# GLA 45p - First Planted Tank - Algae Experience



## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

I have always liked live plants in aquariums and have finally stumbled across aquascaping. This thread will be updated regularly with lots of pictures of the process. updates will be slow at first but should pick up as parts are acquired.

So after about two weeks of research I have finally made a decision and my first purchase.

Although I started looking at the larger ADA tanks (90p), then on to the Aquavas system, I decided to go with a smaller tank to start. I went with one of which I believe to be of equal quality to the previous mentioned brands, the GLA 45p.

I went with GLA partly because the shipping cost was the lowest, with me living in middle Georgia, and because I decided before I dropped several thousand dollars on what I would consider a "medium" (90p) sized tank I should try a smaller version first.

The tank is scheduled to be here next Tuesday, and based on the many reviews and recommendation I read through, I purchased the Eheim 2211 as a filter/pump. Again, reading through the many different 45p setups I see that there is a difference of opinion on whether the 2211 or the 2213 is the best choice for this size tank. The price difference is really not much between the two, and some people talk about closing the outlet valve on the pump to "throttle back" the output. I am not too sure if this is the best for the pump since I do not really know what type of pump is used in the Eheim but according to them the 2211 is good for tanks up to 40 gal. 

I will be building my own stand and light holding device (if required) which moves me to my current dilemma. Which light should I buy.

I have narrowed it down to two choices. or at least two that I am interested in and put the details below.

First off I would like to mention that the plants are my main focus in this and future tanks, and not so much the fish that eventually will make their way into the tank. So I would like to get the best light for maintaining the plants in the aquarium. I want to buy a light that will not limit me on plant choices in the future. As far as I can gather from research, this means I need to get a bright light. I have been leaning towards the LED setups but have been skeptical as to whether or not they are better than the traditional MH or florescent bulbs. Some people seem to have good luck with the new LED lights and plant growth, and ADA has some LED fixtures as well, which leads me to believe that they should function just fine for healthy plant growth, even though I do not see any of their professional setups using this technology (possibly old videos).

First choice: Ecoxotic E-45 Full Spectrum LED, 18-Inch $170 on Amazon.

http://www.ecoxotic.com/e-series-led.html 

Second choice: AQUASKY451 $250 on AFA website.

http://www.adana-usa.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=76_9_17&products_id=26

I really like the look of the original Aquasky much better than the Ecoxotic but the "features" of the Ecoxotic make it much more appealing to me.

But in the end features or not I would like to get the fixture that will be more beneficial to the plants in the tank. If anyone has experience with either of these lights in this size tank please let me know your thoughts. Or if there is something that I should be looking at but am currently not aware of please let me know 

I will post pictures as equipment arrives and will most likely seek input of other more experience people as I start making more purchases. I always appreciate any kind of feedback so please let me know what you think.

Thanks,

JT


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

My filter came in today. I have zero experience with canister filter and the instructions are not really instructions. I am pretty sure I got the basic idea of how it goes together and is supposed to function.

Anyone know why there are two different shapes of "stuff" that goes inside the filter? Is that to adjust the resistance through the filter?

I am sure most everyone here is familiar with the filter but I will post a pic of the contents anyway.










Tank arrives Tuesday, still not sure what light I should order. . . . .


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## mot (Sep 17, 2011)

Congrats on the new tank! You will love the ecoxotic fixture. I just bought a 120cm GLA tank and it looks great. Glass and silicone quality look the same as my ADA tanks.

On the Eheim, my advice is to leave the black and white pads out. Put the tubular media on the bottom then the blue pad and then the spherical media on top. To clean it then, i use 2-5 gallon buckets with tank water in them. Pour the top media into a bucket and as you tip hold the sponge in place. Then remove the sponge and rinse it under tap to remove the detritus. Pour the rest of the media in the second bucket. Stir the buckets and pour off the dirty water. Put media back together. Fill a bucket with tap water add prime then fill the filter back up to near the top with the water.


Look forward to seeing more of your journal.


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## ChemGuyEthan (Apr 13, 2014)

Solid advice from Mot on the filter. The only thing I would say is you might want the white pad in there after you first fill the tank to help pull out the finer debris from whatever substrate you use. Otherwise I would agree it's not necessary to keep it in there since your water should be clear most of the time. The black pad an activated carbon-infused pad, also not necessary in planted tanks under most circumstances.

I would also opt for the ecoxotic fixture. While not as slim and sleek as the aquasky, the options and adaptability of the ecoxotic place it much higher up, in my opinion.

My only other advice would be to continue what you're already doing, and that would be researching the subject! I can't tell you how much time, frustration, and money I would have saved myself if I had just taken more time to look up lights, substrate, tanks, etc before purchasing them on a whim. Perhaps I'm just too impulsive though... At any rate, you're started off well!

Welcome to the planted tank community and good luck! Looking forward to seeing your progress!


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## Mitashade (Jan 8, 2015)

As for why there are two different shapes of ceramic media, the bigger tube ones are mostly for trapping large debris to keep the sponge from clogging, and the smaller round pieces are bio media for cultivating bacteria. Very important, never scrub the bio media (only gently rinse), and only use tank water on them, as mot pointed out. i like to use the water polisher (white pad) to make my water crystal clear since I do regular maintenance which kicks up dirt and debris. The carbon (black pad) is optional, I personally don't use one anymore. If you do, put it on top, last. It makes water even more clear and chemically purifies it, but it needs to be replaced fairly often. 

I have the 2213 on my 10g, great filters. Sounds like a nice setup.


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## Jethro702 (Jul 18, 2014)

Hi Fellow Georgian! Welcome to the forum! lol... I would give you advice on your filter... but, um canister filters I don't have much knowledge of


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## kimchilee (Mar 2, 2015)

great advise on the eheim filter! and congrats on the new tank!


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## Phyzix (Mar 20, 2015)

For my Eheim 250 I removed the black pad immediately, and filled the extra space with foam media from an old tank since it was a brand new setup. The supplied white pad broke down and got clogged very quickly for me, and I replaced it with generic filter floss which dramatically shows the waterflow but keeps things clean.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Thanks everyone for the feedback and comments on the filter setup. I can say that I have some good info on how to setup the inside of the filter. I will post pictures of the tank when It arrives on Tuesday.

In the meantime I am still trying to plan what to buy to put in the tank.

It seems like just about everyone is using ADA aquasoil/substrates so I got that figured out. Can anyone tell me if the additives that I see people put under the soil is worth the investment?

Rocks. It seems that there are a wide variety of "name brand" rocks that are sold for use in planted tanks. I would really like to see some of these in person to help me make a decision and it seems it would be better to buy them this way since you pick the ones you want. However, I know there is nowhere around Macon that stocks these type of stones but I would be willing to drive to Atlanta. Anyone know which of the stores in Atlanta carries these or which one is the best for planted tank stuff? If not, is there a preferred online vendor that you talk with before buying them or is everything just ordered blindly and you get what you get.

If I do have to order the rocks online any recommendations for how much weight should be enough for my 45p with a few leftover in case I don't like some of them.

Plants. I looked at the plants at petsmart, the only store around me. They looked pretty rough and didn't seem to carry most of the plants I see in the tanks online. They had a bunch of larger broad leafed plants, but I don't see these working too well in my smaller tank. Is there an online plant supplier that seems to be better than most? I cant really find any specifics but when the time comes of course I would like everything to be alive on my first order.

Thanks again everyone for the information :icon_smil


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## ChemGuyEthan (Apr 13, 2014)

Yeah, you know I personally like aquasoils for nutrient content and their consistency (I like the small round pieces, they're pretty easy to plant in). I've done eco-complete and wasn't super happy with it. Haven't been disappointed with amazonia yet. I haven't tried dirted though, so maybe that's a good alternative if you're hoping to save money.

I really don't see how the soil additives are necessary. In the end, they're just activated charcoal, some sort of powdered calcium compound that's supposed to keep soils aerobic, and powdered bacterial starters. To me they all seem really gimmicky but then I've never tried any of them.

Rocks are a tough thing. Kinda pricey in most circumstances. Good luck finding some near you! I'd say probably 15 or 20 lbs to be safe, unless it's real low-density stuff like lava rock.

Honestly for plants, I'd recommend checking out the for sale section on here. If there isn't a good place locally, this might be a good bet. Lots of good sellers on the forum here with great plants, typically much better prices than online. I've had luck with big store packaged plants before, but they tend to take a while to grow in. With priority shipping, it would hopefully get there in just a couple days.


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## Jethro702 (Jul 18, 2014)

Hmmm, I know I went to a place in Atl one time that had a huge section of driftwood pieces. Though I can't recall if they had rocks or not. They also had a ok selection of plants. There is a pet store in Byron that has some plants stocked in it and the fish guy says he can special order plants/fish depending on what his supplier has. Haven't tried that way yet. All of my plants have come from here and other online stores.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Update No Pictures

So I got my tank in the mail last Tuesday right before I went on a trip to Oregon/Washington. I have to say that the packaging was well beyond what I was expecting and the tank arrived in perfect condition.

Side note for anyone who has a tank from GLA, I noticed that under the tank in the packaging was a thin black piece of foam. Can this be used as the under the tank pad? Is it similar to the garden mat from ADA or is it just some kind of extra packing material.

No time for pictures yet as I am still in Oregon, but I have some good news for me on my rock hunt.

While I was up in Seattle I started looking for fish tank places that might stock some of the rocks I was looking for and as surprising as it was I found a place that stocks and sells ADA products including most of the types of stones. The place was called Aquarium Zen. It was a smallish place on the northern end of Seattle but I was excited none the less since they don't have anything like that in Georgia.

So I got to look at their rock inventory. I was hoping to find some Unzan stones which they had two but I did not like they way they looked, in fact I would say I would have been quite unhappy if I had ordered them from AFA like i was planning and got these in the mail. So Unzan stone was a NO-GO . . . . for now. 

I moved on to the next stone that I was interested in the Ohko stone. They had some really nice pieces here and I managed to snag the best 5. three of the largest they had which probably are not really that big but they should look really big in my 45p.

Then since I was there and they had inventory I decided to grab some Ryuoh stone since the ones they had had some really nice looking white lines in them. I also picked up the best 5 of these as well, unfortunately they did not have very many larger stones so I got what I could.

And lastly I rummaged through their extensive selection of ADA driftwood and picked out three pieces of Hornwood that I though were pretty unique. The Branchwood seemed a little too busy for my taste at this moment.

So this gives me some flexibility in which way to run the tank for my first setup since I would say I have a pretty good selection of hardscapes to start with.

Once I return to Georgia on Wednesday I should be able to take some pictures of the stuff I got and try out a few different arrangements and get some feedback.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Hey there Squeaks,

First off, welcome to the hobby! It sounds like you've already figured out that when you jump into this pond you find out it's all "off the deep end". Keep carefully researching! I'd also recommend looking up the Atlanta Area Aquarium Association. They might be a bit far for you to make regular trips to, but they're an awesome club with a lot of plant people and can be a strong resource. 

Now it's time for me to go counter to everyone elses' opinions.  

1. When first setting up the tank ESPECIALLY if using Amazonia, ABSOLUTELY ABSOLUTELY use the activated carbon and fine particulate pads in your filter. That stuff can get dusty in transit and will put off a boatload of nutrients for the first month or two. In fact, after using it for the first time and having horrible nutrient management issues I started just letting it sit in the tank without lights for a month before adding anything. This helps to minimize the initial nutrient flush and cycles your filter at the same time.

2. As someone who did my graduate research on substrates for growing aquatic plants I will say that some of the substrate additives are absolutely useful and have scientific merit. Appropriately sized Power Sand Special in particular. The Iron Bottom, Multi Bottom, Clear Super and Tourmaline BC (activated carbons) have valid scientific basis as well. I can't remember which product that's essentially alum (I think it's Penac) also has valid use, but it's something I would file under "more optional than the other non-Power Sand additives". If I had to pick a single substrate additive other than Brightwell Aquatics Florin Power Rhizome (which I developed but isn't for sale yet, yeay!) it would be Power Sand Special. 

3. Lighting- Ecoxotic/Current USA has a very nice PAR38 LED cannon if you're looking for spotlights to hang over an open top tank. They have all the features of their regular fixtures but plug into a standard light socket making decorative coverings very flexible. 

Cheers,
Phil


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Thanks for the feedback Phil,

Sorry for no pictures yet I am sure I will get around to it but I have been working busy each day after work on the stand. I making a close copy to the ADA wood cabinet white. I proportionally shrunk all the dimensions to fit my 45p except for the height. I chose to go with the Aquavas height of 75cm I agree with them and think it will be better to be slightly higher up. I like the dimensions and the look of it. It is a little bigger than normal ADA stands and has the light fixture hangar coming from both sides. This stand also has holes directly below the edges of the tank so the hoses and such can go straight down instead of bending around and in the side.

going to stain it to match other furniture in the living room.

Other news as far as ordering stuff goes,

I picked up some etched glass backing from home depot and installed it on the Aquarium (thanks mot)

I ordered the Ecoxotic E series from amazon to be here tomorrow

I ordered the following substrait stuff from AFA

1 x 2L Power Sand Special Small
1 x 9L Aquasoil Amazonia Normal
1 x 3L Aquasoil Amazonia Powder

And lastly I ordered a 10LB Co2 tank from GLA to be here sometime next week. I am still trying to decide on which regulator to purchase . . . . . . not 100% convinced on the two stage being worth the extra money but I am still doing research . . . .

I definitely should be able to post pics of all the stuff I have got so far, progress on the stand, and all the different combinations of "scaping" I have been doing. I do have to say that I think I got way too big of Ohko stones for my 45p but its hard to tell with no soil to test it out. I will post some pics for sure and see what everyone thinks.

JT


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Pictures Finally.

I know everyone has already seen a 45p before but they haven't seen mine :hihi:










Here is a pic with the frosted background installed.










Of course this is only where the tank is sitting while I continue work on the stand. For those of you who do not know what the ADA wood stand white is supposed to look like here is a pic.










I have proportionally shrunk all dimensions to match the 45p except tank height and probably the light stand height. I am not sure if I want to make the light stand as tall as it is in the picture since it does not need to be that tall with the ecoxotic fixture I have. To me it looks like they split the distance for the light. The same distance from the top of the tank to the light then from the top of the light to the hanging stand. 

Just trying out my ecoxotic fixture holding it by hand I think it would be best around 5 inches above the water. That still appears to give good brightness to the whole tank while allowing an unobstructed top view while standing in front of the tank. But with it hanging this low it may look funny with so much wire. Still not sure yet but it is getting close to time to make the light hanging portion of the stand.

Here are some pictures of where I am currently at on the stand. You can see I made the doors with a little more "design" than the ADA ones but so far that is the only difference.




























I plan on staining the entire stand including the light holding portion that I will be making out of wood a dark color similar to the other furniture in the location that It will be going, which is here.










I did take some pictures of the items I picked up in Seattle, I put a coke can in there to try and give a size reference to the stones and wood. I have already tried moving them around in the tank to come up with some different scapes and I have found several that I like but I am going to wait until the stand is complete and the light is in place before I start posting some pics with the arrangements that I like.










Its hard to see all the really nice white lines in the Ryuoh stone without it being wet but they do look pretty good to me.




























At the rate things are going I should probably have the stand completed, light hung, and ready for some layout pictures by next weekend. :tongue:


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## 6Speed (Dec 3, 2012)

Very nice. What frosted backing did you buy? I'm on a search for some. I bought some off amazon but it's a little difficult to apply.


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## FishEnthusiast98 (May 17, 2014)

Nice! Following


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

6Speed said:


> Very nice. What frosted backing did you buy? I'm on a search for some. I bought some off amazon but it's a little difficult to apply.


This










They have a larger roll but this was the smallest size it was just over $20 at Home Depot


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Update more pictures.

Got the stand completely finished and stained last night and snapped some shots at some points along the process. No pics of the stained cabinet yet until it is finished. but here is what I got.

picture of the top after i realized I forgot to drill the holes for the lights power cord. The ones behind the rectangles for the light stand.










I made the light stand side supports 6 inches longer than the top of the cabinet so I could raise or lower them if needed. They were not glued but I screwed it in underneath.










The next four shots are just with it in place getting a feel for the dimensions and thinking about the best looking way to attach the light.





































So while I am waiting for the stain from last night to fully dry before my polycryilic applications on the cabinet I started to work on my fixture hanging hardware.

Looking at the kit from ecoxotic I figured I would be able to make something similar to fit my stand. While at home depot I was not satisfied with the steel wire connectors they had to offer they did not look very good in my opinion. So I went over to the hook and eyelet section in search of something that would work, and this is what I found.










Now I'm sure everyone is wondering what I am going to do with these tiny eyelets. Well get some chain of course! But how are you going to attach it to the light? I am just going to screw it through the back of the light. WHAT!! why would anyone screw a screw thought the back of a light fixture. Well only someone who has taken the fixture apart to see what there was to hit first. So here is some notes on how to "properly" remove the legs from your E series light and how to carefully attach mounting points without damaging anything.

So the first step was to remove the end cap, I started with the one without the electrical cord, for this you need a long small Phillips head screwdriver. remove the two screws and the cap and stand will pull away from the fixture. There is a thin piece of plastic that you could break if you pull too hard so don't break it. The metal stand is kept in place by two "bushings". These allow the stand to slide in and out without coming all the way out.



















You need to rotate the bushing so the slot is facing the flat part of the stand rods. On mine both the flat part were facing outward. once the slot is lined up with the flat part you can safely slide it off without breaking anything.










So the center of the fixture is aluminum? but the end-caps are definitely plastic. so I could screw the eyelets into the plastic as long as it did not have a chance to contact anything that could cause a problem. You can see once the cap is off there is something below but there is plenty of room above it to put the eyelets in without touching. I took some pictures of the distance the eyelet is through and the clearance height above the metal piece.



















One thing to note is the eyelets are very hard to screw into the plastic and I do not own a drill bit small enough to pre-drill a hole. but with enough time and patience you can get it through and it is very secure.

The other side was pretty much the same story except there is no way to completely remove the end-cap since the wires are soldered directly to the circuit board. But there is enough room to put the eyelet through and check clearance.


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## kimchilee (Mar 2, 2015)

love you your stand! can't wait to see your scaping.


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## Mitashade (Jan 8, 2015)

Been wanting to do that with my Sat+ Pro, but haven't managed to find a guide on how to remove the legs yet. Nice job.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

So after researching for quite a while last night I have decided on a few things. I was already a little concerned that the 2211 filter would not be big enough for the tank I have, not by itself, but after I possibly add a few restrictions.

I was looking at Co2 diffusers and inline heaters. 

So the inline heater will certainly add restriction to the flow through the filter and as time goes on the filter will fill with stuff and the flow will decrease as well. The comes the Co2 distribution method. I was looking into the three types and it seems everyone has a different opinion on how effective each method is.

If I go with the in tank diffuser it will be the new ADA diffuser. This will have no impact on the filter flow but seems that it may not be the best method for co2 delivery based on everything I am reading. I am assuming though that most peoples thoughts on this are based on the imitation versions of these diffusers so I do not know how much weight to give them.

If I go with the in-line diffuser it will be either the cal aqua glass diffuser or the GLA inline atomizer which they may no longer sell so I think it should be similar to the UP Aqua atomizer. The inline atomizer is also supposed to have no effect on the flow through the filter but the cal aqua will. The inline atomizer seems that it may create smaller bubbles and those bubbles will be circulated around the tank by the filter flow. The only issues I hear about this one appear to be from people who do not have a regulator that can handle the psi requirements or that the co2 mist makes the tank look cloudy.

Since I have zero experience with either method and cannot go to see any of these in real life around here I was hoping for some detailed feedback by people who have used both the authentic ADA glass diffuser and the GLA or UP Aqua inline atomizer. the feedback I am looking for is specifically on the effectiveness of each method and the appearance of the tank one way or the other.

I suspect that the tank would be more clouded from the atomizer but that is just a feeling I have.

I know that reactors are an option but I have not been satisfied with reviews and videos of the reactors function. I do not want something that can be noisy or limit the amount of co2 that can be added before it starts giving problems.

So with that being said I have decided to return the 2211 to amazon and purchased the 2213 instead. The flow rates on the 2213 more closely match the filter specs for the superjet recommended by ADA for this size tank.

So then comes the inline heater. any reccomendations before I start my research, or any options or features that I should be looking for to prevent any problems with the heater.

Thanks again everyone for the information.

JT


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

Inline heater: Hydor with a temperature controller such as the finnex controller. The hydor inline heaters work wonderfully until they fail (2 years on a lot of reviews). They are great for the price and really shine as long as you have a secondary controller; which everyone should use regardless because heater failure is not a isolated issue.

As for the CO2 diffusing. I would not use a glass diffuser. They look cool, but far too many bubbles do make it to the surface. I've been watching a ton of videos and doing a fair amount of reading myself recently. If you have space and a way to quiet the noise (if it is too loud), a reactor is the way to go. A DIY reactor is cheap and the most efficient design. An inline atomizer would not be bad by any means. But the in tank atomizers and diffusers are just not efficient. You can always pick on up for cheap (<$5) and see how many BBS it takes to get 30ppm CO2 with a 4KGH (?) solution and then try an inline atomizer. If the atomizer is no more effective (BBS being less than the diffuser), then just go back and return the atomizer as not being worth the cost due to be ineffective.


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## HolyAngel (Oct 18, 2010)

I don't have any experience with the inline Heater but have tried the in-tank diffusers and the inline atomizers. After months of using, I only use the up aqua/gla inline atomizers at this point, had much better diffusion rate.

I've found if your under 2bps then you don't get a hugely noticeable mist in the tank, anything more than that and it starts to get increasingly, noticeable as your bubble rate goes up, can turn into a cloud throughout your tank. Definitely want to use a regulator on the co2 tank, whether it's paintball or a full on co2 tank is up to you. I've been using gla's atomic regulator without any issue with the inline atomizers.
That being said, I've never tried a reactor so can't really compare for you there but I know that should make it completely unnoticeable regardless of bubble count.


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## Donald Corbett (Apr 1, 2015)

I have an up aqua inline and the hydor inline running on a 2215. I have no complaints with the up aqua at all. It disperses co2 for my application well granted the 7up (tiny bubbles) isn't something that bothers you. The hydor heater has worked perfectly so far but I did have one of their submersible heaters fail in the past and stick on so I keep a close eye. 


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## bpb (Mar 8, 2011)

Sharp looking build, especially on the cabinetry. I'd warn against going too oversealous with the hardscape. All of those pieces may be a bit much for that footprint, especially if they don't match


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## 6Speed (Dec 3, 2012)

Squeaks5635 said:


> So here is some notes on how to "properly" remove the legs from your E series light and how to carefully attach mounting points without damaging anything.
> 
> So the first step was to remove the end cap, I started with the one without the electrical cord, for this you need a long small Phillips head screwdriver. remove the two screws and the cap and stand will pull away from the fixture. There is a thin piece of plastic that you could break if you pull too hard so don't break it. The metal stand is kept in place by two "bushings". These allow the stand to slide in and out without coming all the way out.
> 
> ...


Great write up. Thanks for sharing. I took the end cap off one side to see how to remove the legs, but couldn't figure out how to remove them. How did you get the bushings out...weren't they further on the inside of the fixture, not just on the inside of the plastic end caps? It's been a few weeks since I pulled the cap off.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Thanks everyone for the comments on the diffusers and the heaters. I see now after a little research that there really is only one in-line heater option so that makes it an easier choice. However now I have not been having much luck looking for a "positive reviewed" temperature switched plug to plug the heater into to prevent any failures in the on position that may cook some fish and or plants. Anyone using one of these that seems to work good?



bpb said:


> Sharp looking build, especially on the cabinetry. I'd warn against going too oversealous with the hardscape. All of those pieces may be a bit much for that footprint, especially if they don't match


Thanks for the comments I know that is a lot of hardscape. Only two of the Ohko stones can fit comfortably in the 45p at a time they are rather large. In fact I purchased materials to do three different hardscapes. One with Ohko stone, one with Ryuoh stone, and one with stone and driftwood. I only purchased all the pieces when I did since I am not usually in a location that sells these materials so I wanted to buy as much as I could in person so that I would get good pieces that I hand picked instead of ordering later and getting whatever they send me. You will see what I have planned hopefully later this week when I start putting some different designs up for comments and suggestions.



6Speed said:


> Great write up. Thanks for sharing. I took the end cap off one side to see how to remove the legs, but couldn't figure out how to remove them. How did you get the bushings out...weren't they further on the inside of the fixture, not just on the inside of the plastic end caps? It's been a few weeks since I pulled the cap off.


In my experience the bushing are actually in the endcaps and if you pull the legs all the way out and then push back in with the endcaps off the bushings will be exposed. you kind of have to pull it in and out with the cap off to get the bushings to slide out of the endcaps so that you can rotate them to take them off. let me know if you need additional help and maybe I can post some more in detail steps to get them off.


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## bpb (Mar 8, 2011)

ahh, I gotcha. I thought the proposed hardscape was to use all of those pieces together. In which case, this is a tough call then. Id have a hard time choosing between any of them since they all look so nice


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## andrewss (Oct 17, 2012)

nice work on the stand! i like the integrated light supports!


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Update with pictures

So I have been working on this stand after work and have managed to get things done a little quicker than anticipated.

here are some pretty crappy pictures but its all I could get with my phone. some time soon my wife will get her camera out and take some better pictures for me. She knows a lot more about photography than I probably ever will. :hihi:



















The next two pictures are the closest to what it looks like color wise in real life. If your monitors are calibrated that is.























































I managed to find a fish that can survive in the current conditions. He is kind of camoflauged, maybe that is how he does it. :tongue:










Co2 tank and Aquasoil should be arriving tomorrow.


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## mot (Sep 17, 2011)

Very nce tank setup. Now the real fun begins!


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

mot said:


> Very nice tank setup. Now the real fun begins!


yes time for some fun. I tried my hand at some arrangements to try and see what kind of setup I want to start with. I feel like it may be easier to do rocks only but keep going back to wood as the main part with some rocks as accent. I tried to include some progression but the one at the end is kind of where i'm at right now. 































































































































if there is a better way to post these types of pictures or a different angle I should be taking them at let me know.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Alright, so I have been looking at the layout and decided it needed some more "depth" so I raised the back right side quite a bit and the back left side slightly.
I also know that a lot of people say that the hills do not last and they eventually flatten out. Since I have no experience with this I am not sure how bad this will happen, especially since the bases of my hill is not surrounded by rocks or anything holding it back.

Looking around online I have found that James Findley uses what he calls substrate supports that basically just look like thin plastic sheeting cut to different sizes that he pushes in to the substrate to hold the material back to help keep it from falling. I am not really sure if I need something like this but I feel like it cant hurt to try it. I may stop by home depot to get something, just not sure if I pick up something random if it will end up hurting the water.

Here are some links to the page where you can buy them, and an article with some pics about its usage.

Item Description Page

Article Demonstrating Use

I would like any feedback with experiences with building hills and whether or not you think this substrate support is necessary or even a good idea.

Here are some detailed shots of the tank in its current setup.























































I still have a thin layer of powder type Aquasoil that will be spread once everything is finalized.


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## TheAnswerIs42 (Jul 10, 2014)

i love the layout and hardscape you chose. Very nice


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## kimchilee (Mar 2, 2015)

rock and wood combination always a big challenge to me, but you did it. it looks great!


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## ChemGuyEthan (Apr 13, 2014)

That's some great hardscape material you've got there!

If I may, I think the rock and wood are a little disjointed... I guess maybe it's that front left rock that looks a little off. If you can move it to the back right, in front of that awesome twisty piece of wood it might look nice and also serve to keep your mound of substrate higher up. Then the front is freed up for some foreground plants to cover it.

Just my two cents. 

I think if you don't support that hill with rocks, you may want substrates supports. I've used just clear plastic sheets before that didn't seem to hurt anything. Another option is dry starting with lots of ground cover plants so their roots will hold things in place. Stems won't do that. So if you want to go more iwagumi with just hardscape and something like HC, you might get away without the supports. Otherwise I'd maybe suggest something to hold it up.

Really great start though with the layout and good luck!


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

TheAnswerIs42 said:


> i love the layout and hardscape you chose. Very nice





kimchilee said:


> rock and wood combination always a big challenge to me, but you did it. it looks great!


Thanks guys hard to decide with so many options.



ChemGuyEthan said:


> That's some great hardscape material you've got there!
> 
> If I may, I think the rock and wood are a little disjointed... I guess maybe it's that front left rock that looks a little off. If you can move it to the back right, in front of that awesome twisty piece of wood it might look nice and also serve to keep your mound of substrate higher up. Then the front is freed up for some foreground plants to cover it.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the feedback. I thought about what you mentioned with the rock in the front and I moved it to see what it would look like. after looking at it a while I decided I do like it better in that area but then it looked like it needed one more small piece to finish it up.

So I broke one of the rocks I was not currently using and got some smaller pieces. I ended up putting one in the spot by the twirling wood and the other back by the lone rock on the left to add support to that smaller hill as well. I am really liking the layout now the longer I look at it. I put some pictures below.

Not sure what plants are going where but I do know i want to put some mesh on the end of that twirl piece and make a tree with it so probably just some low growing plants on the upper section and foreground. Probably some stems from behind the large rock and something unique on the top of the smaller hill on the left. It will be a while before plants anyway sine I will be leaving for a trip next weekend and will not be back till mid June so I don't want to start anything till I get back. 

Yes I know I need to get some Lilly pipes . . . . . .eventually.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Glassware is in!!!

Got some stuff from GLA now that they restocked their calaqua selections.

I went with the F-1 and the X-1 for my pipes and I got the Clip nano for my drop checker. I like the idea that it sits on the outside and I can move it to any edge, not sure if it is going to be much help since drop checkers seem to have mixed reviews as far as their effectiveness.

Either way here are the pictures. 

Now I am just waiting on the atomizer to be back in stock on GLA so I can place my last order (regulator and atomizer) before I am ready for some plants. :hihi:


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Update: Choosing Plants

OK so to update everyone with where things are currently. I have received my inline atomizer, co2 tubing and check valve. I have mounted and installed everything nice and neat under the tank and connected some clear tubing to my new glassware.

I placed my order for the regulator which I expect to be here sometime next week, as well as the fertilizers that I will be using. So at this point the only thing left is to decide on some plants and the layout.

I plan on ordering tissue cultured plants from aquairiumplants.com so without further explanation I have made some really bad copy and paste "drawings" to show how I plan to do the layout. Everyone keep in mind that I have never done any of this before so if you see me making any serious planting mistakes please let me know.

Or even if you just have some notes about the plants I have chosen or would like to suggest some alternatives. 

Plant list with pictures that correspond to the ones in my "drawings"

Aponogeton_longiplumulosus










Flame moss










Hemianthus_Callitrichoides










Eleocharis_acicularis










Staurogyne_repens










Ammania_senegalensis










Alternanthera_reineckii_Mini










Hygrophila_Lanceolata_Araguaia










Now for the layouts :icon_surp

Front view










Top down view










The only other things I am considering now are some riccia mixed in with the HC in the lower carpet. And possibly something other than HC (glosso, or MC jap?) for the carpet under the tree in the upper right corner I just think it will need to be something very short.


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## Sarraa (May 17, 2015)

nice job! This is going to look so awesome! Following


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

I need some opinions on how many cups of these plants I should buy. Will one cup of everything but the HC be enough. I am just not sure about how far these cups will go and I really don't want to overbuy just to throw them away because I don't have anywhere to put them . . . . . 

So how many cups of HC would you get to start this thing. . .

also I am thinking maybe to get two cups of the s repens but not sure if that will be too much.

Thanks for the feedback.

JT


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## mot (Sep 17, 2011)

You have too many plants selected for this tank. I would recommend reducing down to 4 or 5 pots. Also i suggest only 1 red plant. 1 pot hc is plenty for that small area.

Give you an idea my carpet is 5 pots total in a 120p. And another 5 pots in the back and i planted quite dense to fill in quickly. And yes they were the same tissue culture plants from ap.com.


Hope that helps.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

mot said:


> You have too many plants selected for this tank. I would recommend reducing down to 4 or 5 pots. Also i suggest only 1 red plant. 1 pot hc is plenty for that small area.
> 
> Give you an idea my carpet is 5 pots total in a 120p. And another 5 pots in the back and i planted quite dense to fill in quickly. And yes they were the same tissue culture plants from ap.com.
> 
> ...


Thanks mot, this is quite helpful, now I know that I only need one cup per plant type.

Part of the reason why I have selected 7 different plants and 1 moss is to try and get a feel for the different types of plants, how they grow, and their maintenance requirements. I think this will be helpful for me in the future when planning new layouts.

Since you have ordered plants from ap.com do you usually go with the next day air option, or do you have them shipped ground (2 day for our location). If next day is the way to go then I need to make that $50 minimum.

Thanks again


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## mot (Sep 17, 2011)

Squeaks5635 said:


> Thanks mot, this is quite helpful, now I know that I only need one cup per plant type.
> 
> Part of the reason why I have selected 7 different plants and 1 moss is to try and get a feel for the different types of plants, how they grow, and their maintenance requirements. I think this will be helpful for me in the future when planning new layouts.
> 
> ...


Yes I did next day air. But only because its hot out and I wanted the plants to arrive in great condition. I normally try to get my plants in spring or fall when weather is in the 50s to 70s to save on the shipping and plants arrive in better shape.

I understand what you are saying but you wont be able to get a good "feel" for the plants if they are crammed in there. I assume your brand new tank isnt going anywhere and you will have it for some time. My 2 cents is slow down and enjoy.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Quick update:

Fertilizers arrived yesterday.

Regulator will be here Wednesday.

Plants ordered on Saturday, I took Mot's advice and eliminated the Aponogeton_longiplumulosus and the Ammania_senegalensis. That brings me down to the standard 3 (HC,Srepens,Hairgrass) and two reds (AR mini, and Hygrophila_Lanceolata_Araguaia not sure if there is an abbreviation for this one). I swapped the flame moss for x-mas tree since flame was out of stock and I needed to make my $50 for the shipping discount.

Plants should be here Thursday. I will post and update with pics of in the cabinet once the regulator is installed.


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## dru (Mar 9, 2013)

Love the stand and hardscape

Will be following along


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Plants have arrived!

Got my regulator in Wednesday and all hooked up, but I never took any pictures. Later than night I filled the tank for the first time with no plants to make sure everything was working correctly, Pump, CO2, Heater. Everything was good to go. The next day the plants arrived they looked like this.










One of the cups of HC did not look very good compared to the other one. But I was very pleased with the condition of all the other plants.

One very unfortunate circumstance was that my pinsettas did not come in yet :icon_frow. So after some very unsuccessful attempts with a pair of chopsticks :icon_twis I took my wife's tweezers and bent the ends with some pliers to make them flat and used those. They were much shorter than I would have liked but they ended up working way better than the chopsticks. I should mention that I started planting with the HC which basically did not have any roots so I had to shove it down pretty deep to get it to stay.

Here is a pic of the first successful planting :hihi:










And here is a few hours later . . . . . . . I realized that lowering the water level made planting much easier with the short tweezers.



















I continued to plant everything else except for the moss on the upper wood piece. I still need to attach it to that but I think i want to get some SS mesh to shape it the way I want. Or I could just try to attach with string and then shape by cutting I am not sure as I have no experience either way but there is no rush.
































































I would like to mention that planting was much more difficult that I had originally expected. Maybe because of the tweezers but I suspect it may be more due to the HC being a tough plant to plant?

Sorry for the cellphone pics so far up in the Journal. I will be getting my wife to take some weekly update shots with her camera so they should look much more clear. Although The cloudy water I am thinking is probably from me not rinsing the filter stuff before putting it in the canister. It should go away after the next few water changes.

First water change will be today I will post and update afterwards.


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## mot (Sep 17, 2011)

Chopsticks...now that is hardcore! I laughed pretty hard picturing you planting hc with them. Plants look good and you are correct hc is tough to plant. The cloudy water is normal for aquasoil. Just do a 95%water change or two and fill slowly until you get a bit above the soil level. I often fill and immediately empty and refill as i dont want all the fines in the filter.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

mot said:


> Chopsticks...now that is hardcore! I laughed pretty hard picturing you planting hc with them.


Yeah it's definitely going in the not gonna try it again box :tongue:

So after the water change earlier today I realized that I have to refill the tank one cup at a time to avoid disturbing the substrate and setting loose some HC fliers.

For those of you that water test here are the results of the water before the water change today.

PH 6.2
Am 4 ppm
Ite 2 ppm
Ate 40 ppm










I turned the CO2 down again as the drop checker is a very "verge of yellow" green color and I figured it was the reason for the low PH. I was around 1 bps and am now around 1 bp2s  We will see.

And now for a much more clear but not really less blurry picture of the tank.










Anyone recommend where I can get a good quality 2x2 stainless mesh to use for my moss tree?


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## mot (Sep 17, 2011)

The aquasoil drops the ph as well as the co2. I dont see any problem with 6.2. Measure your ph and kh and then calculate your co2 level. I use a ph probe that can measure to .01 and a hannah alkalinity meter to measure kh in ppm. Though this isnt perfect, I found it is better for determining co2 levels than using a drop checker. I havent used a drop checker in a long time. Not saying they are worthless but in my experience its just not responsive enough and really doesnt give you a numerical value.

I can forward you the online calculator i use if interested.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

mot said:


> I can forward you the online calculator i use if interested.


Sure that would be good to have. I just ordered an API kh and gh dropper test which will be here Monday so I can check it out then. Is there a target ppm for CO2? I seem to remember you mentioning yours was around 70ppm not to long ago.


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## MPdesign (May 17, 2015)

Going to be really good tank


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## mot (Sep 17, 2011)

I pm'd the link for the co2 calculator to you. I tested mine just now and posted it in my journal so as not to clutter up yours.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

mot said:


> I pm'd the link for the co2 calculator to you. I tested mine just now and posted it in my journal so as not to clutter up yours.


Thanks for that, I will put my numbers in when the tester comes on Monday. I agree having measuring equipment would be much more accurate and that is something important for CO2 that I plan on getting eventually but till then I'll see what I can do with the calculator and my API testers :wink:

Got my wife to take some pictures with her camera today. Some really good close up shots but not sure I am set on the angle of the full tank shot I think we got it a little too straight on. Plenty of time to practice now that we actually have a tank we can take pictures of :hihi:























































I have been, and plan on continuing to change around 70% of the water daily for the first week, then transition to every two days, at least that's my plan at this point. Anyone see anything wrong with that?


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Update:

Tested the water again today before I was going to do a water change to see how things were looking. Also because I got my test kit for KH and GH in today and wanted to see if I could double check my drop checker. Here are the results from the various tests today.

PH 6.6
Am 0.5 ppm
Ite 0 ppm
Ate 0 ppm










The next tests were a little more tricky to get exact and I came up with between 3 and 4 drops of the indicator to get the color switch for both the GH and KH tests. I say 3 and 4 because the color started to change at 3 but was fully changed at 4. This corresponded to a range of 50 to 67 ppm respectively. So now that I have a general idea of where my GH and KH are this is far from accurate enough for a CO2 calculation.

After seeing the above results from all the tests I was wondering exactly why was I going to change the water? So I started to look around online again and everyone seems to have quite different opinions and when i was thinking about it. If I change the water then I reset the CO2 concentration and I believe it probably takes a while for it to reach an equilibrium concentration again so I thought I would see what happened if I waited another day for the water change.

Instead I increased the lighting period from 8 to 9 hours.

Everything seemed to be perfectly fine but the water did look like it was starting to get a little hazy like it did the first day I filled it up. I am sure it will clear right back up with the water change tomorrow.

The last thing I have been looking into is the importance of "feeding the bacteria" in the filter. Do I really need to get some fish food or something to get the ammonia up or is that really just a check to see if the bacteria is working?


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

*GLA 45p - First Planted Tank - Week 1 Update*

Week 1 Update:

So the tank has been planted for 1 week and I have to say I didn't think much has changed but after looking at the same cell phone pic from the day that I planted it I would have to say that there has been quite a bit of growth. Most of the "poor" looking cup of HC seems to be melting but the other batch that looked nice when it arrived is doing great. 

I have had some float up every now and then but not much. Still changing the water every other day and dosing fertilizers daily. Photo period is still at 9 hours, i'm going to give it another week then probably bump it to 10 hours.

Playing around with the outlet lily pipe to see what happens at different heights has given me the following results. If you don't put it close enough to the surface of the tank you get some slimy stuff? and bubbles that sit around the edges. Then when you add your fertilizers they just stick to this stuff. raising the pipe slightly out of the water did not seem to fix this issue once it developed. But after a water change leaving the pipe very close to the surface this stuff seems to never develop. Only problem is if you like it quiet you have to top off the tank often.










I noticed that the Hairgrass is spreading out forward instead of sideways. Guess the plant doesn't know what I had planned for it. People who deal with Hairgrass and do not want it to spread what do you do. Do you pull up the runners and cut them? seems like that would jack up the substrate.
Also now that the plants are in and seem to be doing great I am considering trimming and replanting some of the S repens that was all twisty and try to make it look a little nicer. its already creeping out over some HC and up into the Hygrophelia.

Edit:
Anyone know how to change the thread title? I have been searching for over an hour and cannot find the option anywhere. I thought I found it when I added the title to my last post but that did not work. Thanks.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Week 2 Update:

I started to get some diatoms a few days ago so I went and picked up a few Otos for the tank. They are swimming around quite a bit and seem to be munching the stuff off the wood and hanging out on the glass. They don't seem to be too interested in the stuff on the rocks though so I may end up just brushing that off. HC seems to be spreading pretty well and should be ready for the first trim here pretty soon. 

I ordered a piece of ss mesh from someone in the for sale section to make the top of the tree with the moss that I have had sitting in a glass with some water for the last few weeks so hopefully that will arrive early next week and I can start work on making the tree. 

I have been doing water changes every other day for the last week and Now I plan on switching to every two days. I also increased the lighting period from 9 hours to 10 hours and that is where I plan on keeping it, as long as I don't start to develop any issues. 

Also doing some research on the spreading of hairgrass I have seen some people cut some strips of thin clear plastic and use that as a divider to keep the runners from going across underground. They say about an inch deep should be good enough so I plan on giving that a try.

here is the usual cell phone picture.










Took a picture with an actual camera tonight, That is why the AR mini is closed up it seems to do that every night. Anyway here is our latest attempt at making better shots. Still a lot to learn with flashes.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Water check this morning before change everything looks good.

PH 6.6
Am 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5 ppm

I stopped at a place in Atlanta yesterday that had some Amano shrimp for $6 (seems kind of expensive) and I picked up 3 of them. Added them and one more Oto to the tank to make three shrimp and three Otos. The tank is looking real clean now so I ordered some Repashy super green to make sure they have enough food as time goes on. Anyone got experience with this and Otos or shrimp. I read that people get good luck with the Otos eating it.

Will post some pics after the first trimming which should be any day now.

I know its still pretty early in the development but I am considering swapping locations of the AR mini and the Hygrophelia around in the tank.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Update: Moss has finally been installed on the tree.

I ordered some SS mesh from nilocg in the for sale thread and it arrived yesterday. A magnet wont stick to it so it seems legit. It was exactly what I was looking for and a reasonable price after looking around at other options. I cut a piece approx the size that I wanted from the larger piece and rough shaped it and cut a hole in the middle to attach it to the wood.

Not sure how long it takes for this stuff to grow but it has been sitting in a cup of water next to my tank for almost 3 weeks now and it appears to be the same size. Also did some trimming of the HC and HG and inserted the plastic divider on the upper level near the tree. I still need to do some cleanup on the AR mini in the lower section and get a divider installed there as well that HG is spreading everywhere.



















I left the little burs sticking in towards the hole i cut out so that I could use that to hold on to the wood. I just ended up pushing the wood through the mesh until it seemed to be secure. Hopefully that is all I need to do to keep it in place.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Week 3 update:

Everything seems to be going good. Small amounts of green and brown stuff growing on the rocks but the shrimp and Otos seem to keep it under control. I have been looking around online since I am trying to fine tune my fertilizers, It looks like my S Repens is showing some signs of distress. From what I can gather it looks like it may be a nitrogen deficiency. I also see some lightening of the tips of the Hygrophelia. I put some close up pics of some of the s Repens to see if anyone has any input. For the time being I have doubled my dose of the fertilizer that contains Nitrogen to see if this will help. My question is will these leaves change back to green or will only the new growth be healthy which will require that I trim remove and replant the affected plants. Input on this would be very helpful as I have no knowledge or experience with deficiencies and their resolutions.

One of my Amanos decided he wanted to take a trip around the house and made it to the back door, where he dried up into a crunchy shrimp toy for my dog. Not sure why he decided to leave but I did find a shell in the tank so I guess one of them molted and I thought he was just hiding. Anyway, down to two shrimp and three Otos. 

Lights are at 10 hours, water changes were at once per two days and now I am going to start doing them weekly as long as everything stays stable. Still dosing ferts every day just doubled the amount of nitrogen to see if it helps.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Damn man you're not screwing around with your first tank.

Looking good!

To your question above I do not believe that struggling leaves bounce back. You have to rely on new growth and keep things healthy.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

1 month update: This first batch of pictures is from the 1 month point before I did my trimming and first filter maintenance. A lot of stuff happened which I will detail for everyone in the paragraphs to come. 

Starting with my plant coloration loss from the last post. I have gradually over the last two weeks increased my daily dose of nitrogen to 3 times the initial dose and I do not see any real results. I did measure the nitrate levels 1 hour after a triple dose, as this is recommended by Seachem to estimate your nitrogen concentration, and they were still only around 5 ppm. I am starting to think that it may be an iron deficiency though as I have read that the two are hard to tell apart. At this point I picked up some more Amano shrimp because the brown stuff does not seem to be going away. This brings my fish & shrimp count to 3 Otos and 7 Amanos.

So take a look at the pictures before my trim job.
































































So the 1 month maintenance took me around 3 hours to complete and was full of little mishaps here and there. Since I had not done a "full maintenance" on the tank yet I had to learn by trial what the best sequence was to do the things that needed to be done. the following would be the sequence that I actually followed:

1. remove around 70% of the water to a bucket via a siphon hose.
2. shut off valves to the filter, spill filter water all over the hardwood floors, remove filter basket and put in bucket with old tank water
3. remove lily pipes, spilling the water that i forgot i left in the hoses when shutting the valves off on the floor after i just cleaned up the filter mess, and soak in light bleach solution.
4. remove most of the AR mini from the back to be trimmed and replanted. left it sitting on paper towels.
5. Wiped down all the glass on the inside with paper towels.
6. pulled up the spreading hair-grass from the back left side and cut and installed a piece of plastic just like I did on the upper section by the tree.
7. The plastic part and cleaning the glass took quite a bit of time, once I was ready to put the plants back in I saw that I pretty much killed them as they were very limp and dried out. Whoops. I quickly put them in water but they are definitely damaged.
8. Wiped down the inside of the filter canister and dunked the basket a bunch of times in the old water to try and clean it.
9. Put the canister filter back together. and filled it with some of the dirty old water that I just cleaned it in.
10. replanted the AR mini and trimmed the HC and some of the S. Repens
11. Started to refill with water
12. when it was full enough to get the lily pipes back on and start the filter up I had a very hard time getting the pump to prime. Tried siphoning it by mouth a few times, got to taste some of that nasty old tank water, yuck, then I finally got it going.
13. Continued to fill the tank at which time the hose came off the bottom of the outflow lily pipe and started spraying water everywhere. first reaction was to grab it and plug the end with my thumb, which ended up spraying at high pressure just like a hose would when you wash your car, idiot, then I unplugged the pump and cut a longer section of hose so it would no longer be under pressure from the weight of the inline heater. cleaned up the water off the walls, floor, and stand, for the third time today and continued to refill the tank.
14. added my fertilizers and sat back and enjoyed my freshly cleaned tank and learned quite a few things that I will be doing differently next month.

So back to the tanks current situation. I am having a hard time noticing if the HC is growing anymore. It is very brown which it is hard to see in the pictures but I think it is just covered in the diatom stuff, maybe its melting? Either way I didn't want to continue to jack up the Nitrogen dosing because I think it seems high already so I decided it was time to get some natural nitrogen supply and went and got some fish. I originally was looking for the white cloud fish from Petsmart but they didn't have any when I went. By the way Petsmart is the only local fish supply store so I was at their mercy since I am not ready to pay obscene amounts of shipping on fish that I may not be able to keep alive. I ended up getting some Bloodfin tetras. I kind of think this fish is a little big for the tank but it was what they had that looked good to me. So I now have 7 Bloodfins 3 Otos and 7 Amanos. I will be keeping a close eye on the nitrates and ammonia to and will hopefully be able to cut back on my nitrogen fertilization.

Side note, I was also going to pick up some Seachem Iron to give it a shot in small doses to see if that helps with getting my plants back to green again. Of course they do not carry this or any other Iron specific fertilizer, So I will have to get some from Amazon and give it a shot when it comes in. Any other suggestions on fertilization or does it sound like I am approaching it correctly?

The pics below are more recent but still of equally low quality.


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## mot (Sep 17, 2011)

Excellent read. Made me laugh but cause I can relate. My last filter cleaning I had one of the rubber seats on the ceramic shaft pop off roll three feet and down the bathtub drain.

The first time is way harder than the second time. Full clean on both my tanks including filter/filter tubing takes about 1.5 hours now. Normal maintenance takes under 30 minutes which I do twice a week. So no worries. You will get it down soon enough.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Thanks mot next time I will be better prepared but none the less I have a really great time working on my tank.

Update: After the addition of the fish, or the weeks of increased nitrogen fertilizer, I have come down with the most severe infestation of BBA I have ever seen. (in person) behold the destructive force that is BBA.



















So I gather that I most likely picked up the spores from petsmart or petland in dunwoody, GA when I got my shrimps. Either way, it is in the tank now but only looks to be on this one piece of driftwood. I cant find it anywhere else, maybe starting on the other piece of driftwood but I cant really tell yet. I bumped my CO2 up just a tad today since most of the fish made it through the night without jumping. (2 jumped about an hour after lights off). I am still wondering if this could be related to my supposed iron deficiency. Although I do not really know if I have one or not without a tester.

This brings me to my next point, I would really like to know what concentrations a number of things are in the aquarium as I think this would help me to understand and/or make "better" adjustments to certain parameters. Would it be completely overkill to purchase Hanna checkers for Iron, phosphate, and alkalinity. In addition is everyone in agreement that the best method for controlling CO2 is a pH controller or is a timer for some reason better. I was thinking about getting the controller version of the instrumentation that mot suggested and somehow rigging that up inline to the tubing under the cabinet. Anyway if anyone has any input, thoughts, recommendations or questions feel free to post whatever.


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## mot (Sep 17, 2011)

I dont bother measuring any nutrients because i dose EI and do 75% water changes at least once a week and usually twice. Which is why EI is so great...no worries about nutrient deficiencies. 

The BBA is common on the wood. I see it once in a while when the tank has a build up of organics when I miss a water change or haven't done a good job keeping the substrate clean of detritus.

Its a good early indicator to clean things up and do a large water change. In fact I can see some "****" along the substrate line in your pictures. I use an old credit card to scrape that stuff out of there by pushing the card to the bottom and then scraping upward. Scrape it all then suck the detritus out with a small siphon hose.

You can also spot treat bba very easily with either Excel or H2O2. Drop the water level down and using a syringe put a few drops on the bba. It will turn pink after a couple of days and then melt away. Or you can just pick it off when you have such a small amount.

If your going to buy anything I do recommend the alkalinity meter and the pH probe so that you can dial in your CO2 without guessing. Run it throughout an entire day. Way before lights come on and way after lights go out as the CO2 concentrations change. Then start adjusting your rate to match the value you are after. A CO2 controller wouldn't hurt but I don't see a need for one.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Update 6 weeks:

Time for an update, not too much new stuff to report but plenty of pictures to showcase the development. I have ended up swapping out the fish in the tank mainly because Every few days one or two would jump out some time at night after the lights went off and I am tired of swapping out fish at Petsmart. So after explaining what was going on to the Petsmart lady I was recommended some black skirt tetras, of which I got 6.

Total fish count.
6 - black skirt tetras
3 - oto's
4 - Amano shrimp

The nitrogen fert increase and addition of the fish have seemed to fix my yellowing problem i was seeing in the S Repens, well most of it anyway, and as my nitrogen fert supply runs out I will be transitioning more to the traditional EI method.

New purchases for the tank are the skimming inlet pipe from CO2art, hanna alkalinity meter, and the pinpoint PH meter. I got the inlet skimmer to give a more consistent skimming effect rather than relying on evaporation to raise and lower my lily pipe, hopefully this will also give a more consistent aeration of the water because some night my lily pipe is out and some it says submerged.

The alkalinity and PH meter ran around $160 total which was difficult for me to justify for something I felt like I was going to use once as a verification, however, as mot has said, it will verify one of the more important parameters in the tank and I will be able to use it moving forward for new scapes and/or tanks. Plus the CO2 concentration very well could be causing me to have my fish and shrimp jumping problem but at least it will confirm what range my concentration is going through so I can eliminate that as a possibility. This brings me to my next CO2 question.

I expect to get fluctuations in my PH readings throughout the day and night similar to a sine wave (or cosine, depending where you start ) I plan on taking several readings maybe every 2 to 4 hours over two days to make a graph of my PH or CO2 concentration in ppm. Then I will add shaded areas to the time that the lights are on, and the time the CO2 is on. When adjusting your CO2 concentration I know a constant ppm reading would be ideal but most likely not achievable. So with the fluctuations in mind if I am targeting a CO2 concentration of 30ppm should this be the average concentration during the lights on time, or should this be the maximum concentration that the tank gets to. I would lean more towards it being the average as long as the upper limit did not exceed say 50ppm. Anyway this will make more sense when the equipment arrives and I can generate some visual material to go along with what I am talking about. 

Moving forward and some general thoughts on the plants that I have in the tank and what I would now do differently after my 6 weeks of experience. 

AR mini is a good plant and I like it, however it gets rather large quickly (i wonder what the non mini version looks like) and seems to be obstructing most of my hardscape in the tank a majority of the time. This is not a plant problem but a placement problem which i plan on experimenting with in the next week.

HC cuba this plant was very difficult for me to plant to begin with and I had constant uprooting which my wife would proudly shout to inform me anytime she saw a floating piece of it (sometimes i think she likes to see me frustrated) but I did not have any issues with it creating a complete carpet in the end, the only thing i have had problems with is the brown color that does not seem to be going away. It is hard to see in the pictures so I am wondering if it happens to everyone and its just normal. I thought it was diatoms but maybe not and have trimmed it pretty close to the substrate already to try and remove it but it is still visible. I may try trimming it all the way down in a section to see if it will recover and come back without the brown. Not really an issue just think it would look better.

S Repens this plant is straightforward, grows vigorously, and seems to be a fairly compact plant. I like it but it is not very exciting, provides good mid range fill of greens.

Hairgrass, this plant started out as a pain as it spreads fast and underground so it is not something I would suggest for someone trying to keep it in one place. I was able to keep it wrangled along the back of the tank after installing the clear plastic dividers. The plant seems to look and grow fine but it is not one of my favorite plants

Hygro A. from the pictures i saw of this plant before purchase I was expecting something a little different. I don't hate this plant and think it is more unique and interesting but it just does not do what I had planned on it doing in its current location. I thought it was going to be a much taller plant but it could be that what I had growing in the tissue cup was already twisted and tangled and I did not do a good enough job separating it before planting. However, now that I know how it grows I think it would be much better placed where the AR mini is currently. So I plan on swapping the two around sometime this week. Another note about this plant is that the color is much different that I expected from the pics I found online. Perhaps I am not providing the correct nutrients to get the color or the pic I was looking at was adjusted.

Question before I move the Hygro A. the roots look to be very very deep, should i attempt to uproot the whole thing or just cut them off about an inch down in the substrate?

Xmas moss, moss is moss to me, I cant really even tell the difference between all the types I see listed in the for sale section on here. It is doing exactly what I want it to do and is growing at a reasonable rate in my opinion

Hardscape and general tank layout. If I could do it again I would raise the upper level with the tree higher up. There seems to be quite a bit of unused space in the upper section of my tank, and with that I would also raise the "mountain" in the middle as well to make it more pronounced. I think I am a little too far along to make these adjustments but might give it a shot with some encouragement.

Now for the pictures to end the post. Some of them are a little older and some are from this morning. As usual if you have any comments feel free to post. :hihi:


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## mot (Sep 17, 2011)

Ive experienced fish jumpers as well when I push CO2 to hard. They seem fine during the day to end up jumping on the floor at night.

Take an alkalinity test it the morning. Then just place the probe in the tank and leave it there for the next few days. Every once in a while during the day plug the numbers in the calculator. You will need to convert ppm to dkh for the calculator I gave you so multiply your reading by 0.056 (ie alk ppm reading *0.056 = reading in dkh). Adjust your CO2 rate slowly accordingly until you get a feel of how much your bubble rate effects your readings. Leave that probe in your tank until you are comfortable that you have it dialed in. Then just use it occasionally to check as the tank will change over time and when you see your off then repeat the above process.

Just let me know if you need any help with this.

You are well on your way to becoming an aquascaper...keep it up!


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Thanks mot I will update the Journal with my findings once the new stuff comes in. Hopefully it all makes it by the end of the week, although the skimmer will most likely be sometime next week.

The BBA is coming back a lot stronger now. Still on the wood only just multiplying pretty good. I have gone through on the last few water changes and vacuumed the HC and scraped all the goo on the glass under the soil. I raise the lily pipe most nights to keep the film off the surface. In order try and keep the organics down in the tank I will be switching back to water changes twice a week. to see if that helps anything.

The green algae on the wood is increasing as well but I attribute this to the loss of 3 shrimps last week so I'm down to 4 now instead of 7.

I did end up moving the AR and the Hygro A. I do think this is better but the Hygro is still a little messy with the twisting and what not. I have not been able to find out if this is a plant that I can trim and replant the tops of so I have not tried it yet. But this seems like the only way I would be able to straighten it out.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

CO2 Update. So got the test equipment in today around 11 am. After carefully calibrating the PH probe and reading the instructions on the Alkalinity meter I got the following results:

PH shuffles between 6.50 and 6.53
Alkalinity meter => 108 ppm => 6.048 dkH

Translation 56 ppm CO2 and its only noon so I can only expect the concentration to increase throughout the day. Looks like this is definitely on the higher side of recommendations if not exceeding toxic limits so I will make a small adjustment to reduce the CO2 flow to try to get around 40 ppm to start. This should translate to a PH target of 6.66 with my measured Alkalinity. Not sure what effects this reduction will have on the tank but I guess we will find out.

I do have to say that I was surprised to see how much different the results were with actual measuring equipment rather than eyeballing colors.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

CO2 Update #2

Yesterday the PH continued to rise as the day went on and I decided to take action when it got to 6.45. I was originally going to watch it and see how it has been doing over the past few weeks since I have not made any adjustments. I ended up making two cuts to the CO2 rate and lifted the lily pipe to get the PH back up it took a few hours but the PH came back up to around 6.7 so I put it back under and watched it from there. 6.7 is equivalent to 36 ppm in my tank.

At 7 PM the CO2 Shuts off but the lights stay on for another hour this raised my PH again but not as much as I was expecting around 6.8 then the lights shut off and after a while the PH dropped again but not much. This morning before the CO2 turned on the PH was around 6.95 without raising the lily pipe overnight. after an hour of CO2 and no light the PH before lights on was 6.85 and here is where I was very surprised.

Not even 30 min after the lights came on the PH rose to over 7. and stabilized around 7.05 that is a very quick consumption of the CO2 in the water. I bumped up the CO2 flow a little bit and now I'm keeping it around 6.8 which translates to 29 ppm CO2. Still watching and adjusting as needed. I know that once the skimming lily pipe gets here I am going to have to make these adjustments all over again to maintain the CO2 concentration I am looking for.

On a separate note, I have been reading around, some different forums, and I keep stumbling across the Tom Barr comments talking about too much light. It got me thinking and wondering if I had too much light. The reasoning and explanations on CO2 requirements and nutrient uptake rates grow non-linearly as the amount of light is increased. This leads too a more difficult control keeping everything in balance (or as he put it, it would be a lot easier to reach a limiting nutrient with more light than less light) To top this off I am not currently using the EI dosing method and if anyone recalls I had reached a point of deficiency already, that I still believe was Nitrogen related although I cannot prove it.

So I have decided to cut my lighting brightness down to 75% across all colors and see what effects this will have on algae and plant health until I get started on full EI dosing then I will gradually raise my lighting back up.

I still plan on making a cool looking graph detailing what happens to the CO2 concentrations when things change in the aquarium.


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## HBdirtbag (Jun 15, 2015)

this is fantastic, keep at it!


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Sorry for the delay on updating with CO2 information but I have been kind of waiting for my skimmer to come in before really trying to get everything set in stone since it will change once it is installed.

So as some of you who have been following know I have had little to no issues with algae, or at least less than I see around the forum. However, that fun time has come to an end and the algae is starting to grow at an accelerated rate. Trying to figure out what recently has changed since I have been keeping my ferts the same until today. 

Of course the obvious I have reduced my CO2 concentration quite a bit but it is still around the max recommended limit of 30ppm

I had cut the light intensity down to 75% but have since raised it slightly to 80%.

I have less algae eating stuff in the tank now, only 3 shrimp left of 7. Still 3 otos.

I don't have any pictures right now of the current status of the tank but I did spend a lot of time today manually scraping BBA with a razor blade off the wood and stone in the tank. I did not get all of it but a good bit of it. I had previously tried treating it with H2O2 the two days prior but only a small amount of it turned purplish pink. Plus the worst part is it has now spread off the hardscape and is all over the Hygro A. By all over I mean I had to cut off about 8 or 10 infected leaves that I could find but it went through the whole patch. 

While removing most of the BBA I noticed that AR mini and the Hygro A. both have thin green fuzzy algae growing all over the tops of the leaves. The oto's seem to like to munch on it so at least that is good. but anyway obviously there is something out of balance in my Aquarium and I have done some things to get it straightened out. So I will lay out my sequence of events thus far.

*Started with only tissue culture plants
*Lights 100% 8 hrs per day
*CO2 on 30 min before lights off 30 min before lights
*Drop checker yellowgreen
*Started with daily water changed the first week
*Started dosing ADA fertilizers daily => 2 pumps brighty K, 2 pumps Special Lights, 2 pumps Step 1.
*Diatoms started got brown stuff on everything
*Week 2 water changes now every other day
*Week 3 water changes now every 2 days 
*Week 4 water changes now every week.
*Week 4 noticed plant deficiencies in the S repens. thought it was nitrogen, but it could also have been Iron.
*Increased ADA fertilizers daily => 3 pumps brighty K, 6 pumps Special Lights, 3 pumps Step 1.
*Bought some fish to help with the fertilization as the waste and such should help with a Nitrogen deficiency.
*Thought things look like they are doing better but it is hard to tell.
*First BBA appears on driftwood
*Clean all the gunk off from the soil line and vac out the HC and try to do as thorough of a cleaning as possible to help reduce the organics in the tank.
*Start water changes twice a week again.
*Starting to get more and more green dust algae on the rocks and wood
*Wondering if the brown on my HC is not diatoms but some kind of algae(you cant really see this good in the pictures)
*Wondering if I am still missing some nutrient, deciding that its hard to tell if I don't really know what I'm putting in the tank in what concentrations since the ADA ferts don't tell you much.
*Buy some basic EI dosing stuff so I can convert to that method to rule out any deficiency
*Reduce my lighting power to 75%, this should help with things in the event that there really was a deficiency.
*Find out that I have been blasting 60 ppm average daily CO2 in my tank the entire time it was set up and that is most likely why my fish and shrimp are jumping at night.
*Reduce my co2 to around 30 ppm.
*BBA has definitely increased its spreading
*New kind of algae (hair?) developing on leaves of plants.
*Mixed up two bottles of EI daily dosing solutions one micro and one macro.

Micro ==> 1 liter distilled ==> 2 ml daily
20g CSM+B
5g 11% DTPA Iron

Macro ==> 1 liter distilled ==> 6 ml daily
60g KNO3
15g KH2PO4
12g K2SO4
*8g MgSO4 (not added yet)
*8g CaSO4 (not added yet)

*Removed BBA, 50% water change, and dosed the new fert solutions.
*Increased CO2 back up to a target closer to 50 ppm.

And here we are today. I realize that I still need to get a few more ferts mainly CaSO4 since I have a lower GH of 3 just to make sure that is not one of the limiting nutrients. I will also pick up some Epsom salt at the store to cover my Mg.

With everything listed above I have to think that it is most likely related to some kind of deficiency . . . . . . or just lower than it was used to CO2 concentration. Not sure but I have adjusted them both to see if it fixes the problem.

How long till I should expect to see some changes?


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Algae update with Pictures:

So its been about 10 days since my last post and I have to say things are not really getting better. Although new growth on plants looks healthy and Algae free the older stuff seems to be getting worse.

could be staghorn but not really sure its just green and fuzzy on the AR mini and the Hygro A. The S. Repens, HC, HG and the moss don't seem to be affected. Hardscape and wood is covered in the stuff.

I am maintaining my previously mentioned EI dosing so I don't believe that ferts could be limited. been jacking the co2 up slowly and trying to keep it more steady without raising the lily pipe and it caused more issues with surface film that probably wasn't a good idea. so now I leave it at the surface causing a disturbance 24 hours a day. turned the CO2 up more and more and it seems to have reached its max concentration with the turbulence at the top of right around 40ppm. This seems to be ok but I would push it higher if I am able to make the surface skimmer from CO2Art work but I don't have high hopes for that.

I got the skimmer in today. (almost 3 weeks after ordering and paying expedited but not Air mail) The thing is freaking huge. I got the smaller of the two and this thing is massive, it almost is impossible to fit in my tank. since the height is almost the entire height of the tank. the bottom will have to sit on the substrate. It does seem to be well made so I want to make it work and will most likely give it a shot tomorrow during an extended maintenance session.

More and more research and I wanted to try dosing excel to the tank to see if that would help the algae issue however petsmart did not have any so I ended up getting some API algaefix. I added the recommended dose to the tank today and everything seems fine. People talk about it killing their fish and their shrimp but it doesn't look like anything is going on and nobody seems distressed. Been almost 10 hours since I added it.

In another effort to help with the algae I reduced the power of the light down to 60%. a little concerned about the HC having enough light but I still believe I am above 50 par at the substrate.

I have tried some manual removal from the plants and the stuff will not come off even with moderate brushing with a toothbrush. I have not tried to remove it from the wood yet I will work on it tomorrow. I cannot remove the wood since a lot of it is buried and would uproot most of the carpet.

I did lose one Oto to a jump so that brings my current fish count to

6 black skirt tetra
2 Otos
3 Amano shrimp

Here are some pics of the different areas tried to get them as clear as I could with my phone but the algae looks a lot thicker in real life.

Start with the full tank shot because I like to show how pictures can be misleading to how the tank is really doing since it doesn't look that bad from a distance but the closer pics you get the real deal. Hope this helps people who have issues and see other peoples pictures that look to be perfect, some may be perfect, but closer inspection may reveal more than you think. Don't get discouraged and keep working with it.
































































You know you're doing good when your algae is pearling


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## HBdirtbag (Jun 15, 2015)

Have a feeling the algae fix is gonna knock out you amanos. That said great tank. I've also got algae that pearls 


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## mot (Sep 17, 2011)

Just caught up on your journal. I would suspect with the reduction in CO2 that you may still have too much light. For example I run my ADA45p with a Finnex Ray2 a full 18" above the substrate and puts PAR at about 35 and have no growth issues at all with carpeting plants. The ecoxotic has higher PAR values. I see you have it reduced to 60%. Not sure if that means that drops the output linearly or not. Maybe someone else can chime in to help.

Just curious how high above the substrate are the LEDs and how long are they on?

Also take the hardscape out if possible and clean it up. This where the majority of the algae is and probably what is bothering you most. I suspect you will feel better about the tank after you do. Also good practice for tweaking your aquascape on the fly.

And I would advise not using the Algaefix. Its a crutch. Just keep learning and doing what you are doing and you and your tank will be better for it.

Hope that helps.


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## jasa73 (Jun 3, 2007)

I would say its your photo period. 10 hours is a long time. This increased your demand for nutrients and C02. Think of light as your accelerator for your car. The more of it you have the faster your plants will "go" but the faster imbalances will cause algae. You steadily increased your light up to (10)? hours and increased demand for c02. I would reduce your photoperiod till you can get ferts and c02 balanced again. Also some advocate a break in the photoperiod midway for a couple hours. That gives the plants a supposed advantage as it take algae a much longer time to get ramped up for photosynthesis than plants and disrupting that with a light out period gives plants a slight edge. 

Also I would consider dosing EI. It'll make your life easier without having to do all that testing. 

Also Algaefix will treat your symptom and not your cause. If you dont address the imbalances now the algae will be back. And since there is a deficiency in either ferts and/or c02, your plants wont be doing any better because of the Algaefix.


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## Squeaks5635 (May 2, 2015)

Major maintenance update.

2 months I think

Thanks guys for your responses. Even though I am just now reading them it seems that I have already done most of what was suggested. So at least I appear to be on the right track.

I knew today I wanted to do some major trimming on the S. Repens since it seemed out of control to me. After I started pulling it out so I could trim and replant the better looking tops I decided to continue with the same concept with the AR Mini which in its new location was not so Mini anymore. So after pulling both those plants I decided to pull the Hygro A. too. I knew that I was going to try and do a thorough cleaning of the tank and it would be easier with it out. 

Once I got that far I started to clean the Hardscape as best I could with it in place. I noticed that my tree area had lost a lot of its height and soil so out came the tree and the HC that was not so successful up there. At this point I had a lot of stuff out and decided that I wanted to build the tree area back up a bit taller so I got another rock out of storage and used it to build a taller wall. This of course required that I remove the wood that was in the front right side of the tank, the one with the most algae anyway so I tried it and I think I like it better a little more open in that area. I did have to add some more soil to fill in the tree area which did not prove to be tough at all. I did rinse it a bit before putting it in.

I think after a while I like things better a little less cluttered anyway which you will see when I replanted. I had a lot of plants in that small aquarium. 

The next goal I had was to figure out how to be able to use the surface skimming lily pipe in this tank. It is so big that I def did not want to put it in the front even though that was the area that had the lowest substrate. So with the AR Mini out I went ahead an lowered the back corner a bit and was able to give it just enough space. I know that I am going to have to keep an eye on the plants around the inlet so the leaves don't get sucked across it and block the flow so I left it a little open around the base when I replanted.

I kept the location of all the plants pretty much what they were with the exception of the S. Repens added to the trail going up the right side of the new stone. I put it there to hopefully add some stability to the soil to keep the shrimp from moving it down to the bottom.

I went through the plants and tried to pick the best looking parts of each and plant just the tops with the least amount of algae on them. This was the most difficult with the Hygro A. I replanted a lot less cramped with only a few actual plants in each of the locations to see if I can better manage their "shape" when they fill back out.

You will notice several spots of yellow on the HC where it was being covered by the other plants this will eventually fill in and have a lot more of an "open" feel.

I do like the thickness that the AR had before I replanted but I left it a little thinner to see how it does and to hopefully manage it easier around the filter inlet.

Mot:
I do not think the brightness is linear I believe it is a larger change say from 90 to 100 than 60 to 70. I have noticed this when dealing with PWM LED's in my computer build so at 60% I am expecting it to be closer to 45% of the 100% brightness. I currently have my light suspended 14" above the HC in the lowest section.

10-4 on the algaefix I was planning on using it as just that "a crutch" until the changes I have made get settled in. But if it does end up killing my shrimp I am gonna be pissed those things are hard for me to get and kind of expensive.

Jasa:
I know exactly what you are saying in regards to the lighting. Although I do not share the same opinion of a reduction in duration; I definitely agree that a reduction in intensity will do exactly as you are describing. I have been doing that slowly over the last few weeks and am now down to 60%

Also I have already started dosing EI about two weeks ago as well and have been increasing my CO2 back up. With the new skimmer I should be able to keep a clean surface and my CO2 concentration consistent without lifting the lily pipe arbitrarily to clean the surface.

Thanks again everyone for looking and commenting as I make my way through the learning process. I believe that I have already learned a ton by reading, comments, and my own personal experiences. Things are definitely getting easier :hihi:

Now for some pictures:



















This is how many plants I have leftover even after throwing some away










I was able to shake quite a bit of crap out from the moss



















Test fitting my skimmer I think its going to work :hihi:










Some close up pics of the "lighter" planting of the plants























































New full tank shot:










I am going to keep those leftover plants just soaking in the water in the bowls for a bit until I figure out what I am going to do with them. Problem is if I have them laying around I will be tempted to squeeze them back in. Hate to throw them away.


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## monkeyruler90 (Apr 13, 2008)

I love that skimmer!


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## Foxpuppet (Jan 18, 2011)

Great read but where have all the pics gone?


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