should help me keep the real algae in check if I'm lucky, once they get into the tank. Here's a picture from yesterday:










Most plants are growing pretty well. I trimmed some of the vertical shoots from the swords and planted them in the substrate. The stargrass is growing like a weed. The crypts are doing pretty well, and the bacopa is ... well, it's just sitting there, but that's pretty much what bacopa does. The alternanthera is not doing great yet. It has really gotten covered with algae and I hope once it is clearer due to SAE assistance it might grow more. Same for the Java ferns, which have been sort of stagnant.

Another change is I've shortened the photoperiod. 2 hours ramping to 55% max, then 6 hours at that level, then 2 hours ramping down.

I will keep you guys posted.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Tank is looking awesome! Everything seems to be filling in nicely.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

I want to share a happy moment that occurred just now:

So, my tank has I think 6 kuhlis that I put into it some time ago. The number of remaining loaches is unknown because I rarely see them, and never more than one or two at a time most.

Recall that I recently rescued three of them. At the time, I was worried that maybe the three I rescued from the filter were all that survived in the tank.

Well today, I had an appearance of one of the loaches that was definitely not one of the rescued loaches. It was my favorite of the bunch when I bought them because its stripe pattern is very intense... the stripes are narrow and close together. I haven't seen this fish even once since putting it into the tank. But, this morning at feeding time, it scuttled out of the pants and rocks in search of sunken food. Much bigger than it was when it went into the tank. It's eating well!

It warmed my heart to see it thriving. I'm not worried about the remaining ones any more.


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## Bootsy (Jul 4, 2021)

Marc_G said:


> I now see the kuhlis periodically. I wonder if the other two or three died at some point. I did check the other filter (an eheim 2217) and didn't see any sign of them.
> 
> Next up: I'll document my algae situation and why I pulled the wood out of the tank to clean it (blue green algae!).


FWIW, I added a small group in my old 85-gallon planted tank. Rarely saw them. Years passed, then I started occasionally seeing some out and about. They were smaller than I remembered and some we’re misbarred. They had apparently been breeding in there for a loooong time.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

So, this brings up: what fish are there left to add to this tank, to make it complete? I don't want to over-crowd it.

A showcase set of fish will be a group of maybe 5 angelfish, or possibly just 4. I like the original strain, not the marble ones or ones with fancy fins. Then, a set of zebra loaches. I'm planning zebras instead of my favorite yoyos, because they are smaller and a bit more compatible with the angelfish.

I may get a few more rummynose tetras, as I've got just two of the original 8 that I bought, and they just didn't acclimate for some reason.

That's about it!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

The interesting kuhli loach put in another appearance this afternoon. So strange that I saw it twice in the same day after maybe two months of not seeing it. Here is a picture and a video:


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

I've put my Siamese Algae Eaters into the main tank. Maybe I rushed quarantine a bit, but they have been doing fabulously and seem very healthy. 

Here is a pic of the tank, and closeup of some of the SAEs.


















There is a lot of algae in the tank; they will have much to feed on.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

After close to a week of treatment by SAEs, the algae situation in my tank is remarkably improved. Before I put the SAEs in, algae was easily visible from a meter or more away when looking at the tank, and every plant leaf had at least some algae on it. See close ups from my previous post.

Now, the tank appears much cleaner from a distance, and even in closeups, the leaves are a lot cleaner.



















Pictures above are from just a few minutes ago; I haven't changed water since Sunday (will be doing a change 40 gals tonight). 

Most of my Alternanthera reineckii had a foot in the grave, but now I believe most of it will pull through. It was particularly algae covered previously to the point the red leaves were being smothered by algae. Now, a new lease on life.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

See review of my new fishcam here:









FishCam review: Panasonic HomeHawk for remote viewing


Hi everyone, In preparation for an upcoming trip, I wanted to set up a camera such that I could check in on the tank visually from time to time to reassure myself that the fish are doing ok. I can monitor some parameters like temp and pH via my APEX controller, but noting beats seeing the fish...




www.plantedtank.net


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Latest picture here, taken an hour or two ago. Getting great pearling with lights at 55% and pH in the 6.2 range. Plants are mostly growing like crazy; exception is the Alternanthera R that is still struggling to recover from the algae.










Vacation feeder engaged!!

Note, I had to massively cut down the stargrass and the water wisteria. Both of those double every 10-14 days. Those are starting to choke out the other plants. After vacation, will decide what changes to make. Very happy with current scape that eliminated most of the wood in favor of keeping lots of plants and the rocks.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Have returned from vacation. Stargrass is flowering!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

So it has been about 11 days since my last water change, due to my vacation, then general lethargy when I got back. I measured nitrate, and there was very little of it (<5 via the API kit), and my GH was 5 and KH was 4, pretty typical values.

Here's the tank before I trimmed plants today:










The water wisteria and stargrass really took over but other plants were growing well too. Alternanthera not so much. The algae, that was under control, was coming back. Perhaps nutrient imbalance, perhaps just too much surface area for those poor SAEs to browse and clean through. With many plants getting choked out, I drastically reduced the wisteria and stargrass and pruned some other stem plants, making many of them effectively shorter. I probably removed half the mass of stargrass and wisteria today. It felt bad to just toss it but I don't have anyone to give it too, and my quarantine tank is already chock full.










Here is the "after" picture. Still a bit wild but not quite so bad. The val in the foreground is really spreading. Will have to do something about that within a week. Pretty much the only plant not going gangbusters is the Java fern.

I changed 50% of water after trimming, and added 5 pumps of NilocG and will add another five pumps tomorrow.


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## nickfontenotrn (6 mo ago)

That is a great looking tank. I am trying to rescape my 75 gal planted tank and would have loved to have benifited from the stargrass. Oh well. Keep up the good work and I really enjoyed reading this journal today. It is amazing what these tanks look like after a little work is put into them.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Here are some pictures from last week, before I left town for a few days. I had just pruned the stargrass by removing more than two thirds of it, and pinched back the water wisteria also. 


















Tomorrow three zebra loaches go into the tank as they will be done quarantine as long as they still look healthy.

Next up comes some rescaping. Too many background plants are in the foreground. The wisteria and stargrass need to be confined to smaller regions. Some sword an dwarf sword plants need to have their vertical runner daughters planted.


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## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Marc_G said:


> View attachment 1046430


The plants look amazing!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Here are some pics of the zebra loaches coming out of quarantine. Gradually adding tank water to their bag to equalize it. Main difference is CO2 level/pH since the water source is common and I routinely put tank water into the quarantine tank.

Likely the last time these three fish will be photographed together, as they are reclusive and seeing even one at a time will probably be a treat.


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## Le duke (Jun 29, 2021)

Where did you get your Stargrass? 

I ordered some trimmings off Etsy and they died immediately.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Le duke said:


> Where did you get your Stargrass?
> 
> I ordered some trimmings off Etsy and they died immediately.
> 
> ...


I bought a plant pack from user here, ortkenj, in the marketplace / for sale area. It had several Stargrass stems. It was shipped well and arrived all alive. Took a few weeks to settle into my water but then the stargrass and wisteria grew explosively. I would send you some but I've just thinned the herd massively. Will be a few weeks before it can be trimmed again.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

I had a zebra loach sighting yesterday evening, the first time since I put them into the tank!

Planning on a rescape today or tomorrow, to push back the overgrowing stargrass and others. Pics soon. Meanwhile, here's a picture of the currently-quarantined next inhabitants:










Four angelfish. I asked for the plainest ones they had, but one or two of them are actually veiltail. Originally I asked for four from a tank with really plain ones, but it turned out those were $50/fish wild caught. No thanks.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

So, today was "clear out the scape and replant a bit" day! The idea was to reclaim at least a bit of the foreground by moving the stem plants to the back, leaving just the vallisneria and a few swords and crypts in the foreground.

Before:










After:










I significantly removed the water wisteria and the stargrass, leaving just a bit of both, and none in the foreground. The Ludwigia repens got moved to the back. Rotala indica just got a light trim. A couple chain swords got nipped off the vertical runners and replanted. Several things got moved into the quarantine tank. Meanwhile here's a pic of what got removed:










I came close to removing all stargrass and wisteria but decided against it. That stuff really helped me fight the algae when the rest of my plants hadn't taken off yet and I want to maintain the ability to regrow it on demand. Stuff in my quarantine tank isn't guaranteed to survive long.

I also did a 40+% water change, and added seven pumps of Thrive. Let's see how it goes. My plants have so much surface area now that the Siamese algae eaters can't keep up with browsing off the algae; when I first put them in a few months ago the surface area was much smaller. Removing this batch of plants should help tip the balance a bit.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Gotta say, there's something enormously satisfying about reaching into a tank, and pulling out a huge hunk of beautiful, lush plants, that grew from clippings made a month or two ago from some original stock of plant bought months before that.










This is one group of Ludwigia that I pulled from the foreground and moved to the back.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

The angelfish are now in the tank:


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Had a couple more zebra loach sightings! Maybe they are getting more settled into the tank and feeling braver...


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Zebra loach sightings remain extremely rare. However, yesterday I was able to catch them on camera at feeding time:

Play "spot the loach!" in this picture:










Here's an easier one:










I saw, but wasn't quick enough to get a photo of another one that has more of a golden hue. There are three in the tank, each distinct. This one pictured here is the most often sighted one.

Meanwhile, current state of the tank:










Last time I checked water parameters, I was pleased to see around 10+ppm nitrate. It used to be I struggled to detect nitrate at all. Tank is pretty much settled; plants are thriving. Winter project is automatic water top-off, on the books, controlled by my APEX.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Tank doing well. Plants have taken over!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

I lost a fish this week. One of my relatively recently acquired angelfish. For a week or so I had been concerned about it. It was more retiring to the background than the other three, and it had some interesting marks on it. Not parasites, not fungus, but I think maybe wounds from bullying, perhaps. It was the largest of the four, and not one of the two veil tails. The marks were white, or brightish, and not always in the same place, almost like small patches of its scales were displaced. None of the other three have anything like that going on.

Two mornings ago, I found it dead at the bottom of the tank. I was sad but not surprised. My instinct told me there was something wrong with it, but I didn't think it worth it to quarantine it. Hopefully there's nothing contagious about it. I'm pretty sure it was either congenital or the result of bullying.

Otherwise the tank is fine, and I should start a blog or just a thread titled "Don't worry, it will grow back." I've gotten quite blase about pruning down my plants, but they are still taking over the tank. I've pulled essentially all the Rotala out, as I didn't really like the look of it. A week or two ago I cut off a lot of really large Amazon sword leaves, ones that had plenty of algae, or some nibble damage. These huge things were blocking a fair amount of light. So I cut them off, At this point I can't even tell I did it. The water wisteria gets nipped back every time I change water, the stargrass gets trimmed frequently, and I'm always pulling out big strands of Ludwigia. 

The front of the tank has been taken over by valisniera. Gonna have to do something about that.

There's a fair amount of spot algae and similar stuff. My clean up crew can't manage all the surface area of the thickly planted stuff. But it's not too bad.

I think I'm going to have to remove plants more drastically, but, I shouldn't worry. They'll grow back...


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

This week I noticed my CO2 tank pressure was dropping gradually. It was about 400psi, meaning it was mostly gone probably with only a week or two left. I started using it mid May, and the tank wasn't 100% full then due to prior use airbrushing. I didn't want to to risk running out around Thanksgiving so I swapped the tank today at the welding shop. $22.20 for a new one; no signs of scarcity as reported by some over the summer. About 6 months usage, more or less. 

I really need to pull excess plants out of the tank. It's a jungle in there!


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## Count Krunk (2 mo ago)

Nice build, just read through the thread. Tank is looking great


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Count Krunk said:


> Nice build, just read through the thread. Tank is looking great


Thanks.

Today I did a water change and pulled a bunch more extra plants out, and repositioned some. Here's the current view:


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

Tank is looking really good - well done!


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Tank is coming along well. I had a heater glitch this week as described here:









I think one of my two heaters just died...


My 90 gallon tank has two Eheim Jaeger heaters (I think a 200 and a 250 W). They are both set to around 78F, and they are both plugged into a power strip that is controlled by my APEX controller that shuts off power to them above 77.5F, and turns power back on at around 77.3. So, if the APEX...




www.plantedtank.net





Today I did some maintenance and removed a lot of older leaves from swords that were damaged or too algae covered to bother cleaning. Also planted several big swords that were growing from runners from the original ones I bought early this year. Amazing how these plants grow with light and CO2.


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

The picture below shows one of the swords growing from runners that I planted today. An even bigger one was planted somewhere in the back where I can't get a picture:


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## Marc_G (Jul 6, 2012)

Current view of my tank. Planning to thin things out a bit:


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