# ADA / ADG Gallery journal (how to do everything)



## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

In the midst of doing some early maintenance in the gallery today, it occurred to me that there's never really any coverage of galleries while they are growing out: just of each individual tank once they've become perfect for that moment. To be honest, it's something I had forgotten about myself, the aura of exclusive tight-lipped exposure from any ADA affiliate about any planted aquarium or display. 

The fact is, there's probably a lot that gets missed in casual observance through out the course of growing out a particular aquarium to this mysticism that surrounds the art. The result is that every now and again you get a glimpse of the spaces but never full exposure or the stories that each tank tells. 

Truth be told - every aquarium and especially every planted aquarium has mood swings and shifts; highs and lows, so on and so forth.

So, I've decided that while taking care of the gallery, might as well show the processes and techniques I use to grow it out, and what better starting point than now? We just set up two of our three displays, and in the coming months (mostly with the next container shipment) we'll be 3-4 more. 

Without further ado:

ADA/ADG Gallery 1:

Aquarium: Cube Garden 180-P (72"x24"x24")
Filtration: Super Jet ES-2400
Lighting: Grand Solar I x3
Co2: ADA Speed Regulator driven 10 lb cylinder, Pollen Glass Beetle 50
Substrate System: New! Amazonia 9L bags x15, Power Sand Special L 18L, Bacter 100 x2, Tourmaline BC x2, Clear Super x2, Penac P, Penac W.

Lighting Period: 10 hours (6 hours Metal Halide "Noon burst", 10 hours Compact Fluorescent). 

Setup Date: 11/19/2011

Collaboration between Mike Senske, Luis Navarro and Frank Wazeter.



ADA / ADG Gallery 2

Aquarium: Cube Garden 60-P (24"x12"x14")
Filtration: Super Jet ES-600
Lighting: Solar I
Co2: ADA Co2 Advanced System / System 74-YA, Pollen Glass Type 3
Substrate System: New! Amazonia 9L bag x1, 3L bag x1, Powder Type 3L bag x1, Power Sand Special S 2L, Bacter 100, Clear Super, Tourmaline BC, Penac P, Penac W.

Lighting Period: 10 hours
Setup Date: 05/31/2011

Collaboration between Jeff Senske and Frank Wazeter.

60-P Today:



This layout has been up a while now and has actually cycled through a few phases, from overgrown to trimmed back down (I just trimmed the layout down to the very base of the soil two weeks ago), in this case if you don't trim down the aquarium, the hair grass chokes itself out and you lose the 'perfect' moment, as well as force the system out of balance - and when the system goes out of balance you start getting algae appearing. Green Dust Algae is kind of a first warning response telling you "hey, there is something wrong, fix it" when GDA appears within 24-48 hours of a water change of 50%, then your layout is out of balance, and this 60-P, due to it's minimalist nature always, always emphasizes it.


60-P in August, right before getting 'overgrown,' you can see some of the older growth in the middle where it is dark 'green,' compared to the light green of the newer growth.

The challenge of the iwagumi is not only in the layout, but proper execution of balancing the plants and keeping the plants free of algae - to keep them "shimmering," in appearance. When plants are old they get tired and dull and don't pop. This is why the art of trimming is as important to the layout as the deployment of the initial stone. This aquarium has had many ebbs and flows!

60-P How To Video and Setup 1

60-P How To Video and Setup 2

ADA / ADG Gallery 3

Aquarium: Cube Garden Mini M
Filtration: Eheim 2211
Lighting: Solar Mini M
Co2: ADA Co2 Advanced System / System 74-YA, Pollen Glass Mini
Substrate System: New! Amazonia Powder Type 3L, Bacter 100, Clear Super, Tourmaline BC, Penac W, Penac P.

Lighting Period: 10 hours
Setup Date: 11/20/2011

Aquascape by Frank Wazeter

The Mini M was laying dormant, but we had plants for the 180-P so at the very last minute, while we still had a bunch of left-over plants from the 180, it was decided to set up the nano as well. The driftwood used here is somewhat special: it is part of a set from the original driftwood that Takashi Amano himself brought over to the USA in 2004 for a demonstration. 

Consequently - the layout should reflect and honor that origin, which is why when looking at the layout it is more a semblance of larger Amano works than it is uniquely creative.



When planting a carpet plant - in this case Marsilea Minuta, sub divide into even groups and plant accordingly, this makes for a more even carpet and helps for a quick spreading carpet. There is about two to three of these styrofoam plates full planted in this aquarium. 



Fine tipped pincettes are best for planting - in this case Small Size pincettes for carpet plants. The fine tip allows for you to release the plant in the soil, and remove the pincettes without 'dragging' the plant with you, or uprooting more soil than necessary.



The Mini M fully planted.



Day Two.


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## fusiongt (Nov 7, 2011)

Wow wow wow it's always nice to see the "pros" do it. Very impressive stuff and hope you keep on documenting it and showing off the other tanks you guys do!


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## karatekid14 (Jan 16, 2011)

As always great tanks. It makes me feel better about my tank to see them growing in because sometimes it is like "poof" perfect. And how could I get wood like what is in the mini m? I have been searching but most are light colored or only one piece.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

ADA / ADG Gallery 1:

Having been setup this past saturday, this aquarium is in the 'daily water change,' stage. 

Because the driftwood has probably not ever seen water before, even with a daily water change by next morning the aquarium looks like this:



This is normal and nothing to fret about. We just begin doing the water change.

While the aquarium is draining, I'm going ahead and trimming off any dead leaves of the emmersed plants, in this case these are crypt parva which are making the transition to submersed plants, and it's just time for these to be trimmed off to make way for the new growth.



Using 'pro scissors m curve type.'

While the water is draining, making sure to keep the plants moist under the light by spraying it periodically - don't want anything to dry out in such a large aquarium. 



Drained the water about this far, draining it low like this helps prevent any green algae from forming on rocks and driftwood or plants, beneficial effect of exposure to oxygen / not 100% submerged 100% of the time:



When the water level has been filled up high enough to turn the filter back on, I turn it back on as quickly as possible - this serves two purposes, one it preserves the beneficial bacteria (which start to die en masse after 30 minutes of the filter being off if it isn't drained of water), and it kind of super-oxygenates the water as it fills. 



After the water has been filled back up, adding Green Bacter to help grow the bacteria base



Super Jet whirlpool:





Completed water change / maintenance:


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Next up is the Mini M, which is also getting daily water changes for this week:

24 hours after the first water change:



Water looks clear right?

Well! as it turns out, not so much:



This first week in establishing the planted aquarium is especially important and requires this extra attention to detail to avoid major problems later. The whole goal is to get to stability as quickly as possible and remove problems as quickly as possible. 

Here, I've drained this much water:



For the same reasons as bringing the water level down so far in the 180-P, exposing the plants and hardscape to air during the water change helps diminish algae growth.

Here the water change is complete:



I won't worry so much about the substrate line just yet - but once the carpet starts growing in earnest, then it'll be very important to start keeping that line as straight as possible. 

Dosing right now is only Brighty K and Green Bacter. 

Someone had asked for a picture of stand and filter earlier, so here you go:


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

While we do maintenance on those other aquariums, checking in on the 60-P is a good idea, so thats what I do. 

The 60-P right now currently gets about 7 squirts of potassium, and 2-3 of Green Brighty Step 2 (diminished in amount because of the recent trim, normally it is also 7-8 squirts just like Brighty K). 

I did want to point out this particular shot:



It might be hard to see in the photo (or impossible), but looking at the angle of glass that way I am able to see a slight haze of green dust algae appearing on the glass - three days after a water change, and 1 day after a quick wipe of the glass.

This aquarium should be able to go a full 7 days before GDA appears on the glass, so what this tells me is that the aquarium is still trying to get balanced again and what the appropriate response is to do is to cut back on fertilizers, except Potassium, that is why I'm only dosing 2-3 squirts of Step 2 instead of the full 7-8. 

It also means I am adding Green Bacter to the filter, because the filter media was just changed to be 100% Bio Rio, which means the filter is also going through a 'mini-cycle,' so to speak. It's not a problem yet but these are warning signs to look for and adjust your dosing scheme in the tank. 

Right now that means this aquarium will get 2 water changes a week instead of just one every week. Once it's balanced again (should be a week or two away from full on growth) then it'll be jamming and will be back to only needing once a week.


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

Francis Xavier said:


> While we do maintenance on those other aquariums, checking in on the 60-P is a good idea, so thats what I do.
> 
> The 60-P right now currently gets about 7 squirts of potassium, and 2-3 of Green Brighty Step 2 (diminished in amount because of the recent trim, normally it is also 7-8 squirts just like Brighty K).
> 
> ...


Frank,
I appreciate you pointing out the GDA and explaining how you guys at ADG deal with it - cutting back on water column ferts. It's a bit contrary to those who say ferts and algae aren't related so it's interesting to see that's how you handle it. Maybe we can all learn something here.


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## sewingalot (Oct 12, 2008)

Frank, how often do you maintain your filters on these tanks? I notice you mentioned you are adding Green Bacter to the filter initially. Is this the same idea of seeding a new filter? I really appreciate the detailed approach you are taking to this tank setup. I often feel these are just as important to the hobbyist if not more so. Also, I must say that was ingenious with the sprayer being in the tank water.  Also, what makes you decrease fertilizers when others say increase them? I am intrigued on this as much as Jeff is.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Honestly Jeff,

it's easy to get very confused with GDA and plant growth with ferts - because the honest truth is that it's not quite exactly cut back on ferts = less GDA. In fact in many circumstances I could dose very extensively in the aquarium and get zero GDA for 7-8 days (normal 'ideal' conditions). 

What the important thing to note is that if you get GDA after wiping the glass and doing a water change within 24-72 hours you have a balance problem with your aquarium and unless you solve it will perpetually have GDA or worse problems.

The trick isn't so much the dosing of fertilizers as it is getting the aquarium back into balance - it's appearance isn't a direct correlation with too much fertilizers, what it is a direct correlation with is a bacteria imbalance in your biological filtration and the amount of fertilizing you're doing vs. plant growth.

So if you had your filter off too long? you're going to have an algae bloom until the biological filtration recovers. If you just did a major trimming and are still dosing too much? Algae bloom. If you don't trim and the system gets choked out with too much growth? Algae bloom.

*Balance.*

So the counter-measure in THIS case is:

Dose Brighty K in normal amounts, dial back the Step 2. Dose Green Bacter (beneficial bacteria), dose excel. Dial back the Step 2 until the problem dissipates (still occurs but isn't occuring as badly) and hold your dosing level there. Slowly increase the amount of dosing after the next water change and keep dosing Green Bacter.

As your plants grow in healthily and the bacteria grows in to compensate - you are able to again increase dosage with the growth and not cause any problems. 

Basically you shouldn't get any GDA until 6-8 days after a water change. That's normal.


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

Frank,

Thanks for the insight. I guess sometimes things aren't as simple as we'd like to make them.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

I still don't feel like I'm explaining it precisely correctly. I'm going to have to think on it a bit. I mean my straightforward thought process is this:

Problem occurs. Tank is not in balance.

Deploy these specific techniques to fix the problem. 

Aquarium is balanced again.

Basically when the aquarium plants aren't "sparkling," there is something wrong. Sparkling is the magic moment.


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

No problem. Would you mind saying a bit more about the role biological filtration plays in a planted tank. It seems we read a lot that the plants do most of the bio filtration and the beneficial bacteria isn't given a second thought with practices like keeping a pH that is so low the bacteria no longer function, etc.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

sewingalot said:


> Frank, how often do you maintain your filters on these tanks? I notice you mentioned you are adding Green Bacter to the filter initially. Is this the same idea of seeding a new filter? I really appreciate the detailed approach you are taking to this tank setup. I often feel these are just as important to the hobbyist if not more so. Also, I must say that was ingenious with the sprayer being in the tank water.  Also, what makes you decrease fertilizers when others say increase them? I am intrigued on this as much as Jeff is.


Well, I'll say it's very, very important to regularly maintain your filters. Not maintaining the filter leads to decreased flow, increased amount of crud in the filters, leading to less efficient biological filtration, etc etc.

I would recommend cleaning the filter once a month. At least once every two months. Realistically once every two months is fine. You're just trying to remove excess gunk build up from the filter. By 'washing' the media in a bucket full of aquarium water. 

Now, with the Super Jets, every 6 months I take a part the pump and clean out the impeller blades and wipe any algae forming on the impeller (which happens in all filters, decreasing flow), which just so happens to be much easier to do on a Super Jet than on an eheim. 

Green Bacter is a highly concentrated nutrient source that basically acts to feed the bacteria - not directly add to it. I wouldn't necessarily seed an aquarium with bacteria, more just start fresh and build up the bacteria from there.

Using Bacter 100 (the bacteria itself) preseeds the aquarium with all of the beneficial bacteria that occur in planted aquariums, and Green Bacter serves as a food source for decomposition, etc. This helps keep the bacteria healthy and thriving, which in turn leads to a healthier aquarium.

This is also why I oxygenate the water at night and during water changes - the O2 feeds the bacteria. 

Decreasing fertilization is done because when you have an excess due to imbalance and resulting stunted growth it does no help and does more harm than good. Now, when the aquarium is on the up swing, then it's okay since the excess is rapidly absorbed by the growing plants. It's all an ebb and a flow - sometimes it's the right answer to increase fertilization, sometimes it's the wrong answer. In the case of the 60-P: it doesn't need more fertilization, it's growing back in strong, healthy and quick without it, but the aquarium itself needs balance because GDA is appearing 24 hours after a water change - which means that the fertilization of traces needs to be dialed down until the aquarium corrects itself. (Brighty K / Potassium should always be dosed no matter what in an aqua soil amazonia aquarium).


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Jeff5614 said:


> No problem. Would you mind saying a bit more about the role biological filtration plays in a planted tank. It seems we read a lot that the plants do most of the bio filtration and the beneficial bacteria isn't given a second thought with practices like keeping a pH that is so low the bacteria no longer function, etc.


Let's elaborate on that a little more.

To start off, here's a picture of the 60-P's Lily Pipe being raised right before lights off for aeration at night:



We don't do this for the plants - sure it helps them some for oxygen at night when they respirate, but it's primarily for the bacteria and biological filtration. 

Much of the bio filtration is dependent on oxygen, as well as other bio-mass to flourish. They feed off of by-products of the environment, but like any organism without the proper nutrition, won't thrive. 

This technique is so powerful, that you can actually turn around an aquarium that's old, tired and filled decayed growth and green algae on leaves within about a week by draining the aquarium half full of water and letting the lily pipe run, then filling in the morning, then draining again at night for 7 days. 

By the 7th day the layout will be healthy again - although that's a very, very specific kind of problem that that solves. 

While plants do contribute to the biological filtration - they play a definite role in purifying water in many circumstances, and of course, they uptake ammonia. 

However, they don't do the primary role of biological filtration - that still lies at the microscopic level with the bacteria. This isn't something that's immediately measurable by plant growth rate - but rather by plant health. When you've achieved proper biological balance, the plants literally "sparkle."

Balanced is a state where it takes about 6-8 days or longer for GDA to appear on glass, and the plants 'sparkle' in appearance.


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## rockwood (Jun 19, 2010)

Wow, this thread delivers! I've learned more just reading this thread than I have in the last several months. 

Please keep up the great work. I'm sure there are a lot of people reading this that are learning a ton as well. 

I'm going to be posting in my thread tomorrow about the issues I've been having and things that I've done to alleviate it. I'd love if you wanted to stop by and give your opinions on what I need to do to move it back toward a top notch aquarium. 

I'm definitely subscribing. Not only are the tanks you're working with gorgeous, your commentary and theory behind set up/maintenance/problem solving is priceless.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

rockwood said:


> Wow, this thread delivers! I've learned more just reading this thread than I have in the last several months.
> 
> Please keep up the great work. I'm sure there are a lot of people reading this that are learning a ton as well.
> 
> ...


Thanks Rockwood! I hope people are taking valuable information from the thread. Sometimes you don't know what is valuable and what is not to people, when there isn't much verbal response! I can definitely give your thread a stop by and see whats up. 

Thanks for your compliments.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

ADA / ADG Gallery 1: 

It's another day in the first week of the 180-P, and another daily water change.

This morning at 7:30 am:



The water is still stained pretty intense from the tannins leaching.

Aside from quick monitoring of plant health nothing overly special needs to take place today, but I am draining the water level lower than yesterday as a preventive measure (and also to wash out more tannins).



When filling, using a strainer or disturbing the flow helps to make sure you don't disturb substrate and blow it all over while filling at a decent rate:



And, the water change has been completed:



See? it wasn't too bad. Just a quick up and down - had we had only done one water change this week, it likely would have been more intensive. This way allows for a quicker maintenance regime.

Currently the filter is 100% Carbon with some bio val (bio ball, bio cube, basically mechanical filtration unit of choice). 
Dosing is: Green Bacter and Potassium only.


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

Francis Xavier said:


> Thanks Rockwood! I hope people are taking valuable information from the thread. Sometimes you don't know what is valuable and what is not to people, when there isn't much verbal response! I can definitely give your thread a stop by and see whats up.
> 
> Thanks for your compliments.


I've found all you mentioned helpful so please continue.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

ADA / ADG Gallery 2: 

The 60-P was water changed on sunday. As I mentioned before there was very slight green algae appearing on the glass 24 hours afterwards, which was an indication that the aquarium was out of balance. 

GDA should appear only 6 days after a water change in a balanced aquarium, and especially since we won't see the aquarium until next sunday or monday because of the holidays, today was a good day to go ahead and do a water change on it. 



After turning off the filter, it's time to wipe down the glass. While it can't really be seen in the photo, there is a thin GDA layer on the glass that can only be readily seen from an angle. This is an indicator of the status of the aquarium - so we're going to go ahead and remove it.

Use an Algae pad and press firmly against the glass, and go in either straight up and down motions or straight side to side motions. For ADA aquariums and algae pads - going up and down has always seemed to be the best.

Then follow afterwards with a clean edged razor to hit any spots that were missed, as well as to clean away any algae in the silicon seams. By quickly going over the silicon once a week, you prevent build up of algae permanently staining the silicon and you prolong the aesthetic life of your aquarium substantially.



You can tell the ember tetras have a thing for following me around the aquarium. They probably think they're going to get fed.

After wiping down all 4 sides of the aquarium it's time to go ahead and drain the aquarium:



Because I'm going to go ahead and take off the lily pipes and clean them today (they have some GDA on them, and haven't been cleaned in about two weeks now), I take the water level down this much as opposed to 50%, since I'll have to take the filter off to get the lily pipes off.

Even though the water looks crystal clear, this is the drained water from the aquarium (this is why we watch the edges of the aquarium and not just water):



Now I did mention before that the GDA was appearing about 24 hours after each water change - but it isn't particularly horrible yet, even 72 hours later, it stays fairly consistent. What this tells me is that the aquarium is fairly close to balance, so I'm going to still dose the same (8 squirts potassium, 2-3 step 2) but it tells me the biological filtration is still a little gunky and there's something wrong.

So while I have the filter off, i'm going to go ahead and remove it and give the bio media a quick rinse (it's been about 4 weeks since the last filter rinse):



Everything removed from the super jet, as you can see it's fairly clean so it's not neglected in terms of maintenance (otherwise there would be sludge over even just the canister):



Rinsing the bio val (equivalent of mechanical filtration: bio balls, bio cubes (ADA), bio rings, etc) in the bucket of aquarium water: 



As you can see - there's not much here to be rinsed off, this stuff is fairly good. 

So, now it's onto the Bio Rio, the biological filtration:



For comparison, the water before giving the bio rio a quick rinse:



So, you see here how there is quite a lot of build up of biological mulm and material that is helping to clog our filter and make our biological filtration not as efficient as it could be. This right here is what's contributing right now a great deal to our slight algae problem, and you can see the direct correlation between the GDA appearing 24 hours after a water change, the identification of problems, and then without even seeing the filter, knowing that the issue rests here, even when all else looks fine at first look.

This problem isn't the end of the world, but allowed to go long periods of time without a gentle rinsing (this took all of 5 minutes, remember use aquarium water as to not kill the bene bacteria!) to remove debris, we hurt our ecosystem. Being able to spot the GDA and learning how to read it's patterns allows us to be able to quickly identify and solve these problems before they become problems. Hence a perfectly clean and balanced iwagumi layout.

Now, this filter got extra debris in it this time because the tank was just trimmed and usually after intense activity like that it puts extra stress on the filtration. So it's not like after every 4 weeks this was a problem or the like - we're just being proactive here. 

Putting the canister back together:



Cleaning the Lily Pipes and tubes of GDA with Spring Washer M (this eliminates any extraneous algae spores in the tubing): 







Running the bristles against the intake portion of the lily pipe helps to remove algae and debris, in addition to running the spring washer through like a pipe cleaner.

The filter is back on, and the tank is being filled, going ahead and oxygenating the tank as soon as possible with the filter on during fill (once water level is high enough to run filter again):



And here we are freshly done:


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Water change complete:




These plants here are about at the balanced "Sparkle," stage, algae free, growing thick and there isn't a single Amano shrimp or o-cat in this aquarium (though will likely add some later on) :


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

ADA / ADG Gallery 3:

The Mini M is progressing pretty well - it doesn't need much attention, although it is in the first week, so it gets a water change every day.

The Mini M this morning:



Today, only took it down about 50%, it just needs a quick water swap really:



And complete:


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## zergling (May 16, 2007)

Francis, thank you so much for this thread. I've often wondered how ADG approaches tank start-up's and maintenance.

Quick question - is it just me, or is it just the photo, or is the grass on the left side (and a little on the right side too) turning yellow?


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

The grass on the left side is indeed a little yellow in the picture - the whole aquarium was trimmed down, and what you're seeing is the difference in growth between the side of the aquarium with co2 (left side) vs. the one with the filter flow, the side that has the co2 diffuser on it tends to grow slower and less tall (also I trimmed the back left corner a little -too- vigorously, like into the soil as opposed to hovering over it), which will be solved if it is a problem by switching the filter and co2 sides. 

In this case it's just that the hair grass in the middle (directly under the light) grew back quickest and thickest, while the hair grass on the left side has been growing nearly as quickly, but not quite -as- quickly, so it still has some gaps and is still growing in.


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## zergling (May 16, 2007)

Makes sense Francis. Thank you again!


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## sewingalot (Oct 12, 2008)

Thank you so much for the information on the filters. I am guilty of not maintaining my filters on a regular basis and I am starting to believe this is something I need to change. I am throughly enjoying this journal and am looking forward to seeing more. It is amazing how that hair grass is so perfect. I don't think I've seen any as healthy looking as those.


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## Deymed (May 27, 2010)

In this aquarium with Eleocharis, how do you let them so low, you prune them? Pretty much the aquarium!


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

Looking great Frank!


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## Matthew Mahling (Sep 4, 2005)

Great thread. I'm really enjoying how thurogh all the details have been. Thank you for taking the time to maintain this thread. Love all of the collaborative scapes. Can you please tell me which stem plants you guys used in the mini?
Thanks.


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## fusiongt (Nov 7, 2011)

Yea it's really informative and seeing it broken down step by step is very helpful


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

sewingalot said:


> Thank you so much for the information on the filters. I am guilty of not maintaining my filters on a regular basis and I am starting to believe this is something I need to change. I am throughly enjoying this journal and am looking forward to seeing more. It is amazing how that hair grass is so perfect. I don't think I've seen any as healthy looking as those.


Hey Sewing! You don't need to be -super- religious about it (in fact, too much cleaning can hurt the filter), but doing some small maintenance once a month on the filter media and cleaning pipes, etc is good practice for both the biological filtration, and the mechanical efficiency of the pump itself. 

I actually completely take apart the pumps every 4-6 months or so (based on need and load in the aquarium) to do basic maintenance cleaning on them to keep their flow rates running at brand-new-out-of-the-box levels. 

Whenever you change the bio mass of the aquarium - say you add fish (or some fish die), or trim a lot of plants, or add a lot of plants or move things around and soil gets disturbed, it causes chaos on the microscopic level of bio filtration, and causes instability, which means we then get to deal with bringing the aquarium back to balance. 

For example - I can trace the GDA appearing so quickly in the 60-P to Fish being added, then it was fine, then the filtration media was swapped (carbon for more bio rio), which caused a little more instability, then it was overgrown, so it had to be trimmed and caused some minor hiccups, but then some fish died and caused it to come back. This particular layout has had about 3 weeks of various instability issues (which followed about 2-3 months of 'perfection.').

That has a direct effect on algae levels in your aquarium (not necessarily plant grow rates, that is more the job of nutrients, sediment, etc), which has an effect on the look and health of the plants. Over feeding will also cause the same imbalances.

So it's all very cyclical. 

And I take it as a true compliment that you believe it to be the healthiest / best looking hair grass you've ever seen! Thank you!


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Deymed said:


> In this aquarium with Eleocharis, how do you let them so low, you prune them? Pretty much the aquarium!


The eleocharis is kept low by light intensity and trimming. When trimming all the way down to the base root of the plant, there is a period of very short hair grass in the layout while still being full, until it grows back to height (if wanted) or you can just keep trimming it down to the base when it gets taller than you want.

This layout will likely be trimmed aggressively in the front to keep it short, and allow the mid range to gather some height for variance.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

hydrophyte said:


> Looking great Frank!


Thanks!



Matthew Mahling said:


> Great thread. I'm really enjoying how thurogh all the details have been. Thank you for taking the time to maintain this thread. Love all of the collaborative scapes. Can you please tell me which stem plants you guys used in the mini?
> Thanks.


I'm glad you are enjoying it. I am trying to demystify some aspects as much as possible, though I can't give away ALL of my secrets!  I can't give away the secret water recipe yet. 

I'm terrible with the names of the stem plants, but I will get them. For now I call them Rotala something or others x 4 and Red ones there, flanked by green one and yellow one for color balance and composition!



fusiongt said:


> Yea it's really informative and seeing it broken down step by step is very helpful


Glad you find it helpful!


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## rbarn (Mar 21, 2009)

So is the showroom ever going to actually open ?

And Mike was supposed to call me about some wood for my 300gal project. Cough, cough. Still waiting .... cough cough

I need some wood !!!!
Wanna give me a bid on a custom Senske scape job ? 96X31X24 tank.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

give me a pm and I could get you a quote after the holiday!

The showroom will open eventually. We're exercising a great deal of patience in it's construction. Though, I'm kept busy enough in the early morning now with the planted tanks and two hardscapes to maintain! Will likely add about 4 more ADA displays and a 10 foot planted tank in a few months.


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## bryfox86 (Apr 6, 2011)

Man I cant wait to be in TX next year... Looking forward to seeing the show room!


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## Fat Guy (Nov 19, 2003)

great thread


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

This is a great thread. Learning alot, any chance we'll see a video?


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

Frank,
How do you handle BBA? Is that a matter of tank balance also?


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Jeff5614 said:


> Frank,
> How do you handle BBA? Is that a matter of tank balance also?


Hey Jeff,

Yes it is. In fact - the 60P had BBA at one point (for all of one or two days). 

The minute BBA appears in any aquarium what you want to do is manually remove as much as humanly possible by scraping it off rocks (or driftwood, but be a little gentle with driftwood) with either a pro picker or finger nail, trim leaves off that have it (if anubias, use phyton git on a paintbrush and rub it on the anubias leaves, but only with anubias), then immediately do a water change to fully remove all of the BBA from the water you can.

Once you've done that, dose excel into the water column and increase the level of co2 from your co2 system as much as you can without harmfully effecting fish. 

BBA is no joke and needs to be addressed IMMEDIATELY. It spreads incredibly quickly and one tuft of it can transform into a full on infestation (that you may never defeat) if left alone for even a day or so. 

However, once you get things taken care of, it shouldn't appear again in that layout (at least it hasn't in the 60-P since!), unless you suffer from the same imbalance issues again.

Another helpful tip - don't touch another aquarium after cleaning BBA from one, otherwise you may spread the BBA to that aquarium, as the spores can travel on your fingers.


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## Senior Shrimpo (Dec 4, 2010)

Oh man. This is pretty darn awesome. You have a killer job bud!

I especially like the 180p... that tank has crazy cool dimensions and is definitely a show stopper.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

frrok said:


> This is a great thread. Learning alot, any chance we'll see a video?


Likely there will be a video sooner or later!



fatguy said:


> great thread


Thanks man!



Bryfox86 said:


> Man I cant wait to be in TX next year... Looking forward to seeing the show room!


Let me know when you are in the area. If you are there for earlier in the morning you can get to see the maintenance on the tanks and learn some tricks too!


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Senior Shrimpo said:


> Oh man. This is pretty darn awesome. You have a killer job bud!
> 
> I especially like the 180p... that tank has crazy cool dimensions and is definitely a show stopper.


It's definitely the more relaxing part of the job - it's a nice ramp up to the day being able to do it over coffee. The rest of the day is filled with "okay, it's time to do for-really-reals job stuff for business things."

We agree with you on the 180-P, that's why we put it at the front entrance!


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## sewingalot (Oct 12, 2008)

Francis Xavier said:


> Hey Jeff,
> 
> Yes it is. In fact - the 60P had BBA at one point (for all of one or two days).
> 
> ...


Thanks for the filtration tips. And where was this post years ago? Would have saved me a world of work. I am going to try this on my little BBA wall of terror. I've been doing similar, but I think I contiminated the tank exact as you described. I went from one tank to the next without cleaning off my hands. Oops. 

This seems like not only a journal but an informative thread. Keep it up for all of us out there!


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

Francis Xavier said:


> Hey Jeff,
> 
> Yes it is. In fact - the 60P had BBA at one point (for all of one or two days).
> 
> ...


Do you continue to keep your CO2 at a higher level or do you back down to the previous level at some point? Just curious since a really low pH is bad for the bacterial filter.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

sewingalot said:


> Thanks for the filtration tips. And where was this post years ago? Would have saved me a world of work. I am going to try this on my little BBA wall of terror. I've been doing similar, but I think I contiminated the tank exact as you described. I went from one tank to the next without cleaning off my hands. Oops.
> 
> This seems like not only a journal but an informative thread. Keep it up for all of us out there!


BBA wall of terror sounds terrifying to get rid of! With some supreme diligence you can get rid of it without killing everything though!

Might want to use a little bleach when you clean your hands, BBA spores are surprisingly very resilient. Or just wait a few hours / one day before messing with the other aquariums.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Jeff5614 said:


> Do you continue to keep your CO2 at a higher level or do you back down to the previous level at some point? Just curious since a really low pH is bad for the bacterial filter.


Yes, but it gets dialed back a little bit - basically I subscribe to the fact that the most co2 should be added to the water as is possible to keep everything in check. So you should have enough that plants are pearling vibrantly (if that's what they do), that fish are healthy and swimming about with no problems and things are growing.

This typically comes at around 3 bps in a 20 gallon range. But can be up to as much as 5 bps easily too.

Basically it's weird - because, while co2 does effect pH levels, it tends to effect it in a "not really effecting it," sort of way: where basically yes, you have soft water, but it could still be really hard water at the same time. 

What you're more looking for is KH, if your KH stays around 2-3 it increases the amount of co2 molecules the water can absorb safely, the higher the KH the lower the ability for water to absorb co2. 

http://www.gpodio.com/co2_chart.asp

Basically 3 KH is 'ideal,' for being able to put in the most co2 safely. 

I use RODI water and add back to it certain quantities of seachem equilibrium, penac w and alkalinity buffer to adjust the water as needed when mixing it (only during water changes) to influence the right effect, since our tap water sucks.


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

Francis Xavier said:


> Yes, but it gets dialed back a little bit - basically I subscribe to the fact that the most co2 should be added to the water as is possible to keep everything in check. So you should have enough that plants are pearling vibrantly (if that's what they do), that fish are healthy and swimming about with no problems and things are growing.
> 
> This typically comes at around 3 bps in a 20 gallon range. But can be up to as much as 5 bps easily too.
> 
> ...


Aha, the secret water recipe! What GH are you aiming for with the addition of Equilibrium? It contains a lot of K so it's interesting you're still adding more with Brighty K. Speaking of Brighty K, I think it's made up of potassium carbonate so I'm curious what it's effect is on your KH.

What's your take on adding Penac W? It seems to be one of those things people either swear by or think is useless. Isn't it supposed to aid in oxygenating the water?


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Honestly, the secret recipe - the secret formulation that creates the perfect planted tank is the exact same item as the secret ingredient for noodle soup and scroll that shows the ultimate technique in Kung Fu Panda. 

I am pretty terrible at testing, like, there isn't even a single test kit at ADG. I mean, I found an old pH test kit once, so I can't tell you approximate values that I shoot for. I keep meaning to test kH and gH and all that, but I just keep forgetting about it, because I don't really need it.

Going to RODI was made because of how terrible water is in Texas right now from the drought - and it was made out of an incredible frustration in not even being able to grow hair grass with how bad the water had become. So, knowing that we had a facility of over 1500 gallons of RO water, I decided to try to replicate the water in Niigata, Japan at the ADA Gallery, which is out of the tap like the perfect water. 

So after doing some basic research I formulated a water combination that's 4 spoons Seachem Equilibrium, 1 spoon Seachem Alkalinity Buffer and one spoon Penac W for a bucket of 5 gallons of RODI water (the spoons being the spoons that come with Bacter 100, etc which I have tons and tons and tons of).

Now, what I do is I typically will have the mixture in the 5 gallon bucket and I'll use that bucket for about 10 gallons of water. So I'll drain the tank halfway (60-P) and add the 5 gallon bucket of the mixture to the tank, then fill the rest of the tank with straight RODI water. 

Next week what i'll do is I'll cut the mixture solution in half and apply it to the same water change (and cut out Penac W). Then the week after do a full mixture again. 

I continue to refine this water supply technique, since it's a small obsession of mine to try and create an idea of the perfect water conditions, though I'm not obsessed with the goal of actually making the 'perfect water,' (such a thing is impossible, I believe) but rather the experience of refining the technique until it is mastered. 

Water makes a HUGE difference in the scheme of all of the planted aquarium and if your base water quality sucks, your plants will almost always suck. 

In regards to Penac W it is a great additive for specific applications (a bottle of it will basically last like 10 years) - with RO water using it every month or so with a water change is helpful in keeping up the carbonate hardness and keeping the water insanely clear - also if you gas your fish with Co2 a spoonful of Penac W will save them from death as it rapidly oxygenates the water column, and it's most useful under the substrate with the additives for deliverying oxygen to roots easier. 

That being said, my philosophy about everything is achieving the balance point - and having the cleanest setup possible. The exact science has always been a weak point, but I'm getting better at it, mostly out of a need to more precisely explain my methodology to other people in terms other than "look and feel."


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

It also bears to think about something:

I also dose seachem excel on a daily basis to each aquarium whether or not it needs it, straight into the water column as a carbon additive essentially - which is not precisely on the instructions, I usually dose twice the amount it recommends at a water change, then one capful per 20 gallons a day.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

I kind of want to put together an aquarium that's basically eco complete, root tabs and some other basics and try the hand at a slightly different technique set with the same philosophy, as the less nutritious substrate would demand slightly different approaches and strategy.


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

Frank,

In an established tank, what media do you have in your filters? Bio-Rio for one I assume and I think I noticed some bio bale in one of your pics. Anything finer for mechanical filtration like pads or floss?


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

My regime is:

first month:

Bio Bale / Bio Cube / Bio Rings - 20%

Carbon - 80%

after first month til the end of 3rd-4th month:

80% Bio Rio
20% Bio Bale / etc

Tourmaline F under the Bio Bale

After 4th Month:

100% Bio Rio
Tourmaline F under the Bio Rio.


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

So no mechanical media after the 4th month aside from whatever mech filtration Bio Rio provides. That's interesting and your water is still crystal clear?


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Essentially, yes.

Bio Rio is extremely fine, so it ends up acting like the pebble layer in a sand filter, where once it passes through the Bio Rio most of the particles have been absorbed and filtered out.

If it's an aquarium that's heavy in say, Tannins, an extra filter pad isn't a horrible idea, but altogether usually unnecessary.

By this time, the water should be normally clear and have no issues what so ever with a once a week water change. Having the increased surface area for more bacteria becomes more beneficial than the mechanical filtration aspect for the planted aquarium, which tends to do little anyway (because plants end up feeding on fish waste, and mechanical is more of a trapping for waste).


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## plecostomouse (Jun 9, 2011)

brilliant thread  have learnt a lot about algae control, i really like you aquascapes exspecially the 180 thats freakin sick.


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## .Mko. (Sep 23, 2010)

This was truly educational. -subscribed-
Please continue with this beautiful and knowledgeable thread.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Update after the Holidays on the stuff:

ADA/ADG Gallery 1: 180-P

Mike came in and did water changes during the holiday so this one stayed on task, it had one water change a day for 7 full days, and so it looked like this when we walked in today:





You can already see the difference in the water if you look back at the older photos of the before water change / over night pictures.

This won't get another water change until tomorrow. It's fine for now. Clean glass, etc. Crypts going through the glorious melting phase!

ADA/ADG Gallery 2: 60-P

Unfortunately, the 60-P and the Mini M didn't really receive any attention over the past 5 days, so they were left to their own devices. The 60-P had co2 randomly turned on / off during visitations, so didn't have consistent co2.

The result was lots and lots of Green Dust Algae, as can be seen here:



Also, since the lily pipe wasn't being raised at night (man, people are so neglectful without me there), we had some surface film:



These are both extremely easy fixes. Basically the Green Dust is from inconsistent supply of co2/ nutrients and imbalance as I've gone over before in the past.

When you scrape it off the glass it comes off immediately - like you touch it and it evaporates into the water column, like so:



This is important to keep note of if you're keeping algae scores. Notice the glass is clean but the water is nice and cloudy. Also the surface film is harmless - simply doing the water change and raising the pipe at night again to disturb the top of the water gets rid of that.

Mmm!



Dust Water! 

Now, you can get away with just doing a 50% water change, but I wanted to cut off the GDA as much as possible in one shot this week, so I went ahead and aggressively drained the water level like so:



This helps to cleanse and kill off any air-exposed GDA on the glass walls, rocks, etc. It won't eliminate it, but it'll help keep it in check by exposing it to air.

And, the result of the slight negligence for five days and a quick water change:



Normally I wouldn't have to do it, but because this tank kind of got neglected over the break, I'll end up adding in about 5-6 Amano Shrimp to the tank to help speed up algae removal of residual green rocks and the like. With these guys in there as well, it should remove any traces of algae from hard surfaces.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

ADA/ADG Gallery 3: Mini M

Okay so, unlike the 60-P, I had a timer set up to the Mini M to automate Co2 flow and Lights, since while I knew the 60-P would get some neglect but probably have co2 turned on while I was gone, I -knew- the Mini M would be totally ignored. 

Unfortunately the timer broke and was left in the "on" position - which meant that for Five straight days (usually when things break on planted aquariums, it means it broke 5 minutes after you left) we have had lights on this tank and co2 blasting in (which ran out sometime between day 1 and day 5, probably around day 3 or 4).

This has caused a DIFFERENT algae, but very similar in appearance, this is more hard Green Algae or Green Spot Algae. Here is a side shot like in the 60-P:





You can notice here the deeper green colors - the algae is harder and does not instantly come off at the touch like Dust algae. This algae is an indication of too much light / too long of a photoperiod over an aquarium. It happens when tanks are in front of windows with intense sunlight, or just have too long photoperiods (in this case, a 5 day photoperiod!). It's not much of a nuisance as long as you remove it fairly quickly with a razor blade.

There is some other interesting algae forming up around the Mini M - which was removed with a tooth brush, and there is of course Diatoms, which at the end of this week Amano's will be added once it's safe to help combat. In the mean time it was manually removed with a tooth brush (unfortunately it was too small to capture via cell-phone).

Because this aquarium is in the state that it's in, i'll continue daily water changes for at least the next few days to assess it's situation. Overall it's still pretty healthy though!


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

plecostomouse said:


> brilliant thread  have learnt a lot about algae control, i really like you aquascapes exspecially the 180 thats freakin sick.


Thank you for your compliments! I hope it continues to be inspiring!



.Mko. said:


> This was truly educational. -subscribed-
> Please continue with this beautiful and knowledgeable thread.


I am glad that you found it educational and knowledgeable! hopefully it continues to be educational for you!


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## Storm (Aug 7, 2011)

Thank you so much for posting this journal of problems and solutions. Your experience with the 60P has some similarities to mine as well. I started to get GDA on the glass just a couple days after a water change and I knew something was out of balance. I had just added some new fish and they had ich, so I had increased the temperature to 86 to kill the ich, and this dropped the oxygen levels in the water, putting stress on my bio filter (in addition to the new fish load).

I really appreciate the tips for raising the lily pipe outflow up out of the water at night. I think this will help to oxygenate my water and fix my imbalance... I also started dosing potassium because I heard that the algae might be due to an imbalance between N and P (too much N and not enough P) which makes sense from the added fish load as well as lower oxygen levels.

Thanks, and keep up with the great, informative posting!


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

Francis Xavier said:


> Essentially, yes.
> 
> Bio Rio is extremely fine, so it ends up acting like the pebble layer in a sand filter, where once it passes through the Bio Rio most of the particles have been absorbed and filtered out.
> 
> ...


Well, I pulled the floss out of my Eheim 2076 a few hours ago and I have to say the only difference I've noticed is a bit of increase in the filters output. The water is still clear as a bell. It's too bad I didn't try this long ago. All the money I've wasted on filter floss over the years...


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## Dollface (Sep 30, 2008)

A+ title.


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## Storm (Aug 7, 2011)

Francis, I admire your determination to try Eco-complete, but I would warn you against it personally... after using Aquasoil "New" Amazonia (multi-type) in my 60P and having previously setup 3 tanks with Eco-complete, I will never use an inert substrate again. The Aquasoil grows plants like nothing I've ever seen. I used to think the ADA products were too expensive, but if you compare a single 9 liter bag of AS to the 3-4 bags of Eco-complete needed for a 60P (according to the substrate calculator you need 64 pounds for a 4 inch substrate depth), it's actually less expensive.

Not only that, but the AS keeps my plants and fish healthier as it buffers the PH.

What I would be really interested in hearing about are the other additives that ADA makes. I've watched the first 2 ADG videos on the 60P and I learned a lot, but all of the substrate additives like Penac W, Bacter 100, etc, are just added and their purpose is not really explained. Would you mind explaining a little more detail on the complete ADA substrate system and why it might be beneficial to use all of these products?

Also, I apologize for not buying my 60P, Ohko stones, AS, and other accessories from ADG, but at the time I setup my tank in October, you were out of stock on everything I wanted to buy. Personally, I'd rather support ADG since you are contributing a lot of knowledge to the forum and helping us out with things we can't learn anywhere else (ADA doesn't really translate this into English for us). I just wish you had better inventory. AFA had everything in stock and shipped very fast. Unfortunately I'm not patient enough to wait for a container shipment...  This hobby is teaching me the importance of patience, but waiting a few months for something I want now is not really one of my strengths...


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Francis Xavier said:


> Lighting Period: 10 hours (6 hours Metal Halide "Noon burst", 10 hours Compact Fluorescent). .


I see your using a burst on the bigger tank. I know the benefit, but I'd like to hear if from you. Also do you know what PAR the tank is running with the MH on?


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Jeff5614 said:


> Well, I pulled the floss out of my Eheim 2076 a few hours ago and I have to say the only difference I've noticed is a bit of increase in the filters output. The water is still clear as a bell. It's too bad I didn't try this long ago. All the money I've wasted on filter floss over the years...


It's a common misconception - the tendency in America is to grossly over filtrate aquariums. The bigger filter the better with more stuff in it the better! 

This is rarely the case. Now, in fish-heavy aquariums that do not necessarily have plants, then yes I would say filter floss, pads, and all the other stuff is a necessity. 

The extra padding is there primarily to deal with waste and gunk. 

In a planted aquarium - flow is more important, and whenever you add layers of stuff to the filter your flow rate diminishes (drastically in a filter with an internal pump vs. one with an external pump like the Super Jet), so that the published flow rate in most internal pump filters is twice as high to 4 times as high as actual flow rate when the filter is filled with media (the filters are tested with empty media baskets / trays and the flow rate is purely what the pump is capable of).

So the more stuff, the more bins and compartments you add inside the filter, the more you increase stress on the pump and decrease your flow rate.

A decreased flow rate leads to more ineffective co2 and nutrient distribution and increased algae episodes (there are many types of algae that only appear in stagnant water). 

So, for a planted tank, eventually all you really need to run is biological media for the biological filtration - which is the most important aspect for an advanced ecosystem like the planted tank.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Dollface said:


> A+ title.


Well, eventually it will have everything! and I hope to encourage people asking as many questions as possible.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Storm said:


> Francis, I admire your determination to try Eco-complete, but I would warn you against it personally... after using Aquasoil "New" Amazonia (multi-type) in my 60P and having previously setup 3 tanks with Eco-complete, I will never use an inert substrate again. The Aquasoil grows plants like nothing I've ever seen. I used to think the ADA products were too expensive, but if you compare a single 9 liter bag of AS to the 3-4 bags of Eco-complete needed for a 60P (according to the substrate calculator you need 64 pounds for a 4 inch substrate depth), it's actually less expensive.
> 
> Not only that, but the AS keeps my plants and fish healthier as it buffers the PH.
> 
> ...


Unfortunately the earthquake in Japan actually hit our operations hard - AFA had stock because of luck in timing of their previous container (I mean luck because our order was being processed when the earth quake hit and set in motion a chain of events that disrupted the supply chain), and consequently prices in Japan skyrocketed due to the Yen. So in order for us to be able to supply ADA without drastically increasing the price (and I mean in terms of like, doubling the price), we had to change our strategy.

That being said, we've got our largest container order we've ever placed coming in in January and I don't foresee a shortage happening again. We've actually progressed a lot internally as a company, and in the process I am 100% the operator of ADA at ADG. I've also been able to negotiate the best shipping rates we've ever had - mostly in terms of freight, being able to get things to customers at basically the most competitive rates in the country.

Anyway, onto more fun things:

I'm not really interested in trying eco-complete for the sake of trying it, but if I do end up trying it out I would want to do a side-by-side comparison next to aqua soil to directly measure it to people, using basically the same regiment, the same plants, etc. Might be fun to do later on! I do also want to try my hand at a basically no flow / just sand aquascape in a small container like some of Amano's earliest works where he had just riccia growing and stems planted into the riccia.


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## Dollface (Sep 30, 2008)

Francis Xavier said:


> Well, eventually it will have everything! and I hope to encourage people asking as many questions as possible.


You should link the 60-p how-to videos in the first post fwiw.


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## rockwood (Jun 19, 2010)

Francis Xavier said:


> That being said, we've got our largest container order we've ever placed coming in in January and I don't foresee a shortage happening again. We've actually progressed a lot internally as a company, and in the process I am 100% the operator of ADA at ADG. I've also been able to negotiate the best shipping rates we've ever had - mostly in terms of freight, being able to get things to customers at basically the most competitive rates in the country.


I've been wanting an ADA tank for quite some time now, and I decided the other day that any business I do with ADA will be going through you. The amount of knowledge you've imparted here in this thread and even personally in mine has been priceless. It's nice to have someone who really "knows" what's going on willing to help and actually explain the reasoning behind whats happening. 

Now that you're saying January is a big container shipment I might just have to give myself an ADA tank for my birthday  (Jan 26)


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Substrate Additives explained:

The Substrate additives from ADA are not precisely for growing plants per se - that is the primary job of Aqua Soil. Aqua soil delivers nutrients to plants directly and is the work horse when it comes down to just straight growing the plants. A better way to think of the additives is to think of it like a vitamin d supplement for your diet - will you die without it? No. Will you be healthier for taking vitamins? Probably, unless your diet is just already ridiculously awesome.

That being said, what the additives do is help 'balance' the aquarium on the bacterial side of things - everything I have talked about in regards to GDA and other algae's earlier is helped kept in control by the additives.

The ADA additives are:

Class 0:
Penac P
Penac W
Bacter 100
Clear Super
Tourmaline BC

Class 1:
Penac P
Penac W

Class 2:
Bacter 100
Clear Super
Tourmaline BC

Class 3:
Bacter 100

Class 4:
Bacter 100
Penac W



The two classes of additives: I've broken down the additives into two groups or classes, because basically these are the two groups that can be used separately from one another. In other words you can use Class 2 in your substrate without Class 1, but an "ideal" system would have both class 1 and class 2. However, it would not make any sense to break up Classes because the additives are co-dependent on one another in some regards. For example - there's no reason to have Clear Super if you have no Bacter 100, but at the same time if you were to ONLY have ONE additive, Bacter 100 is the one to get.

*Class 1:* Penac P & Penac W

These are some of the additives that have caused extensive debate in the hobby as being 'snake oil.' I won't cover the details of the argument here, but will state it's history just for the sake of avoiding the argument again and to let people be informed of prior baggage associated with the product. 

Penac P is an additive whose description from ADA is literally "for plants." However, Penac products come from a company called plocher, whose philosophy is focusing on "energy," cleaning water, growing plants, restoring ecosystems, etc. It's in the holistic boat of theory.

That being said, I don't necessarily say that Penac P & W use energy to clean water - at one point the description was "using the memory of clean water to clean dirty water."

Penac P is basically a nutrient additive that helps to grow plant roots by keeping them healthy - you can also use it with your terrestrial plants. But basically a few spoonfuls of the product at the bottom is used to help grow plants. It contains Calcium Carbonate, Iron 3 oxide, Magnesium, Aluminum Oxide, Silicon Dioxide.

Basically what this does is that Amazonia can be -so- acidic that it helps to temper the acidic effects on plant roots, which can actually be harmed by the intensity of the acidity of Amazonia by making the soil more basic as opposed to acidic. 

*Penac W* on the other hand is an additive that goes on the bottom as well, but is actually advised to use once a month with water changes. This additive directly oxygenates water and serves to also help neutralize the intensity of Amazonia's acidic nature to fortify plant roots. 

When you use Penac W properly in the substrate when you setup your aquarium, if you examine your substrate you'll actually see that soil itself is "bubbling" with oxygen - as if it were plants pearling. This helps to rapidly oxygenate the substrate in preparation for the growth of beneficial bacteria. 

When doing a water change, a dose of Penac W helps to clear the water and restore oxygen levels to the aquarium. When using pure RODI water it has the effect of balancing the RO water (which has nothing in it and pure RODI water is effectively unlivable) and making it a little harder.

Perhaps an unintended side effect - but if you were to gas your aquarium with co2 and your fish are on the brink of death as a result, adding a spoonful of Penac W causes a rapid, instant oxygenation of water and will save the fish from dying. 


*Class 2*

This trio of additives, Bacter 100, Clear Super and Tourmaline BC all go towards growing bacteria. These additives turn your substrate into a secondary biological filter for your aquarium.

This adds stability by having a second source of filtration / available surface area in case of a filter failure (essentially say, if your filter failed for whatever reason over night, killing all the bio filtration there, you already have a source of bio filtration directly in the substrate of the aquarium saving you from a total system crash and just getting GDA instead of ammonia spikes). 

*Bacter 100* is specifically 100 different types of bacteria or microorganisms that are beneficial to planted aquariums. This goes beyond just bacteria involved in the nitrogen cycle and includes bacteria that is beneficial and symbiotic with plant roots, etc. and aids in their health and is a detriment towards algae.

You can actually sprinkle Bacter 100 on top of the substrate if you get cyanobacteria or other problem algaes and over night the cyano bacteria will be eaten away by the bacteria and will likely not show up again. 

If you are having a massive imbalance problem or your filter crashes, you can dose Bacter 100 into the aquarium to save the system from total failure by adding more bacteria. 

*Clear Super* is essentially a food source for the bacteria - it is comprised of organic material that the bacteria use as a food source, until it becomes naturally occuring in the planted aquarium, which could take some time. Essentially this allows for the bacteria to flourish in the substrate system from day one without having to spend time to grow into the system, it's essentially there to help jump start the Bacter 100.

*Tourmaline BC* is a very high purity carbon, this helps to keep water quality up, which creates a more suitable environment for the bacteria in the substrate, as well as helps with overall water quality issues in the aquarium itself. Much like how *Tourmaline F* can be added to a filter to help polish the water, Tourmaline BC does this in the substrate.

As a side note - Power Sand serves as essentially a high-surface area surface for the bacteria to thrive in under the substrate (think of it as your biological media). 

*Class 0:*

The effect of all the listed additives in your aquarium, Penac W, Penac P, Tourmaline BC, Clear Super and Bacter 100 is doing a few things: one it is neutralizing the effect of the extreme acidity (which is harmful towards bacteria) of amazonia in the soil itself. This aids in plant growth, prevents the rotting of roots and allows for Bacteria base to be highly successful in the aquarium. 

Two, it keeps the substrate with a high concentration of oxygen. Beneficial Bacteria is highly dependent on oxygen exchange, which in later stages of the aquarium is aided with plant roots, but is not present in early stages of the aquarium. This enables greater health in the plants - and the greater survival of bacteria, which means more stability and less algae for the aquarium.

Three, it provides the Bacteria, pre-seeded, in the substrate already to essentially super-charge the system with bacteria which are beneficial to the substrate without being dependent on waiting for them to grow and occur naturally.

Four, it provides the food for the bacteria so they can thrive from day one.

Five it keeps the quality of the water and the environment of the system itself at top notch in the substrate.

While very few people think of it - soil actually has a certain 'health' factor to it, unhealthy soil leads to unhealthy plants. Unhealthy soil can be spotted by premature break down, 'gunk,' in the soil such as random cyanobacteria and other algaes, and a lot of broken down decaying organic matter (which I can take a picture of at some point), which clogs up and hurts plant growth by making it harder for roots to spread and overall lending itself to the system decaying and shortening the life span of soil. This occurs with -any- nutritious substrate.

These additives help prevent the condition of soil from decaying and maintain the environment in which plants grow in, which lends itself more to overall system health and the prolonging of your layout.

*Class 3:* if you were to only get one substrate additive, get Bacter 100 as you can still add it to increase bacteria counts and use it to combat cyano bacteria and balance the aquarium in an emergency.

*Class 4:* if you were to only get two substrate additives get Penac W and Bacter 100 - they can be added to the water to help in emergencies and both provide the most beneficial impact together. 

*Class 2: *if you can only partially do the system - get these three, Bacter 100, Clear Super and Tourmaline BC as the Clear Super and Tourmaline BC support the growth of Bacter.

At this point - I think it's a lot of info for people to take in, so I'd be happy to answer specific questions to expound upon the overall philosophy and approach more.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Dollface said:


> You should link the 60-p how-to videos in the first post fwiw.


Great idea! I'll add those now to the first post, as well as embed them here for people who are reading and keeping up so they don't have to go back to the first post:

60-P How To and Setup 1

60-P How To and Setup 2

This thread may soon need a table of contents.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

houseofcards said:


> I see your using a burst on the bigger tank. I know the benefit, but I'd like to hear if from you. Also do you know what PAR the tank is running with the MH on?


Good question.

The noon day burst is something that specifically occurs in larger aquariums with the way ADA lighting is designed - specifically for the 90P (50 gallons) and 180P (180 gallons). 

That being said it can be applied to the 75-P, but the *only* light fixture for growing plants I know of designed specifically to do this is the Grand Solar I, which has compact fluorescents and MH bulbs, and fits on the 90-P, the 75-P (albeit a bit large) and the 180-P. Although you could use it on any 3 foot tank, and probably get away with it on a 2-3 foot tank (2 feet might be a bit overkill) and you could use two of them on a 4-5 foot tank.

You can apply the concept of a noon day burst to any aquarium, although having the secondary light fixtures to do so may be tricky in the smaller sizes.

Basically the natural photosynthesis cycle of all plants is about 10 hours, so to properly grow plants you want to have a *10 hour lighting period*, it is a major mistake to cut down this lighting period or to extend this lighting period, as this lighting period is the appropriate amount of time for plants to go through the entire cycle of a day. 10 hours on, 14 hours off. This is a very normal cycle that prevents both overdoses of algae and enables plant growing.

Now, the 'burst' cycle means that for 6 hours of the 10 hour photoperiod we are running more intense lights than normal to replicate the afternoon.

As anyone who is alive can tell you - it's warmest and you get the most direct sunlight between 10-3 to 4 o'clock or so (variant on where you are on the hemisphere, but basically noon). This is the naturally occuring period of most intense light.

So what we basically do is for the first two hours we keep only the fluorescents on - the lowest lights, then after that we turn on the Metal Halides AND the CF's for the intensity of noon which lasts for 6 hours, then for the final two hours of the photoperiod we turn off the Metal Halide and only run the CF afterwards.

So you have:

off 14 hours
2 hours low, CF only
6 hours high, CF+MH
2 hours low, CF only
off 14 hours 

10 hours on, 14 hours off in a 24 hour cycle. 

This is results in healthier and more vibrant plants who get exposed to maximum nutrient intake and light exposure during the 6 hour period, but then shuts off that high intensity as a method to directly deal with preventing too much algal growth. So basically we dance with light periods to make sure that we get optimal growth, but non-optimal algae conditions, which occurs when we're out of balance and we have too much or too little of one thing and not enough of another to match (in this case, 10 hours of light with all MH and CF on is way too much, but just 10 hours of CF and just 10 hours of MH isn't really optimal / enough either, although you can just run 3x 150watt MH over a 180-P (like AFA has (x3 Solar I MH only), where as we have (ADG) 3 Grand Solar 1's (CF+MH)), but this results in much less par value and not quite as idealic growth or brightness for this size aquarium.

Something else to think about is that the gradual increase and the gradual decrease is also less stressful on the fish - intense brightness randomly turning on and randomly turning off (to them) is more stressful and freaks them out more than the gradual on and gradual off cycle, leading to less fish loss and less fish disease, which helps to contribute to the balance of the system as well. Imagine that since the fish can be seen jumping around and freaking out at bright light on and off suddenly - perhaps the micro-organisms we can't see have the same reaction. Who knows?

I don't have a PAR meter on hand to get approximate PAR readings, however I will say that the last time I tested the lights it was something ridiculously high on the Grand Solar I's with everything on, like 143-167 or the like (I can be misremembering this, but the three Grand Solar I's was much higher PAR than 3 Solar I's).


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

rockwood said:


> I've been wanting an ADA tank for quite some time now, and I decided the other day that any business I do with ADA will be going through you. The amount of knowledge you've imparted here in this thread and even personally in mine has been priceless. It's nice to have someone who really "knows" what's going on willing to help and actually explain the reasoning behind whats happening.
> 
> Now that you're saying January is a big container shipment I might just have to give myself an ADA tank for my birthday  (Jan 26)


I'd be happy to help you get an ADA tank for your birthday! I deeply appreciate that you feel I have earned your business with ADA-related matters. Much of it I do purely out of enjoyment of spreading techniques and success on to others in the hobby and expanding it.


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## Riverboa (Mar 18, 2009)

"You can actually sprinkle Bacter 100 on top of the substrate if you get cyanobacteria or other problem algaes and over night the cyano bacteria will be eaten away by the bacteria and will likely not show up again."

What is the proper way to sprinkle it on top of the substrate in an established tank? Would it help in tanks where there are cyano bacteria lurking underneath the surface of the substrate (visible through the glass)? 

thanks,


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Riverboa said:


> "You can actually sprinkle Bacter 100 on top of the substrate if you get cyanobacteria or other problem algaes and over night the cyano bacteria will be eaten away by the bacteria and will likely not show up again."
> 
> What is the proper way to sprinkle it on top of the substrate in an established tank? Would it help in tanks where there are cyano bacteria lurking underneath the surface of the substrate (visible through the glass)?
> 
> thanks,


During a water change with the water level drained, use the supplied plastic spoon (or any spoon really), and try to sprinkle the bacter 100 directly onto the effected spots. 

Where you see the cyano against the pane of glass in the substrate, apply the bacter 100 directly against the pane of glass and form a perimeter around the glass line / top substrate. Over the course of the next 1-3 days the Bacter 100 will "clean" the substrate particles of cyano and any mulm / decaying growth and you will be good to go. 

There may be some orange particulate left over the next day - you can remove this with a small siphon hose / airline tubing. But most of the time most of it dissolves away.


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

Thank you so much for this tread. I remember your first ADA tank that started it all. I am glad you have been able to make something like this happen.

It is really interesting when people really show their every day rutines with tanks, not just say, EI doesing, 50% water change, etc. To actually see what you do and explain it really shows a lot. For example, how you deal with filtration, I would have never thought of doing 100% biological filtration but even more so, I would never think of drastically changing out my media as my tank settled in. I often use carbon when I start, or add a HOB with carbon in it, but that is it.

Also, small things like cleaning the silicone, I know to do that now, even if I don't get to the glass. But, I still have my first tank setup and it is showing it's age, it has only once scratch but the silicone makes most people never notice the scratch. It is an AGA tank so there is far more silicone. Great that you showed people that, something I only learned by not doing this.

I promised myself that if the album I am currently working on sells well enough, I am going to reward myself with a nice rimless tank. I don't know if I can afford ADA as I want to go bigger than my current 29 gallon but I will try to go with as much ADA stuff as I can. I know I can't afford the filters, but now I can see why they are so expensive. It is also nice I have some alternatives to AFA. Don't get me wrong AFA is good, and no shipping, but I feel like they often don't have enough people working to properly explain things which makes me tend to go elsewhere if I can. I will keep you in mind.

Thanks again for such a methodical thread, I wouldn't say I am inexperienced though I have only been in the hobby for about 5 years, I still did learn quite a bit, mainly be more on point with my maintenance and stick to a schedule. That is hard as a musician because my schedule is all over but there are defineatly times where I just get lazy.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

talontsiawd said:


> Thank you so much for this tread. I remember your first ADA tank that started it all. I am glad you have been able to make something like this happen.
> 
> It is really interesting when people really show their every day rutines with tanks, not just say, EI doesing, 50% water change, etc. To actually see what you do and explain it really shows a lot. For example, how you deal with filtration, I would have never thought of doing 100% biological filtration but even more so, I would never think of drastically changing out my media as my tank settled in. I often use carbon when I start, or add a HOB with carbon in it, but that is it.
> 
> ...



Man, I just dug up that thread after you mentioned the first one here, that might be some inspiration for someone out there, it all started with a tiny little Mini S. And some obsessing.

I'm definitely glad that the methodical approach is appreciated - I figure that a lot of people's struggles or mystery's with their own aquariums comes as a result of the sum total of a lot of little things, rather than one big problem, and even though sometimes I might feel I'm being a little repetitive, I figure it's a good idea to repeat the info as much as possible to answer as many questions as possible in the process of going through everything.

Let me know when your album sells well! There are plenty of options to be able to afford greatly!


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## ClintonParsons (Aug 22, 2011)

Hey Frank, ever get that looong e-mail I sent last week? I need your advice on a scape idea I had and I need you to be on the lookout for some sweet rocks!

Also, You add Excel, but this isn't the best thing for bacteria... can you explain this for me? I mean... it just goes against the whole philosophy Amano has, imo, and I would think it would hinder the bacteria at least some. 

Also, You said Tourmaline BC was just powdered carbon... I thought it was powdered carbon as well as tourmaline powder. What do the instructions say?

Thanks! Still saving up for that ES-600. One day lol.


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

Francis Xavier said:


> I'm definitely glad that the methodical approach is appreciated - I figure that a lot of people's struggles or mystery's with their own aquariums comes as a result of the sum total of a lot of little things, rather than one big problem, and even though sometimes I might feel I'm being a little repetitive, I figure it's a good idea to repeat the info as much as possible to answer as many questions as possible in the process of going through everything.


Trust me, not only do I agree that problems are almost always going to be a bunch of small things combined, I live that experience every time I look at my high tech tank. I get so frustrated because the first high tech tank I did had no issues and I lacked experience. Now I have more trouble than ever with that tank. Then I really think back about my lifestyle, I was home everyday, that certainly helps to not be gone for up to a week at a time, lol. When I am home, I am usually home a lot and then try to throw all this energy to fix things ASAP, something I know doesn't work. On my first try, I tended to spend at least 5 minutes a day doing something, a trim here, move a plant there, much less my regular stuff. Now it is all over the place.

That is why I am much more into low tech now. Things move so much slower and I can catch things before they are truly a problem. When I move on to my next tank, I am going to have a schedule that fits my life and hold myself to it, even if that means I don't get to go high tech and build the tank of my dreams. 


Looking at your thread is a trip. I remember all your scapes but didn't realize they were all in the same tank. Your wabi-kusa was the first time I ever saw that. But now I remember everyone wondering why you went from your last scape to that, not really knowing how cool wabi-kusa is. I actually ended up using it as inpiration for something else, I took a piece of driftwood I liked and grew plants emmersed in a short glass container. Only 1/2 of the wood was in water and I would put trimmings on top.


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## Retrogamer82 (Oct 13, 2009)

Francis Xavier; said:


> Then follow afterwards with a clean edged razor to hit any spots that were missed, as well as to clean away any algae in the silicon seams. By quickly going over the silicon once a week, you prevent build up of algae permanently staining the silicon and you prolong the aesthetic life of your aquarium substantially.


This part really raised my eyebrows. I plan on owning a large sexy ADA tank one day and I never considered this. This is valuable info on taking care of one's investment.

Could you elaborate just a little here? So you just run the razor quickly up and down the silicone? Obviously if I drop that kind of money on a tank, I am going to want it to last forever.

Awesome thread, thanks a ton!


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Francis Xavier said:


> Good question.
> 
> The noon day burst is something that specifically occurs in larger aquariums with the way ADA lighting is designed - specifically for the 90P (50 gallons) and 180P (180 gallons).
> 
> ...


Pretty much what I thought and I'm certainly in your camp. Not to say you have to have the burst, but there are many advantageous to it in both plant growth and algae control if stronger light is needed beyond the core light that is on throughout the duration. 

It also puts to bed any idea that all ADA tanks are run in lowlight with PAR readings between 140 and 170. Thanks for a very good, understandable explanation as well.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

ClintonParsons said:


> Hey Frank, ever get that looong e-mail I sent last week? I need your advice on a scape idea I had and I need you to be on the lookout for some sweet rocks!
> 
> Also, You add Excel, but this isn't the best thing for bacteria... can you explain this for me? I mean... it just goes against the whole philosophy Amano has, imo, and I would think it would hinder the bacteria at least some.
> 
> ...


Hey Clint! I do not think I got your email, would you mind resending it? Sorry for the delay 

Excel is just carbon and water - in high dosages it is harmful to living organisms, however, a small dosage directly to the water column (not concentrated in one spot) when experiencing excessive algae is actually greatly beneficial. Though, when an aquarium has reached a truly balanced point, excel is not necessary, however as a short-term stop gap it is incredibly useful to help achieve that point quicker. 

Basically my regiment with excel follows this pattern: 

Setup: highest doses with highest frequency of water changes
weeks 2-3: Taper off usage, increase co2 from co2 canister 
weeks 3-4: stop usage of excel, use maximum healthy amount of co2 from regulator

When something happens to throw balance off (such as large trimming or filter failure):

highest dosage of excel, such as in setup, then slowly taper off again.

You are correct, it is fine powdered Tourmaline in the additive. I need to correct that.


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

Retrogamer82 said:


> This part really raised my eyebrows. I plan on owning a large sexy ADA tank one day and I never considered this. This is valuable info on taking care of one's investment.
> 
> Could you elaborate just a little here? So you just run the razor quickly up and down the silicone? Obviously if I drop that kind of money on a tank, I am going to want it to last forever.
> 
> Awesome thread, thanks a ton!


Not trying to speak for Frank but if you let algae build up, it can "harden up" over long periods of time and since it is harder to clean than glass, it is easy to neglect.

If you do it frequently, it is as simple as scraping the silicone with the razor pointing down if you are going up, or up if you are going down. You don't want the razor to "dig in". If you do it enough, just an algae pad is fine for me.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

houseofcards said:


> It also puts to bed any idea that all ADA tanks are run in lowlight with PAR readings between 140 and 170. Thanks for a very good, understandable explanation as well.


Depends on WHERE that light PAR reading is taken, if at the water's surface, that's about the typical range I measure, if at the sediment, I doubt that is the case.

40-50 PAR is much more typical along the bottom of the sediment.

I measured 150 umol at the water's surface, NOT 40-50 umol, THAT WAS ALONG THE BASE OF THE SEDIMENT.

Distance from the light makes all the difference in the world:wink:
I made this clear when I measured AFA's 180 cm tank and their other tanks, I did NOT give only one measure at the surface.

For plant specifics, the measure needs taken at each part of the shoot, bottom to top and as it grows etc through time. The light field changes a great deal based on the distance. Frank made no mention of the distance, but I bet this is at the top water surface.

15 years ago, this was "high light", today's w/gal ranges, it's moderately low light however.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Frank used the term ridiculously high. I take that to mean with the Grand Solars on the tank is not lowlight.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

talontsiawd said:


> Trust me, not only do I agree that problems are almost always going to be a bunch of small things combined, I live that experience every time I look at my high tech tank. I get so frustrated because the first high tech tank I did had no issues and I lacked experience. Now I have more trouble than ever with that tank. Then I really think back about my lifestyle, I was home everyday, that certainly helps to not be gone for up to a week at a time, lol. When I am home, I am usually home a lot and then try to throw all this energy to fix things ASAP, something I know doesn't work. On my first try, I tended to spend at least 5 minutes a day doing something, a trim here, move a plant there, much less my regular stuff. Now it is all over the place.
> 
> That is why I am much more into low tech now. Things move so much slower and I can catch things before they are truly a problem. When I move on to my next tank, I am going to have a schedule that fits my life and hold myself to it, even if that means I don't get to go high tech and build the tank of my dreams.
> 
> ...


Looking at that old thread was a trip for me too! I never got to see to completion the end of the last scape. I believe I may re-set that one up on my desk now because I still have that tank and setup, just not running at the moment. 

The wabi-kusa are indeed beautiful. Unfortunately after a year and a half mine seems to have run it's course now (that's not a normal life span, we tried to do a lot of things with it, it was cut, submerged, then emmersed again then submerged then emmersed, so the wabikusa went through hell and back again). 

I would definitely say that statement #1 in the Philosophy is to say "only tackle the projects you can handle the maintenance on."


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Retrogamer82 said:


> This part really raised my eyebrows. I plan on owning a large sexy ADA tank one day and I never considered this. This is valuable info on taking care of one's investment.
> 
> Could you elaborate just a little here? So you just run the razor quickly up and down the silicone? Obviously if I drop that kind of money on a tank, I am going to want it to last forever.
> 
> Awesome thread, thanks a ton!


I can certainly elaborate more - most weeks yes, it's quickly running a razor against the silicon seam in the tank (they're called like algae pro scrapers or something, cheapo little razors you can probably get at most LFS) sometimes you just have to grind it a little bit to remove any algae, but when you see algae in the silicon you can tell it's there and remove it fairly easily. You won't harm the stability of the tank. 

I hope you get your ADA tank through us!


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

talontsiawd said:


> Not trying to speak for Frank but if you let algae build up, it can "harden up" over long periods of time and since it is harder to clean than glass, it is easy to neglect.
> 
> If you do it frequently, it is as simple as scraping the silicone with the razor pointing down if you are going up, or up if you are going down. You don't want the razor to "dig in". If you do it enough, just an algae pad is fine for me.


This is correct.

I personally prefer to have on hand an algae pad AND an algae razor, because sometimes it's easier to maneuver the algae razor to remove algae, and sometimes it's easier to use the pad. and different types of glass covering algae are easier to remove with different tools.

Harder "green" algae is easier to remove with a razor 

"Dust" algae that evaporates at the touch is easier with an algae pad.

Etc.

It's important to be fully equipped with all the algae fighting tools, such as:

Toothbrush
Small paintbrush
Picking tool of some sort
Scissors
Algae Pad
Algae Razor
airline tubing


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

plantbrain said:


> Depends on WHERE that light PAR reading is taken, if at the water's surface, that's about the typical range I measure, if at the sediment, I doubt that is the case.
> 
> 40-50 PAR is much more typical along the bottom of the sediment.
> 
> ...





houseofcards said:


> Frank used the term ridiculously high. I take that to mean with the Grand Solars on the tank is not lowlight.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Honestly, I made the test very quickly with the lights being brand new and fresh. I can't remember much of the details and no longer have that PAR meter on hand. 

I do remember it being at the bottom of the tank itself, I can't remember if it had water in it or not (which would make a huge difference). That being said I would be happy to take another test of the lights if there was an available par meter. 

Also, having said that; AFA runs three Solar I's over the 180-P. ADA in Niigata and ourselves run three Grand Solar I's over the 180-P.

The Solar I is designed first and foremost for a 60-P or two for a 120-P / 120-H (lights hung lower on a 120-H due to extra height). The Grand Solar I is designed for either a 90-P or 3 for a 180-P. The stronger lighting on the Grand Solar isn't to be totally under-emphasized and the age of the MH bulbs do matter.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Okay so this morning's early maintenance was fairly easy - but I definitely have some good tips on recovery on the Mini M (which was neglected for 5 days with lights on 24 hrs due to a mechanical problem with the timer) that talontsiawd might appreciate for being away time!

ADA/ADG Gallery #2: 60-P

A quick glance over this morning and it's seen that the 60-P is just fine after it's water change yesterday. This aquarium is now very close to 'balance,' and as such there has been no excel dosing since last tuesday. No GDA traces today:



No attention is necessary on this tank. Just normal dosing (potassium + step 2)

ADA/ADG Gallery #1: 180-P

It's the second week still on the 180-P, which means it's time for it's water change every 2nd day. 

Took the water level down this much:



As you can see, the 180-P hasn't had even a single spec of algae yet, and there has been nothing done to it other than water drain, water fill.



The crypts are in their melting phase going from emmersed to submerged growth, and we're all good here. The lack of even any GDA or diatoms in this tank so far has been due to the daily water change and probably in part that 80% carbon and 20% bio bale has been in the filter. 



Filling perfectly clear water!



Water cloudiness from adding in seachem equilibrium, seachem alkalinity buffer and Penac W to the water (RODI water), this is the first day of adding additives to reconstitute the pure RODI water, last week was nothing but RODI. 

ADA / ADG Gallery 3: Mini M

Okay, so the Mini M had the 5 days of 24 hr lights from the malfunction and now it's time to salvage it - this is a good case of neglect and turning it around so I'm glad it happened, so I can show some other methods to algae control, etc and how this situation is very easy to get over.

The tank before water change:



Yesterday I spotted some green filamentous algae in the aquarium, some of which was removed from stems, but other pieces were not removed, but they need to be removed quickly because this filamentous algae will spread quickly and is difficult to remove once it's an infestation because Amano's don't really eat much of it.



Here I am using scissors to cut the Marsilea Minuta that is infested with it.



Using the scissors to remove it from the aquarium (you can also use airline tubing or pincettes to do this).



Here I am trimming the java fern back because it got covered with some algae, here is the older growth which is no longer photosynthesizing to the maximum benefit of the plant (when java ferns and trident have clear-greenish tips that is a sign the plant is growing and the leaf is photosynthesizing, don't remove these, once it's gone it's safe to trim). You can't see it very well in the picture but I am cutting these old leaves at the base and removing them from the aquarium. This is removing any negative algae that attached itself to the leaf.



Here I am using airline tubing to siphon out any dead growth on some of the emergent leaves, as well as siphoning out any remaining filamentous algae and light-covering algae on the rocks, this is a good technique for totally removing some of these algae types without tremendously disturbing the substrate.



I just liked this angle so I took a picture. 

With the aquarium full again and the water change complete I am entering the week 2 dosing regime for this tank: Brighty K (potassium) and Green Brighty Step 1. 2 squirts potassium, 1 squirt Step 1.





I am still dosing Green Bacter for biological filtration in the MIni M and 180-P with water changes. This helps to maintain and grow the biological filtration base after the filter has been off for 20-30 minutes or longer. 

Here we can also see how even problems caused by neglect can be easily remedied if you know what to do and if you act quickly! Just look at the pictures of the Mini M and 60-P yesterday for a quick turn around.

Completed Maintenance on Mini M:


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## zchauvin (Apr 16, 2011)

Those stems sure grew fast lol


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

Francis Xavier said:


> ......talontsiawd might appreciate for being away time!


First off, you are welcome to call me Matt BTW. Secondly, my one tank with issues right now wasn't as bad as that in any specific department, but way worse overall in general. GSA here, Brown algae there, a bit of BBA recently (that I didn't attack yet), etc. It's one thing to neglect a tank for 5 days and remedy everything, it's another story to neglect a tank for 5 days a week for months and try to remedy it, lol. I have lighting issues though so it's kind of hard to keep something under control when you know you are going to get algae regardless. I do appreciate you showing it though, it makes me realize that 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there would have saved me a lot of grief. 

The difference between you and me is simple though, my tank is in my studio and I am a musician. I would bet your studio would get neglected if you had one in your gallery, lol. Scrape algae or get on the keys...I am choosing the keys, I am going to guess you would scrape some algae lol.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Francis Xavier said:


> Honestly, I made the test very quickly with the lights being brand new and fresh. I can't remember much of the details and no longer have that PAR meter on hand.
> 
> I do remember it being at the bottom of the tank itself, I can't remember if it had water in it or not (which would make a huge difference). That being said I would be happy to take another test of the lights if there was an available par meter.


Without knowing where and without taking a few readings at different distances from the source, the umol reading is of little comparative use.

The addition of the PC's is not going to make a large difference at 1 meter distance away on the sediment vs a MH alone. It will make more difference as plants are closer to the light source. 

The umol reading at 14" away on the water's surface was about 120-140 umol depending where you placed the probe, PC lights added another 40-50 umol at that distance(AFA also has grand solars with PC's as well as the HQI). I did this at the open house meeting with the SFBAAPS club present.

At the bottom, the light was the same with the PC's but the fixture was raised a bit higher, about 3" more, this would add perhaps another 5-10umol at this distance(it's easy to move the probe up to make this the same distance), not much at the bottom.

I needed to run several transects and measure the distances to give good light data. See Hoppy's light curves for some examples and ideas about the subject. It would wise to invest in a light meter. Then replicate that same tank's lighting every time:icon_idea 

This can be done regardless of the ADA light, T12, HQI, HQI+PC, PC alone etc. Several folks also took a light meter to ADA's show room also. It's a fast easy to test to do.


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## Daximus (Oct 19, 2011)

Thank you for taking the time to post and write in this thread...can't believe how much I picked up just from reading this one singular thread. I may not ever get as detailed in my tank development, but the information is awesome! Using different algae as a sign of what's going on, filter media, the razor trick, mid day burst and 10 hour photo cycles, and all the information on dosing stuff. Wow! Please don't stop! 

Thank you!


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## lanceduffy (Nov 14, 2011)

Thanks a ton. this type of information is invaluable and will ensure that I buy my ADA goods from ADG.


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## ClintonParsons (Aug 22, 2011)

lanceduffy said:


> Thanks a ton. this type of information is invaluable and will ensure that I buy my ADA goods from ADG.


The cash-back you get in store credit is amazing, too! That and their customer service is why I only do business with them, even if it means I have to have something special-ordered. 

I am glad ADA and ADG are communicating so much these days. This should be a sticky!


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

plantbrain said:


> Without knowing where and without taking a few readings at different distances from the source, the umol reading is of little comparative use.
> 
> The addition of the PC's is not going to make a large difference at 1 meter distance away on the sediment vs a MH alone. It will make more difference as plants are closer to the light source.
> 
> ...


The real question here is do plants gain any benefit from having the stronger light during the mid part of the day. I personally believe they do. I think there's more to slow grow then simply having less to trim. I think the plants grow fuller and lusher with some amount of higher light. This whole idea of low med high light is ridiculous anyway. It's all a matter of having non-limiting light if that's what one wants. I simply don't think plants grow or look as good in all setups with this minimum of ~40 umol of light.


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

well i haven't posted but i've been subscribed. figured it was time. having a tek fixcture with 4 bulbs and two cords gives me the option of easy noon burst. i've already set up a timer and will be trying this as previously, i was only using two bulbs all day.
i knew bio played an important role but i didn't understand the scope. that is the most important thing i've taken from this.
Thanks Francis for the step by step care its always nice to learn something new


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Ho ho ho, it's magic, y'knowww.



180-P one day fresh after the water change and Penac W/equilibrium water treatment. If you've been following you'd notice that by this time on all previous days we had some tannin soaked aquarium water!



The 60-P is still going strong - no sign of GDA.

SO today is pretty easy! However, will be trimming the stems in the Mini M. Which should be a fun thing to document.


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## Storm (Aug 7, 2011)

Thanks for the awesome description of the substrate products. This really helps me to understand why I might want to use them as opposed to thinking of them as expensive things I don't need.

When I do my 120P (as soon as I buy a house maybe in a year or so) - I will have learned a ton of great info from this thread and should be able to have a beautiful show quality tank with no surprises.

This thread truly delivers!


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Okay, so it's time to trim the Mini M. 



Typically with stem plants we want to trim the stems once they've reached the surface. In this case, I waited just a few days longer since the plants were freshly planted in the Mini M not too long ago. 

The reason we want to do trim stem plants diligently is because if we don't, they are thin and scraggly and the layout never looks full and lush - the general rule of thumb is that when you trim the stems, two branches form at the cut when submerged, so trimming them results in two (this doesn't always happen, but it happens often enough where it's a rule of thumb).

So what we want to do on the very first trimming session is trim the stems as low as we possibly can go, and we want the cut point to be hidden so that when the stems first divide, we don't see it in the finished layout, because all the subsequent trimming sessions will have to be steadily higher and higher on the stem plant, so it's crucial we trim these as low as possible.

This is where Straight Type scissors are incredibly useful, because they allow us to trim at a precise and even angle across the entirety of the trimming job, which is important.



Beginning the trim cut using ADA Pro Scissors Short / Straight type.



A little blurry - but making the cut back deep.



Notice the line being formed across the layout behind the driftwood.



Lots of stems!



The finished trimming job.



Because it is hard to see from the front - I took this photo from the back of the tank so that you can see how the trimming effect appears and how the line looks. It's important to try to keep the bottom of the stem as healthy as possible until we go to replant the tops after the 4-5th trimming.

Normally I would go ahead and add some more stems from what I just trimmed back in after the first trim, but there's really no room to do so!



Now that the trimming is done, going ahead and doing a water change.



With the water change complete, I'm still dosing potassium and green brighty step 1 (though being careful since the plant mass just radically changed in the aquarium), and now I'm dosing Green Gain. Green Gain helps plants recover after being trimmed, it definitely helps a great deal after such a low and aggressive trim.



Use a fine-mesh net to remove trimming left-overs off the top before turning the filter back on.


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## Doc7 (Apr 7, 2011)

Another informative post for me - can be applied to all tank layouts as well.

Are almost all stems to be replanted-tops after 4-5 trims ? Are there ones that can commonly go more or fewer toppings before replanting?

Thank you

Sent from my BlackBerry 9650 using Tapatalk


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Doc7 said:


> Another informative post for me - can be applied to all tank layouts as well.
> 
> Are almost all stems to be replanted-tops after 4-5 trims ? Are there ones that can commonly go more or fewer toppings before replanting?
> 
> ...


Hey Doc,

ADA's official statement is that all stems must be replanted after approximately 4 trims. That being said, it's possible to go 5-6 with some of the more viral types like Green Rotala, although I would stress keeping to 4 trims.

Four is pretty much the golden number - although there of course could be a few outliers that technically need less or more, but sticking to four is the way to go.

The reason being is that the bottom of the stems tend to rot over time as you continually trim the stems to make them healthier - so at the same time you are making a stem more vibrant and healthy and more lush and full (as opposed to skinny and leggy), you are also hurting it's ability to regenerate, and the bottom (since they get cut off from light) will eventually turn to mush, which is why we need to replant the tops after four trims.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

talontsiawd said:


> First off, you are welcome to call me Matt BTW. Secondly, my one tank with issues right now wasn't as bad as that in any specific department, but way worse overall in general. GSA here, Brown algae there, a bit of BBA recently (that I didn't attack yet), etc. It's one thing to neglect a tank for 5 days and remedy everything, it's another story to neglect a tank for 5 days a week for months and try to remedy it, lol. I have lighting issues though so it's kind of hard to keep something under control when you know you are going to get algae regardless. I do appreciate you showing it though, it makes me realize that 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there would have saved me a lot of grief.
> 
> The difference between you and me is simple though, my tank is in my studio and I am a musician. I would bet your studio would get neglected if you had one in your gallery, lol. Scrape algae or get on the keys...I am choosing the keys, I am going to guess you would scrape some algae lol.


Hey Matt! I was mostly just trying to point out that it was fortuitous that I had the malfunction with the lighting and what not, as it enabled showing a kind of 'catch up,' routine. I think you could definitely have a full blown lush aquascape without it specifically needing to be "low" tech or use only mosses, or what not. Sure I would stay away from high needs plants - but having things on appropriate timers, with appropriate lights and a slightly hardier selection of plants would enable being away for 5 days a week (though you'd still want to have a strong setup phase of 2-3 weeks of the heavy water changes etc).

I think if I had a studio in the gallery, I might never ever get any "real" work done.



zchauvin said:


> Those stems sure grew fast lol


Those particular stems actually really surprised us too. So they got the trim!


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

plantbrain said:


> Without knowing where and without taking a few readings at different distances from the source, the umol reading is of little comparative use.
> 
> The addition of the PC's is not going to make a large difference at 1 meter distance away on the sediment vs a MH alone. It will make more difference as plants are closer to the light source.
> 
> ...


I'm not trying to necessarily directly compare it, just specifically saying that I can't give an approximate value because I can't remember precisely what the test was - it was literally something along the lines of "oh hey, a PAR meter, I wonder what the PAR is." and then testing it and going "oh okay." and moving along, so it was kind of a random whim.

Approximate testing has never been a huge part of ADG's culture - I mean, you'd be amazed at how difficult it is to even get a pH test kit into this building and used. 

For some reason I was pretty sure I had seen 3x Solar I's over AFA's 180-P. The inherit spread of the light of 3x Solar I's vs. 3x Grand Solar I's will be different over the length of 6 feet. 

What we -do- pay attention to, more than PAR, etc. is how each light effects aquariums themselves - the nature of different lighting. There's a lot of hubbub about LED's and we have to keep a careful eye on effectiveness between different types of lighting.

For example, Metal Halide lamps are very direct light, they beam directly down on whatever is under them and create huge intensity of light, meaning things directly underneath them grow differently than things on the outskirts of them, also because of this direct light, when there's an object between the MH and the carpet, the object casts a pronounced shadow (even plants), so shading is created.

However, with a Compact Fluorescent, the lighting is less intense, but also more even. So for growing a carpet, the CF is actually more efficient. Consequently, CF lighting tends to "bend" around objects and does not create a shadow. T5's are interesting in their color renderings mostly, when used with pinkish light they make the reds pop much, much more incredibly than the cooler lighting of the CF and MH bulbs, which lends them to have an illusion of more vibrant colors, but seem to neither be quite as directly intensive as MH nor as evenly spread as CF.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Daximus said:


> Thank you for taking the time to post and write in this thread...can't believe how much I picked up just from reading this one singular thread. I may not ever get as detailed in my tank development, but the information is awesome! Using different algae as a sign of what's going on, filter media, the razor trick, mid day burst and 10 hour photo cycles, and all the information on dosing stuff. Wow! Please don't stop!
> 
> Thank you!


It's my pleasure Daximus! Hopefully some killer layouts start popping up from people as techniques are shared and more knowledge is accrued. I think there's been an over-focus on 'approximate,' water parameters and the like, but not nearly enough on technique, which one without the other is kind of silly.


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## sewingalot (Oct 12, 2008)

Frank, you just made my day! I was doing the trimming of stems (mainly rotala) just in the picture you showed us. But I never replanted the tops after 4 or 5 trims, Sure enough, this stem would go from glorious to leggy and then mushy. Now I know why and am going to give rotalas another try. 

By the way, what is in Green Gain? Growth hormones?


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

lanceduffy said:


> Thanks a ton. this type of information is invaluable and will ensure that I buy my ADA goods from ADG.


Please let me know if there are any specific questions you have!


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

houseofcards said:


> The real question here is do plants gain any benefit from having the stronger light during the mid part of the day. I personally believe they do. I think there's more to slow grow then simply having less to trim. I think the plants grow fuller and lusher with some amount of higher light. This whole idea of low med high light is ridiculous anyway. It's all a matter of having non-limiting light if that's what one wants. I simply don't think plants grow or look as good in all setups with this minimum of ~40 umol of light.


What I can say for sure, is that the burst is a measure of controlling algae growth while having a higher light intensity. It allows for the flexibility of having a much higher PAR value for a certain aspect of the day, but dials it back so that there isn't a consequential huge algae outbreak.

The real benefit with the Grand Solar in particular is being able to blend two types of lighting - the CF and the MH, as I mentioned in a previous post, the way light sources actually light objects is completely different and being able to manipulate different light sources to have different effects and grow plants differently creates a better overall composition through a more even growth pattern.

In the future I would imagine a combination of either CF and LED or MH and LED for spotlighting and intensity dialing up and dialing down.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

HD Blazingwolf said:


> well i haven't posted but i've been subscribed. figured it was time. having a tek fixcture with 4 bulbs and two cords gives me the option of easy noon burst. i've already set up a timer and will be trying this as previously, i was only using two bulbs all day.
> i knew bio played an important role but i didn't understand the scope. that is the most important thing i've taken from this.
> Thanks Francis for the step by step care its always nice to learn something new


Thanks for the subscription! I would recommend, since you've been accustomed to only using 2 bulbs, is to begin with a 2 hour photoperiod of all 4 bulbs up, see how it effects things for the first week, then bump that up to 4 hours for a week, then step it up to all 4 bulbs on for 6 hours out of 10. 

Or if you're feeling bold, just go for the gold on 6 hours 4 bulbs right away!

I'm glad you've taken value from this thread, please let me know if you have any specific questions!


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Storm said:


> Thanks for the awesome description of the substrate products. This really helps me to understand why I might want to use them as opposed to thinking of them as expensive things I don't need.
> 
> When I do my 120P (as soon as I buy a house maybe in a year or so) - I will have learned a ton of great info from this thread and should be able to have a beautiful show quality tank with no surprises.
> 
> This thread truly delivers!


Hopefully by the time you buy / setup the 120-P, we will have covered everything there is to know in this thread! Once the ADA container arrives, I will probably be setting up 3-4 more tanks.

I think part of the problem in the past with ADA products has been that ADA's descriptions in most cases are "for plants," or "makes plants healthy," or "use after trimming. It helps them recover."


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

sewingalot said:


> Frank, you just made my day! I was doing the trimming of stems (mainly rotala) just in the picture you showed us. But I never replanted the tops after 4 or 5 trims, Sure enough, this stem would go from glorious to leggy and then mushy. Now I know why and am going to give rotalas another try.
> 
> By the way, what is in Green Gain? Growth hormones?


Glad it made your day!

Green Gain specifically contains plant hormones, it's supposed to be added once a day for a week to help new leaves develop. More specifically, phytohormones for plant growth and organic acids, such as amino acids.


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## spikeit (Nov 24, 2008)

Any chance you have any Mini-M stands in the container?


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

We do!


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Wow. I totally just learned that I've been trimming wrong! No wonder my rotalas look like hell. Haha. So what do you with that initial trimmings? That's alot of plants! re-plant in another tank or sell the stems off? I was just replanting the tops after trimming the first time and all my stems are at different lengths...


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

Francis Xavier said:


> Thanks for the subscription! I would recommend, since you've been accustomed to only using 2 bulbs, is to begin with a 2 hour photoperiod of all 4 bulbs up, see how it effects things for the first week, then bump that up to 4 hours for a week, then step it up to all 4 bulbs on for 6 hours out of 10.
> 
> Or if you're feeling bold, just go for the gold on 6 hours 4 bulbs right away!
> 
> I'm glad you've taken value from this thread, please let me know if you have any specific questions!


Glad i arrived at that the same conclusion you offered. i did indeed start with 2 hours and was thinking of moving upwards depending on how my tank does the biggest thing i've noticed so far is my macranda is starting to perk up and so far no negative signs of algae.. tis but a few days into the process so time will tell.

ALSO! bacter 100 contains all the different bacterias that eventually grow naturally if i am remembering what you said earlier. so would aid in rapidly breaking down mulm built up in and over the substrate?




Edit: i've read so much about aquasoil amazonia. what kind of coverage do you get with 9L worth?


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## Dollface (Sep 30, 2008)

the video of setting up the 60p in the first post pretty much shows how much coverage there is in a 9L.


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## nonconductive (Jan 29, 2010)

subscribed!


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## 1aqumfish (Apr 19, 2009)

I am very interested, especially in the trimming and plant care aspects. Subscribed.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

frrok said:


> Wow. I totally just learned that I've been trimming wrong! No wonder my rotalas look like hell. Haha. So what do you with that initial trimmings? That's alot of plants! re-plant in another tank or sell the stems off? I was just replanting the tops after trimming the first time and all my stems are at different lengths...


Honestly, these stems right now are sitting in a bucket. I'll see how the plants look tomorrow and decide whether or not to flesh out the plantings there with some more or not. I might end up throwing these stems on the SNS (or this thread!). I have no idea what market value of these would be, so I'd just say $30 shipped. If you're interested, let me know!

But yes, it's very important to trim evenly! even if they start out different heights, and to trim stems to the same height when you plant them so they grow at the same rate, this is what allows you to cultivate and manipulate how they grow and create depth in stem scapes.


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Francis Xavier said:


> Honestly, these stems right now are sitting in a bucket. I'll see how the plants look tomorrow and decide whether or not to flesh out the plantings there with some more or not. I might end up throwing these stems on the SNS (or this thread!). I have no idea what market value of these would be, so I'd just say $30 shipped. If you're interested, let me know!
> 
> But yes, it's very important to trim evenly! even if they start out different heights, and to trim stems to the same height when you plant them so they grow at the same rate, this is what allows you to cultivate and manipulate how they grow and create depth in stem scapes.


Cool thx! I'm hoping to get a mini-m for Xmas from the gf(crossing fingers) this is great inspiration!


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

HD Blazingwolf said:


> Glad i arrived at that the same conclusion you offered. i did indeed start with 2 hours and was thinking of moving upwards depending on how my tank does the biggest thing i've noticed so far is my macranda is starting to perk up and so far no negative signs of algae.. tis but a few days into the process so time will tell.
> 
> ALSO! bacter 100 contains all the different bacterias that eventually grow naturally if i am remembering what you said earlier. so would aid in rapidly breaking down mulm built up in and over the substrate?
> 
> ...


a 9L bag will cover about 2-3 inches in a 20 gallon aquarium / 2 ft aquarium. Dollface is correct when mentioning the episode one of setup video showing a 9L bag's depth.

I'm glad your Macranda is perking up more! It would be interesting if you took picture journals of the difference just to see hand in hand. Stems react quickest to 'bursts,' as they bend to the light source, especially if it's a particularly bright and direct one.

Bacter 100 does contain the bacteria that would, in theory, show up over time, given the right conditions and enough time in a planted environment. This basically guarantees that they are there by putting them there, creating greater stability in the aquarium from the get go.

The bacteria does aid in breaking down organic mulm and negative waste, and helps keep the substrate health optimal. It's a direct solution for out-breaks that result as an occurrence of too much mulm, etc. 

It's similar to freshwater filtration units for sewage - there are multiple stages of filtration, and one of the most important one is the bacterial stage in which bacteria physically break down the raw sewage and purify the water. As it was described to me by my uncle, who is a civil engineer for The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the process is fascinating as the bacteria actually causes the sewage to bounce up and down through the water as it's being decomposed and eliminated, with pure water coming out the opposite end. 

Mechanical filtration is the least important step in all of the process.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

nonconductive said:


> subscribed!


Great! Let me know if there's a specific curiosity you have.



1aqumfsh said:


> I am very interested, especially in the trimming and plant care aspects. Subscribed.


There will be so much coverage of trimming and plant care by the time we are done, I think people may be bored afterwards.



frrok said:


> Cool thx! I'm hoping to get a mini-m for Xmas from the gf(crossing fingers) this is great inspiration!


Tell her that that's what all the cool girlfriends give their boyfriends!


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## Michiba54 (Nov 24, 2011)

Hello~ Nice tips on algae cleaning/fighting!

An maybe I missed it, but if you don't really test anything how did you know your water out of the tap wasn't to your liking? An if you did test or ask for a water report what was it that stood out to you as "bad"?

Just trying to collect perspectives on water quality roud:


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Michiba54 said:


> Hello~ Nice tips on algae cleaning/fighting!
> 
> An maybe I missed it, but if you don't really test anything how did you know your water out of the tap wasn't to your liking? An if you did test or ask for a water report what was it that stood out to you as "bad"?
> 
> Just trying to collect perspectives on water quality roud:


Good question.

Well, ADG had always used tap water before - and while eventually you could turn around a layout that was good work, it took an exorbitant amount of effort and 8 out of 10 layouts would fail. Plus, the water was never quite completely clear. It was clear, but it just wasn't -crystal- impeccable clear.

There would always be slow growth, it would always look a little decayed, and we just weren't getting the results we should have been getting with our methods. I mean, you are talking about full blown ADA setups that couldn't even grow hair grass perfectly. 

Well, it was about this time that Jeff (Senske) had once again mentioned something about the gallery in Niigata being so lucky because they had perfect water out of the tap. This little comment got me going and thinking "well, you know, screw it, we have a 1500 gallon RODI unit, I may as well just try to mix the perfect water if I can't have it out of the tap."

Jeff remained unconvinced that the water would make any difference (as he had historically been a proponent of just use any ole tap water). The result after I switched us over to the RODI / Seachem Equilibrium & Penac W water mixture was results that we'd never seen before, never had before and the water clarity was absolutely pristinely perfect. To the point were Mike (Senske) at one point said "that is the most beautifully perfect hair grass I've ever seen. Including from the ADA gallery in Japan."

No one had expected the water to make that big of a difference.

What the problem was, and Texas water has always been very high (around 8.2 out of the tap and higher) it's just filtered through lime stone. But the killing point this past year was the fact that we got less than an inch of rain all year.

That had catastrophic results - the water in the reservoirs evaporated immensely in the area, and town municipalities were going and just grabbing water where-ever they could get it. Essentially the water evaporating meant that the level of dissolved salts in the water went up drastically - making it unfit for really growing plants well. 

This was then confirmed with locals like Luis Navarro who ran into the same issues (except him being on the North Side of Houston didn't get as bad water as the south side where we are - practically brackish water!).

So the short answer to your question: observation (and arguably a little luck and "to hell with it" mentality) was the key.


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## Michiba54 (Nov 24, 2011)

ah, I see. Thank you 

My tap ph is 8.2 also... an the water is yellow-ish an smells like iron if you get it before the water softener. 

So I might have to consider some kind of RO in the future.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

It would definitely be worth the investment for an RODI unit - it will make the world of difference for you. Doing water changes / aquariums with water like that when water means everything causes many, many frustrating and unnecessary problems for you to deal with.


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## Storm (Aug 7, 2011)

Francis Xavier said:


> Hey Doc,
> 
> ADA's official statement is that all stems must be replanted after approximately 4 trims. That being said, it's possible to go 5-6 with some of the more viral types like Green Rotala, although I would stress keeping to 4 trims.
> 
> ...


Hi Frank, I wish I had read this thread before the first 3 trims of my rotalas! :icon_mrgr

I was wondering what I should do after the 4th trim, when I replant the tops. Should I uproot the entire plants and try to remove as much root material as possible (my rotalas are about 4" deep into the Aquasoil), or should I cut at the top of the stem and just leave the root structure in the aquasoil? I would imagine you want to get as much root structure out as possible, to avoid decaying organics in your tank. Also, how do you avoid causing a mini-cycle by uprooting so many large stems at once? I have about 30 stems of rotalas in my 60P and that is a huge amount of plant mass. I'm afraid of unbalancing my tank, causing a mini cycle and algae bloom. Thanks!


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

ADA/ADG Gallery 1: 180-P

So, we're approaching the end of the second week on water changes for the 180-P here. Still doing water changes every other day.



This is the second day after a water change! Not bad compared to last week in terms of clarity. I'd like to go on record and say here - this tank, of all the tanks right now is the easiest to do maintenance on. There is really no problems at all, and it's just water down, water up, done. 

This is just from staying on schedule with the water changes and we've yet to see any algae on any glass or any surface except the bright white diffuser on the ADA pollen glass beetle 50.



Just a cool shot of the filter in motion while draining. I'm reallllly trying to find problems with this tank to showcase problem solving.



Here's Crypts going from emmersed form to submerged form - and going through the scary melting process. However, if you look closely you can see the new leaves and new growth coming in, which means we're in the clear there! (Crypts are notorious for being hardcore melters, and scare the wits out of even the most veteran caretakers when being used in a new setup and being in emmersed. Something about watching a whole plant evaporate into mush, then come back from nothing is pretty nerve-racking in general, even when you've seen it 20 times).



And the water change is done!

By the way, for inquiring minds - I actually picked up a kH test today. The dKH on this aquarium is approximately 3.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

ADA/ADG Gallery 3: Mini M.

Okay, so the 180-P is still jamming, however as people who've been following know, the Mini M got some neglect due to some electronic malfunctions over the holiday - which serves as a decent enough comparison between the water change methods and fixing it.

There's still residual algae in this aquarium, and we're going to take care of that today, as well as evaluate how the stems are doing after the trim job yesterday. 



All's fairly well here - there's a little hard green algae on the diffuser, and there's a little residual algae in the corners and around the lily pipes, but aside from that there hasn't been any new algae all week, so that's a good thing.



We can't see much from the front because of the trimming method but if you crane your neck and look in the back, we can see that the Green Gain is doing it's job in helping these stems recover and the bottom of the plants are still healthy and we even have some substantial over night growth popping up! All those tiny stems on top of the plants are new this morning.



The lily pipes here have some crude in the tubing, so we're just going to take the filter off and give those a quick clean to eliminate algae spores in the filter and not prolong any algae problems in the aquarium. Better to do it now than wait and have a bigger problem.



With the filter off and drained (it's a good idea to drain the filter whenever you do this, go ahead and remove any old water / gunk that could be in there, but we're not doing a full filter cleaning or doing anything with the media today, just cleaning the clear hoses and lily pipes) I'm using a Spring Washer S to quickly clean out the lily pipes and clear hose of gunk - doing this on a regular basis as algae appears (roughly once every 2-3 weeks, depending ontank balance) significantly prolongs the life span and clear look of the tubing, over time the clear tubing can become permanently stained a slight tinted color, but just doing regular maintenance on them at least once a month helps prevent this from happening in a shorter term.



Clean Lily Pipes and tubes!



Normally I'd wait to clean the diffuser - but because of the unique scenario of this particular aquarium, I'm going to go ahead and dip the diffuser into superge for 20 minutes while cleaning the lily pipes to remove the green algae from it.



20 minutes later the diffuser is perfectly clean like it's brand new out of the box again!



I turned the filter back on to get it running and oxygenated for the bacteria about halfway full in the aquarium, this helps prevent any residual surface protein and just gets water circulating again quicker.



And we're done for the day!

The dKH in this aquarium is 3 as well.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Storm said:


> Hi Frank, I wish I had read this thread before the first 3 trims of my rotalas! :icon_mrgr
> 
> I was wondering what I should do after the 4th trim, when I replant the tops. Should I uproot the entire plants and try to remove as much root material as possible (my rotalas are about 4" deep into the Aquasoil), or should I cut at the top of the stem and just leave the root structure in the aquasoil? I would imagine you want to get as much root structure out as possible, to avoid decaying organics in your tank. Also, how do you avoid causing a mini-cycle by uprooting so many large stems at once? I have about 30 stems of rotalas in my 60P and that is a huge amount of plant mass. I'm afraid of unbalancing my tank, causing a mini cycle and algae bloom. Thanks!


When you go to replant the tops after the fourth trim (so basically when you go to trim the plants for the 5th time), drain the tank as far down as you can, and gently remove the stems in the soil by gripping the roots with fine-tipped pincettes and make a gentle rotary motion (circular) with your hand / pincettes as you pull up. This will dislodge the roots with minimal disruption of the soil.

Then, with all the stems out of the aquarium, line them up and cut them to the same universal height and replant in groups as they were before. I wouldn't cut the stems as far down as possible on this first replanting, mostly you're just wanting to remove the rotten parts of the plant and replant at the same height for all stem types - unless you very specifically want one type of stem higher than the other, say in the background etc.


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## fusiongt (Nov 7, 2011)

Could we see a wide shot of your entire store (or the section with displays)?


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## zchauvin (Apr 16, 2011)

Frank, how do you get the diatoms and green algae out of the corners and right around the substrate? Without throwing the substrate and carpet plants all around?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk


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## sewingalot (Oct 12, 2008)

Francis Xavier said:


> ADA/ADG Gallery 3: Mini M.
> 
> Okay, so the 180-P is still jamming, however as people who've been following know, the Mini M got some neglect due to some electronic malfunctions over the holiday - which serves as a decent enough comparison between the water change methods and fixing it.


I really want to commend you for this post in particular. I am honestly glad you had an equipment failure. This way, you can show how to correct a mistake like that. And we know that for every mistake professionals do, we often make 10 fold as hobbyists. It's nice that you are posting the snafu as this benefits everyone much more than just posting the pretty pictures and bragging about how well you grow plants in the tank. roud:


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

zchauvin said:


> Frank, how do you get the diatoms and green algae out of the corners and right around the substrate? Without throwing the substrate and carpet plants all around?
> 
> Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk


Very carefully with a razor blade algae scrapper. I basically just use the blade and carefully scrape algae from the glass as needed.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

sewingalot said:


> I really want to commend you for this post in particular. I am honestly glad you had an equipment failure. This way, you can show how to correct a mistake like that. And we know that for every mistake professionals do, we often make 10 fold as hobbyists. It's nice that you are posting the snafu as this benefits everyone much more than just posting the pretty pictures and bragging about how well you grow plants in the tank. roud:


Thanks Sara! 

Really, growing plants well is all about patience and sticking to your guns, and for journal purposes, a perfect setup is kind of boring. Like the 180p there's nothing to report on. But for actual growing purposes we all want a perfect setup from start to finish! 

Plants are inherently going to be random and cause random problems on setup, so there's no point in pretending to be perfect. But there are things that can be done to help smooth the difficulty curve out and make it simpler than it appears.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

fusiongt said:


> Could we see a wide shot of your entire store (or the section with displays)?


Unfortunately there's not much to show yet and they are not together for a good shot but I might be able to pull something.


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## plecostomouse (Jun 9, 2011)

when trimming plants like crypts, echinodorus and val species, do you trim old leaves as soon as they show signs algae?


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## .Mko. (Sep 23, 2010)

Frank, I have learned so much already. I have a 15 gallon tank that has suffered some neglect for the past month and is now infested with hair algae. I do not want to give up on the scape just yet.. so I was wondering what tips you could give me for regaining the balance as quickly and effeciently as I can to drive back the infestation.


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## Doc7 (Apr 7, 2011)

Francis Xavier said:


> Hey Doc,
> 
> ADA's official statement is that all stems must be replanted after approximately 4 trims. That being said, it's possible to go 5-6 with some of the more viral types like Green Rotala, although I would stress keeping to 4 trims.
> 
> ...



Thanks for this reply!

About 5 hours after your post I uprooted my 40B ... 200 stems of rotala sp, dozen ludwigia sp, 40+ egeria densa, lopped off all but 4 inches or so of the bottom (everything had been trimmed several times and especially the ludwigia sp and hygro difformis were getting "rooty" stems) and replanted. 

It took me 2 80% water changes to get my water back to clear (uprooted some root tabs and quite a bit of mulm) and two days later I'm still picking clippings out and trying to clean my HC carpet of gravel that fell on top of it. BUT I'm sure my new growth will look great...its back to looking like a bare tank when I first started it two months ago and I'm excited to watch it grow back over the next couple of weeks.

Its not the same type of scape I see in ADA tanks but I'm sure the technique applies.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9650 using Tapatalk


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## JadeIceGreen (May 20, 2009)

Oh, this has been a terrific read. Lots of helpful explanations all around. Looking forward to more updates!!


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Just a quick update:

There's nothing to do with the aquariums today except dosing ferts.

60-P: Brighty K (Potassium) and Green Brighty Step 2
180-P: some soft green algae appearing on driftwood, Amano's to be added next week; Brighty K and Green Brighty Step 1 dosing.

Mini-M: Green Gain, Brighty K & Green Brighty Step 1


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Speaking of Amanos, Francis do you know if they eat most species of plants when food source, mostly algae runs out? I know I read that they will eat Bolbitis which I have witnessed myself. Is that the main reason ADA recommends only using them for a short time.


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## Storm (Aug 7, 2011)

houseofcards said:


> Speaking of Amanos, Francis do you know if they eat most species of plants when food source, mostly algae runs out? I know I read that they will eat Bolbitis which I have witnessed myself. Is that the main reason ADA recommends only using them for a short time.


Amano's will eat almost any type of flake food that falls to the bottom, or sometimes they even grab it from the top, the more aggressive ones... :icon_mrgr I wouldn't worry about feeding them. I've only seem them munch on decaying or dying leaves before. Just make sure they get a couple flakes at the bottom or drop an algae wafer in from time to time if you have no algae.


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## Michael in Texas (Jul 27, 2010)

This is one of the most informative and useful discussions I've read on a planted aquarium forum! My own interest is in the Walstad method, and there is a surprising amount of similarity in the two approaches. I have picked up many helpful suggestions and procedures.


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## ClintonParsons (Aug 22, 2011)

Maybe I missed it, but I was re-reading the thread because I am about to set up my mini-M over again. How is it that you started the mini-M on the 20th, and then on the 28th you said you were planning on adding Amano shrimp at the end of the week?

Like... how is that possible to cycle the tank THAT fast using Aquasoil? 

Are you adding Prime daily while continuing to do the large water changes in order to detoxify the ammonia for the shrimp? There IS ammonia in the water. There HAS to be. I don't understand how you can add the shrimp so soon.

I am going to be using 3 liters of very Bio Rio, and re-using the mature powersand (and adding a little osmocoat and peat to make it like new!) from my pre-existing tank, and using Bacter-100 of course, on the new one and still don't expect to be able to add shrimp for at least a month while doing the normal daily 50% water changes.

PS: Also I noticed that you didn't use Phyton-Git for your algae outbreak in the mini-m. I was about to order some, but it must not be worth it except for Anubias leaves. I think it's literally just re-packaged wood vinegar anyway. Smells like it and they use that on a lot of Japanese blogs.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Remember water changes are your friend.
In new ADA tanks, that first 1-2 months a lot of labor is put in to keep things running well until they stabilize and the tank is filled in. 

Plant roots are loaded with bacteria, and lots of carbon and water changes takes care of most things.

Some people do daily 25-35% water changes, others do 2x a week, some do every 3rd day etc for that first 1 month, or more.

For those corners, I employ the toothbrush, and sometimes threaten my significant other with a switcharoo. 

You can use the ADA phyto git or Excel or H2O2, or even a strong mix of KH2PO4 and water and make a watery paste(high salt concentration will kill most things).

Then go after it during the water changes. Those electric rotary toothbrushes are good for hair algae in plants. If you use a razor blade, make sure it's a nice new one and go smoothly. A credit card works amazingly well and so do paint scapers/Kent pro scraper.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

houseofcards said:


> Speaking of Amanos, Francis do you know if they eat most species of plants when food source, mostly algae runs out? I know I read that they will eat Bolbitis which I have witnessed myself. Is that the main reason ADA recommends only using them for a short time.


Ken's spirulina algae sticks.
Keeps them at bay.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

plecostomouse said:


> when trimming plants like crypts, echinodorus and val species, do you trim old leaves as soon as they show signs algae?


those plants tend to be a bit of a special case, since they grow a bit different than stems and carpet plants. You do want to eliminate old leave, but not so quickly that the plant has no time to replace them.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

.Mko. said:


> Frank, I have learned so much already. I have a 15 gallon tank that has suffered some neglect for the past month and is now infested with hair algae. I do not want to give up on the scape just yet.. so I was wondering what tips you could give me for regaining the balance as quickly and effeciently as I can to drive back the infestation.


 I would manually remove as much hair algae as possible, Use a tooth brush to grab onto the hair algae and spin the brush around. This will grab more and help you to remove.


Trim off leaves that cannot be saved from over infestation, add Amano shrimp ( though they require a decently large number to make an impact on hair) and begin doing water changes daily for a week.

You can add green Bacter to the tank as well as Bacter 100 to directly add and encourage more bacteria growth. I might also suggest a filter cleaning.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Doc7 said:


> Thanks for this reply!
> 
> About 5 hours after your post I uprooted my 40B ... 200 stems of rotala sp, dozen ludwigia sp, 40+ egeria densa, lopped off all but 4 inches or so of the bottom (everything had been trimmed several times and especially the ludwigia sp and hygro difformis were getting "rooty" stems) and replanted.
> 
> ...


Yes! The techniques ar much the same for trimming regardless of scape. I hope the information works out great for you! Thanks for sharing.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

JadeIceGreen said:


> Oh, this has been a terrific read. Lots of helpful explanations all around. Looking forward to more updates!!


Thanks! It does remind me that I do need to contact you still.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

houseofcards said:


> Speaking of Amanos, Francis do you know if they eat most species of plants when food source, mostly algae runs out? I know I read that they will eat Bolbitis which I have witnessed myself. Is that the main reason ADA recommends only using them for a short time.


It's generally hard to get Ananos to this point and MOST plants they won't bother. Star grass is a plant they will devour.

I tend to not supplement their feeding. Typically if they are too big or too many i will remove them for another tank. But say for a 60p it's common to drop 10 to 15 in a tank then remove the number down to 4 or 5 or so once the problem is over.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Michael in Texas said:


> This is one of the most informative and useful discussions I've read on a planted aquarium forum! My own interest is in the Walstad method, and there is a surprising amount of similarity in the two approaches. I have picked up many helpful suggestions and procedures.


Thanks! Most of it is just good horticulture.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

ClintonParsons said:


> Maybe I missed it, but I was re-reading the thread because I am about to set up my mini-M over again. How is it that you started the mini-M on the 20th, and then on the 28th you said you were planning on adding Amano shrimp at the end of the week?
> 
> Like... how is that possible to cycle the tank THAT fast using Aquasoil?
> 
> ...


It's possible misworded but likely will add Amano's at the end of the next week with this tank due to miss growth rate and amanos tendency to pick moss loose.

That being said I've never had a problem with cycling fresh aquasoil on a new filter using Bacter 100 and green Bacter together with the water change regime. We've even added amanos and o cats as early as three days after setup with no I'll will. Though one week is safest. No prime added or anything. Just water change on setup schedule, green Bacter and Bacter 100.

As for Phyton Git, I do add a few drops every now and again but that is specifically for BBA algae outbreaks, the other algae types it is not much of a worry for.


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## ClintonParsons (Aug 22, 2011)

And you never tested to be curious? That just baffles me. 

I was going to buy a little tank and aquaclear filter for my fish and shrimp. I guess I will spend that money on some NA Carbon etc. and try out your method. Worth a shot.

BTW Sent you a pm about rocks etc.

PS: Thanks about the info about PG being for BBA! I thought it was for all algae. The instructions on ADA products are bad.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

ClintonParsons said:


> And you never tested to be curious? That just baffles me.
> 
> I was going to buy a little tank and aquaclear filter for my fish and shrimp. I guess I will spend that money on some NA Carbon etc. and try out your method. Worth a shot.
> 
> ...


We typically don't have any Amano deaths from this...oddly we get more Amano deaths in well established tanks. I definitely wouldn't add fish til 30 days though. Fish set the tank off balance and fish food causes algae.

Phyton Git is useful for other algaes but I find it most effective for BBA and extremely useful for anubias. Otherwise I typically don't observe better results than manual removal ( the best tool in most cases). Although using some as a solution to dab your tooth brush into to remove hair algae or brush corners of the tank that Tom Barr mentioned is a really good idea.


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## orchidman (Dec 15, 2010)

WOW! what a great thread! i cant believe missed it before! i went back and read the whole thing, and let me say, if you are just coming across this thread and havent read it, its worth the 11 pages of reading! im definitely subscribing!

your post about trimming the mini-m was especially helpful to me!

in my 10 gallon i have a patch of ludwigia repens that i got in the mail a few weeks ago. because i got it in the mail, the bottoms are a little ratty, so i was planning on trimming the bottoms off and replanting the tops. should i wait until the stems reach the surface before doing that? they are growing great now and are almost to the surface, the bottoms just dont look pretty. 

also, for a stem that has larger leaves compared to some others, how close would you plant them? if i planted mine as close as you have in that one picture after trimming of the mini-m, then the leaves would all be smushed together.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

orchidman said:


> WOW! what a great thread! i cant believe missed it before! i went back and read the whole thing, and let me say, if you are just coming across this thread and havent read it, its worth the 11 pages of reading! im definitely subscribing!
> 
> your post about trimming the mini-m was especially helpful to me!
> 
> ...


Glad to have you join us orchidman!

I would go ahead and cut the rotten length and cut at the base so the height of each stem is the same. Then plant them together and trim when the grow to the surface.

Bunching repens together is totally okay, despite the larger leaves. Repens in particular you can use and abuse and learn on as it's pretty viral. My first planted tank (read: disaster) had repens and they thrived.


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## orchidman (Dec 15, 2010)

alright, thats what ill do.

the bottoms arent rotten, but they are missing some leaves and have crazy roots going everywhere. so next week i will do that. that way ill have about 6" stems left  thanks so much!


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## Doc7 (Apr 7, 2011)

There was post earlier I keep thinking about in which you discussed how many Amano shrimp you had and how you might move some of the larger ones from one tank to another. 

Do you have a general guideline you use for Amano shrimp per cm2 of surface area or perhaps per volume of water? (Such as 1 for each 2 gallons etc)

I just upped my Amano pop from 7 to 14 in a 36x18x18 (inches - 40 breeder) tank. Now they're no longer the invisible janitors they once were, they practically steal the show lol. Of course I still am at the "plants barely there" stage post-trim so they might disappear once there's more cover. A couple of them are 1.5" and thus the biggest critters in the tank lol.



Sent from my BlackBerry 9650 using Tapatalk


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Francis Xavier said:


> It's possible misworded but likely will add Amano's at the end of the next week with this tank due to miss growth rate and amanos tendency to pick moss loose.
> 
> That being said I've never had a problem with cycling fresh aquasoil on a new filter using Bacter 100 and green Bacter together with the water change regime. We've even added amanos and o cats as early as three days after setup with no I'll will. Though one week is safest. No prime added or anything. Just water change on setup schedule, green Bacter and Bacter 100.
> 
> As for Phyton Git, I do add a few drops every now and again but that is specifically for BBA algae outbreaks, the other algae types it is not much of a worry for.


+1

I can vouch for this same method, done it 3-4 x myself.
No issues at all.

Fires and Amano's.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Francis Xavier said:


> We typically don't have any Amano deaths from this...oddly we get more Amano deaths in well established tanks. I definitely wouldn't add fish til 30 days though. Fish set the tank off balance and fish food causes algae.
> 
> Phyton Git is useful for other algaes but I find it most effective for BBA and extremely useful for anubias. Otherwise I typically don't observe better results than manual removal ( the best tool in most cases). Although using some as a solution to dab your tooth brush into to remove hair algae or brush corners of the tank that Tom Barr mentioned is a really good idea.


I think it you add it to a spray bottle (smaller tiny one's), it'll work nicely and if you leave on for 1-2 minutes, it does great. Those electric rotary toothbrushes will pull in all the long strand algae filaments quite well.
I saw a video from Victor in Hungry, it was really effective for manual removal.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Doc7 said:


> There was post earlier I keep thinking about in which you discussed how many Amano shrimp you had and how you might move some of the larger ones from one tank to another.
> 
> Do you have a general guideline you use for Amano shrimp per cm2 of surface area or perhaps per volume of water? (Such as 1 for each 2 gallons etc)
> 
> ...


Varies, but I often use per 1-2 gal of tank........a shrimp.
I try and catch them later and leave about 1 per 5 gal, or replace with a lazy shrimp like Fires or CRS's.


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

plantbrain said:


> I think it you add it to a spray bottle (smaller tiny one's), it'll work nicely and if you leave on for 1-2 minutes, it does great. Those electric rotary toothbrushes will pull in all the long strand algae filaments quite well.
> I saw a video from Victor in Hungry, it was really effective for manual removal.


I've diluted Excel in a spray bottle before and sprayed ferns and wood. It took care of the BBA and the plants were fine.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Francis Xavier said:


> It's generally hard to get Ananos to this point and MOST plants they won't bother. Star grass is a plant they will devour.
> 
> I tend to not supplement their feeding. Typically if they are too big or too many i will remove them for another tank. But say for a 60p it's common to drop 10 to 15 in a tank then remove the number down to 4 or 5 or so once the problem is over.


OK thanks, they are definitely nibbling on my ferns at this point. 










I'll try feeding the algae sticks as plantbrain recommended a bit.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

houseofcards said:


> OK thanks, they are definitely nibbling on my ferns at this point.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ken's spirulina sticks rock, they eat the snot out of them and they are cheap, no MSG etc.

I've only had shrimp go after some fine needle plant tips and sometimes R wallichii, or Erio setaceum, not much else I can reflect back on, certainly not a tough old Bolbitus. H. zosterfolia I rarely have kept in the last decade.

But I could see if they where hungry enough.
A well fed large Female Amano is a better algae eater than smaller under fed fed shrimp.

Try feeding just once /twice a week etc.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

plantbrain said:


> Ken's spirulina sticks rock, they eat the snot out of them and they are cheap, no MSG etc.
> 
> I've only had shrimp go after some fine needle plant tips and sometimes R wallichii, or Erio setaceum, not much else I can reflect back on, certainly not a tough old Bolbitus. H. zosterfolia I rarely have kept in the last decade.
> 
> ...


Thanks, I'm definitely going to do that. Yeah the setup with the Amanos is ferns and mosses right now. I guess there bored of the peacock moss and they haven't damaged the java fern and I am surprised too about the Bolbitis since it's so tough.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Amano's eating bolbitus is extremely surprising - it looks like it's the new growth (which would make more sense).


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## zchauvin (Apr 16, 2011)

Frank, when you guys set up a na do you use rocks to hold down the driftwood? Even soaked mine seems to always want to move.

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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Francis Xavier said:


> Amano's eating bolbitus is extremely surprising - it looks like it's the new growth (which would make more sense).


Yep, new growth. I think it's a case of the tank being plant limited (only ferns and moss and of course no algae , so it's a matter of survival. I haven't made a habit of supplementing their food so in this case I think I have to.


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## zchauvin (Apr 16, 2011)

How does bolbitus look once its grown in?

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## !shadow! (Jan 25, 2010)

Just read all pages thanks for sharing Frank. Oh and by the way yes Texas water sucks.. That's why I switched over and r/o water and have had fantastic results. Please let us know when the gallery is finished. I would love to drive down there and check it out.


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## lanceduffy (Nov 14, 2011)

Thanks again for all the great information. I am having a bit of problem with my 12 day old ADA setup. I am seeing what looks like potassium deficiency. 
60-P, New Amazonia, powersand special, 2213 full of bio rio from another tank, CO2 at 2 bubbles per second. 65 PC tank top for 5 hours for the first week at 7 days I switched to 2 bulbs T5HO for 6 hours then I run 2 more for 4 hours burst style the fixture is 12 inches from the top of the tank. For the first week I only added Prime to declorinate as I did my daily WC's. At 7 days i switched to water changes every other day, declorinating with prime and adding 3 squirts Brighty K and Step 2 (I had a half bottle laying around and no step one at the moment). I added 2 amano shrimp, 2 fire reds and 2 CRS at 9 days.

The tank is iwugami with hairgrass, b. japonica and glosso. 2 days ago, day 9?, I started noticing holes in the older leaves of the glosso and b. japonica. It is funny to say older leaves of glosso because I planted it one plantlet at a time so basically there is 2 older leaves per plant then 2 or 4 new grown leaves. 

Potassium deficiency right? How do I fix it with the ADA products? Add more brighty K? How much? Something else? Thanks in advance.


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## Storm (Aug 7, 2011)

Hi Frank, In just the last few days, I have seen this cottony algae start to take over around the bottom of my hairgrass near the Aquasoil. Right now I'm just dosing P, K, and traces 3 times a week, and doing twice weekly water changes. The plants are really healthy but the cotton candy-like algae is starting to take over:










It's also forming on Fissidens moss I have attached to Ohko stones:










The tank is about 2 months old and seems pretty well established. I'm still doing twice weekly water changes but I'm no longer getting GDA on the glass, now it just changed to cotton candy on the lawn...  Thanks for your advice and any tips you might be able to give.


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## rockwood (Jun 19, 2010)

Take this from experience, but I'd start with removing it. Like right now. The longer you let things go, the harder they get to control. Grab you an old toothbrush or something fuzzy and twirl it through the stuff. I bet it will come off real easy. 

That won't solve the problem completely but will be some measure of slowing it down at minimum.


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## !shadow! (Jan 25, 2010)

Storm said:


> Hi Frank, In just the last few days, I have seen this cottony algae start to take over around the bottom of my hairgrass near the Aquasoil. Right now I'm just dosing P, K, and traces 3 times a week, and doing twice weekly water changes. The plants are really healthy but the cotton candy-like algae is starting to take over:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You didn't seem to mention the length of your photo period or intensity of your lights. If you're leaving it extended then it could be that as well as too much light for your tank. Your lights might be fine but your plants can only uptake on so much nutrients and since hair grass isn't as fast as a grower as let's say wisteria it won't be able to uptake most of the nutrients in the water column leaving them for the algae. Fast growing plants help a lot in out competing algae in nutrients.


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## Storm (Aug 7, 2011)

8 hour photo period, 2x 24 watt T5HO, but it's a Fishneedit fixture so it's really more like 2x T5NO


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## lanceduffy (Nov 14, 2011)

Sorry Frank,
I have reread the thread and saw in post 6 that you are adding 7 squirts of BK. I will start with upping my dosage. At the same time I am going to cut back on the photo period. 4 hours full light and go from there.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Sorry guys - bear with me. First of the month time is always very, very busy.

I'll have answers for your questions shortly!


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## Storm (Aug 7, 2011)

Francis Xavier said:


> Sorry guys - bear with me. First of the month time is always very, very busy.
> 
> I'll have answers for your questions shortly!


No problem. We appreciate any and all advice you can give, and I know how sometimes real life can take priority over the stuff you want to do. I'm cutting back my photo period to 7 hours temporarily, as I believe the algae might be started as a combination of phosphate dosing that I started and too much light.

I might try to raise my fixture up as well.


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## kevinbkk (Dec 18, 2011)

Hi quite useful information, i really appreciate your efforts on this post


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## kevinbkk (Dec 18, 2011)

Hi ,
i am newbie to planted aquarium, my tank is nearly 3 months old,the details are as below, 
Tank:76H X 35D X 45H cms ( 30 gallons US)
Light:T5, 55W x 2 ( on for nine hours)
Substrate: ADA Power Sand SPECIAL-M as base and ADA Aqua Soil-NEW AMAZONIA (multi type) 18 litre (tourmoilne BC, bacter 100, and Clear Super is sprayed ,while setting up the substrate)

canister filter( jebro local brand) :with ADA bio rio (2 litre)
plants:Elatina Trianda , and Hemianthus callitrichoides as carpet plant, a piece wood which i guess ferns (may be java ferns i am not sure ) and spike moss attached on it, i bought it because it was looking nice at aquatic shop

ferts:Brighty K, Brighty step 2, Green Bacter, 
http://imageshack.us/g/403/img2011121800024.jpg/

well out of confusion, after setting up my new tank i did a 50 to 60 % twice a week, i use to apply brighty k only twice or three times a week 5 ml each time, i did this nearly for three months ,as a result my plants started getting weaker and few of them died, i use to have diatoms, green algae, but after few water changes all where under control, but than suddenly after surfing and reading the ada manual , i realized that i completely missed the dose of brighty step 1 and also i under dosed brighty k, now with a tank left with 80 % dead plants , i bought brighty step 2 with an impression that its recommended for a three months tank , i removed all the dead plants and planted new once,and from last 15 days i started with 90% of water change, following 50% water change twice a week, and dosing brighty k 8 ml with step 2 ,3ml with 3 drops of green bacter on daily bases, i have set C02 to 3 bubbles ,light 9 hours , as a result i have a massive green algea break out, GDA appears within few hours of water chnage and covers the whole glass with two or three days, than i do a water change , clean the glass, while again within few hours the algea starts appearing, i have reduced the step 2 to 3 ml 2 times a week, by doing this the propogation of algea is bit controlled, but than seems plants started losing its charm, at this moment i am complete confused, i dont know what to do, please help, the next step i was thinking to stop step 2 and get step 1 , does with brighty k ( 8 ml and step 1 4 ml daily) and see if algea appears, well before doing this i thought i will ask for a sugguestion please guide me and let me know the amount of dose i need


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## IWANNAGOFAST (Jan 14, 2008)

You have too much light. Raise your fixture so the light level isn't as intense. Also try reducing the time the light is on to 6 hours. Then increase it over time. 




kevinbkk said:


> Hi ,
> i am newbie to planted aquarium, my tank is nearly 3 months old,the details are as below,
> Tank:76H X 35D X 45H cms ( 30 gallons US)
> Light:T5, 55W x 2 ( on for nine hours)
> ...


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## Storm (Aug 7, 2011)

By the way, I fixed my algae problem (see above). The algae was being caused by inconsistent Co2 levels. Following Franks advice to raise the Lily pipe at night caused off gassing of Co2. My drop checker was blue in the morning, and I have my Co2 solenoid on the same timer with my lights, so it would take a few hours after lights on in the morning for Co2 levels to return to normal. This was enough to start an algae bloom.

I'm not saying that raising lily pipes is bad, but if you do, it's similar to running an air stone at night and you should probably have your Co2 on a separate timer so that it can start a few hours before lights on.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Storm said:


> 8 hour photo period, 2x 24 watt T5HO, but it's a Fishneedit fixture so it's really more like 2x T5NO


+1 on the light comments, also, a cheapo electric rotary toothbrush.......and a good mow of the grass.....will remove this rather fast. You will need to remove it and keep after it aggressively.

Excel dose etc.

Less light, better CO2 management(not as simple as "adding more/less" !!!!).


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## Storm (Aug 7, 2011)

plantbrain said:


> +1 on the light comments, also, a cheapo electric rotary toothbrush.......and a good mow of the grass.....will remove this rather fast. You will need to remove it and keep after it aggressively.
> 
> Excel dose etc.
> 
> Less light, better CO2 management(not as simple as "adding more/less" !!!!).


Thanks, it was the Co2 levels definitely causing it. See the comment above, I was raising the lily pipe at night to oxygenate the water, and having the Co2 solenoid on the same timer as the lights meant that at lights on, Co2 levels were really low for a few hours in the morning. This was enough to cause the algae bloom. Mowing the lawn definitely helps for easy removal.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Yes, I saw this a GREAT deal on nano tanks, the evaporation caused large changes each week and if I did not top off, the CO2 would change a great deal, 8 nano's full of algae.......

Frank mentions care a great deal...and with respect to the water level and adding etc, this is a good thing to watch VERY closely. Stuff like this is what gets you, not the simple thing "it's CO2, add more etc"

It's often the simple, the overlooked, the assumed........the indirect effects.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Storm said:


> By the way, I fixed my algae problem (see above). The algae was being caused by inconsistent Co2 levels..


If that is happening then your tank has very little wiggle room and is far to dependent on keeping a large plant mass. I would look into other areas as well like lights, organic mgmt and just keeping your water cleaner. Speaking off clean water, how do you keep co2 consistent during water changes?


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

houseofcards said:


> If that is happening then your tank has very little wiggle room and is far to dependent on keeping a large plant mass. I would look into other areas as well like lights, organic mgmt and just keeping your water cleaner. Speaking off clean water, how do you keep co2 consistent during water changes?


 You dont but it does add c02. Tap water contains a reasonable amount of c02. The double header is that ur removing alage spores and balancing water chemistry which limits algae growth


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

HD Blazingwolf said:


> You dont but it does add c02. Tap water contains a reasonable amount of c02. The double header is that ur removing alage spores and balancing water chemistry which limits algae growth


It's minimum compared to what most run in their hi-tec setups. Try doing a 50% change and see if the DC stays the same (assuming hi-tec) and this is done mostly during the day with the lights on. Point being we all experience co2 flux when we do WC. 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

ok, well im high tek so they would say. full pressurized c02.. reactor. 31x turnover rate in my tank. tek hanging fixture with led's for mornign and night viewing. the t5's are timed for a ten hour run with a 3 hour noonday burst of four bulbs. DC if we are using that as a reference is bright yellow 3 hours after c02 on. if i change 70% which is my standard now. dc will turn green and i run the pumps at half full ank to aerate the water. 1 hour later im back at full yellow. 

yes the c02 fluctuates. again fresh, clean, balanced chemisty will fight algae. it promotes good plant, fish, and bacteria health which together make the balance of the tank.. the balance is what controls the algae. not high levels of c02. consistent c02 does help but if u have verying levels i nthe tank from day to day. that's far worse (speaking from experience) than a huge water change every day....

that's why when tanks are out of balance there are soo many people who recommend doing water changes. it removes the very things that promote algae growth and removes active spores from the water column.

water changes are likean antiviral medication for your water column for fighting algae


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## Storm (Aug 7, 2011)

houseofcards said:


> If that is happening then your tank has very little wiggle room and is far to dependent on keeping a large plant mass. I would look into other areas as well like lights, organic mgmt and just keeping your water cleaner. Speaking off clean water, how do you keep co2 consistent during water changes?


That's not really possible because at the time, I was doing water changes every 2-3 days to keep water quality as pristine as possible and prevent algae issues. New water from the tap has good Co2 levels, and just the process of water changing lets stem plants reach the air and do actual aerial respiration. Have you ever noticed the pearling after a good water change?

Believe what you want, but my algae problems are gone. I'll post new pictures in my journal thread later on today after my lights turn on.


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## Storm (Aug 7, 2011)

houseofcards said:


> It's minimum compared to what most run in their hi-tec setups. Try doing a 50% change and see if the DC stays the same (assuming hi-tec) and this is done mostly during the day with the lights on. Point being we all experience co2 flux when we do WC.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I usually change my water in the morning before lights on. My drop checker stays green after a water change (33%), however, drop checkers don't react instantly so it's possible that Co2 levels are slightly lower for an hour or two after a water change.

Here are the 2 scenarios:

1. Run an airstone 12 hours at night and have a dark blue drop checker at lights on in the morning, every morning (not good).

2. Do a water change once a week, and your drop checker stays green afterward. Lights on 2 hours after the water change.

Huge difference.


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

Storm said:


> 1. Run an airstone 12 hours at night and have a dark blue drop checker at lights on in the morning, every morning (not good).
> 
> 2. Do a water change once a week, and your drop checker stays green afterward. Lights on 2 hours after the water change.
> 
> Huge difference.


scenario 1. i do it every night. it allows the bacteria to perform more efficiently.

i just turn my c02 on 1.5 hours before light on and its already stable before plants get hit with light.. it stays at that level through the entire day  plants use just the right amount to keep it where its at. i also turn c02 off 1 hour before lights off because the reactor has enough to keep thigns going


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

Storm said:


> That's not really possible because at the time, I was doing water changes every 2-3 days to keep water quality as pristine as possible and prevent algae issues. New water from the tap has good Co2 levels, and just the process of water changing lets stem plants reach the air and do actual aerial respiration. Have you ever noticed the pearling after a good water change?
> 
> Believe what you want, but my algae problems are gone. I'll post new pictures in my journal thread later on today after my lights turn on.


I never said I didn't believe you I simply said that your tank is has little wiggle room in terms of controlling algae if that was the cause. I'm a hugh fan of consistent water change as long as your dumping back in what the plants need. It's simple and extremely effective at controlling organics. Water from the tap has good co2 levels? Compared to what. Certainly not the current levels most of us run, thus the inconsistency. 

Pearling right after a water change has very little to do with the plants. It's usually referred to as false pearling, whereas it looks like the plants are pearling but in reality the water once released from the tap is super oxygenated and attaches to everything since it can't absorbed into the water column that quickly.


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

in my understanding pearling isn't because it can't dissolve. its because the water ur are adding has a higher dissolved count than ur tank and it makes it easier to reach saturation.. at which point plants "show" they are producing oxygen because the o2 they are making will not dissolve into the water column


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

HD Blazingwolf said:


> in my understanding pearling isn't because it can't dissolve. its because the water ur are adding has a higher dissolved count than ur tank and it makes it easier to reach saturation.. at which point plants "show" they are producing oxygen because the o2 they are making will not dissolve into the water column


Are you referring to "pearling" during a water change?


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## HD Blazingwolf (May 12, 2011)

during / thereafter.. my plants have a little more pearlign after a water change.. used to be more whe ni had brighter lights.. but i do notice a difference about 5-20 min after a water change and it continues throughout the day

i apologozie i should have made that more clear


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Hey Guys, 

Sorry for the posting delays - I will follow up with everyone and have an update over the Christmas weekend. December is a pretty hectic month! 

I do however, have some compensation for you all to reward the patience with me, here's a short video of the 60-P!


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## dewalltheway (Jan 19, 2005)

roud: I envy your job! Thanks for all the great tips. I have been trying to read thru this whole thread and I am on page 4. So much helpful info in one place. Thx for all of your time sharing this information!


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## John7429 (Jan 11, 2008)

Nice


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## frrok (May 22, 2011)

Frank. I had a question about using driftwood along with rocks, like you have in the mini-m. Is there a style in doing this, like iwagumi, that takashi amano follows? I cant seem to find any info on rocks and wood together. there is plenty of info on aquascaping with them separately. I am interested in doing this as well and I want to make it look as natural as possible. I am using black lava rocks along with manzanita driftwood. thanks for the feedback.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Hey guys, I've started up a youtube channel to keep up with all the updates on the stuff and continue the tips and guidance for everyone. 

The updates are relatively easy to get done daily on the following channels:

facebook.com/fwazeter
youtube.com/iaquascape
twitter.com/fwazeter - now twitter.com/iaquascape

Trimming Hair Grass (eleocharis acicularis)

Post Trimming Video

Feeding Ember Tetras 

Now that I have an updated phone I can more easily deploy video to get together a basic lesson plan to teach as much as I can about what I know, and so far youtube is the best method of video delivery I can come across.

I'll have to invest in some kind of tripod for the iphone to stabilize it and mess around in some other programs to get the video quality up. For now I apologize about the 360P non-HD guys!

The best way to contact me is through one of these mediums, and I'll be happy to answer any question you have to improve your aquascaping and growing!


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

updated twitter to be more streamlined:

twitter.com/iaquascape is the new one

Others: Youtube and facebook


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## rockwood (Jun 19, 2010)

Any updates on the 180-P? I'd love to see how everything is growing in around that awesome hardscape.


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## plantbrain (Dec 15, 2003)

Toss out a pic here or there also.


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## Francis Xavier (Oct 8, 2008)

Quick update of the 180-P. I can't do much more close ups, as competition time is approaching so the full form has to be saved for that.

Mike has been taking care of this layout since I got it started in January.

Although now that it's closing in on the competition deadlines, I was told today "it's time to unleash the Wazeter on this tank to meet the deadline."

I've got a way with making these layouts sing.

The 60-P was torn down for a new layout. Secrecy on that for a month or so.


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## @[email protected] (Oct 24, 2007)

looks fantastic. i really like the deep green hues.


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## ADAtank (Jul 26, 2011)

i like it I hope to come by and check it out


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

updates?


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## Remmo (Oct 23, 2012)

do u have any close pics od 180p? I have learned so much by reading this thread tnx a lot for sharing this with us.


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