# klibs' 75 gallon high tech (4th reboot)



## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Hold for future posts


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Hold for future posts


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

Dang, that's a large tank for such small stocking. Any future plans or do you like it that way?


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Freemananana said:


> Dang, that's a large tank for such small stocking. Any future plans or do you like it that way?


Nah - I will load up with a variety eventually. right now I am going to keep it simple while things settle in.

Also going to get a ton more rummys eventually


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

Awesome! I couldn't settle on a single school, and rummys are hard to find locally. My LFS says they are unpopular outside of the planted tank community, so they don't stock them often. Any larger fish planned? 

Also, waiting on these photos. I'm excited. If I recall correctly, you helped me immensely when I started my tank.


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## WalaxR (Jan 16, 2014)

How many bags of the black diamond sand have you used and what is your sub straight depth. I am setting up my 75g with black diamond and was going to go with the medium 20-40 grit and was guestimating 3-4 50lb bags would put me somewhere in the range of 3" depth, am I correct?


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## Freemananana (Jan 2, 2015)

I'd say 4 would be a good start. I used 5 on my 75g, but hada larger slope towards the back. klibs may have a more uniform substrate though.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

WalaxR said:


> How many bags of the black diamond sand have you used and what is your sub straight depth. I am setting up my 75g with black diamond and was going to go with the medium 20-40 grit and was guestimating 3-4 50lb bags would put me somewhere in the range of 3" depth, am I correct?


3x 50lb bags was perfect for me. Got pretty solid depth. (2" +)



Freemananana said:


> Awesome! I couldn't settle on a single school, and rummys are hard to find locally. My LFS says they are unpopular outside of the planted tank community, so they don't stock them often. Any larger fish planned?
> 
> Also, waiting on these photos. I'm excited. If I recall correctly, you helped me immensely when I started my tank.


Nope!
Rummys all the way! Gonna keep the black skirt tetra in there though - he deserves to stay and is a pretty funny "centerpiece" fish to have. Have a handful of ottos too. rummy's are very fragile when you first get them but once they are accustomed to your tank they will not die - very easy to keep once they survive acclimation. I got a few locally but they are extremely hard to find. Had pretty good success ordering a bunch on liveaquaria. I will be getting a lot more in the (hopefully near) future.


Anyways...

Total redo was a COMPLETE success. Lost 0 fish. They were angry being in quarantine for a day but they got RED once they were in their new home for a few hours. They're loving it right now - eating like the animals they are.

Finished planting out my hair grass. It took me OVER 10 HOURS to plant all of this. I swear if it does not fill in I will be so mad I might quit the hobby. Looking good so far... Going to keep things nice and easy on the ferts and closely monitor my N/P and make sure the tank is squeaky clean. Can't start off on the wrong foot.

In the next month or so I am looking to diversify the plants in the mid / background and order a larger variety. We'll see what we end up with. Definitely going to keep some of my blyxa but it will be replaced with different plants eventually. Keeping it stocked up tight with plants to make sure I can hit the tank with good amounts of light. Also ignore the hideous rotala stems. Once they start filling in I will keep them trimmed up pretty (hopefully lol)

Latest pic (2 days after setup - I will take a much less terrible pic eventually):


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## Mikeygmzmg (Mar 19, 2015)

Nice clean setup. I love the simple tanks.


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## tylergvolk (Jun 17, 2012)

I'm excited to follow along with the one. Keep up the good work!


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Actually going to give an update... Been slacking on this

STILL struggling to get my DHG carpeted the way I want it. Trimming my L Arcuata / L Brevipes so they grow nice and compact which is why there is a lack of a background right now. Rotala is doing well but again it is still a work in progress. Things are really beginning to fill in now. In another two months we should be looking nice.

The plan is to phase out a good amount of the blyxa in favor of the ludwigia. I want it to be purely a midground plant and take up less real estate. Also need to trim and begin to propagate the AR mini. Not seeing the best growth out of that one... A fresh start would probably help it out.

Pics:


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Hey Klibs, looking good man!


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## Nevets9333 (Jun 11, 2014)

Beef up that school!


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Nevets9333 said:


> Beef up that school!


Steve dude I have no luck with rummys. Going to switch to harlequin rasboras soon...


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Added 4 more rummynose from a batch of 8. As always I lost 50% in the quarantine. The surviving 4 are doing great.

Also added the 8 harlequin rasboras from my 29g low tech. Going to convert that tank into a shrimp tank. Looking to get a LOT more harlequin rasboras in there. Giving up on the rummy (unfortunately...)

Eventually I will have to make the decision to stick with the rummys + rasboras OR to just have two different schools. We will see

Will update with pics soon...

Rotala rotundifolia (?) is beginning to turn more red now that I have upped my light and it has grown taller as well. Carpet is still doing just OK. spreading for sure but not that quickly. In time I'm sure it will be as full as I want it to be. Going to stick with the DHG belem due to the low maintenance it requires. Cannot stand trimming my foreground so often as with plants like HC and such.

Also added some rotala colorata.


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## Idrankwhat (Mar 20, 2013)

the tank's looking good. Try some bloodfin tetras. They're usually quite hardy if they make it through quarantine.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Looking good too klibs. What level did you crank your lights to where you got coloring on the rotala? I scored some colorata last week and new growth is coming in green. I did raise my lights though and am working on levels, but was curious since we're both BML.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

bsantucci said:


> Looking good too klibs. What level did you crank your lights to where you got coloring on the rotala? I scored some colorata last week and new growth is coming in green. I did raise my lights though and am working on levels, but was curious since we're both BML.


Well I JUST got the colorata so can't answer that. the other rotala I have has a nice orange tint to it.

BML Dutch XB in the rear (over the rotala) ramps up to 62% right now and blasts at 78% and blasts for like 3 hours (2 different 1.5 hr periods)

The one in the front (same fixture) ramps up to 44% and blasts at 52% for an hour.

Total photoperiod is 8 hours. 3 hours of that ramps up / down from 10%.

My light schedule is weird because I mess with it all the time. I also started dosing more iron and am still ramping the lights up slowwwly. Eventually I have no doubt I will get the color I want. Just want to avoid the risk of algae bloom lol

I will tell you this - I immediately saw results when I had my blast period lengthened AND upped my iron dosing / reduced N dosing. Did it all at once but it immediately brought out the color. Eventually I will be stable enough to have it at high levels and everything will be dialed in.

Baby steps... Tank has been set up like this for ~3 months so I'm in no rush. I anticipate by month 5-6 I should be styling



Idrankwhat said:


> the tank's looking good. Try some bloodfin tetras. They're usually quite hardy if they make it through quarantine.


Nahhhhh - settling on the rasboras / rummynose. Again I might remove the rummys in favor of a huge school of harlequins. Will see in time... I am not emotionally ready to part with them due to the time / money spent to get the school I have lol


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Cool thanks for the reply. I don't want to reduce KNO3, I'd rather not mess with health. I've been curious about adding more iron, but wasn't sure how much to actually add. 

Are you getting any extra GSA or GDA since upping the burst? My old lights were not XB, but I got the MC's which are. With substrate my tank is 14" to water top, but I have them 9" higher from hanging. My burst with the Solunar goes to only 65. Maybe I'll add a 2 hour event to 80/85 and see how that goes.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

yeah mine sit right on the rim so it's a lot of light.

I have begun dosing iron at 1/2 the rate of CSM+B on micro day. Which is a lot I believe. like 1/2 tsp of CSM and 1/4 of Fe chelate

definitely a little more dust algae on some of the glass which kind of sucks but not a huge deal. nothing major though. extra iron has no negative effects from what I have seen


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Gotcha. I'm going to work with light levels first since I feel like I have plenty of ferts. I'll add some extra iron if I'm not seeing color change on the colorata in a week. I have 3-4 notes of new growth in just 4 days already though, just bright green.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Yeah I'm certainly not the best at bringing out the reds in plants but high light is what ahs always worked for me the most. I also suck at growing AR mini - stuff looks awful.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Hah, that's funny, my AR looks terrible now too. I had it growing GREAT like 3 months ago, then it started getting twisted leaves and growing tons of GSA. I manually popped off all the bad leaves and the new leaves coming in are nice, red, and not crinkled. I think my issue was co2. I was using the apex as a ph monitor to control the co2. While it certainly kept it at the ph I told it to, I don't think the co2 levels were what they should have been. I stopped using it, pump co2 all day, and am seeing greater growth on all plants.

I recall you use the apex in the same way, maybe give it a shot like I did. I wonder if you're encountering the same issue.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Maybe - I might give that a shot. Probably going to have to dial back my regulator because I am blasting CO2 right now.

Also strange is that when I hooked up a new tank a few weeks ago my bubble rate was COMPLETELY different. like not even close. it went from a stream of bubbles to like 2-3 bps. Stuff like that worries me that I'll have to tweak my CO2 every time I get a new tank.

Also I just purchased some pH test solution and recalibrated my pH probe. Results were WACK. My ph that was reading at like 6.8 went all the way down to 6.1 after calibrating. Might have to change my mindset and use the probe as a 'failsafe' so I don't gas the hell out of my fish instead of perfectly controlling it at a set pH for CO2.

I have had glimmers of hope with my AR. Some are crinkled, some look alright, some are completely messed up. Never stable though... frustrating.

Questions for you:
Now that you are constantly pumping CO2 is your pH during the photoperiod:
Stable?
Lower or higher than what you set it to on the controller method?

Did you adjust your needle valve for a while before hitting a good level? What made you come to the rate you chose?


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Yeah definitely dial it back. I started from scratch when I did it, cause i blasted it also. I started back at 4bps roughly and dialed it up from there.

Left the ph probe in and I'm getting a larger ph drop than I protected against previously. My tank would drop from 7.2 to 6.15 when using the ph probe to regulate. Since I stopped, it drops from 7.2 to 5.89 before leveling off. So this tells me that I for sure wasn't providing enough co2.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

klibs said:


> Maybe - I might give that a shot. Probably going to have to dial back my regulator because I am blasting CO2 right now.
> 
> Also strange is that when I hooked up a new tank a few weeks ago my bubble rate was COMPLETELY different. like not even close. it went from a stream of bubbles to like 2-3 bps. Stuff like that worries me that I'll have to tweak my CO2 every time I get a new tank.
> 
> ...


See my first response answered a bunch of the questions. Just saw you wrote more.

Took like 3-4 days of adjusting to get where I am now. I'm giving it a two week growth period and will adjust higher if needed. I started like 4-5 bps. That's a safe spot to start. I adjust every day after for 4 days to get where I am now.

The pH drops fast and consistently for the first 2-3 hours, then slows dropping, but does continue to drop through the period. The last 3 hours or so is like maybe 5.92 - 5.89. It's real slow late so it does stabilize.

I really think this was my last hurdle to perfecting things. Sometimes technology gets in the way of things.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Good to hear - like you I think I am getting closer and closer to being where I want. Things are only getting better for me now. Before I redid this tank things crashed out and I got frustrated... Now I really feel like I have a handle on everything and am in complete control

Good luck - thanks for the knowledge-share (again)



bsantucci said:


> I really think this was my last hurdle to perfecting things.


Probably not though lol


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## Xiaozhuang (Feb 15, 2012)

Hey man, good to see your tank growing in. I'm quite a fan of the grey rocks also, their texture gives a lot of character to a scape.

I also have Harlequin rasboras in one other tank. They school quite well, and are fast swimmers, I think they compliment a planted tank well - adds much needed movement. Many fishes have nice coloration/patterns but not so much movement. My CPDs in the other tank seem sleepy by comparison.


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## BigJay180 (Jul 20, 2014)

Looking good klibs! 

I went with rasboras for the same reason you did. They're gorgeous and seem a lot more hardy.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

klibs said:


> Good to hear - like you I think I am getting closer and closer to being where I want. Things are only getting better for me now. Before I redid this tank things crashed out and I got frustrated... Now I really feel like I have a handle on everything and am in complete control
> 
> Good luck - thanks for the knowledge-share (again)
> 
> ...


NP, always glad to talk tanks and getting closer to success!

I don't know though, I really think I'm close. The only algae I've had is GDA really aside from the AR with GDA, but I'm 99% certain this was all CO2 since the new growth is fantastic.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Yes - harlequins are awesome. Hopefully my LFS picked some up for me today. I'd like to get a large school going.

Totally agree with you Dennis - they are fast, active, and school very well. I could make a case that they are a better schooling fish than my rummynose are.
They also look FANTASTIC under my warm BML Dutch lights. Way better than how they looked under a planted + in my low tech

again I will try to remember to take pics later. I don't have a very nice camera which is a bummer but I'll use what I got. Once the tank really starts to fill in and I perfect the colors I want I'll have to run over to my parent's place and grab my dad's nice camera for some better pics...



bsantucci said:


> I don't know though, I really think I'm close. The only algae I've had is GDA really aside from the AR with GDA, but I'm 99% certain this was all CO2 since the new growth is fantastic.


Good news! Congrats man


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## BigJay180 (Jul 20, 2014)

klibs said:


> Yes - harlequins are awesome. Hopefully my LFS picked some up for me today. I'd like to get a large school going.
> 
> Totally agree with you Dennis - they are fast, active, and school very well. I could make a case that they are a better schooling fish than my rummynose are.
> They also look FANTASTIC under my warm BML Dutch lights. Way better than how they looked under a planted + in my low tech
> ...


Now you're really making me want to switch out my T5 setup for a pair of BML Dutch. The light looks amazing, and I really need the dimmer function so that I can turn down the intensity during an algae outbreak.

In my experience adult rasboras rarely school together. When they feel safe, (i.e. heavily planted tank with lots of hiding spots, no hands in the tank, and no bullying) they mostly go about their own business solo or in groups of 2 or 3.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Dimming lights is VERY important IMO. Makes things so much easier. I have the BML manual dimmer too. I'll give it away to anyone for the cost of shipping if you want. Just sits under my stand now that I have the Apex...

So I took bsantucci's advice and tried to constantly inject CO2 into my system. Forgot to set the Apex to turn it off when I went to bed and woke up to 3 dead rummys. Foolish mistake...

Right now I'm letting the rotala on the left grow out and color up. Once it is super tall I will re-plant a good amount of it and let it get dense again. Then I will try to manicure it as best I can.

Everything on the right is still growing out. Rotala colorata on the right is brand new so that needs time to fill in. L Arcuata and L brevipes are doing well but grow more slowly than the rotala. I have noticed that my brevipes grows VERY compact. It grows mostly laterally and very densely which is pretty awesome but weird at the same time. Started with like 10 stems each of arcuata/brevipes emersed a month or so ago so I feel like I'm doing alright filling them in.

AR mini looks OK in full tank shots but it looks awful up close. AR remains one of my least favorite plants but I love how it easily highlights red spots.

Hopefully picking up another batch of harlequins after work today. In a few weeks they'll be in this tank.

Pics 9/2/2015... need to clean that glass inside and out lol


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Ah man, that's terrible. Hate when I make errors that could be avoided, but it happens.

Didn't you have your apex set to turn off the co2 already as it was? When I stopped using it for controlling the co2, I just took out the ph line from the code, left the on/off times.

Did you post a new pic? I'm at work and don't see anything, not sure if it didn't post right or my work is blocking it. I can see all your other pics though, weird.

So I'm a week into injecting as I told you, and plants pearl insane amounts daily now. Wasn't getting that before. I can confirm this is definitely working. I hope it does for you too.

My AR is really growing in much nicer now. I suspect yours will too and will make you love it again.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

My plants have pearled quite a bit for a long time. I am however though seriously questioning the pH probe...

Here are the facts...

pH went down to 6.05 when I was injecting a stream of CO2. Something like 5-6 bps? who knows. Was stable right around there for a while. Did not put my CO2 output back on AUTO mode before I went to sleep (dumb) and when I woke up I had gassed a few fish AND the pH had crawled back up to 6.25?

I have a powerhead that comes on for 20 minutes at the beginning of every other hour while lights are off to help gas off CO2. The pH did not even begin to drop again once these finished running. Just kept climbing up...

I'll work to tweak it to perfection in the next coming weeks.

Do you use a drop checker? Mine was a horrible yellow color when I woke up this morning. It is usually just a very light green / slightly yellow. Funniest part is though that my fully grown harlequin rasboras that I just introduced into the CO2 tank a few days ago didn't care AT ALL about the CO2 levels. They were totally fine.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Weird that pH went up while co2 was pumping. Maybe the plants had already started producing O2? Is there ambient light in the area of the tank that the plants may have been responding to? How old is the probe? I'm not sure the life of them, but maybe on its way out?

I have a powerhead that runs 24/7 near the surface for a good ripple and cross flow.

I don't use a drop checker, found it a waste. The color took too long to change to make it useful. Maybe it's the one I have, idk. Just stopped using it. Haven't looked back.

It is strange that some fish handle co2 better than others. My ember tetras are the same, could care less the o2 level in the water. I do hear rummy nose are very sensitive though.


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## schnebbles (Jan 10, 2015)

Looks great! I can grow AR in my tank with no c02 - it grows decent, a little slow so it tends to collect some algae. It brightens up the tank a lot. I just ordered some dark red ludwigia for some more red. 

I'm looking for a few new fish. I can't see the excitement in the rasboras. Maybe I should pick up a few at work and see. Everyone here seems to love them. I was thinking neons but I changed my mind.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

my harlequin rasboras are very active and tend to school quite tightly. more so than the rummys I think. good school of 30-40 of them would look awesome in a tank.

rummys are driving me nuts. Probably going to pawn them off to a LFS near me once I stock up with rasboras.


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## schnebbles (Jan 10, 2015)

I have a 40 with some fish already so I don't know how many I could have. 

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

I would not get less than 8. Kind of a waste IMO unless they will school nicely


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## schnebbles (Jan 10, 2015)

I will see - I have too many different types of fish, If I tried that it might look way too busy.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Yeah don't get rasboras for sure - just saying if you ever wanted to get them I would not recommend less than 8 harlequins per tank.

having limited species looks better than a mashup of species IMO


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## schnebbles (Jan 10, 2015)

Ya I messed up lol. 

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## Xiaozhuang (Feb 15, 2012)

Tank looks pretty good with the mid/background growing in. 

Purely anecdotal experience though and some conjecture; I sense that with the osmocote plus, there is quite a bit of ammonia at the substrate level leading to some fuzz. I find that heavy osmocote use makes the substrate very rich, and less predictable than fert dosing using water-column dosing. Also, the exact release rate for osmocote rate is unknown ? whether it spikes initially then tapers off quickly or the reverse (seems the former). It does give a boost in growth I would say. Due to stability issues I don't use it on high-tech tanks nowadays, only on low tech ones. I'm also guessing that it's this causing AR mini, which I find is more sensitive to root zone issues, to not do well. Some mixes may "temper" the osmocote somewhat - using a dirt layer rather than a more permeable sand layer for example. This is hard to test though- as tanks mature, substrate micro fauna changes, detritus buildup and the bulk of the osmo may deplete...


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## whitepapagold (Aug 19, 2010)

klibs said:


> Steve dude I have no luck with rummys. Going to switch to harlequin rasboras soon...


I feel your pain... I had a school that settled at 15 (after 15 passed away). They were doing killer for a year then I put a batch of new ones in to bump the school and I didn't quarantine... 30 fish turned into 4 after 2 weeks. Parasite/disease spread like CRAZY.

Since most Rummies you see are wild caught (at least near me), they are loaded with death potential... And such a sensitive fish.

My 4 are now in my hospital tank doing GREAT and I switched to Neon Tetras who don't school like rummies do, but the blue/red really pops against the green. I have 35 doing awesome.

Rummies, if you don't have a good healthy quarantined source for them, are a nightmare IMHO LOL!

Your redo looks excellent! 

Plus you have an Apex controller correct? Ahhhh the most fun and biggest money pit yet for me LOL... My BML dutch I bought for my hospital tank comes tomorrow- apex controlled! Sunrise, sunset here I come! (never would have bought one without the Apex...)

We need to start an AA club for TPT... Apex Anonymous! The best thing Ive done for my tank in YEARS.


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## Mikeygmzmg (Mar 19, 2015)

Nice looking taking Klibbs. The rock color is interesting and the way you used the taller background plants looks great. You need some more rasboras!


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

whitepapagold said:


> I feel your pain... I had a school that settled at 15 (after 15 passed away). They were doing killer for a year then I put a batch of new ones in to bump the school and I didn't quarantine... 30 fish turned into 4 after 2 weeks. Parasite/disease spread like CRAZY.
> 
> Since most Rummies you see are wild caught (at least near me), they are loaded with death potential... And such a sensitive fish.
> 
> ...


I feel that... I also started with 30 and my stock crashed to less than 15 at the drop of a hat. The ones that survived from that original crew are invulnerable. Anything I try to introduce is VERY fragile. Sick of trying so I give up.



Mikeygmzmg said:


> Nice looking taking Klibbs. The rock color is interesting and the way you used the taller background plants looks great. You need some more rasboras!


Thanks man! I will be getting a lot more rasboras soon... Within a month or two I should have a ton of them.

Still need to let things fully fill in and then I will begin to prune everything to see if I can get it to look nice. I am a total amateur at pruning so we'll see how long it takes for me to get it down.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Added a bunch of 12 young little harlequin rasboras. They are about 1/2 the size of my mature rasboras so I look forward to when they grow up. Have another 14 in quarantine right now so in a few weeks the tank will be nicely stocked!

Plants are really starting to fill in. Blasting the rear light at around 75% and pulling some nice color out of some of my rotala. Ludwigia arcuata is starting to get nice and orange as well. L arcuata is starting to fill in quite well - doing some strategic trimming to create a nice bush of it. Noticed that my L brevipes grows VERY compact. It's crazy and very unexpected. You could carpet this stuff - I swear. It grows almost horizontally in a THICK patch which is really cool but difficult to manage the growth of. Leaves on the most healthy stems are large too - they get to be like 3" at the most for a total of like 4-5" diameter of the plant.

Blasting light has made me face some dust algae on the glass but that's about it. I'll take the crazy growth right now for scraping the tank every week any day. Plants pearl like crazy during the tail end of highest light in the photoperiod. Everything else is 99% algae free save some small amounts of BBA on a stone or two. BBA I used to have on the larger stone is completely gone. Also get some spot algae on the glass at times but I scrape it off. Notably it is the worst right at the grass-level because I am scared to scrape down there for fear of uprooting my carpet in any way. I'll get down there with a razor blade eventually after a trim sometime...

My AR mini still looks awful and is incapable of growing nicely. The leaves are assaulted by GSA (spot algae) so maybe I should try to up phosphates? Who knows... This is the ONLY plant in the tank that is doing less than stellar. Even the hair grass has really started to take off and spread nicely. Visibly there are a ton more runners up against the glass.

I also switched up the plumbing so everything is on the left side. Makes the tank look much cleaner.

Still tweaking my CO2 levels and running a constant level throughout the day. It turns on like 3 hours before lights due to how much CO2 my tank gasses of (because of the surface skimmer I assume. Worth it though because my surface is always nice and clean). Tweaking ferts a bit as well - dosing a little bit less nitrates and quite a bit more Fe.

I'll try to update the log with some good pics as well as more description on what has been going down. Lot's of trimming, tweaking, and good growth has happened so I am pretty satisfied with how things are going. Within the next 2 months this tank should be completely filled in at this rate.

Also planning on adding some Ludwigia Red in the next few days. Going to try to have accents of red in the midground in front of my background stems. Might even replace the AR because I know it will do a lot better than that crap. I still hate AR - least favorite plant ever.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

Glad to hear things are going good. My Brevipes grew SUPER dense when I had it too. Just let it grow in and trim it low and it will get even denser. You can shape it pretty well doing that.

Did you end up pumping CO2 w/o using the Apex? Curious how that's going for you? I'm doing it and things are good. Kinda. lol. I used to pump it to a ph of 6.1. Since stopping the Apex I'm bottoming at 5.75 and fish are completely fine, so I for sure wasn't using enough.

For flow, I've used a Koralia 240, however I'm suspecting it's not enough and I'm putting my Koralia 420 in tonight. My Colorata is stunting a bit in the back. My apisto's do not like flow, but I'm going to use the 420 for a few weeks see if that improves growth. Also, I think I'm going to put it on the same side as my violet pipe to boost it's flow. I'm thinking if I do that I should get a nice circular flow pattern.

I hacked down my AR over the weekend since it had bad growth low. I'm going to see how it grows in. I moved mine too much and it wasn't growing well from moving. I've left it for a month now and the new growth was nice. I topped a few to make the patch denser, but we'll see how the new growth is on the established stems. Looks terrible now haha. 

I'd recommend hackign your too. It's worth a shot to see if you can get fresh new growth. No sense in keeping algae ridden leaves. I figured worst case I buy some new ones to start over if I don't see nice growth from this.

I think flow is my biggest issue now, especially since I only run my lights at 45% aside from a 100% 1 hour burst for color.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Yes I am using straight non-stop CO2 with the Apex as a 'last resort' control to stop at a low pH. Right now it gets down and stabilizes at around 6.15 and the Apex is set to stop it at 6.05 just in case. Fish seem fine. Bubble count is probably around 5-6 maybe more (who knows) but it is definitely not the constant stream I had before when it was pH controlled. Still slowly raising the bubble rate over time. verrrry slight adjustments every other day or so.

What did you do when you 'hacked' the AR? Cut the tops and replant it? remove old leaves? Curious to know the best way to deal with this plant. I'll give it another shot before I look to seriously replace it. Also going to be a PITA because the root systems on them are quite large and they're surrounded by my DHG so I could have problems if I fully uproot them.

I now run a single Koralia 420 on the left side of the tank. All of my plumbing is right around that area. I'll see if I can take pics tonight to highlight what is going on over there but IMO it is a much better setup. Water comes out, gets blown across the tank by the koralia, then loops all the way back around to the intakes in the same location.

My colorata is totally green. I cannot for the life of me get my rotala to color up unless I BLAST it with light. I'm talking like 8" away from the fixture running at 75%+. Until then they show no coloration.


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## bsantucci (Sep 30, 2013)

I cut the tops of the AR down to the first leaf node above the substrate. I removed the leaves from that node also. I literally have bare stubbs just out of the substrate. It's rooted nice and healthy, so it should pop back. You can remove the algae leaves too and they will grow new leaves/shoots in those spots. If its bad like mine was, just hack it down. I only planted like 4 tops that were nice to fill some gaps. The right side of my tank looks terrible now from trimming that with the s. repens carpet. It's just stubs of stems. Should bounce back in a week.

This video shows good trimming of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue2XYtRKIhY

My colorata I got to color up using the midday burst of 100%. 1 hour is all I needed and it turned nice pink. However, it's stunting, but that's flow, I'm sure of it.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

lol ok I'll go for it. Like 3 of my tops are actually decent (extremely compact growth without algae) so I will save a few. Some others are a tangled, deficient, mess of deformities. Will be funny to have bare stubs in there for a few weeks

Also the AR mini in that video looks 100000x better than mine lol


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## rragan (Jun 2, 2015)

Awesome tank all around, DHG carpet looks amazing, i have some in the corner of my tank, its not dying, just sitting dormant kindof. congrats on the great scape though! some aspects of your tank will for sure influence my next setup!


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Thanks for the compliments! I appreciate it

Took a long time for the DHG to kick off. It almost requires CO2 to really work well but can be done without it by some (not me lol) so unless you have CO2 don't expect it to take off without ideal conditions. In the past 2-3 weeks it finally started to get serious about sending out runners and spread more quickly. It's not as thick as it looks in the photos - definitely could get 2-3x thicker. After a trim it will look much more sparse. I give it another 2-3 months and it should be where I want it to be!

will be interesting to see what happens. Eventually once all my plants are nice and dense I want to go for the 'manicured' look. Really inspired by the way Dennis (xiaozhuang) scapes his tanks so I will imitate his techniques to the best of my ability.


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

Don't know much about them other than I like the color, but have you thought of Ember Tetra's for a schooling fish?
Someone who mostly does another forum, but visits here says he uses the XB on his 75
but only one of them and @ 40%. So when you "blast" you are using 6 times his light.
Wondered what it would look like if this were substituted for your Rotala.
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/myPlants.php?do=view&p=153&n=Ludwigia_Guinea_Ludwigia_senegalensis
Thinking out loud mostly on that one. Looks awesome/waiting for more pictures.


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## smug vic (Apr 3, 2015)

klibs said:


> Thanks for the compliments! I appreciate it
> 
> Took a long time for the DHG to kick off. It almost requires CO2 to really work well but can be done without it by some (not me lol) so unless you have CO2 don't expect it to take off without ideal conditions. In the past 2-3 weeks it finally started to get serious about sending out runners and spread more quickly. It's not as thick as it looks in the photos - definitely could get 2-3x thicker. After a trim it will look much more sparse. I give it another 2-3 months and it should be where I want it to be!
> 
> will be interesting to see what happens. Eventually once all my plants are nice and dense I want to go for the 'manicured' look. Really inspired by the way Dennis (xiaozhuang) scapes his tanks so I will imitate his techniques to the best of my ability.


Hi Klibs quick question, I have a random carpet going of glosso, marsilea crenata, and DHG, I was wondering how you go about keeping the dhg under control or how to make it more dense? basically mines sending runners and its really random. was I supposed to block it off at the beginning? haha.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

smug vic said:


> Hi Klibs quick question, I have a random carpet going of glosso, marsilea crenata, and DHG, I was wondering how you go about keeping the dhg under control or how to make it more dense? basically mines sending runners and its really random. was I supposed to block it off at the beginning? haha.


Many people 'block it off' right off the bat if they are going for the multiple foreground plant approach.

My DHG belem is the only plant in my foreground so it can go wherever it wants. Runners from what I see don't go too far outside of where the mother plant is. They might in other tanks but mine really just gets more dense within the area I initially planted.

People say that trimming the plant induces it to send out more runners so try doing that to make it more dense. At the end of the day it really just requires patience.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Finally added newer pics after like 5 months (lol)

Tank is not looking its best but it is doing alright. I wish I had taken pics when it was pruned more nicely / had more colorful growth.


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## touch of sky (Nov 1, 2011)

I really like your tank. I think the grouping of plants forming the little hill is very effective, surrounded by the carpet of green. Very nice.


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## micheljq (Oct 24, 2012)

Nice


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## SwampGremlin (Dec 5, 2014)

Nice Tank Looks Great.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Did a full trim and re-plant on the background stems (L red, L arcuata, L brevipes).

Also per this thread (http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/1...450-i-am-going-stop-dosing-my-tank-while.html) I am changing up how I dose this tank. Hopefully with only the healthiest tops of my background stems planted right now I can get off to a better start...


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Should pick up another 20 harlequin rasboras on Friday...

After trim / re-plant:


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

*This post will back up the specs of my previous setup. I stopped caring about this setup in June 2016. For reference if anyone needs this info...*

*2/15/2016:*










*Current Hardware:*

75 Gallon tank
Apex Controller (pH / temp probes)
2 x EHEIM 2217
Koralia 425
Koralia 240
10 lb CO2 tank (controlled by Apex)
Griggs style DIY PVC reactor for CO2 inline with one of the 2217 cans
2 x Build My LED Dutch XB
Seiryu stones
Black Diamond Blasting Sand w/osmocote + tabs
*Flora:*

Eleocharis Belem (DHG Belem)
Blyxa Japonica
Ludwigia Red
Ludwigia Brevipes
Ludwigia Arcuata
Alternanthera Reineckii Mini
*Fauna:*

~25 harlequin rasboras
~12 rummynose tetras
~5 ottos
1 black skirt tetra


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

UPDATE: My now-fiance works like 60 hours a week because she is on rotations after finishing her classes on top of working an internship. Guess who has nothing better to do than waste all his time on fish stuff?

This guy.

So I'm back (sort-of) after neglecting this crap for forever and I'm gonna go all-out.

I have recently moved and will be re-doing this tank in a whole new way. Out with the high-tech. Too much of a pain to keep up with and I am lazy and just want to enjoy my tank without fighting algae, trimming plants every other day, etc.

It will be heavily hardscaped with a lot of driftwood (already purchased) and I will be taking the easy route. Low tech plants for the most part, keep the CO2 on just a little bit, lower levels of light so I avoid past issues.

Planning on building a VERY large school of harlequin rasboras (60+) over time along with a centerpiece angelfish that I will purchase down the road once my harlequin school is established. Also corys because they are adorable. Going to actually try to be patient this time so I don't royally screw up like I do with other aspects of the hobby.

Give me 3-4 months to get things started and I should have some good stuff (maybe)

ALSO - setting up my 20-long as a shrimp tank that will be awesome. Trying something new with this one... I will be posting another journal with all that crap in it later once I have some good stuff to share... Stay tuned!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Klibs good to see you back. I always wondered what happened when you went no ferts for awhile. Had a sense you were pretty frustrated at the time.

Looking forward to your new setup and hope all goes as planned.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Greggz said:


> Klibs good to see you back. I always wondered what happened when you went no ferts for awhile. Had a sense you were pretty frustrated at the time.
> 
> Looking forward to your new setup and hope all goes as planned.


lol well I immediattely have to deal with columnaris so I'm not too pleased.

Going to do a total tear-down of the 75g and redo the whole thing (again). The more you fail the more you learn right?

Here is the thread on my 20g that is now scaped:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/12-tank-journals/1078913-klibs-20-long-moss-carpet-rcs-haven.html


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

ALRIGHT

*Current situation:*

Set up 10g hospital tank for my surviving corys and ottos (like 8 corys and like 6 ottos). Treating them with kanaplex for a while. THEN I will treat with Furan 2 once it comes in the mail because Amazon is out of stock right now. I will QT them for an eterninty (probably a few months) until I know for sure they are not sick anymore. This will be a huge pain but my corys are my babys and I will save them (maybe).

Set up my 30g to quarantine new fish while I set up the main tank again. Bloodfin tetras all day. bought 7 of them last night. This QT tank contains my crypts and AR mini that was salvaged from the main tank. I did a 10 second bleach dip of all of these plants and then rinsed them in Prime-overdosed water prior to putting them in the tank. If disease sparks up again I will throw all of these away and start from scratch again. I really like my crypts though so hopefully it doesn't come to that...

Got a TON of driftwood that I will need to disinfect / soak. They are large pieces so I will be putting them in my oven eventually and then beginning to soak them until they all sink.

My substrate (black diamond) is going to get tossed. I could bake these in the oven but I would have to rinse anyways and it would probably just be easier to buy more of it for like $30. Whatever.

*Plan of action:*

So tonight I will begin to bleach my tank to disinfect my columnaris outbreak (probably). This will really suck and take a lot of time... Here is the plan...

Empty tank completely

Throw out all substrate so I just have a bare tank.

Take all foam / filter media out of my EHEIM 2217 filters and boil it eventually before re-using.

Fill tank with fresh water and add ~4 gallons of bleach. This will give me about 1:20 bleach:water ratio that everyone says to use (whatever)

Run canisters empty and powerhead and my water change pump and whatever else has even though about being in the tank so they fully rinse out with bleach. Will run everything for at least a full 24 hours. This should kill any organism that has ever thought about living in there.

After that I will empty the entire tank again and do many large water changes. Then I will OD the hell out of the tank with Prime to dechlorinate and de-bleach the tank. I will probably use a 10-20x dose of prime.

Let tank run for another 24 hours

After that I will do another handful of large water changes.

THEN I will empty the tank completely and let EVERYTHING dry out to be bleach-free.

After everything is dry I will add substrate back to the tank, fill, and run the tank again. I will continue to do some larger water changes just in case (why not)

I will set up one of my EHEIM 2217s on my quarantine tank so that the media gets seeded and I can seamlessly transition it back to the display tank when ready.

Then once my 2 week QT period is up for my bloodfins I will put them in the main tank and pray that nothing happens and if it does I swear to god I will lose my mind.

Who knows, maybe I'll even take pictures to document the misery...

Next week is gonna suck...


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## Doogy262 (Aug 11, 2013)

sorry to hear about that get the coffee out and give it hell lol


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Looking forward to seeing this phoenix rise! Those Bloodfins outta be sweet. Like you say in the other thread, dont see big schools of those very often.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Baked my driftwood in the oven and they are all now soaking. Most of them sink already (yay) but a few need to be waterlogged. Either way I have enough so that I can scape the tank when everything is disinfected in a few weeks.

Tank is now bleached with 4 gallons of bleach and will run until tomorrow night as it disinfects.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Ran the tank with 5% bleach for a full day. Then I emptied completely, refilled with water and tons of dechlorinator, emptied and refilled with dechlorinator again, and now it is emptied completely and everything is drying. I will probably start scaping tomorrow.


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## Kingtriton92 (Sep 8, 2016)

Looks amazing!


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Got new black diamond substrate, scaped the tank, and filled. Currently boiling my old filter media so that it is decontaminated and then I'll begin cycling and put the bloodfins I have in QT in there...

Still not 100% on the scape. As you can see I switched it up and I like the second one better. Might switch things up some more before I start stocking it... Still have a few nice pieces of driftwood that don't sink yet that I could use...


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## Ssid (Jul 1, 2013)

Looking good...worth the effort n the pain...


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Ssid said:


> Looking good...worth the effort n the pain...


thanks!

gimme like 4+ months then we'll see about the 'being worth it' part lol


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

For a guy who is setting out to simplify things and have less work, looks like your start up process is pretty complicated and a LOT of work. 

Looking forward to the updates..... and to see if you can resist going to the dark side (high tech) again.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Greggz said:


> For a guy who is setting out to simplify things and have less work, looks like your start up process is pretty complicated and a LOT of work.
> 
> Looking forward to the updates..... and to see if you can resist going to the dark side (high tech) again.


Immediately turning to the dark side I think... My scape is perfect to have some pretty stems in the background so I will probably be running my rear BML at medium-high light levels. Definitely still going to run CO2 either way. We will see what happens in the future. Starting out with medium light in the back and minimal light in the front would be fine.

I'll be starting out slowly with light until I get some decent plant mass then I'll really start to stock the tank up and crank the lights up. Eventually I'll replace all the plants I don't want/ started with. I made sure to make the back of my tank where the stems would go nice and high so there is less distance to the light.

Right now not planning on doing anything in the foreground... Scape would be EXTREMELY difficult and time consuming to trim regularly (no thanks) and I want to have a pretty large school of corys to occupy the front with. I will do spots of smaller plants like S repens, AR mini (which I already have a ton of), or whatever.


In general I have too much substrate in the front so I will likely be removing some of that before going too far. Probably going to tweak the scape a bit once the other pieces of wood I have decide to sink.

Right now I'm looking to stock up with plants (any will do...) ASAP so I can begin to grow it out. Then in the next week or so I will add my first bloodfins and continue to add to the school.

Eventually I will be deciding between a few pearl gouramis or a single angel... hmmmmmm...


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Re-scaped this tank again because I can't settle on any one setup.

Also got a bunch of plants and initially planted the setup. I keep getting more and more ideas for how I'm going to scape it... Probably going to need to create more raised areas for background stems in a couple places...

Should also be able to add the first fish to the tank this week...

More updates soon!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

klibs said:


> Re-scaped this tank again because I can't settle on any one setup.
> 
> Also got a bunch of plants and initially planted the setup. I keep getting more and more ideas for how I'm going to scape it... Probably going to need to create more raised areas for background stems in a couple places...
> 
> ...


Klibs, come on, really?? No pictures??


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Greggz said:


> Klibs, come on, really?? No pictures??


Just for you...

Still waiting on Needle Leaf Java Fern and I will also need to get the moss situation going... Right now I'm thinking Fissidens (?). We'll see...

List of current plants can be found in first post.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Looking good. I see you are diving right back in. That's a nice amount of initial planting, and it should fill in nicely.

Looking forward to seeing how things develop, and what works well for you this time around.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Definitely some nice hardscape going on here! As gregg said, look forward to seeing how this fills in.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Thanks for the kind words. I will obviously be moving things around as stuff grows in... Just stocking it pretty heavily while things grow in.

Right now I'm thinking I will leave the center area pretty open with large dense areas on either side in the background - I will use a lot of java fern for that and then stems in the background.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Wood looks great. 



klibs said:


> Right now I'm thinking I will leave the center area pretty open with large dense areas on either side in the background - I will use a lot of java fern for that and then stems in the background


Sounds like a good plan. Java fern will be nice on the wood...or you could go all hipster and do Buces


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

burr740 said:


> Wood looks great.
> 
> 
> 
> Sounds like a good plan. Java fern will be nice on the wood...or you could go all hipster and do Buces


Nah, never been a fan of buces. Eventually I might try them but for now I'll pass 

Besides I'm not hipster enough to go there


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Really like the hardscape. I think it would look really good with the Blyxa in bunches at all the points where the wood meets the substrate. Some moss on the wood and a nice thicket of several stem groups in between and up to the left and right horizontal wood branches. 

But that's me.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

houseofcards said:


> Really like the hardscape. I think it would look really good with the Blyxa in bunches at all the points where the wood meets the substrate. Some moss on the wood and a nice thicket of several stem groups in between and up to the left and right horizontal wood branches.
> 
> But that's me.


This is basically exactly what I was thinking of doing lol

Blyxa / s repens for ground cover around where the wood meets the substrate in most places, stems in the rear left and right behind some narrow java fern groups. Will use moneywort stems to cover up some of the worse looking areas that won't get high light.

At first I will put moss (fissidens fox) in only a few places and as the scape progresses I'll maybe add more once I have enough to propagate.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Got the first batch of needle leaf java fern in there. Also glued down some fissidens in 2 places. Will probably be a while before it grows in and covers those ugly white patches of superglue. Packed with more of my AR mini to help plant density. Stuff really needs a trim lol. I have a ton of it and some parts are REALLY tall.

Added the first 7 bloodfin tetras from quarantine. So far they are happy and healthy! Got a batch of 13 more in quarantine now...

New plants are sprouting new growth! Good signs...


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Lookin good!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Klibs when I followed your last tank, it seemed like you had a love/hate relationship with AR Mini.

Looks like you have loads of it again. Curious to see how it goes this time. Very well, I hope.

Let us know sometime what your fert/light schedule is going to be for this tank. Always like to hear what others are doing and their philosophies.

I have been having better success with AR (if flatter leaves are good), I think mostly due to much more diligent tank maintenance, and lately a reduction of micros (but who really knows??). I'm still a novice to the whole planted tank thing, so learning everyday.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

yeah so far I have dosed next to nothing. a bit of macros after water changes and no micros. I will probably be going with an extremely lean dosing approach until I see that I need more.

my AR mini was basically just chilling in my last tank and I have literally just replanted it in all kinds of conditions to keep it alive lol. It does best for me in moderate lighting. When I hit it with more light (old tank) it liked to get algae all over it. Right now it is a nice light pink and growing very healthy. some of the old growth is nasty though so I will trim eventually.

my BML Dutch XB lights are currently at 50% and 45% running 8 hrs (almost half of that is ramping up though) so I am running pretty conservative light levels. I will ramp this up little by little as things grow in and my stems get more dense.

balancing ferts is probably the thing I am weakest at in the hobby... so we'll see what I end up with lol


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

The diatoms have begun... No pics - hopefully frequent water changes will keep them from building up too much. Hoping they go away sooner rather than later


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

After some good old fashioned tank maintenance and lots of water changes the diatoms have mostly subsided and I am ahead of it.

One of my bloodfins in the quarantine tank got the white fuzzy mouth going on which I am NOT happy about so I am treating the whole QT tank for columnaris with Furan 2 / Kanaplex. I euthanized the one that was visibly infected. I am praying that the rest of the bloodfins will be fine and survive quarantine so I can continue stocking the tank...


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

After 2 weeks the diatoms seem to be subsiding... They are mostly under control but still are definitely an issue. Pretty sure they are on their way out so I'm hoping in a few weeks I will be in the clear and won't have to deal with that crap anymore.

Meanwhile both sp of rotala are growing quite nicely in lower-medium light and my ludwigia red is doing alright. Also picked up a few stems of rotala macandra and propagated a bit of the S repens which is doing OK. Once diatoms go away I'll up the light so things should really take off. My fissidens fox is growing WAY faster than expected and has already covered the ugly superglue spots (mostly). That is getting crushed by diatoms obviously and it's delicate so I can't really save it. Still growing fine tho...

Starting to second guess the needle leaf java fern... IMO it looks like crap lol. Might have to replace with something.

Got columnaris AGAIN in my QT tank this time. Bleached the whole thing. No more buying fish from a certain petco as I am very sure that that place is diseased. I got a MUCH MUCH better source to get me fish and he got a bunch of nice big bloodfins in for me. 10 in the refreshed QT tank now which will make 30 total in the main tank once I put them in in a week or two.

NEW PLAN FOR MY HOSPITALIZED COLUMNARIS SURVIVORS (corys, ottos...)

They were medicated a solid month ago and seem to be doing just fine in my 10g hospital tank. I haven't been taking the best care of that tank honestly and they all seem to be alive and well still. After this current batch of bloodfins in QT I am going to move all of my hospitalized fish to the QT tank along with ~10 more bloodfins. If they last a full two weeks and everyone looks healthy I will start moving them into the display tank. If not then I get the pleasure of bleaching out a setup for a third time which will seriously piss me off but I really want to save my corys...


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## Opare (Sep 9, 2015)

Woosh the Columnaris trouble sounds like hell... I think changing your supplier was a really good idea.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Opare said:


> Woosh the Columnaris trouble sounds like hell... I think changing your supplier was a really good idea.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Pretty sure it will be. It's a 30 minute drive vs 10 minutes to a chain store but the quality seems excellent.


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## Opare (Sep 9, 2015)

klibs said:


> Pretty sure it will be. It's a 30 minute drive vs 10 minutes to a chain store but the quality seems excellent.


Gotta do what you gotta do. 20 minutes of driving probably beats the pain of bleaching and treating stuff.
Wishing you the best of luck with the tank and the fish!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## PortalMasteryRy (Oct 16, 2012)

Any pics? =)


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Updates...

Apparently Postimage survived so all my images are back.

Up to 30x bloodfin tetras in the tank now. They are fun to watch and I will have at least 10x more of them in there within the next week. After that I may decide to stop stocking them for now and get some larger fish in there. who knows.

I am still struggling with diatoms and a touch of BGA/BBA/green hair algae but those are pretty under control. the diatoms are by far the worst and I'm really hoping they will stop being such an issue soon. Diatoms have invaded my fissidens which really sucks but it is still growing like a champ. Again, I am surprised with how quickly the moss has grown. Algae mostly attacks the hardscape because there isn't a lot of plant mass around them yet. I want the rotala in the back to get bushy over the wood right there so I can keep it a little shaded. Also want the L Arcuata on the right to start getting bushy so it creeps more toward the front but that hasn't been doing the best. May end up replacing it eventually, who knows.

The rotala in the back is doing well and I am planning on letting it grow a few inches taller then re-planting the tops ruther to the right behind some of the java fern to better fill in that space. Will also trim/replant some of the ludwigia red because the lower parts of those plants aren't doing so hot. 

Blyxa and S Repens up front are pretty newly planted so the jury is out on whether they will do well long term. For some reason the older blyxa I had in there was melting which was really strange to me since under the same light level in my old setup my blyxa killed it. Hopefully I can at least keep it alive for now...

Here is a pic from today:


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Klibs that's a lot of progress in a short amount time.

Given your few setbacks, it's impressive how nicely things are filling.

Welcome back and keep up the good work. Looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Greggz said:


> Klibs that's a lot of progress in a short amount time.
> 
> Given your few setbacks, it's impressive how nicely things are filling.
> 
> Welcome back and keep up the good work. Looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.


thanks Greggz

my bloodfins are breeding like crazy... I keep finding egg sacs everywhere. not going to bother breeding them so they will probably just end up eating all the babies if they ever make it that far. they're happy though!

I will add the next 10 bloodfins and the begin QT on more fish soon... definitely going to pick up more ottos and hopefully 1-2 gouramis if they have them in stock. 40 bloodfins will likely be enough to fully stock the tank but I might add more eventually anyways. I'll wait and see how it looks with 40.

still struggling with diatoms but not AS bad as before. I have toned down my light levels which has helped out a little but certain areas are still getting hit pretty hard with diatoms. namely the moss (which is no surprise) and my ludwigia arcuata which I will likely remove eventually. I have added all 4 ottos from my hospital tank from the columnaris incident so hopefully they will make a dent in some of it.

My rotala in the background (center) is doing better than any other plants in the tank so I will likely propagate that to more areas than planned initially.

I DEFINITELY have some bad nutrient imbalances in there... not to the point where I've figured it out yet... S repens is questionable, rotala macandra is getting variable new growth that looks deformed/discolored.

Currently trying to experiment with Ca, Mg, micro levels to see if that makes a difference. I will give up sooner rather than later on some of my species and just go with what works as it is much easier IMO than making it perfect for everything.

Tank is still obviously 'settling in' as it is only a few months old and this shows from week to week. not much consistency right now (which could be expected...)

*Any advice on S repens in general?*

I feel like it will do a lot better if I hit it with lower light. I might be driving it too hard...


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

klibs said:


> I will give up sooner rather than later on some of my species and just go with what works as it is much easier IMO than making it perfect for everything.


I think that is great advice. I've been adopting that in my own tank. I've realized I have my own parameters, and can't make every plant happy. If I try a plant once or twice, and it just doesn't thrive, I am on to another. Also makes me a bit less insane!


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Exactly, it's not worth fighting it. I just accept that some things don't work out for me - reasons mostly being unknown. I really think that some people's water just isn't conducive to growing some species and you have to accept fate and move on. I could be dead wrong and I am just doing something wrong but I've tried a lot of things and when things just don't work it's not worth the hassle...

Looking at it now the S Repens really isn't that bad... new growth is healthier than i thought before. old growth is questionable but the new growth over the past week is OK


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## longgonedaddy (Dec 9, 2012)

Love the bloodfin school!


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## Riza1990 (Aug 11, 2016)

Really lovely tank. I'm digging the arrangement of the wood, too (which I always seem to struggle with). 

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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Thank you both!


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Figured I should update this... Tank is doing pretty well. AR mini is struggling most likely because I have chosen to put it in lower light areas and it is not happy. Will probably have to remove and replace with something else...

Photos taken before and after a much-needed water change and trim... The plants pearl quite a bit normally but certainly not as much as after a WC like the pics... Not the best trim job I've done but after looking at it I was not about to go in and have to clean up more trimmings lol. I usually trim it lower so I am not looking forward to having to trim in another ~2 weeks.

Still haven't added any more bloodfins or any larger / centerpiece fish. Hopefully going to pick up some gouramis soon... Really wanted pearl gouramis but the LFS I have been working with have struggled to source some in good health. We'll see... I am getting impatient...


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## Opare (Sep 9, 2015)

Lookin great!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Klibs the tank is really looking great. It looks kind of dutch, with a little wilder untamed look. I like it.

At first you said you were dosing little or at all. Is that still the same?? If so, that is a lot of lush growth since you rebooted the tank.

Sometimes it's just hard to figure. My tank rebels if I cut down my dosing, yours seem to thrive? Crazy hobby.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Greggz said:


> Klibs the tank is really looking great. It looks kind of dutch, with a little wilder untamed look. I like it.
> 
> At first you said you were dosing little or at all. Is that still the same?? If so, that is a lot of lush growth since you rebooted the tank.
> 
> Sometimes it's just hard to figure. My tank rebels if I cut down my dosing, yours seem to thrive? Crazy hobby.


Nope, you are totally right. I have been dosing full EI for macros with a reduced micro schedule. I ran into issues pretty quick (yellow leaves / pinholes / a bit of gsa...) with low dosing once things started to really fill in... but now that it has filled in / is densely planted I have to dose EI levels


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Also have begun to quarantine 3x pearl gouramis. I believe they are M M F but am not positive as they are quite young and hard to sex. Within the next month I will be adding them to the tank.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Changing around the foreground of this tank... Got some glosso that will go in front of most of the s repens. Also picked up some marsilea crenata (i think) from the LFS to experiment with... I may end up replacing either the glosso or marsilea depending on how things go... If the glosso really starts taking off I will likely spread it across the entire foreground over time. We will see.

S repens is not the best carpet plant IMO because it is so THICK and messy. it creates really thick runners that are hard to move / manage. Overall it is pretty hard to manage with trimmings / replanting given how deeply it roots. It also does better in the lower light areas of my tank. Would be a great plant for a low tech dirt tank for sure. Also, some of the lower leaves would die on it at time and it would start to look gnarly. This did not happen in the lower light areas for me though.

The tank is really missing something without the red AR in the lower middle part now though... these plants of AR were STRUGGLING before so up close they looked like crap but it gave a nice element to the tank. I might need to remedy this but with the wooden 'arch' in the middle it is basically impossible to grow anything there because of how low the light is. I still think my weakest area is the right side of the tank so I will likely be looking to rearrange that soon as well. Something just isn't right over there. Maybe I will swap out the ludwigia arcuata for something else?

Pearl gouramis are doing great after their first week of QT. Probably one more week and I will just throw them in. They are definitely healthy.



klibs said:


> Nope, you are totally right. I have been dosing full EI for macros with a reduced micro schedule. I ran into issues pretty quick (yellow leaves / pinholes / a bit of gsa...) with low dosing once things started to really fill in... but now that it has filled in / is densely planted I have to dose EI levels


I am going to have to go back on this claim.. did a test of my tank and nitrates were high, at least 40 and phosphate was in the ~5 range. I am going to cut down on dosing (again...) and see what happens. Maybe my plant issues have been the result of toxicity instead? who knows... The tank is stable enough so I can just hack down my plants' bad growth and let them grow back and be fine. not too worried about it


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## TFC (Jan 27, 2017)

10 hours on dividing dwf hairgrass... oh man I feel for you. LOL... I just do not have the patients for that. I went with monte carlo as a carpet, but Kudos to you man! I'm sure it will be too thick before you know it ! 
xoxo


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## Opare (Sep 9, 2015)

Maybe some sort of Crypt could survive under the arch? Although the light does look really low there. A brown/reddy Crypt may give the colour contrast given by the AR before that you are now missing. Hygrophila lancea/'Araguaia' may also be a consideration to replace the AR.
You could try the AR again, but this time with reduced micros (seems like you are cutting dosing anyway). Burr has said his AR has performed better with lower micros.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

klibs said:


> I am going to have to go back on this claim.. did a test of my tank and nitrates were high, at least 40 and phosphate was in the ~5 range. I am going to cut down on dosing (again...) and see what happens. Maybe my plant issues have been the result of toxicity instead? who knows... The tank is stable enough so I can just hack down my plants' bad growth and let them grow back and be fine. not too worried about it


Klibs I look forward to seeing the results when you cut down on dosing. Please report back once you see some effect (good or bad).

I know you are disappointed with the growth of a few things, and we all are the harshest critic of our own tanks..........but if it's any consolation, most people would be awfully happy with what you have created there.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Looking great man.

Talking about what to do on the right side/back; The background species contrast pretty well in color, but they're all small, fine leaved plants. Think you need a bigger leaved species in back somewhere to sorta break up the monotonous texture that currently goes all the way across.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

burr740 said:


> Looking great man.
> 
> Talking about what to do on the right side/back; The background species contrast pretty well in color, but they're all small, fine leaved plants. Think you need a bigger leaved species in back somewhere to sorta break up the monotonous texture that currently goes all the way across.


I agree. I ordered some ludwigia rubin and ludwigia senegalensis that could fit the bill... also want to get more 'depth' over there so I got some new bacopa species to play around with. I really like working with bacopa in the lower light areas. it takes forever to fill in but is incredibly hardy and easy to scape with (just grows straight up lol)

Plants should arrive tomorrow.

Also going to add the pearl gouramis this weekend... it has been 2 weeks in QT and they have been very healthy the whole time so I'm comfortable adding them to the same tank.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Quite a bit of work done today...

Added the 3 pearl gouramis after 2 very healthy weeks in QT, planted some new plants (a few bacopa sp, staurogyne bahar, ludwigia senegalensis...), raised my lights to hang above the tank

looking at my existing ludwigia red bush i will probably be doing a total re-plant of that area soon. i will let it grow out for the next few weeks so i have some really nice tops and then probably re-do the whole area

will take pics later


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Really impressed by how social the pearl gouramis are. while they hid for the first week of QT (which is expected from them) when i put them in this display tank they did not give a $%&@. immediately just started swimming around in the open. one of them hides more than the others but for the most part they are all swimming in the open.

I THINK I have 3 males which I have heard is not ideal. right now they are maybe 2 - 2.5" in length. maybe a tad more. there is seemingly no bad blood between them though... i thought they would be more territorial? they hang out with each other more often than not... again, did not expect this. maybe when they grow older they will become more territorial? who knows. if this happens I am prepared to replace one with a female to keep tensions down.

also the gouramis were not too stoked on having ~650 gph of flow from my powerheads across the front of the tank so I have removed the koralia 425 and just have the 240 over there now. this was expected though as gouramis are too chill for high current... they would not even approach the left side before lol

I would also like to report that my bloodfins DO NOT harm the gouramis in any way. that's right, they do NOT nip at the gouramis AT ALL. the gouramis are always out in the open with the bloodfins and they all get along great. MANY people told me that bloodfins are nippers and they would cause problems... this is not the case. also bear in mind that this bloodfin school is ~40 fish and have been in the tank for many months prior to the gouramis being introduced...

I do kind of wish I got some contrast in fish coloration now though. bloodfins and pearl gouramis are both mostly grey-ish with red highlights. really looking forward to a few months later when the gouramis color up when they mature...

Also really like my lights hung above the tank... lighting is much more 'even' and looks better overall. I will likely always do this from now on. really wish i had a more narrow beam angle setup on my BMLs for this (i have the 90 degree ones) but whatever. am going to play with dialing in my lighting because this is obviously a large change. I am running them both up around ~80-90% now which is quite a bit more than before.

glosso / marsilea (?) carpet attempts are doing... meh. lol. glosso is growing more leggy than it should... i am still agressively trimming to see if I can make it spread better. there are a few new plantlets popping up in different places but overall it is not really carpeting like I would have liked to see. I will give it another month under increased lighting and see what happens. I also might introduce root tabs to the area to seduce it. this will be a last resort though. I am not really concerned though because it has been like a week and all carpet attempts I have had in the past have a period where they need to 'settle' then they really start to spread.

figures that the second i replace a bunch of it my S Repens is on point. no leaves dying anymore... I attribute this to lower dosing...

SPEAKING OF WHICH. @Greggz I realized i had not dosed my tank at all for a 2 week period. basically no detrimental effects to speak of. Took some readings after WC a few days ago and phosphates were at ~2 (which i think is what you want?) and nitrates were still in the 30-40 range. for me this means dose less frequently with P, K and probably don't even worry about N. bloodfin school gets fed quite well so there should probably not be a shortage of nitrates... I am also supplementing with tiny amounts of Ca, Mg after water change (not much) to (hopefully) rule out Ca, Mg deficiency issues. also still dosing very small amounts of trace elements but only like once or twice a week.

Now that i think of it during my next WC i might spread some of the fissidens fox across the middle 'arch' wood. the fissidens on the left side is VERY thick right now and needs to go somewhere. for those wondering I have literally not touched it since initial planting. trimmed 0 times. it naturally forms those nice 'mound' shapes. highly recommend fissidens species... during next trim might be the best option for doing this work... I am planning on re-planting my ludwigia red / rotala (maybe moving some stuff around?) during the next WC so bringing the water level that low for some super glue work shouldn't be as tedious...

basically, tank is doing very well right now! no shortage of things to be done though


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

klibs said:


> SPEAKING OF WHICH. @Greggz I realized i had not dosed my tank at all for a 2 week period. basically no detrimental effects to speak of. Took some readings after WC a few days ago and phosphates were at ~2 (which i think is what you want?) and nitrates were still in the 30-40 range. for me this means dose less frequently with P, K and probably don't even worry about N. bloodfin school gets fed quite well so there should probably not be a shortage of nitrates... I am also supplementing with tiny amounts of Ca, Mg after water change (not much) to (hopefully) rule out Ca, Mg deficiency issues. also still dosing very small amounts of trace elements but only like once or twice a week.


Klibs that's interesting. I wonder how very low dosing will work over a longer time period. Looks like we will find out.

Just goes to show that every tank is different. My tank is heavily stocked, and I could keep your phosphate & Nitrate readings with no dosing at all. I've tried it a few times, and after some time plants started fading away. Started dosing heavier and they came back. Go figure, right??

Anyway, thanks for reporting back. I enjoy hearing results like this, as it provides something else to ponder.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

@Greggz I am still going with low dosing... Last week I added a standard dose of 1/2 tsp KNO3, 1/4 tsp K2SO4, 1/8 tsp of KH2PO4 to the tank and a DAY LATER I saw multiple plants' older leaves get yellow and develop weird holes... Pretty clear cause and effect if you ask me... something is out of balance... I am thinking either P or K but am not sure. If I do not dose my plants do pretty good

Basically just not dosing I am getting far better results. I have no idea why this is.

Still dosing a bit of micros a few times a week (small amounts) and a bit of Ca / Mg / N / P / K after water changes. Other than that I am going to continue to go lean on the macros. I am not dosing except a little after each water change.

I have glued some more fissidens to the center piece of wood so it should cover the entirety of the area in front of the rotala. Also planted some Ludwigia red on the right side replacing the arcuata. This may not be ideal but it should create a pretty good contrast to the rotala. I also want to spread the Ludwigia red further down on the right side so it fills in more space over there.

Glosso is not really killing it. Portions under the middle brace are not staying as low as I want. I may have to replace with s repens again OR try hairgrass again. we will see. some pieces of glosso are spreading low while others are not. we will see what ends up happening in the next month or so

Still going to replant all the ludwigia red on the left side. stems are struggling very badly except for new growth. that area also needs a good cleaning! I will do this in the next few weeks once new growth is long enough to replant.

Also.. bacopa is KILLING it. moneywort, bacopa colorata, etc... could be one of my favorite plants now. so easy to grow and looks great when healthy. kind of slow though (moneywort grows pretty quickly for me though...)


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

klibs said:


> @Greggz I am still going with low dosing... Last week I added a standard dose of 1/2 tsp KNO3, 1/4 tsp K2SO4, 1/8 tsp of KH2PO4 to the tank and a DAY LATER I saw multiple plants' older leaves get yellow and develop weird holes... Pretty clear cause and effect if you ask me... something is out of balance... I am thinking either P or K but am not sure. If I do not dose my plants do pretty good
> 
> Basically just not dosing I am getting far better results. I have no idea why this is.
> 
> Still dosing a bit of micros a few times a week (small amounts) and a bit of Ca / Mg / N / P / K after water changes. Other than that I am going to continue to go lean on the macros. I am not dosing except a little after each water change.


Klibs thanks for the update, I appreciate that. It seems the more I learn, sometimes the more confused I get.

I guess that's what makes this hobby part art and part science. Burr has said he's never seen a negative effect from too many macros, yet you are seeing something different in your tank. Go figure, right??There are so many variables it's difficult to put into a neat little box. I guess that's part of what makes it an interesting challenge.

Looking forward to the next set of pictures and updates.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

true that, i mostly have no idea what i'm doing from a technical standpoint. i just try to go by what the plants tell me


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

glosso is annoying. some of it is growing straight up with no runners, some of it is running above the ground, and some is running right on the substrate and spreading quickly.


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## PEdwards (Oct 31, 2016)

Hehehe, Glosso is indeed a PITA, but it's soooo worth it. The only time I haven't experienced the same thing you are is when I've planted each and every plantlet individually. These days I just let it grow and hack tall stuff as needed to encourage/retain horizontal growth. I feel your pain.

Cheers,
Phil


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Haven't updated this in a while... lots of changes have happened. Here are some pics after maintenance. Just gave it a pretty good trim. Background plants are growing in thick again after re-plant a few weeks ago.


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## BettaBettas (Aug 21, 2016)

Finally pictures! Tank looks stunning and the inhabitants do as well, keep it up.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Looking nice and lush Klibs. Good to see an update, and nice work as always.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

The last FTS is pretty impressive. Really like the look of your Gourami's


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## LRJ (Jul 31, 2014)

Nice! Agree with Immortal. The Gouramis look awesome.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

unfortunately I will be moving in the next few months and will need to tear this entire tank down. i will likely take a break for a while and set up something new once I'm ready.

Pics taken 4/29 - 5/8


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Klibs that's a shame. Tank is looking really spectacular!! 

Great set of pictures you took there. You captured it nicely.

You know, I've moved a tank 5 hours away before......just sayin'......it can be done!


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Greggz said:


> Klibs that's a shame. Tank is looking really spectacular!!
> 
> Great set of pictures you took there. You captured it nicely.
> 
> You know, I've moved a tank 5 hours away before......just sayin'......it can be done!


lol yeah i know it can be done but honestly i'm not sure i'm willing to deal with it. I will probably do a complete tear down a week before moving and then set it up fresh when I get the time. it can be extremely stressful to try to move and immediately set up a tank on top of moving everything else. i've become more and more patient with this stuff so it really won't bother me. pretty happy with the results after 9 months or so.

s repens caused me problems in the past few weeks which is why it looks leggy especially on the right side. the java fern is WAY too big which shadows everything under it. I can say that narrow java fern is one of my favorite plants now. looks fantastic when it grows bushy like it has for me. ludwigia red has been crushing it more than anything else. rotala is hit or miss. fissidens fox has done VERY well in my tank. has some hair algae that isn't very noticeable now but it's definitely there. my crypts are growing CRAZY fast. you would be surprised how often I have to pluck out leaves that reach the top of the tank.

learned a lot about all the plants I've grown in this tank for sure

not sure what I'll do for my next setup but I want to mix it up and try something different.


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## Opare (Sep 9, 2015)

*klibs' 75 gallon high tech (3rd reboot)*

The Ludwigia shot is so nice, such a beautiful red. On to the next scape in the future! Totally get where you are coming from, trying to setup a tank can be stressful enough, doing it whilst moving house stuff as well would just not be fun.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

It's looking great now whatever you decide to do. I agree that java fern is sweet. It all is really.

And I totally get what you're saying about the move. It's enough to think about everything else involved without having to put a full planted tank back together in the process.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

ok so apparently i don't have to move anyways...

i am still going to rescape this tank though - going to go low tech with CO2 and keep my java fern as the 'main' plant. considering purchasing a ton more seiryu stone and integrating it with driftwood for height

planning on stocking with some new fish... unfortunately most of my bloodfins died somehow. i think some sort of disease swept through and killed off most of them in the past few months. i only accounted for like 4 of them that were dead but i only have like ~10 left in the tank. i also noticed that one or two looked a bit 'fuzzy' and a handful of them were misshapen (irregular body shapes, some were way too skinny, etc...). Definitely something weird going on.

Pearl gouramis are unaffected and seem totally fine.

going to add a larger school (thinking 40+) of cardinal tetras over the next few months along with at least 8+ bandit corys. might also get a small school of something else... silver tip tetras? who knows. it will take me the rest of the summer at least to complete stocking.

new scape will NOT have a foreground. might not even do background stems. going to keep it super easy / low maintenance with ferns, crypts, and my fissidens fox which i have a TON of now. no foreground means plenty of open sand for the corys to play around in! i think it will be a good setup.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Klibs sounds like a good plan. But you know how plans go sometimes.....I'm guessing we see more than a few background stems......but we'll see.

Looking forward to seeing the new setup, and sorry to hear about the fish.


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## Opare (Sep 9, 2015)

Sounds good, I think those low-tech scapes using a lot of Java Fern always look great. Sand foregrounds definitely beat carpets when it comes to maintenance LOL, they also look great to because they provide so much contrast.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

I remember after many years in the hobby I got off testing (By using EI and staying true to water changes), then I got off high maintenance foregournds, then I got off stems. Life is Wonderful!


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

houseofcards said:


> I remember after many years in the hobby I got off testing (By using EI and staying true to water changes), then I got off high maintenance foregournds, then I got off stems. Life is Wonderful!


this is basically my exact progression over the past few years. glad to hear it worked out for you


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

klibs said:


> this is basically my exact progression over the past few years. glad to hear it worked out for you


I think it's a good plan, should work out for you as well. Kept me in the hobby and I think over time I might end up doing a foreground here and some stems there, but in between easy stuff.


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

houseofcards said:


> I remember after many years in the hobby I got off testing (By using EI and staying true to water changes), then I got off high maintenance foregournds, then I got off stems. Life is Wonderful!


I agree completely!


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## Powerclown (Aug 17, 2014)

Great news Klibs! No moving stress for you. Last week I was thinking about breaking my tank down and start something new. Then I realized 
it would be a damn shame to disturb perfectionism. Good luck on your new project!

Cheers........


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## Brian Rodgers (Oct 15, 2016)

klibs said:


> Exactly, it's not worth fighting it. I just accept that some things don't work out for me - reasons mostly being unknown. I really think that some people's water just isn't conducive to growing some species and you have to accept fate and move on. I could be dead wrong and I am just doing something wrong but I've tried a lot of things and when things just don't work it's not worth the hassle...
> 
> Looking at it now the S Repens really isn't that bad... new growth is healthier than i thought before. old growth is questionable but the new growth over the past week is OK


I'm glad you are saying this. I'm new with my planted tank I have experienced less than optimal growth even for a Low Tech setup. I do not have enough experience to know why some do better or worse than other plants. Our fish are healthy and I feel better experimenting with plants as they don't suffer, well the wife suffers because I push our budget trying new plants... to which I respond by only buying if I can convince her it's in the fish's best interest to do so.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Major rescape!

Tore everything down and replaced the wood with about 100 lbs of seiryu stone. Only low tech plants (java fern species, crypts, moss, anubias). I am keeping the CO2 on but at lower levels and raised the lights up so it is not as bright. Going to make this more 'fish intensive' and stock quite heavily over the next few months.

i shoved quite a bit of fissidens in between the spaces between most of the rocks so hopefully i get nice mossy tufts over time. should be a super low maintenance setup which is my main goal.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Looking good. 

That should be an enjoyable scape especially from a maintenance standpoint. Also running co2 with crypt, ferns is smart since it keeps them cleaner since they grow faster. 

Can I ask where you got the seiryu stone from.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

houseofcards said:


> Looking good.
> 
> That should be an enjoyable scape especially from a maintenance standpoint. Also running co2 with crypt, ferns is smart since it keeps them cleaner since they grow faster.
> 
> Can I ask where you got the seiryu stone from.


I'll PM you

and yes the crypts were growing very fast in my old setup. I was shocked at just how much java fern and crypts i really had when i tore everything down. should have taken pics


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Tank is looking good! Should definitely be a low maintenance setup now. Look forward to some pics in about 1 month.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Thanks!

I'm really hoping that the anubias takes off now that it has CO2. I really want to grow out a ton of anubias nana to have long-term. that stuff is expensive


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## finfan (Jun 16, 2008)

Just looked through this, enjoyed the evolution, very nice stones, love your pearl gouramis, I've always wanted, but never kept, maybe I will add to my new tank


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

You've done quite a few scapes with this tank. Which was your favorite? The new scape looks much simpler, will this be fish-focused? If so, my vote is for a huge school of cardinals.. 40+


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## SKYE.__.HIGH (Mar 18, 2017)

We would love some updates if at all possible. 




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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

I'd like an update pic too.... I love it. I've got 1 tank with nothing but crypts, anubias and java fern. One tank is only anubias. In my big tank the anubias really doesn't grow too well... I moved a small anubias nana from there into my high tech tank and it puts out 2-3 leaves a week. I'm hooking up some C02 just for the anubias in that tank.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

ChrisX said:


> You've done quite a few scapes with this tank. Which was your favorite? The new scape looks much simpler, will this be fish-focused? If so, my vote is for a huge school of cardinals.. 40+


yes this tank is more fish focused. I actually have quite a few cardinals and really like them

I think my previous scape with the driftwood and lots of stem plants looked the best. that was a really stunning setup when it was at its best. Overall though the current scape is my favorite (with lots of seiryu stone, easy plants). it is very easy to manage, stays really clean, and the fish look great. i really enjoy just doing a quick water change every week and not really worrying about the plants.

current stock right now:

20+ cardinal tetras
40+ ember tetras
3 pearl gouramis
ottos
4 panda corys
8 salt and pepper corys

I am also adding 2 bolivian rams and 3 irian (red) rainbows (currently in quarantine) @Greggz

i might add more rainbows if they work out. i'm sure G will try to persuade me lol


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

klibs said:


> y
> I am also adding 2 bolivian rams and 3 irian (red) rainbows (currently in quarantine) @Greggz
> 
> i might add more rainbows if they work out. i'm sure G will try to persuade me lol


The Irian is one of the largest Bows I have kept, and will get to about 6" or so. Of course, that will literally take years. 

As they get bigger, it will be interesting to see this works out. I've never kept Rainbows with a large amount of dither fish, and not sure how they will interact with them. Chase them all day? Ignore them? Don't know but curious to find out.

Did you get males? A mix?


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

Greggz said:


> The Irian is one of the largest Bows I have kept, and will get to about 6" or so. Of course, that will literally take years.
> 
> As they get bigger, it will be interesting to see this works out. I've never kept Rainbows with a large amount of dither fish, and not sure how they will interact with them. Chase them all day? Ignore them? Don't know but curious to find out.
> 
> Did you get males? A mix?


1 male 2 females

interesting you say they get really big... my guy at the LFS said they won't get quite as big as some other species (boesemani for example). Right now the male is about 4" and females are about 3" so we'll see. I really hope they chase the dither fish around a bit to promote more schooling behavior. if they cause too much trouble I will end up removing them. we'll find out in a few weeks

my understanding is that their mouths/throats are not very large so they shouldn't be tempted to eat my smaller fish


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

klibs said:


> interesting you say they get really big... my guy at the LFS said they won't get quite as big as some other species (boesemani for example).
> 
> my understanding is that their mouths/throats are not very large so they shouldn't be tempted to eat my smaller fish


Klibs I can only speak from my own experience. For me, a full grown Irian has been much larger than a full grown Boesemani. A good 5" to 6", and very tall and round. There is a smaller red Rainbow the Millennium (Glossolepis Pseudoincisus), which stays closer to 3" to 4", but it is a different breed entirely. 

And while Bows do have small throats, once in awhile they will try to eat smaller fish. I had a full grown Lacustris choke to death on a large Oto he tried to eat. That being said, I wouldn't worry too much about it, as your dither fish are a bit bigger than an Oto. But keep in mind, with any fish in general, if it THINKS it can eat another fish, it will try to. 

Keep the updates coming, as I am curious how this works out for you.


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