# 72 Dutchy Gallons - (Restart @ Post #35)



## FLOutlander (Mar 7, 2017)

I've never been a fan of white substrate since it isn't natural-looking, but I have to say your tank looks amazing! Very well executed!

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## BettaBettas (Aug 21, 2016)

good choice with a sand sub. IMO it looks natural since sand, is natural... Good scape you have so far. Would place the java fern in the back somewhere though, as well as those stem plants.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

@FLOutlander - Thanks! My crappy phone camera can't handle the contrast between the white sand and rest of the tank so it looks a lot more washed-out then it does it person. 
@BettaBettas - I really appreciate your help! I am really poor when it comes to plant placement and find myself rearranging them constantly, and still being unhappy haha. Because of the way my lights are arranged I think I have a significant drop in PAR toward the ends of the tank, which is why I'm hesitant to move the stems there, and my driftwood greatly limits the amount of planting space I have in the middle of the tank. My plan at the moment is to see if I can get the stems to grow at all, and if so, maybe trim/top them often to keep them low.


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## Blackheart (Jul 5, 2011)

Nice lookin tank


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

I also really love the white sand. Really makes the plants stand out which I love. I think when I get my 75 hopefully in a couple weeks I will also go white sand. Looks killer. 


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## FLOutlander (Mar 7, 2017)

BettaBettas said:


> good choice with a sand sub. IMO it looks natural since sand, is natural... Good scape you have so far. Would place the java fern in the back somewhere though, as well as those stem plants.


Not disagreeing with you but let me be clear. While this particular tank looks amazing, and while "sand" is certainly "natural", pure white sand is not. In nature, sandy bottoms are typically tinged slightly yellow due to the natural tannins found in lakes and streams. I feel that pool filter sand or play sand would be more "natural". Just my opinion, tho. As I said before, this tank looks amazing!

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## JEFF9922 (May 8, 2013)

I would add more 2x4 supports between the top and bottom that way the weight isnt on just the screws like in the pic


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## BettaBettas (Aug 21, 2016)

FLOutlander said:


> Not disagreeing with you but let me be clear. While this particular tank looks amazing, and while "sand" is certainly "natural", pure white sand is not. In nature, sandy bottoms are typically tinged slightly yellow due to the natural tannins found in lakes and streams. I feel that pool filter sand or play sand would be more "natural". Just my opinion, tho. As I said before, this tank looks amazing!
> 
> Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk


 I lived at the beach for 2 years and the sand was white...


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## FLOutlander (Mar 7, 2017)

Freshwater beach?

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## BettaBettas (Aug 21, 2016)

obviously saltwater. Freshwater I do see beaches with dirty sand and that's yellow. Clean natural sand is usually a white colorations or tint, with the sun shining directly onto it. Freshwater lakes and rivers, streams (not sure about streams) do consist of sand to but depending on the area it is usually not as pristine, beach sand is more pristine due to the amount of cleaning life that lives right where your feat step. Lake sand (ex) is bit more unclean, has a yellow tint as a "cover" but that's not its true color that we see, Usually at your local lake you will see pebbles or something though. If there was sand there, it would be dirty and stained yellow, due to people walking on it and "stirring things up" and releasing acid through the bottom of their feet and hands. @FLOutlander Causing sand to not only be yellow-y but also vary in size.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

@JEFF9922 - Like this? :grin2:










You've got a good eye though, and thanks for the suggestion!

This was the first stand I built and I completely overlooked that I left the whole tank "hanging". It was a bit of a pain to retro-fit the supports, but I'm confident it can take the weight now.


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## JEFF9922 (May 8, 2013)

yup look great

Bump: yup look great


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Day 26 - Some green algae on the glass :frown2:









Day 27 - Back shot









Day 32









Day 33 - Camallanus worms! Treated with Levamisole. Lost a few small fish over the next week or two, but nothing drastic. 









Day 36









Day 55









Day 69 - The current look









Day 69 - Back shot









Day 70 - My fishys saying they want food :grin2:


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

Looking awesome. You really made my mind up to go with white sand on my next tank most likely 75 getting from dollar a gallon sale. Makes it look like a tropical paradise lol. Lucky fish. 


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

Have you been able to get your nitrates down? Seems my plants helped today to get me down to about 15ppm nitrates. Starting my EI regime tomorrow yay. 


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Oh man, my nitrates are still pretty stupid... roughly 40-80ppm by the API colour chart, but after doing that kit calibration I'm pretty sure I'm in-and-around the 50ppm mark. I had been dosing full EI levels with some premixed solutions (one for NPK and one that was essentially CSM+B for Micros) but I'm unhappy with not being able to adjust the individual levels of ferts, so I've just recently purchased KNO3, KH2PO4, K2SO4, MgSO4, and some GH booster in powder form. I know, GH booster is made up of K2SO4 and MgSO4, but because my nitrates are so high I'm going to try dosing KNO3 at lower levels and use the K2SO4 to make up the K. I just mixed my first batch of the NPK solution this morning. I'm aiming to dose these levels weekly:

NO3 - 10ppm
K - 30ppm
PO4 - 2ppm
Mg - 8ppm
Fe - 0.8ppm

When I test my tank I get somewhere between 2-5ppm of PO4, but it's pretty dark so it looks closer to the 5ppm. So I've purposely under-dosed both NO3 and PO4 and then I'm going to do a few water tests this week to see what happens. I think my K and Mg targets are fairly normal, but I'm a bit confused on the Mg side. I think I have hard water, ~161ppm GH, and looking at my water report I see roughly 3:1 Ca:Mg, so do I need to add any Mg or am I covered by my tap water?


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

*55 Gallons of Planted Tank*

Wish I could help with the mg but I am very knew to the different ferts and stuff. So much so I just got the nilocG pre mixed packets so I cannot even control the levels of each one. Just have one bottle of micros and one of macro. But I was doing some research today and starting to get it. Did you see the windows program you can download from greenleafaquariums? It tells you all of that. Just put in some info and gives you exact doses for everything. I just downloaded it today and started playing with it. Very handy. 

Give it a try and see if that tells you or not

When I am out of these ferts by then I will go with the mixing of my own based more on needs as I should be ready by then. Will see how the basic EI goes for now. Problem though is roughly $25 will last me a good 6 months. Where as using Seachem that amount in 2 weeks lol. Huge difference. 


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

*55 Gallons of Planted Tank*

I think you are on the right track of dosing less kno3 for sure. That I do have a little knowledge of as of recently due to doing a bit of overdosing cause of my API test kit that you know of LOL. If I were you maybe dose kno3 once a week instead of the normal dosing until it gets to the 15-20ppm range. 

Heck because I had to get the metricide stump remover I have enough kno3 for my tanks for a VERY long time. 

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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

@clownplanted - I ordered 1.5kg of KNO3. At my current dosing levels that's enough for 9 years!!


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## Pat24601 (Mar 4, 2017)

Just checking out this thread for ideas. I love your scape!


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

So there's been little bits of algae hanging around in the tank but it never really got too bad. Then this:


























Frig! Pretty sure its rhizoclonium. So...










Left a small opening in the top for air exchange. I never use the ceiling fixture in that room so there shouldn't be any light leaking in. 










Now that I have three days of twiddling my thumbs, I think I'll get my Rex reactor/heater all glued up.


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

MCFC said:


> Oh man, my nitrates are still pretty stupid... roughly 40-80ppm by the API colour chart, but after doing that kit calibration I'm pretty sure I'm in-and-around the 50ppm mark. I had been dosing full EI levels with some premixed solutions (one for NPK and one that was essentially CSM+B for Micros) but I'm unhappy with not being able to adjust the individual levels of ferts, so I've just recently purchased KNO3, KH2PO4, K2SO4, MgSO4, and some GH booster in powder form. I know, GH booster is made up of K2SO4 and MgSO4, but because my nitrates are so high I'm going to try dosing KNO3 at lower levels and use the K2SO4 to make up the K. I just mixed my first batch of the NPK solution this morning. I'm aiming to dose these levels weekly:
> 
> NO3 - 10ppm
> K - 30ppm
> ...


You are right I was thinking the K was Phosphate, so my bad. Those numbers look good to shoot for. 

What are you using to test your K,Fe,Mg, and Ca? I can test my NO3,PO4, but currently not the others and want to be able to. Sorry to hear about the algae, wonder if that was caused from high nitrates? Sucks you have to black out. At least you caught it at the start so should be able to take care of with no issues. Might I suggest dosing excel or the like if you are not already.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

I don't have a test for K, Fe, Mg, or Ca. I'm trying to go by what Mr. Barritto has said in many posts - that EI isn't about testing and specific ppms. But with that said, I would also like to establish a sort of "baseline" for my aquarium so that I can see some cause-and-effect relationships for myself, and not have to rely on all the anecdotal evidence that can be found on the internet. 

So along with my 3 day blackout + 1.5x dose of Excel + stopping of ferts/CO2, I did 2 50% WC. I'll do another after my blackout is done. Hopefully that will reset my numbers and then I can go about seeing where I went wrong in the beginning.


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

Sounds like a good plan. I will probably lessen the ferts a bit. I really feel the full dosing of EI may be a bit much. My GH/KH/PH have really climbed through the week. Am sure is normal though. Just feel between the tabs for my root feeders and fish poo and stuff that the full EI might be an it too much. Will lessen by 1/3 and see how it goes. I have been testing parameters everyday since I just got dialed in with my co2. Gives me a good baseline and will do same tests next week with 1/3 less ferts and see how plants react. After all I did just start with EI anyway. 


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

*55 Gallons of Planted Tank*

You know too bad there isn't an all in one programmable sensor for planted tanks and ferts. So it could show all of your fert levels and could tell you exactly how much of what to dose each day on need. So for example you could set your desired Ca level and it would show you how much exactly to dose to get to that level. Basically real time. 


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## BettaBettas (Aug 21, 2016)

would be a nice invention


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

@clownplanted - I'm sure it could be fixed up using an Arduino, and I've got a few of those laying around the house. It would probably be a matter of finding the right probes and how much they cost. Might be a project for this summer...


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

MCFC said:


> @clownplanted - I'm sure it could be fixed up using an Arduino, and I've got a few of those laying around the house. It would probably be a matter of finding the right probes and how much they cost. Might be a project for this summer...


That would be a game changer for sure. Would make going pps pro easy and preferred.


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## DiegoBedoyaVision (Mar 30, 2017)

Awesome tank! Love the setup... and the fact that you made your own stand. Looks great. Keep it up!


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Well my blackout was a success, more or less. The stem plants that were most seriously algae'd, the H. pinnatifida and N. pedicellata "Golden", saw a drastic reduction. I did a 50% w/c and tried to vacuum off all the remaining bits but a few still lingered. That really annoyed me so I pulled all of the H. pinnatifida and all but 2 of the N. pedicellata "Golden" stems. 

I reduced my photoperiod from 10hrs to 8hrs and to get rid of my 36" T5HO and just use my two 48" ones. I have the front one scheduled to come on at 2:00pm and go off at 10:00pm; the back one comes on at 2:30pm and off at 9:30pm. 

I also rescaped a bit and added some new plants. I'm told they are:

Hygro thai brown
Linderia roundfolia sp green
Rotala sp green
Althernethea reneckii mini
Ludwigia brevips

But that's only 5 plants, and I'm pretty sure I've got 6 different ones. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what they look like once (if) they grow. 

Good news! While doing my rescape I saw my pleco that I thought had died and he looked pretty healthy!!

Day 83









Day 84









Day 85









Just some fish


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

Looking good and glad you were able to get rid of most of the algae. Think you are on right path with reduced light. 


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

A quick vid of some of my tetras


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

MCFC said:


> A quick vid of some of my tetras


Very nice. Am sure they are VERY happy now with the cover off.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

So it's been a little while since I posted on here. I ended up getting busy with work and neglecting my tank. BBA took over. I trimmed all the plants that survived, removed the severely affected driftwood, and dosed heavily with excel/glut. I just recently trimmed away the dead leaves again, replanted the floaters, added new driftwood, and bought a couple new plants. I've also replaced the CO2 (I had just let it run out before), reduced the photoperiod to two 4-hour periods, and reduced the number of bulbs I'm running at once. 

Apparently, photobucket have gone for a big dirty moneygrab, so I'll post a few progression pics and then one of how it is currently. 
















Most current:


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

I've also started EI dosing again. I'm starting off with only 2 days NPK and 2 days of Micros, we'll see how the plants respond. Here's some pics of the scrappy individuals who were able to survive my neglect. Most of them are severely stunted but I'm hoping a little TLC will help turn them around 









The bulb of this lily got buried in my sand and I forgot about it. A few months later I noticed it wedged into this spot with the tiniest leaf sprouting from it! Life finds a way...


The last bit of BBA to get rid of.


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

Glad to see you back. Was wondering where you had went. Was a pleasant surprise to see you post in my thread so welcome back  

Yeah I also had a bad algae outbreak and just finished the cleanup. If you ever get it again try the one two punch method. It worked great at killing the algae that I had gotten. Of course though you would want to find the root cause or it will just come back. http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/23-algae/203684-one-two-punch-whole-tank-algae-treatment.html

Careful with the heavy excel/glut dosing because plants can gain a tolerance for it. In fact I just do half dose now and really do not notice any different to be honest. 

For the ones still infected I would do h202 spot dosing. That will kill what is left. 

So what are your plans for this tank now. You going to go back to high tech or leave it low tech?


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## ChrisX (May 28, 2017)

MCFC said:


> I've also started EI dosing again. I'm starting off with only 2 days NPK and 2 days of Micros, we'll see how the plants respond. Here's some pics of the scrappy individuals who were able to survive my neglect. Most of them are severely stunted but I'm hoping a little TLC will help turn them around


You might try adding Seachem Equilibrium to your EI regime. It has all the micros that EI lacks. I ran out a couple weeks ago and noticed a decline in plant health, and increase in algae.

I operate under the assumption that if there is any deficiency, that means more fertz will go unused, plant growth will be slower, and algae can gain a foothold.

Also, any reason you didn't dirt the entire tank when you were cleaning it out?


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

clownplanted said:


> Careful with the heavy excel/glut dosing because plants can gain a tolerance for it. In fact I just do half dose now and really do not notice any different to be honest.
> 
> For the ones still infected I would do h202 spot dosing. That will kill what is left.
> 
> So what are your plans for this tank now. You going to go back to high tech or leave it low tech?


- I was dosing excel/glut heavily when the BBA was bad but I've stopped since most of it has gone away. I was also pretty sure that at those elevated levels it was melting my vals something fierce. Do you dose excel/glut regularly? Regardless of algae?

- For the h202 dosing do you just use a few ml in syringe and apply directly to the plant/BBA?

- My plans are to try and keep it high tech but medium maintenance haha. I'm going with CO2, T5HO lights, ferts, and weekly WCs, but just scaling everything back a bit so that I don't have huge growth that needs to be trimmed a lot. We'll see if the algae gods like my plan or not 

Bump:


ChrisX said:


> You might try adding Seachem Equilibrium to your EI regime. It has all the micros that EI lacks. I ran out a couple weeks ago and noticed a decline in plant health, and increase in algae.
> 
> I operate under the assumption that if there is any deficiency, that means more fertz will go unused, plant growth will be slower, and algae can gain a foothold.
> 
> Also, any reason you didn't dirt the entire tank when you were cleaning it out?


That's an interesting take on Equilibrium. I was under the impression it was mainly used to adjust GH. I see it is "Derived from: potassium sulfate, calcium sulfate, magnesium sulfate, ferric sulfate, manganese sulfate." My GH booster is potassium sulfate, calcium sulfate, and magnesium sulfate, and my CSM+B mix contains both Fe and Mn. 

I'm afraid to use dirt because I like to uproot and rearrange things too much. I don't think I'd be able to keep the substrate looking clean haha.


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

MCFC said:


> - I was dosing excel/glut heavily when the BBA was bad but I've stopped since most of it has gone away. I was also pretty sure that at those elevated levels it was melting my vals something fierce. Do you dose excel/glut regularly? Regardless of algae?
> 
> - For the h202 dosing do you just use a few ml in syringe and apply directly to the plant/BBA?
> 
> ...


If you only need to treat a few plants and are not needing to treat the entire tank then yes. I had to treat the entire tank due to an algae outbreak. What I did was remove all media from filters(h202 is bad for BB) but keep the filters running because you need maximum flow to ensure the h202 hits all areas of the tank and flows faster through the gills of the fish so is less toxic to them. I did not lose any livestock during the process. Here is a link that better explains it. http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/23-algae/203684-one-two-punch-whole-tank-algae-treatment.html

If you are needing to only spot treat a few plants then yes spot dosing works great.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

There have been big changes with this tank! I swapped out the 55 gal for a 72 gal bowfront, moved some fish to a different tank, added some plants, swapped out my white sand for beige pool filter sand, and added a few more T5HO fixtures. I'm currently playing with the bulbs and trying to find a spectrum/arrangement I like the look of. I also bought a Seneye Reef PAR meter, so I've been having fun playing with that !


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

*72 Bowed Gallons of Planted Tank*

Cool man. Have you got par readings with it yet? I really like it. Looks good. you doing co2?


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

@clownplanted - Thanks!! Heck yes on the CO2! I even found a guy in town who will come to my house to do refills. His website says 24/7, but I haven't tested that yet haha. 

I've been using the PAR meter on my 33 gal a lot more, but I did take a couple readings in this tank. About 120 across the entire front of the tank with all 5 T5HO fixtures running the stock 6400k Sunblaster bulbs.


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## clownplanted (Mar 3, 2017)

Cool bro. Are you using the ph slide? Mine went bad after 3 weeks. Junk. The par meter is good though. That’s very good par. 


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

@clownplanted - 1 slide came with it so I just put it in yesterday. I find the whole thing to have very terrible instructions. I like the meter so far but I really wish it came with a solid guide. Between the app, the dashboard, and the website, I'm sure I'm missing a few features/functions haha!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

That has the makings of a very nice tank. Great start.

Looking forward to seeing how this fills in. Should be very, very nice.

Subscribed.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

I used to use two 48" and one 36" T5HO over the 55 gal. The first day after adding two more 48" T5HO fixtures over the 72 gal was the very first time I saw my plants pearl !


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

I had been using a powerhead in the top left corner of the 55 gal but left it out when I swapped tanks. I decided to add it back as mulm was accumulating in the front right by the hydrocotyle and bacopa. 

I did the tank switch on the 14th, so I'm going to call that Day 0.

Day 5


Day 7 - I've got to stop the daytime pics 


Day 10



From Day 5 to Day 10 I've noticed:

Good
- a lot of growth in the bacopa as well as a tightening of the internodes


- both AR's are getting better colour and nice shape


- the sword is also colouring up nicely 
- myriophyllum is growing nice, fine leaves 
- hygro is growing lots of new shoots with some pink in the leaves


- ludwigia is growing lots of new shoots and actually has some decent red (a first for me, super chuffed  !!) 


- murdannia is growing well-ish and two of the stems are starting to show some purple



Bad
- algae (of course!) - the crypt albida is getting hammered pretty hard with BBA (I think); most of the anubias, the lagenadra, and the hydrocotyle have just a dusting along the margins. The same with the very tips of the vals. The vertical piece of DW to the right has some really funky stuff growing at the top and on the far side. Almost all of the buce has varying degrees of coverage by another unknown eye sore. The ludwigia has some fuzzy stuff on all the old leaves and stems. And the substrate has something starting to grow on the surface. 




















Haha! That sounds like a lot! It's really not too bad in person. The crypt, I'm really not sure what it's problem is. The anubias, DW, and buce I think are having issues because they are all positioned in the higher PAR areas. I might have to rethink their positioning (or use in this tank). The ludwigia is recovering from a bad situation with a lot of good looking shoots. Once they develop a bit more I'm going to trim back all the old algaefied junk. I'm pretty sure most else is due to my recent tank swap + increase in lighting + still trying to find the balance.

My plan is to decrease my photoperiod from 8hr total (6hr @ 4 bulbs) to 7hr total (5hr @ 4 bulbs) and play around with my spectrum and PAR next weekend, once my red bulbs have arrived. I've also mainly been spot treating just the BBA with H2O2 so far. I'm going to continue that but also start dosing the whole tank with glut and see if that helps.

As always, any and all suggestions/comments/critiques are greatly welcomed!!


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

How long ago did you swap out the substrate and how long have you been running the 4 bulbs at 8 hrs (All 4 bulbs for 8 hrs, 100+Par?)


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

I did the swap on the 14th and I've been running the 4 bulbs since the 18th I'm pretty sure, but not for 8hrs. The 4 bulbs only run for 6hrs.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

MCFC said:


> I did the swap on the 14th and I've been running the 4 bulbs since the 18th I'm pretty sure, but not for 8hrs. The 4 bulbs only run for 6hrs.


From my experience still way too much light, especially since the tank was essentially new by swamping out the substrate. You have heavy light with a small bio-filter. Much of the filter would've been in the substrate. I had a 72G for a long time ran 4x54 T5HO on it, but only ran 4 bulbs for 2 hours the rest of the time it was just the 2x54. 

Also at startup around 4 hour light cycle until the plants start really coming in. Just the way I see it.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Nice update and it looks like things are progressing nicely.

I agree with @houseofcards about proceeding slowly with the light ramp up. Need to give the tank some time to adjust and fill in. Keep in mind some of the very high light tanks you see are crammed full of fast growing plants.

In regards to low light plants (Buce/Crypt/Anubias), some people can keep them in a high light tank. I couldn't. 

When I started getting into much higher light and more difficult plants, I slowly but surely removed all of the slower growers. Maybe you will have better luck than me.

Keep up the good work and look forward to more updates.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Ran out of CO2, had some issues getting a refill, so ended up turning off lights/co2/ferts for 1 week. Some plants did better than others . 

I also decided to get rid of all of my buce and most of my DW, still on the fence about moving my crypts. With all that space opened up, I had to add a few more plants . 

This Friday is BOGO on all plants at my LFS, so I might add one or two more if I can find the space. 

Day 43


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

I've got some of what I think is GSA appearing on my glass. Weirdly though it only shows up on the bottom half of the glass. There is a very distinct, straight line separating the algae from the clean glass. Any idea why this would be?


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

The BOGO deal was a bust. The store is horrible at keeping plants alive and hasn't had a new order arrive in over a month, so there wasn't really anything worth buying  

I took the trusty old credit card to the glass and my GSA is largely gone. I'm going to up my ferts and put some effort into getting a flow meter (thanks to @Greggz). I've always found it rather frustrating trying to dial my CO2 back in after changing tanks since my "bubble" counter is a steady flow haha.

Ferts currently:

2x NPK and 2x Micro weekly (different days)

24ppm NO3 
23ppm K
6ppm PO4 
5pp Mg 
0.9ppm Fe (0.4ppm EDTA, 0.5ppm DPTA)


New ferts:

3x NPK and 7x Micro weekly (obviously not different days  )

35ppm NO3
35ppm K
9ppm PO4
10ppm Mg
1.2ppm Fe (0.6ppm EDTA, 0.6ppm DPTA) 


We'll see if that helps things 

Day 41 - My angels sparring


Day 49


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

A couple days ago I was selling some extra aquarium stuff to two different fellas and both of them, when they walked by this tank, stopped and commented about how great it looked.

I'm super chuffed !!

Day 55


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

MCFC said:


> A couple days ago I was selling some extra aquarium stuff to two different fellas and both of them, when they walked by this tank, stopped and commented about how great it looked.
> 
> I'm super chuffed !!


You should be. It IS looking great.

And will get even better over time.

Nice work.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Thanks @Greggz! Tomorrow is going to be my first big trim/thin and replant. Let's hope I don't kill everything haha!!


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Day 63 - GSA is for real



Day 71 - Post trim. I apparently forgot to take a pic before the trim started haha



Day 71 - From the back


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

This weekend's project


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Decided to use compression fittings, but I don't have any experience with them haha. I'm not entirely sure what the little metal ring in the bottom right does. So I put them together without it and they seem fine. (the tubing in the pic isn't the actual tubing used)



My little rig for attaching the meter to my stand. 


All hooked up! I hooked up my bubble counter after the flow meter so that I could get a rough visualization of before vs after. Running 20cc/min at the moment seems pretty similar to before. I'll be monitoring my pH drop today to see if it actually is the same as before. 



The back of the tank. Ain't she pretty? Hahaha


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Welcome to the flow meter club!!

It's been growing quite a bit lately.

Report back with your flow rate once you get it dialed in.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

A few slightly struggling plants and then some super happy zosterifolia


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

The girlfriend brought over her nice camera tonight so I was finally able to get a couple half-decent shots!


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

In my excitement of getting the flow meter hooked up and figuring out my rate, I made a big, stupid mistake. I forgot to put a check valve between the bubble counter and the meter. So when my CO2 stopped for the night, water flowed back into the meter. I'm pretty sure it's pooched now. I'm going to have to contact Dwyer again and see if there's anything I can do about it. !


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## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

It definitely doesn't work with water in it. 

I had a check valve fail on me about two weeks after getting mine hooked up. I disassembled it, very carefully following the instructions for cleaning, dried it with compressed air, let it air dry, and reassembled.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Weekly trim


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

I've been thinking about rearranging the tank. I don't think I got the scale right on the groupings. I guess I'll find out when I'm doing the planting haha!




How she looks at the moment:




And a few random shots


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

*The Good*:

- Just about every week I have to wipe the glass for GDA/GSA. Over the last few weeks I've dropped my PO4 dosing from 8ppm/week --> 5ppm/week --> 3ppm/week. One week into the 3ppm and there is no noticeable algae on the front glass 
- Most plants are growing really well. Heteranthera and Myrio are weeds, pretty much the same story with the Murdannia. My AR and AR mini, which took huge hits, have some nice pink in their newest little leaflets, so I think they'll make a full recovery. Same deal with the one stem of Nesaea I have left, some nice orange in it at the moment. 
- I've been using Sodium Thiosulfate crystals when I do my W/C. I just recently put the effort into researching how they work, and was a little disappointed to see it doesn't bind chloromine . So I order some Seachem Safe.
- While I was at it, I went and ordered some Seachem Purigen as well. A couple of my plant groups have taken big hits and are only now starting to get healthy. I think there's a good chance I have high levels of organics in my water column. Hopefully I'll notice a difference with the Purigen  



*The Bad*:

- The Hottonia palustris in the back left corner has taken a major hit. I don't know if it's because the Bacopa shaded it out or not, but I plan to move it more into the light and see if it recovers. 
- On the right side of the tank, near the front, where the plants are most sparse, the sand gets some sort of brown fuzz growing on it.
- 2-3 days after a W/C I'm starting to see a bit of a film develop on the water surface, even though I have very high surface agitation. 


*The Ugly*:

- I have little tufts of BBA in a few places on the glass, and a handful of it on my driftwood.
- The lower leaves on the R macradra are getting algae. Same with the Bacopa, though they are even falling off.
- I think I possibly have a Ca or Mg deficiency. My macrandra has some pretty funky looking leaves haha.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

I just ordered some Seachem stuff from Amazon for $100, and I was planning a plant order that was going to be around $125. It got me thinking about some of the costs for this tank and so I took a few pictures and added a couple numbers. Not the cheapest hobby, but I'd say money well spent 




Anyone have a similar collection?


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Oh man you should never ever do that................never, ever add it all up!!

Personally I don't want to know. And I certainly don't my wife to find out!:wink2::wink2:


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

As you can see from the exterior of my tank, I don't have a wife haha 

Started the rearranging. About half done. (Edit: I just noticed you can see my three light phases in the pics haha. 4 bulbs --> 2 bulbs --> 1 small bulb + moonlights)


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Starting to come together...





And just as it does, I decided to go and order a handful more plants haha 

Pogo helferi
Pogo stellata (or stellatus? Is there a difference?)
S. repens (ordered before reading @Greggz's recent posts about his struggles with it. Now I'm nervous  )
R. wallichii
Erio Hainan Island


Edit: On a side note - the angel in the top left is guarding some freshly deposited eggs. This is batch #2 for the pair. Let's see if they eat them again...


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Almost done the rearranging. I'm trying to let my AR recover without much competition so I'm leaving it at the front for now. The R. bonsai that's still in its TC cup will eventually take up most of that space. 




Amazon package arrived


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Day 123 - Well the day after I got everything set up somewhat nicely... my new plants arrived! And I foolishly hadn't planned for them in my new arrangement haha. So I just kinda tossed them in wherever they might be able to get some light. I'll have to make a new plan once I see how they grow.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Day 127




Random shots


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

I recently did a Canadian RAOK and ended up sending @Quagulator a few plants. He was nice enough to send me a few of his own trimmings of L. super red 'mini', L. aromatica, and R. colorata back ! I've added the super red 'mini' and aromatica to this tank, the colorata is floating in my trimmings tank at the moment. 



I don't really have a place for the plants, I've just always thought they looked nice and wanted to try them haha. I just stuck the super red 'mini' in a place with a lot of green, and attached a suction cup to the aromatica as a weight. Well, it wasn't quite heavy enough to sink it to the bottom, but was heavy enough to make it sink enough to float upright. So I've just left it there for now . 



I've been wanting to add something to the DW for some time now. I had some buce (an unknown and dark achilles maybe?) in another tank that I decided to add. I screwed up a little bit when I attached it to the wood, but I'm still in love with the look of the buce ! Also added a little wisp of M. tenerum to the back. Hopefully it makes a nice green baseball in between the achilles and the R. macrandra in the back.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

So I feel like I'm getting to the point where I can grow plants. Not perfectly, by any means, but I'm fairly confident I can drop most plants in my tank and make them grow pretty OK eventually. I think that's the "science" part of this hobby (i.e. ferts, PAR, timing, etc...) somewhat covered (still lots of tinkering to do though  ). 

Now I've turned a lot more of my focus towards the "art" part of this hobby, and it's not something that comes naturally. The 2 main areas I feel I need to improve on are:

*"Dutch" layout* - I use quotations around Dutch because I'm years away from entering any contest, so I'm not adhering to any strict rules at the moment, just the general idea. That being said, I'm really trying to improve my plant selection/contrast/layout. I'm trying to keep plants with similar colours or leaf structures away from each other and I'm trying to create a sense of depth with "streets", but that's bringing me to my second area of improvement. *One note - I never realized how difficult it was to create the Dutch look. I didn't realize how much I would have to take into account the differences in PAR throughout the tank, as well as the different speeds at which the plants grow. I have H. zosterifolia in the back left corner because it's an "easy" plant so will still grow well with less PAR. I had it more central but had to move it because with its growth rate, it ended up shading out the other plants around it. When I first picked it to go in the aquarium, all I was thinking was : "Ooo, that looks kinda cool" haha. 

*Plant trimming* - I really like the "bushy" look, and so need to get a better routine to trimming plants. I've watched Dennis' video and want to mimic it, only trimming tops 2-4 times before uprooting and restarting. I'm currently doing a mixed-bag approach where some plants I'm topping, replanting, and throwing out the bottoms, some plants topping and planting the tops with the bottoms, some plants just topping haha. Not the greatest recipe for success...


Can't have a post without pics, so here are a few of my journey 

January 5, 2017


April 11, 2017


August 29, 2017


January 1, 2018


April 22, 2018


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Just some random musings of mine as I walk my dog...

- Terrestrial gardening seems to be focused on two things: tasty food and beautiful flowers. Why is it that neither of these seem to be goals of aquatic gardening?

- As an extension of that thought -- If I wanted to grow a tomato plant, for example, there are easily a handful of different fertilizers with different chemicals and ratios to target each stage of the plant's development (germination, flower development, etc...). Why do we dose our aquatic plants with a more "universal" approach and not target specific elements of development?

- When walking through forests or meadows I've been trying to pay more attention to how nature scapes, and trying to pick out the small details that make the larger picture feel complete. I've been noticing that how messy, or uniform, or structured an area looks has a lot to do with scale. 
A 5m x 5m area of a swamp might have only 1 or 2 plant species easily visible; take a larger view of the swamp and you can see several of those 5m x 5m areas in clumps, with a handful of different plants making up the majority of the visible plants, but everything is randomly spaced; step back to view the whole swamp and you can see the large trees of the forest gradually transition into the smaller shrubs uniformly surrounding the swamp, and then transition further into the even smaller plants in the 5m x 5m clumps. At a zoomed out level, from forest trees down to swamp herbs, it seems fairly uniform. But if you look a little more closely at the shrubs surrounding the swamp, within a 5m x 5m section, there is quite a bit of random variability in growth and distribution. Probably something super obvious to other people, but I had just never consciously thought about it. 

- At least in the boreal NW, it seems like ground cover is often 3-5 different plants intermixed, with small pockets of individual plant density. Then another 3-5 shrub level plants that form much more delineated groupings, but are still very intermixed over a large area. Then a final 3-5 tree species with a rough 2-2-1 ratio and fairly uniform spacing. At all levels there are many individual plants of each species covering the forest. Why does the Dutch style emphasize keeping plants in strict solo groupings?


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

I'm definitely on a watch list of some kind...


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

So I'll admit that I'm the first to recommend someone takes it slow, and one step at a time, and then I go and change a handful of things at once on my own set up haha. I know, I'm the worst kind of person...

Recent Changes:

- added 500ml of Purigen, split into two mesh bags. 

- I run two Hydor 350 filters. Canister #1 had coarse foam, 2 trays of Matrix, and filter floss. I was using it with my inline Rex reactor and Hydor heater. Canister #2 just had coarse foam and filter floss. I added the Purigen to Canister #2, and plumbed the Rex reactor to it as well. So now both filters have the same coarse foam and filter floss, just one has Matrix and an inline heater, and the other has Purigen and an inline Rex reactor.

- I started rolling my own micros. I was daily dosing CSM+B at 0.08ppm and DPTA 7% at 0.09ppm. I'm now going to be dosing Burr's Mix (v13.15) starting at 0.15ppm daily with just DPTA 7%. 

Fe	0.15
Mn	0.06
B	0.03
Zn	0.05
Mo	0.0015
Cu	0.002
Ni	0.0007

- I'm really uncertain these days on my NPK. I've always had nitrate readings in the 40-80ppm range, but still dosed around 30ppm weekly. I recently tried a few weeks of dosing 15ppm and front loading. I got my nitrate readings down to ~25ppm, but I feel like my plants weren't as nice as they were before. So this week I doubled my frontloaded dose back to 30ppm. I think my plants look better, but I'm probably biased haha. 

- My phosphates have also been up and down as I try and reduce the amount of algae accumulating on the glass between cleanings. I was targeting as high as 6ppm/week. I'm now down to ~2ppm weekly, which might be presenting other problems that are worse than some glass algae... 



Ah well, time for some pretty pictures!





It's funny, this Madagascar Lace plant has 4 leaves, but this is the only one that pearls. Probably means something...


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Its funny you mentioned NO3 levels because I had almost the exact same experience recently. Was dosing 30 ppm/week and decided to cut it down to 25. Because...well that just seemed like a lot. No other reason

I really didnt expect a 5 ppm shift to make much difference... but it did. 

By the end of the second week a few species clearly werent doing as well as before. So I gave it some extra that next week and the plants got right again almost immediately. 

Now Im back to 30 again.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Day 151


Day 152


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)




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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

MCFC said:


>


Any reason you bumped Ni up to .0007 ppm? 

Most likely not a problem because it has a pretty low potential for toxicity. 

Just curious because .0005 should be PLENTY


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

burr740 said:


> Any reason you bumped Ni up to .0007 ppm?
> 
> Most likely not a problem because it has a pretty low potential for toxicity.
> 
> Just curious because .0005 should be PLENTY


I got cocky when measuring out the ferts and just tared for each new salt. Meant to add .034g but accidentally added .036g, and once added to the mix of salts it was pretty much impossible to get out haha. Way she goes!


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Hah! Been there done that...

I usually do Mn, B and Zn that way, using a larger cup on a gram scale. You can turn the cup and keep each pile separate so if you over do it and need to take some out its not an issue.

But yeah the other stuff you can forget about correcting if it's all together. Those are hard enough to correct by themselves! Easier to just start over sometimes


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Day 163


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Looking good! Impressive for what is still a relatively young tank.

Nice work!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Did you end up using some of that Colorata I sent? If so any close ups pics?


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## LRJ (Jul 31, 2014)

Really like the color you're getting on the AR!


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

@Quagulator - That R. colorata sure is a funny story! 

There was the slight mix up at the start in our messages about Bacopa colorata vs. Rotala colorata. Well at the same time there was also discussion in some thread about true B. colorata vs differences in lighting vs. some other species. So I know I said I was straight on it being R. colorata and not Bacopa, but in my mind I was still expecting Bacopa haha! 

So when it arrived and clearly wasn't Bacopa, I was unsure what to do with it. I already had R. rotundifolia and h'ra in the tank, and felt the colorata was just too similar. So I tossed it into my farm tank, which subsequently went through a bit of neglect. 

Probably a week or two ago I decided to actually look up some pictures of R. colorata and decided I'd throw it into my main tank, grow it out properly, and then choose which similar Rotala I wanted to use and which would go into the farm tank.

Soooooo, long story short, it took a bit of a hit but looks to be coming back pretty well. (sorry about the bad pics, bow front tanks can make things difficult sometimes haha)


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

My recently revamped farm tank (thanks to @LRJ for the cups of substrate look!)





I still have to figure out what I want to do with ferts, but I'll probably just copy LRJ's recipe and go from there


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## LRJ (Jul 31, 2014)

Looking good! Interested to see how it turns out.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)




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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Ughh... from a distance and in a FTS the tank looks fine, but as soon as I get close to it all I can see are the problems 

Any and all help/comments/suggestions/creative insults/witty banter is greatly appreciated!! 

First, GSA/GDA just havin' a time:








AR also has leaves turning transparent:






Buce seems to just be an algae magnet:






R. bonsai keeps doing this. The bottoms get ratty and rot so I top them and replant the tops. The tops grow OK for a week or so and then the bottoms get ratty and rot, and the cycle just continues... 




P helferi was growing well, then most stunted, gave up their main stem, and sent out a bunch of offshoots. Now the new growth looks OK on most, but some stems have totally melted (second pic). 





BBA on glass near filter intake:





P stellatus (I think?) won't grow straight! The one stem has done a full 360 degree curl!!


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## LRJ (Jul 31, 2014)

@MCFC, no clue what's causing the issues. Have you made any changes recently? 

My suggestions are to double check CO2, get in there and clean as much algae as possible of the glass, equipment etc. Remove dead leaves like those on the AR. Clean the filters if you haven't done that recently. Increase water change frequency. Maybe back off on the light intensity until things stabilize. You probably know that stuff already, but you asked for any and all suggestions


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

@LRJ - Thanks for the reply! I was beginning to think I was just talking to myself here 

I started using Burr's micro mix recently, but most of the problems were there before, so I don't think that's to blame.

I've been playing around with my flow patterns for the last couple weeks and still haven't found something I like. I'm running two canisters and can't get them to work together. It hurts my brain trying to find a solution that gets decent flow everywhere but doesn't blow my plants around. Currently no end in sight...

I think my organics are really high. I very rarely add healthy plants to this tank. It's almost always the case where I have struggling/stunted plants that I add to get them to recover, and during that transition they are often algae magnets. I try and leave them be until there is a decent amount of new growth, but that means a fair amount of dead/decaying leaves are in my water. 

I think I probably do need to clean my filters more often, and an extra water change or two is always good for the plants haha 

Backing off the light intensity feels like nails on a chalkboard to me haha. I spend all this money/time/effort on these lights and I have to scale back??? NEVER!!!! (I definitely *will* consider it, but I don't want to!)


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## LRJ (Jul 31, 2014)

MCFC said:


> @LRJ - I've been playing around with my flow patterns for the last couple weeks and still haven't found something I like. I'm running two canisters and can't get them to work together. It hurts my brain trying to find a solution that gets decent flow everywhere but doesn't blow my plants around. Currently no end in sight...


Definitely been there. It took me a looong time and lots of trial-and-error to settle on the flow pattern I use currently. I finally decided to let the canisters work against each other, having the outflow streams intersect right at the midpoint along the top of the front glass. 

This causes the colliding outflows to spread down along the front glass and then loop back across the substrate toward the intakes at the rear. Ends up working sort of like a spray bar positioned along the top of the back glass. Creates a relatively laminar flow and pushes the plants back and up instead of bending them over. 

You do get dead spots in the top front corners, but this can end up working to an advantage for vertical curtain plants in a Dutch setup. This configuration probably only works though if you have overpowered filters to start with and when the tank isn't too long. That bow front adds another twist to think about too. Just keep tinkering.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Yeah start with better cleaning and maintenance. That can solve a myriad of issues we all like to blame on ferts and co2.

But also those heavy micros can make macros run short. I'd make sure all three were in good supply

@LRJ I do the same thing with the two filters on the Dutch. Having them collide at one point, which is usually frowned upon, helps reduce overall velocity. It's a good trick if you have way too much flow to begin with.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

LRJ said:


> @MCFC, no clue what's causing the issues. Have you made any changes recently?
> 
> My suggestions are to double check CO2, get in there and clean as much algae as possible of the glass, equipment etc. Remove dead leaves like those on the AR. Clean the filters if you haven't done that recently. Increase water change frequency. Maybe back off on the light intensity until things stabilize. You probably know that stuff already, but you asked for any and all suggestions


Agree with everything LRJ said above. 

As to CO2, I would start testing the upper limits (for me about 1.35pH drop). Focus on getting things uber clean. Substrate, filters, removal of decaying material, trim/prune plants, reduce fish feeding, etc. 

I know you don't want to turn down your lights, but can you adjust slightly? In my tank I have control of three banks of two bulbs. So if I want to reduce a bit, I might say have all six bulbs running for 4 hours, and only four for the other four hours. 

Can you reduce the flow on the filters? With my Rena's I can adjust the flow. Too much circulation is just as bad as too little, and BBA loves high flow areas.

As you know, it probably has little to do with ferts. If anything, it's from too little. I would try bumping up P a bit and see how the plants like it. 

You have accomplished a lot. You are getting plants to grow, and that is a good thing. Now you need to fine tune things a bit. We all have to from time to time. 

I know personally every time I think I have it all figured out, something happens that makes me scratch my head, and it's back to the drawing board. 

And remember, you probably won't be able too make every species happy (no one can). Concentrate on the ones that do well, and try to find more of them.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

I'll do a bigger update after the Final and I do my weekly trim and w/c. So just a short story as I walk my dog...




Greggz said:


> As to CO2, I would start testing the upper limits (for me about 1.35pH drop).



I've never been able to bump my CO2 much without my angels showing stress and sitting at the surface after about an hour. But I thought, whatever, let's give er a whirl!

Bumped my CO2 up a bit, watched the tank for about 45 mins, all good. Kinda forgot what I was doing, went to go play soccer for almost 2 hrs, and came home to my angels laying flat along the surface, breathing really heavily. One single cardinal tetra was doing the same. The rest of the cardinals and rummynoses didn't seem to mind. 

So I turned off CO2, added the spray bar to one of my returns and pointed it at the surface, and turned on my airstone. Angels were back to normal after 30mins. I moved my pleco to another tank though. He started floating upside down on the substrate. 

No deaths in the end  




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

MCFC said:


> I'll do a bigger update after the Final and I do my weekly trim and w/c. So just a short story as I walk my dog...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wow sorry I wasn't thinking you might gas your fish! 

Do you have any surface agitation during your CO2 period? Just wondering as you can have both high oxygen and CO2. I keep a pretty heavy surface agitation at all times. More room for error, and can keep CO2 higher.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Greggz said:


> Wow sorry I wasn't thinking you might gas your fish!
> 
> Do you have any surface agitation during your CO2 period? Just wondering as you can have both high oxygen and CO2. I keep a pretty heavy surface agitation at all times. More room for error, and can keep CO2 higher.


Not your fault at all! I knew what I was doing, or at least should have haha! Those pre-footy beers are what almost hooped me!!

My surface agitation is pretty high at all times. Both returns ripple the surface quite a bit, and I use an airstone for two short periods when the CO2 is off. I used to have more agitation when I was running my returns essentially as one big spraybar across the back, but I didn't like how it was blowing all of my plants away from the front glass. 

What do you think?


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## LRJ (Jul 31, 2014)

Glad to hear the fish made it OK! Surface ripple looks pretty good to me. Something else you can do is add a surface skimming intake. It doesn't look like you have one in the video, but I couldn't tell for sure. They are excellent. I highly recommend.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

LRJ said:


> Something else you can do is add a surface skimming intake. It doesn't look like you have one in the video, but I couldn't tell for sure. They are excellent. I highly recommend.


I've thought about getting one but my water level drops at least 2" between water changes. My understanding was that they needed a pretty consistent water level otherwise they make noise/don't work properly. Am I wrong? Would I be OK?


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## LRJ (Jul 31, 2014)

MCFC said:


> I've thought about getting one but my water level drops at least 2" between water changes. My understanding was that they needed a pretty consistent water level otherwise they make noise/don't work properly. Am I wrong? Would I be OK?


Not sure. I top my water off once or twice a week to maintain a relatively consistent level. In between top offs, I'll sometimes have about 1" of evaporation. The surface skimmer continues to function well within that range. Beyond that, I can't say from experience. 

Regarding noise, once you get it dialed in properly it is basically silent, but that takes some trial-and-error. I haven't noticed it become more noisy as the water level drops, but again, only for about 1" or so drop.

Either way, it is not something you can just totally forget about. Leaves and other debris can become stuck to it, and that can cause it not to work optimally, i.e., not pull as much water as you'd like or start pulling some air and making noise. Checking it is just part of daily maintenance for me, using tweezers to remove any dead leaves, seeing if it needs adjustment.

It's worth it though in my opinion. I'm considering getting another one for the other canister.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

@LRJ - Well you've pretty much sold me haha. I was going to start putting my aquarium budget towards slowly piecing together some stuff to set up an RO system eventually, but that can wait. Which one(s) do you recommend?


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## LRJ (Jul 31, 2014)

MCFC said:


> @LRJ - Well you've pretty much sold me haha. I was going to start putting my aquarium budget towards slowly piecing together some stuff to set up an RO system eventually, but that can wait. Which one(s) do you recommend?


I'll PM you the one I have. You might want to see if @burr740 has any recommendations too. I think he's got them on a few tanks. Might even have experience with multiple brands.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

burr740 said:


> But also those heavy micros can make macros run short. I'd make sure all three were in good supply


Since you mentioned it 



I've also just started adding a half dose of NPK halfway through the week, so totals are more like:

NO3: 45ppm
K: 40.2ppm
PO4: 4.5ppm

I feel like that's a pretty healthy chunk of salts. Do you think it should cover it?




Greggz said:


> I know you don't want to turn down your lights, but can you adjust slightly? In my tank I have control of three banks of two bulbs. So if I want to reduce a bit, I might say have all six bulbs running for 4 hours, and only four for the other four hours.


Each bulb can be controlled individually . Here's my current light schedule. Let me know what you think. 






Greggz said:


> Can you reduce the flow on the filters? With my Rena's I can adjust the flow. Too much circulation is just as bad as too little, and BBA loves high flow areas.


Yup! Fully adjustable in and out flow. I always leave the inflow fully open and only ever adjust the outflow. Right now both are running fully open. 




Greggz said:


> You have accomplished a lot. You are getting plants to grow, and that is a good thing. Now you need to fine tune things a bit. We all have to from time to time.



Thanks for the words of encouragement!




Greggz said:


> And remember, you probably won't be able too make every species happy (no one can).


Challenge accepted


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

P might do better in the 6-8 ppm/week range especially considering the high level of everything else. But yeah all that other stuff looks like plenty. 

30-35 ppm NO3 should be more than enough for any tank. Dont think there's any good reason to be dosing 45 although it may not hurt anything.

B you could raise to .04 if you're having problems with any ludwigia


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

@burr740 - So would you recommend I just dry dose some KH2PO4 instead of the 1/2 dose of my NPK solution, until I make my next mix? And it should be fine to front-load with that too right? Skip the second dose during the week? Or do you think there's some benefit to spacing the dosing?


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

MCFC said:


> @*burr740* - So would you recommend I just dry dose some KH2PO4 instead of the 1/2 dose of my NPK solution


Yep



MCFC said:


> And it should be fine to front-load with that too right? Skip the second dose during the week? Or do you think there's some benefit to spacing the dosing?


Ive never front loaded the entire weeks worth, always done another smaller dose or two throughout the week. 

So I really dont know, but I doubt it matters very much. @Greggz I believe front loads everything


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

burr740 said:


> So I really dont know, but I doubt it matters very much. @Greggz I believe front loads everything


Yes I have been completely front loading macros for five months now. 

At the moment, my tank is as good or better than it has ever been. Now is that the result of front end loading? Or in spite of it? Who knows. Too many other factors that have influence. 

So as Burr said, doubt it matters very much, but it sure is convenient.

If I understand it right, you are making a macro solution? I would dose dry if I were you. Makes it easier to make small adjustments and fine tune.

Lighting looks good to me. I run similar PAR for 8 hours a day. But keep in mind that drives need for everything else as well. 

And agree with Burr, would try bumping up P just a bit and see how things react. And raising B couldn't hurt. I upped my B from .032 to .04 and noticed a positive reaction. Testing out .045 now.

Keep at it. I like where you are going with this tank.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Greggz said:


> Lighting looks good to me. I run similar PAR for 8 hours a day. But keep in mind that drives need for everything else as well.


This is something I've been struggling with lately. My understanding is that PAR "drives" the plants while the ferts (including CO2) are the fuel. So if I use more bulbs to increase PAR, or leave my current PAR as is and just increase my photo period, I would need to up all my ferts.

But as is I seem to be right on the razor's edge for CO2. ~1.4 pH drop. Any noticeable increase puts my fish at the surface. 

My NO3 dosing is currently 30ppm. @burr740 said 30-35ppm NO3 should be enough for any tank.

I'm pretty sure my micros are already in the higher ranges too. 

So what do I increase to match an increase in PAR? 

It's also my understanding that PAR and ferts are essentially different sides of the same coin. Instead of upping my ferts to match my PAR, I can reduce my PAR to match my ferts. But there was a post recently about someone thinking they were getting deficiencies because of their ratios. Every reply was about upping their ferts. No one suggested reducing lighting. Also, I've read people talking about 200 and 400PAR tanks. So I feel like reducing lighting isn't actually addressing the cause of the issue, it's more like using glut on BBA. But it's still all very confusing to me... Do those 400PAR tanks dose like 150ppm NO3? haha


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

I'm with you on lighting. I'll update my journal here soon, but I'm going to run just one beansworks fixture for a while. I could not fight off algae so in gonna try the lighting route. Curious to see what others have to say.

I also run the similar ferts and CO2 to you, greg, and burr.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Day 168


Day 184


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Current issues 

1. algae - of course - too much to mention, but no where near out of control. Just a little frustrating haha

2. circulation - I have both canister's outflows meeting in the middle, essentially keeping the flow from each half of the tank separate from the other. The side that has my CO2 on it pearls like crazy. The side that doesn't have the reactor on it doesn't pearl much anymore. There's a definite line right down the middle of pearling vs not...

3. lighting - some plants are annoyingly growing at angles, seemingly reaching for light. The hygro in the back right does it, and I couldn't figure out why. Taking a good look at my lights I noticed that they butt up against my canopy on the left side, but they sit 1-2" off the far right side. I was too lazy to grab my PAR meter, but as the PAR in tubes tapers off at the ends anyway, I figure that's probably the cause. 

I recently ordered some cheap 12" LED's so I could test their PAR on small shrimp tanks. One $30 LED pumped out a staggering 160PAR at ~10" (will be doing a thread on that later haha), so I tossed that onto the end of the tank over the hygro. 

4. ferts - not even my levels, but my physical fertilizer solutions. Both NPK and micro have mold. I've had issues with the mold using CSM+B and Burr's mix. The first time I made Burr's mix I used ~20ml white (not distilled) vinegar and it sizzled and popped when I added the salts to the distilled water and formed a precipitate. The second Burr's mix I made I used 10ml white vinegar and didn't get the sizzle and pop but still got some precipitate. My next mix I'm going to try ascorbic acid instead of vinegar. 

I keep both of my solutions in large glass containers with airtight lids. I've taped them up so no light can get at them, and I use one syringe for the NPK and a different one for the micro. I have a small length of airline tubing attached to the ends of each syringe so that I can get into the glass jars easier, and I dose the solutions with the tubing completely submerged in the tank. 

I've tried cleaning the two jars with boiling water between mixes, but I still get the mold. Anybody know what's going on?

I know @Greggz suggested going with dry dosing, but I would still have the issue with micros, and I find it a lot more convenient to be able to make my solution once per month and then dose by the ml instead of weighing the salts each time (just as long as I can keep mold out of my solution haha).


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

For the macros I dry dose, but do not weigh them, just use the measuring spoons. I am also frontloading them, so only once a week measuring out ferts. 

Micros solution I absolutely weigh, for obvious reasons.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Grobbins48 said:


> For the macros I dry dose, but do not weigh them, just use the measuring spoons. I am also frontloading them, so only once a week measuring out ferts.
> 
> Micros solution I absolutely weigh, for obvious reasons.


Same for me. 

Front end load. Convert grams to tsp measurements. 

Dose macros just once after water change, couldn't be easier.

And like I said, I like being able to make small changes even week to week.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Killed most of my fish last night because I'm a lazy cucking funt. I think that's it for me. 

Now the headache of trying to sell all of this stuff...


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

MCFC said:


> Killed most of my fish last night because I'm a lazy cucking funt. I think that's it for me.
> 
> Now the headache of trying to sell all of this stuff...


What??

More details.

And we all learn from our mistakes. Lord knows I have made plenty along the way.

Just sayin' I wouldn't give up. You have really been getting somewhere.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Well, two weeks later and I've calmed down a bit. I'm not going to just trash everything, but man that was a discouraging experience. 

Over the course of ~48hrs I picked out 6 otos, 6 cardinals, and 8 rummynoses. I was so upset the first night that I couldn't even pick out the dead ones. I had to just turn the lights off and get away from the tank. I know I sound like a ninny but even now I get a little emotional thinking about those dead fish. They were all at least 2 years old, coupled with the fact that I killed them (wasn't some random thing I couldn't see coming), really made it tough to take. 

My new approach is going to be to try and keep things simple and *patience*. 

I'm going to revamp the farm tank a bit so that it's actually dedicated to my main tank. Right now it's a mix of plants I want to sell, trimmings from my main tank, and plants I want to try in my main tank. No one around me buys plants and once my main tank is growing well again, the weekly trimmings can be sold if the opportunity presents itself. 

So I'll pare it down to just plants I want to try in my main tank, which will free up space for plants that I need to take out of my main tank haha. I feel like it's just too crowded right now, both in terms of number of plant species and the mass of certain groups (which will happen when left alone for 2 weeks  ). 

So here's the beast today. Me thinks she needs some work...


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Holy crap!! What happened to kill all the fish?


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## LRJ (Jul 31, 2014)

Glad to see you decided to stick with it. So what happened, CO2?


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

I decided I was sick of seeing traces of BGA on my substrate and I ended up getting smacked in the face with the idea that the only thing that makes a substance harmful is its concentration. 

That's about as specific as my pride will let me get


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

LOL

You Cloroxed it....didnt you??


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

I am glad to see you didn't throw in the towel!


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Back in the day I had a 20 gal that was plagued with some nagging algae, dont remember what kind exactly. I had the bright idea that chlorine might kill it, so I did a 70-80% water change and skipped the dechlor (there was no livestock present)

It didnt work.

Totally wiped out the bio-filter, which made the algae worse and set a place at the table for some new types to show up. Basically started the cycle over from scratch. It also triggered a vicious milky water bloom that took forever to go away.

But hey you never know until you try!


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

burr740 said:


> LOL
> 
> You Cloroxed it....didnt you??


I feel like Clorox wouldn't have been as damaging as the cocktail I made for them :crying:


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

MCFC said:


> I feel like Clorox wouldn't have been as damaging as the cocktail I made for them :crying:


H2O2 + Glut???

Roundup???

I'm out of ideas and now the curiosity has really set in. 

Years ago I accidentally spilled a whole bottle of Excel into my tank. Holy smokes the effects were immediate. Four 90% water changes back to back and most survived, but lost several long lived Bows. 

Stuff happens.

Maybe if you if fill us in it will save someone else the agony.

And glad to see you back!:grin2:


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Roundup would have only killed the plants.... Why on earth it would be anywhere near a planted tank is beyond me... 

Although after working with it all day and then dunking my whole arm into my old 65 gal without thinking anything of it didn't hurt anything at all.

Glut + peroxide likely be a much hotter mix for killing stuff???

Stuff happens, I nuked 12 CPD's in a 20 long a few years back with H2O2, felt horrible. Blue velvet shrimp population cut in half too. Horrible feeling. It will pass though. Looking forward to seeing where you can take this tank from here!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Quagulator said:


> Roundup would have only killed the plants.... Why on earth it would be anywhere near a planted tank is beyond me... !


LOL was just grasping at straws and joking. Just can't figure out what else it might be!


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

3 parts carburetor cleaner and 1 part gasoline, moderately dosed at 1 cup per 10 gallons

Cmon, dont leave us hangin!


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## jeffkrol (Jun 5, 2013)

https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/11-fertilizers-water-parameters/1278079-40b-crash.html

A bit of humility is a good thing...


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## kaldurak (May 2, 2010)

Quagulator said:


> Roundup would have only killed the plants.... Why on earth it would be anywhere near a planted tank is beyond me...
> 
> Although after working with it all day and then dunking my whole arm into my old 65 gal without thinking anything of it didn't hurt anything at all.
> 
> ...


So at my workplace, I use round-up on a weekly basis for weeds in sidewalks, by the pool, etc. Well, I started getting concentrated round up so I could just add it and water to a dedicated pump sprayer.

Well, one day after work, I relaxed and unwound by doing some weeding in my tank after work which was awesome. What wasn't awesome was not remembering if I thoroughly washed up after playing with round up. 

So my relaxing evening turned into a water change and then 48 hours of terror - looking for signs of me inadvertently nuking my tank. Luckily, there was no mass melt back or die off of plants. So, i guess i washed my hands.


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

Glad to see you’re not giving up @MCFC. We can’t afford to lose some of the more active and knowledgeable people on this forum …especially those that can teach from their mistakes. How about teaching us?

I routinely dose 2 ml/gal of Met (3 ml/gal equivalent Excel) without any harm to anything. So, I’m guessing it’s not glut. I have turned half of my fish into upside-down swimmers with just slightly elevated H2O2 levels beyond the one-two punch recommendation and did the same thing with too much CO2, too fast. With the H2O2 and CO2, I think O2 deprivation was the main killer – I’ve watched stress develop with both H2O2 and glut until I learned to push the O2 up in advance of these treatments. I also learned that glut kills the moss that grows on your driveway (love experimenting).


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Haha fine...

*Disclaimer - I've used both H2O2 and Excel quite a bit before this. I used to follow the guidelines for dosing amounts, but had found no adverse reactions from going above those levels. So for a while now, whenever I used either product, I paid no attention to how much I was using overall. I just made sure to thoroughly douse whatever algae I was trying to murder.*


I drained my tank about 50% and turned my filters to a trickle. Used a syringe to add ~500ml H2O2 directly to any and all algae I could see. Waited 15 mins. Used a syringe to add I think ~100ml Excel to any and all algae I could see (I'm pretty sure I used my big 100ml syringe and didn't refill it, but I can't really remember for certain). Waited 15 mins. Filled the tank back up and turned the filters back on. I started to put away my cumbersome W/C equipment and when I looked back at the tank one single cardinal was gasping at the surface. I tried to remedy things but within 20 mins my tank was dotted with the white bellies of dead fish stuck in the leaves of all my plants.


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

So, doing some quick calculations (assuming about 47 gals of water in your 55), the 2.2 ml/gal of Excel shouldn't have had any effect ...by itself (I use 3 ml/gal with no issues). However, the 106 ml /10 gals of H2O2 (assuming 3% food grade) is a little over the 30 ml / 10 gal one-two punch recommendation. 

Ahhhhh ...but wait: you drained it down by 50% so, double those dosage numbers I just calculated and compound it with the O2 issue and ...uh oh! Still, I'd bet the glut would have been ok by itself. My bet is that it was the H2O2 that dun 'em in.

The second important lesson still need to be learned: how is the algae?


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

So the Seachem Excel dose after a large water change is 5ml per 10 gallons. So about 25ml into 50 gallons. And you dosed 4 times that amount, and only had about 25 gallons in the tank. 

So that's about 8 times the recommended after water change dose.

Notwithstanding Deanna not expecting a reaction at that level, what you described was just like what I saw when I bumped a bottle and it spilled into the tank. Immediately fish gasping and dying. Trust me that stuff is toxic to fish at the right levels. I speak from experience. 

And I am sure the excess H2O2 didn't help either.

But all that being said, like I said before, mistakes happen, and we learn from them. Bet you won't make that mistake again, and hopefully this saves someone else the same agony by making them more careful. 

You might like this one. Once I cleaned the inside of the tank with a brand new sponge. Within hours fish were dying and gasping. I look at the package for the sponge, and it says right on it "Not for Aquarium Use". It was an antibacterial sponge, and the effect was very quick. 

So like you, hopefully my mistake will save someone from the same agony.


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

@Greggz: Glut is a reducing agent. The gasping fish were likely the result of the Excel removing the O2 from the water. Thus, the need to oxygenate before heavy dosing. In your case, a whole bottle is probably way beyond what MCFC used and not survivable. The H2O2 will instantly burn the gills at high dosing, making respiration nearly impossible. a double whammy.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Deanna said:


> So, doing some quick calculations (assuming about 47 gals of water in your 55), the 2.2 ml/gal of Excel shouldn't have had any effect ...by itself (I use 3 ml/gal with no issues). However, the 106 ml /10 gals of H2O2 (assuming 3% food grade) is a little over the 30 ml / 10 gal one-two punch recommendation.
> 
> Ahhhhh ...but wait: you drained it down by 50% so, double those dosage numbers I just calculated and compound it with the O2 issue and ...uh oh! Still, I'd bet the glut would have been ok by itself. My bet is that it was the H2O2 that dun 'em in.
> 
> The second important lesson still need to be learned: how is the algae?


Probably not important but I upgraded my 55 to a 72 bowfront . I normally assume it's about 60 gallons of water, so I think I added the H2O2 and Excel to ~30 gallons. So:

~3.3ml/gal of Excel (assuming I only used 100ml, could very well have been 200 or 300ml)
~167ml/10 gal of H2O2 :surprise:


The algae is no better off than it was before, but some of that would be because I haven't touched the tank for 2 weeks. I couldn't tell you if there was any improvement shortly after the dosing because I was too focused on the fish, and once I pulled out the last dead one, I just didn't want to look at the tank anymore.




Deanna said:


> The H2O2 will instantly burn the gills at high dosing, making respiration nearly impossible. a double whammy.


This sounds about right


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Deanna said:


> @Greggz: Glut is a reducing agent. The gasping fish were likely the result of the Excel removing the O2 from the water. Thus, the need to oxygenate before heavy dosing. In your case, a whole bottle is probably way beyond what MCFC used and not survivable. The H2O2 will instantly burn the gills at high dosing, making respiration nearly impossible. a double whammy.


Yeah I buy the low oxygen theory. Fish were gasping in seconds.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

When I nuked my CPD's it was the same case, same exact symptoms, drained half the water, sprayed everything down with 3% H2O2, filled tank back up, everyone was gasping so I did 2 x 75% water changes but still lost them all. 

I'm fairly sure we've all (at some point or another) been brainwashed into nothing-will-stop-me algae murdering machines with the only goal of turning every ounce of algae that fantastic red shade of death. It's just so darn easy and satisfying to watch BBA burn with a nice spot treatment, just don't get carried away....


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## jeffkrol (Jun 5, 2013)

Deanna said:


> So, doing some quick calculations (assuming about 47 gals of water in your 55), the 2.2 ml/gal of Excel shouldn't have had any effect ...by itself (I use 3 ml/gal with no issues). However, the 106 ml /10 gals of H2O2 (assuming 3% food grade) is a little over the 30 ml / 10 gal one-two punch recommendation.
> 
> Ahhhhh ...but wait: you drained it down by 50% so, double those dosage numbers I just calculated and compound it with the O2 issue and ...uh oh! Still, I'd bet the glut would have been ok by itself. My bet is that it was the H2O2 that dun 'em in.
> 
> The second important lesson still need to be learned: how is the algae?



Up until last few weeks I would have agreed w/ you though 3ml/gal was too extreme even for me..
I hit the 40b w/ ,at most, 60ml met.. prob more like 45.
Knocked back the ben bac. and killed 3 fish. 2 were unhealthy to begin w. One the golden algae eater was perfectly healthy..


It is causing me to revisit my thinking.

Addendum: Need to add one detail.. This was added after lights out, which isn't my usual procedure..though it has been done in the past but not that quantity.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

jeffkrol said:


> Up until last few weeks I would have agreed w/ you though 3ml/gal was too extreme even for me..
> I hit the 40b w/ ,at most, 60ml met.. prob more like 45.
> Knocked back the ben bac. and killed 3 fish. 2 were unhealthy to begin w. One the golden algae eater was perfectly healthy..
> 
> ...


I was fortunate that I documented in my journal how much met 14I was dosing and that I had a cloudy water spike and Burr noted that Iwas likely killing off my BB. Could have been a disaster. Thanks agai !

I think this goes to show it's good to be transparent and share not only our known mistakes, but what we are up to at the current time in our journals. This give at least the opportunity for the voices of experience to chime in and help. Also, this site tends to be mostly respectful and helpful, so I don't let the few bad eggs ruin my experience with the community at large. 

Keep on learning and progressing forward (even with some steps back!!).


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

jeffkrol said:


> Up until last few weeks I would have agreed w/ you though 3ml/gal was too extreme even for me..
> I hit the 40b w/ ,at most, 60ml met.. prob more like 45.
> Knocked back the ben bac. and killed 3 fish. 2 were unhealthy to begin w. One the golden algae eater was perfectly healthy..
> 
> ...


Probably some nuances involved. Consider these possibilities/attributes:

- That was 3ml/gal Excel, 2ml/gal Met.
- I do this on a one-time only basis, maybe once a week. Daily would be deadly.
- Never saw an NH3 spike or cloudiness. So, assumed BB were fine with the single heavy doses. Could the cloudiness be decaying matter? Did you get an NH3 spike?
- I do the dosing in AM. Glut becomes deadlier at pH > 7.0 (that's why we throw out the activator). CO2 off at night may be the reason you saw the problem.
- Did you increase oxygenation before dosing?


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## Wobblebonk (Feb 13, 2018)

Afaik he got a NO2 spike which to me indicates a mini cycle. Though decreased oxygen also inhibits the ammonia -> nitrite bacterial activity. Probably a little bit of both. Also the dead fish overnight probably contributed a bit to the spike.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Well, onward and upward, hopefully 

I've switched to dry dosing my Macros. I'm not a fan of the mold in the solution.

I also mixed my 3rd (4th?) batch of Burr's micros. My last batch ended up developing a sludge on the bottom. I've been using the same glass jar and syringe to do my micro dosing since when I was using CSM+B. I tried to "sterilize" the jar before making the last mix, but I'm still doing something wrong. I feel like it has to do with me putting the syringe into the tank water every time I dose. I think this is leading to some tank water getting into my mix when I go to grab the next day's dose. Probably not ideal...


Currently debating what my next step is going to be: 

- There's a 4ft 120 gallon for sale around me at a really good price. I'm a little sick of the bowfrontedness of my tank, and recently I've noticed a strange algae that looks like it's growing from the seams, which look raised in places. I think that's a good enough excuse for a larger tank, no? 

or

- Buy a RO system


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

I would think the little tank water is what is causing your issue. For my micros, also the Burr custom, I use a pump bottle. It's an amber 500mL glass and each pump is about 1.25 mL. Amazon. 

As for the 120... I want one bad... but not sure if I like where I have to keep my tank. I run parallel to the floor joists, though in the corner on two load bearing outside walls. 120 is a lot of weight. If you can do it I say why not!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

MCFC said:


> I feel like it has to do with me putting the syringe into the tank water every time I dose. I think this is leading to some tank water getting into my mix when I go to grab the next day's dose. Probably not ideal...


Why do you put the syringe into the tank??

I keep mine in an old fashioned mustard squeeze bottle. For me measure out 20ml, which I have marked on a common medicine ml dosing cup.


MCFC said:


> Currently debating what my next step is going to be:
> 
> - There's a 4ft 120 gallon for sale around me at a really good price. I'm a little sick of the bowfrontedness of my tank, and recently I've noticed a strange algae that looks like it's growing from the seams, which look raised in places. I think that's a good enough excuse for a larger tank, no?
> 
> ...


Go for the 120G. Having more room for plants is a good thing. 

And an RO system depends on your source water. If it's decent enough, not much need. 

P.S. Love the progression from quitting the hobby to getting a bigger tank!!

You clearly have what it takes!!!:wink2::wink2:


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## Deanna (Feb 15, 2017)

MCFC said:


> I've switched to dry dosing my Macros. I'm not a fan of the mold in the solution.


You could add ascorbic acid (1g / 1000ml) as an antioxidant and potassium sorbate (.4g / 1000ml) as a mold inhibitor to your solutions.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Greggz said:


> Why do you put the syringe into the tank??
> 
> I keep mine in an old fashioned mustard squeeze bottle. For me measure out 20ml, which I have marked on a common medicine ml dosing cup.


I like to use a syringe with a few inches of airline tubing attached. I guess I liked to dip the airline tubing into the tank to get a more even dispersion throughout the tank. I never really thought about it too much until my latest issues with the micros. 

Here's my current solution (pun intended  ):



Tubing stays in the micro mix and I'm going to make sure to keep the syringe out of the tank water. 

I was previously mixing into 2L of distilled water with ~20ml vinegar and dosing 30ml. That should last about 2.5 months. 

I'm now mixing into 1L of distilled with 1g of ascorbic acid and dosing 25ml. That should last about 1.5 months. 

We'll see how it goes. 




Greggz said:


> Go for the 120G. Having more room for plants is a good thing.
> 
> And an RO system depends on your source water. If it's decent enough, not much need.


I don't think my tap is too terrible for a planted tank, but I'm really interested in getting into breeding shrimp, especially caridinas. So I think an RO system would be a good investment, and it can't hurt to remove a few more unknowns when it comes to this main tank, maybe  

While I've got you, do you mind getting into your RO setup a bit more (or helping me find it in your journal  )? 

From what I can tell I can buy a ~$150 4 stage RODI unit that does 50gpd on Amazon. It would hook up with what is essentially airline tubing to my house's water supply. How do I go about doing that? And then it's going to output both RODI water and waste water. Can I have the waste water go back into my house's water supply or do I have to put it somewhere, like a reservoir or drained onto my lawn?




Greggz said:


> P.S. Love the progression from quitting the hobby to getting a bigger tank!!
> 
> You clearly have what it takes!!!:wink2::wink2:


Go big or go home? >




Deanna said:


> You could add ascorbic acid (1g / 1000ml) as an antioxidant and potassium sorbate (.4g / 1000ml) as a mold inhibitor to your solutions.


Just tried the ascorbic acid in my micro mix for the first time. Maybe I'll grab some potassium sorbate and try a macro solution again. Thanks for the tip!



And some pics just for fun!

Messing around with a cholla forest




Just turned 2 years old on Wednesday


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Potassium sorbate will stop the macros from molding in solution


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

MCFC said:


> While I've got you, do you mind getting into your RO setup a bit more (or helping me find it in your journal  )?
> 
> From what I can tell I can buy a ~$150 4 stage RODI unit that does 50gpd on Amazon. It would hook up with what is essentially airline tubing to my house's water supply. How do I go about doing that? And then it's going to output both RODI water and waste water. Can I have the waste water go back into my house's water supply or do I have to put it somewhere, like a reservoir or drained onto my lawn?


Much of what you are asking depends on your home. I set up my system in a storage room in the basement. Tapping into water line depends on where the unit is. If it's under a sink, most systems come with a feed water adapter. In my basement, I tapped into a copper pipe in the ceiling (tap in just like water line going to your ice maker).

As to waste water, again depends on your situation. I'm on a well, and just have it go into a drain in the basement. It would not go back into home's water supply. If water is scarce or expensive, you could store it and use it for watering lawns/plants.

But you do need to put this into perspective. The average household of 4 people uses about 2500 gallons of water per week. How much RO water will you be making? Probably not much impact for most people.

Here's a link to my set up in my journal. Basically using two 55 gallon drums for storage. Water is kept moving with aeration and circulation pumps in the storage tanks. I pump the water up through the wall to the tank, and pump down the water change water to a drain in the basement. 

I also run the RO into my kitchen. So have a tap there and also goes to ice maker. 

Hope that helps. But like I said, the setup really depends on your specific home's layout. 

https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/12-tank-journals/1020497-greggz-120g-rainbow-fish-tank-camera-pro-mode-settings-8-12-2018-a-16.html


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Greggz said:


> If water is scarce or expensive, you could store it and use it for watering lawns/plants.


In my left-leaning, super "green" province, household water is free haha! 




Greggz said:


> But you do need to put this into perspective. The average household of 4 people uses about 2500 gallons of water per week. How much RO water will you be making? Probably not much impact for most people.


Very true! But since I'm going to be setting this system up from scratch, I'd still hate to deliberately design it to waste xx gallons of water/week. Ideally I'd be able to send the waste water outside to my rain water pool in the summer but divert it down my drain once the winter comes. I guess I'll have to do a little more planning 




Greggz said:


> Water is kept moving with aeration and circulation pumps in the storage tanks. I pump the water up through the wall to the tank, and pump down the water change water to a drain in the basement.


Do you need both the air pump and circulation pump? Do you know if I could stack two of those 55 gal drums on top of each other? And do you have a link to your demand pump?

This is my current list of things I think I'll need and some rough guesses on prices. Am I missing anything?


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

MCFC said:


> Do you need both the air pump and circulation pump? Do you know if I could stack two of those 55 gal drums on top of each other? And do you have a link to your demand pump?
> 
> This is my current list of things I think I'll need and some rough guesses on prices. Am I missing anything?


Are you going to be using this to supply water to the kitchen as well? 

The reason I ask is because a demand pump is not the same thing as the pump used to pump water from the holding tanks to the aquarium. A demand pump is used to increase the flow when turning on the RO faucet in the kitchen. 

Probably don't need both the air pump and circulation pumps. I already had the circulation pumps, and like the idea of keeping the water moving and mixing in the MgSO4/CaSO4/K2CO3. But really just the air pumps would probably be more than adequate. 

I don't see a way to stack the drums, at least the ones that I have. Plus you need to access them from time to time. With mine, I can take the lids off as I need to. I also cut holes in the lids to allow for the pumps and dosing. 

Let me know what the set up will be, and I will be glad to help. I actually still have the list of every single item I ended up ordering, but you might not need/want everything.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Greggz said:


> Are you going to be using this to supply water to the kitchen as well?
> 
> The reason I ask is because a demand pump is not the same thing as the pump used to pump water from the holding tanks to the aquarium. A demand pump is used to increase the flow when turning on the RO faucet in the kitchen.


The RODI water will be purely for fish and shrimp tanks. - Quick Question - Do I really need the DI part or is just a RO unit fine? 

I was initially thinking of setting it up in the basement and trying to pump the water up a level, like you. 

I thought a demand pump was essentially one you didn't have to turn on and off. You can just leave it plugged it and it'll auto shut off as soon as it feels back pressure. So instead of having to be in the basement to turn the pump on and off, I could just set up a ball valve near the tank and use it to "turn on" the pump. 

I've now changed my plans. I think I'm going to try and set it all up in my kitchen, close to my tanks. It likely won't be pretty, but I live alone so I've got no one to impress . And with my RODI water being close to my tanks (and at a slightly higher level), I should be able to get by with a lot less powerful (read: expensive :grin2 pump. 

Under sink



Kitchen and tanks




The drain line from my sink is currently leaking a bit. I'm hoping when I get a plumber to come in to fix that he can also hook something up that I can use to drain my waste water in the winter. 

I'm planning on using this on multiple tanks, so I don't think I can set up the dedicated drain and fill lines like you did for your tank @Greggz. I think I'll just attach my 20' dishwasher hose to a pump inside one of the 55 gal drums and just clamp the end of the hose into whatever tank I'm messing with at the moment. 

I will still have to drain the tanks into my big trash bin, wheel the bin over to the window, and then pump the waste water out into my rain water pool :frown2:. 




Greggz said:


> mixing in the MgSO4/CaSO4/K2CO3.


Is there a reason you use K2CO3 and not NaHCO3? 


My revised item/cost list:



Edit: it looks like you're using one of these, and this @Greggz. Do you think I should use them too?


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

MCFC said:


> The RODI water will be purely for fish and shrimp tanks. - Quick Question - Do I really need the DI part or is just a RO unit fine?


You don't want or need DI, just regular RO. 



MCFC said:


> I thought a demand pump was essentially one you didn't have to turn on and off. You can just leave it plugged it and it'll auto shut off as soon as it feels back pressure. So instead of having to be in the basement to turn the pump on and off, I could just set up a ball valve near the tank and use it to "turn on" the pump.


Yeah but an RO demand pump is using RO 1/4" water lines, which are small and it would take forever. I have a 1/4HP submersible utility pump inside one of the holding tanks, which make short work of filling the tank.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000X05G1A/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1



MCFC said:


> Is there a reason you use K2CO3 and not NaHCO3?


I chose K2CO3 because I didn't want to add the sodium from the NaHCO3. It's one of the reasons I got an RO system, to remove sodium from my softened well water.




MCFC said:


> My revised item/cost list:


You are going to need to couple together the drums. I used a flexible Uniseal tank adapter.
https://www.amazon.com/UNISEAL-Flexible-Tank-Adapter-Bulkhead/dp/B072MPV222/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1534896279&sr=8-3&keywords=1%2F2%27%27+UNISEAL+Flexible+Adapter+%282%29

And you will need a float valve for the tank, so the RO unit shuts off when the tanks are full.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0030065YW/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1





MCFC said:


> Edit: it looks like you're using one of these, and this @Greggz. Do you think I should use them too?


Pressure gauge only if you have questionable water pressure. I'm on a well, with fairly low water pressure, so I use a pump to increase the pressure and like to see the working pressure. 

TDS meter is a good idea, as it let's you know the system is working, and let's you know when maybe it's time to change the filters.

And you may or may not need the heaters. My tanks are in a basement storage room, so the water is usually in the mid sixties. I have the heaters on a timer, and they turn on Friday afternoon so the water is heated by Saturday morning. But I only heat the water to 72*. Sure it cools the tank a bit, but really that is no big deal. If my stored water was in the 70's, I wouldn't use heaters at all.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

*will add pics later, can’t do it from my phone*

Well 1,700km of smoke filled roads (just over 1000 miles for y’all Yanks  ) and a day and a half later, I’ve got myself a new (to me) 120 gallon tank! And it’s the 4’ x 2’ footprint, so I’m super chuffed !! 

I bought two new bags of pfs to make up for the extra space, but I’m wondering if I should just go with all new substrate?? The sand in my tank now is one of my major headaches. The BGA just drives me nuts, even though it’s so minimal and often hard to see. But I don’t know how much of that I can blame on that specific sand. Either way I’ll have some rinsing to do haha. 
@Greggz - I’m sure I’ll have some more questions for you when I can sit down at home and take a look at my spreadsheet , but I’ve just got a quick one for now:

In the pic under my sink, I don’t know why I labelled one line hot and the other cold. Thinking about it now, wouldn’t it make more sense for the hot to be running to the dishwasher? And I assume I want to run cold to the RO unit, not hot? Thanks!! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

MCFC said:


> @Greggz - I’m sure I’ll have some more questions for you when I can sit down at home and take a look at my spreadsheet , but I’ve just got a quick one for now:
> 
> In the pic under my sink, I don’t know why I labelled one line hot and the other cold. Thinking about it now, wouldn’t it make more sense for the hot to be running to the dishwasher? And I assume I want to run cold to the RO unit, not hot? Thanks!!
> 
> ...


Yeah cold water for sure. And you will not put a "tee" into the line.

The RO system will come with an adapter that connects to the flexible line that goes up to your faucet. Like this:


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Can you recommend which RO unit to go with @Greggz? There are so many, at so many price points, I'm not really sure which one to get. I'd like to keep it <$250 if I can. These are the ones I've come across so far:

Aquatic Life 3 stage
Aquatic Life 4 stage (cheaper than the 3 stage of the same model)
Geekpure 5 stage
Hikins 5 stage
HydroLogic 3 stage (cheaper to buy in US and pay shipping and duties than to buy in Canada haha)

I assume more stages = more $ when it comes to replacing filters, so I think I want to go with the fewest I can. But then again, I don't know what I'm doing haha. Thanks for any help!!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

MCFC said:


> Can you recommend which RO unit to go with @Greggz?


I'm no expert on RO systems. When I researched them, after a while they all begin to look alike. 

It appears there are lots of brands that look be pretty much the same exact thing, just labeled differently.

In my case, I am on a well, and we also use the system to feed the kitchen for drinking water. So I went with a 6 stage system, which includes a remineralization/alkaline filter. It adds back some minerals, which makes the drinking water taste better.

If you will not be producing drinking water, you wouldn't need it. I would probably go with a five stage system. If you are going to all the trouble to set it up, might as well. The brand I use is Ispring, but like I said, they are all similar. The RO filter itself makes the biggest difference, as to how many gallons per hour it can make. If you are changing water once a week, doesn't really matter much, you will make plenty.

You also need to look at your water pressure. Most require 40 PSI minimum, and 60+ is much better. I use a booster pump to increase pressure to 80 psi. 

The bigger questions are how you will store the water, then get it to the tank. Remember if you are filling a storage container, you will need a float valve to turn the unit on/off. 

Let me know if you have any other questions once you choose a system.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Greggz said:


> Yeah but an RO demand pump is using RO 1/4" water lines, which are small and it would take forever. I have a 1/4HP submersible utility pump inside one of the holding tanks, which make short work of filling the tank.





Greggz said:


> The bigger questions are how you will store the water, then get it to the tank. Remember if you are filling a storage container, you will need a float valve to turn the unit on/off.




I feel like I don't need anything too substantial to handle those kind of numbers. I was planning on essentially making a quick connect fitting at the top of the one 55 gal drum so that I can attach that white hose (hanging on the railing) whenever I want to fill a tank with water. Won't be the prettiest setup when I'm filling but I think it's better than running a bunch of hose along the walls haha. I'm certainly open to suggestions though, as I'm no master plumber! 

Do you know if I can put a ball valve somewhere closer to the tanks so that I can control the flow when filling the smaller tanks? Or would that put strain on the pump's motor?

The actual 55 gal drums I'm going to use can be found here. I'm going with the ones with removable lids. 

I ordered this float valve. This TDS meter. And this RO unit. 

Any idea what kind of tubing I should use to go from the RO unit to my storage drums? 



Greggz said:


> You are going to need to couple together the drums. I used a flexible Uniseal tank adapter.


I've got some of those laying around from my attempt at aquaponics 



Greggz said:


> And you may or may not need the heaters. My tanks are in a basement storage room, so the water is usually in the mid sixties. I have the heaters on a timer, and they turn on Friday afternoon so the water is heated by Saturday morning. But I only heat the water to 72*. Sure it cools the tank a bit, but really that is no big deal. If my stored water was in the 70's, I wouldn't use heaters at all.


I live in the north of Canada haha. Mid sixties is toasty in the winter :crying:. I might be able to get by without the heaters for a month in the summer. 



Greggz said:


> You also need to look at your water pressure. Most require 40 PSI minimum, and 60+ is much better. I use a booster pump to increase pressure to 80 psi.


Do you know of a convenient way for me to check my pressure?

Thanks for all the help!! :grin2:


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

MCFC said:


> Do you know if I can put a ball valve somewhere closer to the tanks so that I can control the flow
> 
> when filling the smaller tanks? Or would that put strain on the pump's motor?


No I wouldn't use a ball valve. You could use a remote AC switch like this. I would have but I just hard wired my pump to a switch by the tank.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JECR4XA/ref=dp_prsubs_1


MCFC said:


> The actual 55 gal drums I'm going to use can be found here. I'm going with the ones with removable lids.
> 
> I ordered this float valve. This TDS meter. And this RO unit.
> 
> Any idea what kind of tubing I should use to go from the RO unit to my storage drums?


All looks good. Any RO water tubing like below. Just need to find in a length close to what you need. I needed a lot.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KYL1PD6/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1




MCFC said:


> Do you know of a convenient way for me to check my pressure?
> 
> Thanks for all the help!! :grin2:


I use one of these on the line feeding the RO system. Or you can get one that screws onto a hose bib or water heater drain for about $10.00 at the hardware store.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VUXD7ZG/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

Greggz said:


> No I wouldn't use a ball valve. You could use a remote AC switch like this. I would have but I just hard wired my pump to a switch by the tank.


The ball valve wouldn't be to turn the flow on and off really, more just to dampen it for my smaller tanks. I can attach the outflow pointed towards the top of my 120 and let it blast away without much worry. The same kind of flow in my ~8 gallon betta tank would be disastrous!! 

I was thinking something like this: 






Greggz said:


> I use one of these on the line feeding the RO system. Or you can get one that screws onto a hose bib or water heater drain for about $10.00 at the hardware store.


I'm on city water so should have decent pressure. Can I just hook it all up and see how many gallons per day it's making? And if it's well short of what it's supposed to do, then look at the pressure? 




Friggin frick! I just can't keep any of my fert solutions from going moldy. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I added ascorbic acid to the mix. I stopped introducing tank water. There is a small air hole in the lid of the container. Could that be the issue? 

I've even ordered most of my micros from @burr740. The only one that is different is my chelated iron. I use this stuff. Could it be the issue?





I'm just had some potassium sorbate delivered so that I can try it @Deanna's and @burr740's suggestions.


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

The new tank (should I start a new journal or just update the title of this one?):



(Please excuse the mess in my garage. I've been storing a bunch of stuff for friends and they are now coming to collect some items. So it's all just in big piles haha)








Anybody try this?


Leak testing








For a different project :grin2: :


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## jfish043 (Jan 13, 2017)

Nice


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## MCFC (Feb 12, 2017)

MCFC said:


> should I start a new journal or just update the title of this one?



My laziness has answered my own question for me. When transitioning from the 72 to the 120 I put all my plants into two big garbage bins of tank water. I figured 24hrs in there wouldn't hurt, 48hrs at most. Well, over 2 weeks later...





Quite a bit of carnage. The myrio and hygro did fairly well. Same with the crypt. The bulb types will be fine (madagasgar lace, lily, lagenandra, crinium). I'm hoping to salvage some AR mini, some L. 'super red', and some bacopa. Pretty much everything else went in the trash. 

So that seems like a pretty fitting end to this journal. It was the first one I've ever done. I've learned quite a bit along the way, and have a long way still to go, but I'm excited to try and take my 120 to the next level. 



8 months later...


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