# Green Acres, 80 gal high tech



## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Heya folks,

After six months of treatment and neglecting the tank, I'm back. Sort of. The first two regimens didn't work so we're gearing up for the third, and final, option. It's going to be seriously rough so there's no telling when or how often I'll be updating the thread once that gets going. In the meantime I may as well start one while I'm on sitting on my butt at home all day. The concept of the aquascape is super simple: use only the plants I had on hand and farm them for a future aquascape. After the different trials since starting the system back in October of 2016 I think I've finally settled on a hardscape arrangement that's going to work well. It's fairly low and open, which allows good circulation and ease of access. 

The final goal is to get the tank set up in a final arrangement similar to this, but with the hardscape moved forward and to the left a little bit to make room for stems in the rear and get the wood in a place that accentuates the focal point in the back. Right now it's just an inch or so too far to the right and the middle upright branch is at the 1/3 point rather than the notch between it and the rightmost branch. When doing the rearrangement the Anubias is going to be taken off the wood and used for the midground. It's too overpowering as it stands, buuuut, being up in the water column and heavy circulation is best for growth and a lot of them are strongly attached. Once the wood's "clean" it's going to get a light moss covering with perhaps some Bolbitis or a little bit of Anubias in select places. I'd prefer not to use the Anubias as it's really hard to get any moss that intergrows down under the leaves and is nigh impossible to remove without serious measures. It eventually covers the Anubias and is generally a royal PITA. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. The whole system needs to be as simple to care for as possible as one of my coworkers will be caring for it while I'm away getting nuked. He's done maintenance professionally for a long time, but doesn't have experience with a tank of this tech level. Funny to hear that from an experienced high end reefer.  

To that end I've reached waaaaaaay back into the recesses of my mind and resurrected the regimen I used on the old 90 gallon discus tank. I've also added 12 or so juvenile cherry shrimp that were living in a small tank I'd set up for breeding, but ended up killing their parents. They're doing pretty well so far and I'd like to get more so stability is key. They're doing well with the current regimen so I'll be sticking to it unless plant or shrimp health issues come up. I'm not chasing concentration numbers and have no idea what the water chemistry really is. The regimen is based on past experience and empirical concentration calculations. With the relatively low light I can get away with lower concentrations and less frequent dosing. Love it.  The CO2 input rate is a bit on the high side, but I wanted to make sure there was plenty of oxygen so I took the seal off the sump. The idea is to inject it more along the lines of a diffuser rather than a super efficient sealed system. The gas goes into the sump via the Cerges, gets pumped into the tank, and what degasses, degasses just like bubbles not getting dissolved when using a diffuser. Hakuna Matata!

*Current stats:*
80 gallon Deep Blue Professional 48x24x16
Light- Agrobrite 6 bulb fixture running 2x 54w T5HO for 10hrs/day *CHANGED to 6hrs/day* to prep for being gone for 3.5 months in the near future.
CO2- approx. 9 bubbles/sec; concentration? I have no idea
KH- No idea! 1/2 tsp of baking soda is added after water changes. This used to get me up to 3dKH when I lived 30 min away in Charlotte and the water here is from the same supply.
Water changes- 50% 1x/wk
KNO3- 3/4 tsp 2x/wk Sun and Thurs *CHANGED to 3x/wk M, W, F*
KH2PO4- approx. 1/16 tsp 2x/wk *CHANGED to 3x/wk M, W, F*
Ca- via Brightwell Calcion liquid; 40mL (approx. 20ppm) after water changes
Mg- via Brightwell Magnesion liquid; 20mL (approx. 5ppm) after water changes *CHANGED to 2x/week* as the plants were getting rather pale
Fe- via Brightwell Ferrion liquid; 10mL (approx 0.1ppm) 1-2x/wk as appears to be needed. *CHANGED to no dosing* as the trace mix seems to be adding enough.
Traces- CSM+B. One tiny (1/32 tsp?) former test reagent scoop 1x/wk. May increase frequency to an extra scoop per week if plants show serious problems. 

I have plans to get a Dash, Pinch, and Smidge (1/16, 1/32 and 1/64tsp) measuring spoon set sometime in the nearish future to dose P and traces in this tank and ferts in a 12g I've got in the works.

*Hardscape:*
Spiderwood and rip-rap from a nearby creek. 

*Plants:*
A. nana 'Petite' - Aqvinnova TC
C. cordata - Dennerle TC
C. wendtii 'Tropica' -Aqvinnova TC
C. retrospiralis 
C. costata 'Green' - Aqvinnova TC
L. meeboldi 'Pink' 
Java Moss 
M. pteropus 'Trident' 
S. repens
E. pusillis "Mini Hairgrass" - Dennerle TC
H. pinnatifida
A. repens 'Lila' - Dennerle TC
L. aromatica
Nymphaea somespeciesoranothercan'trememberatthemoment

*Livestock:*
1 Amano shrimp named Takashi who lives in the overflow, 1 Otto named Lucky who's the last surviving member of his crew, 12 little cherry shrimp, and a boatload of pest snails. Anyone know how to kill snails in a tank with shrimp? Loaches aren't an option.

Please forgive the quality of the plants. They'd been living under "benign neglect" conditions for some time and got a serious root pruning prior to replanting. The Crypts have been especially pissed off with me and are in full on protest mode.














































Merry Christmas everyone!
Phil


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## dito147 (Jan 19, 2017)

awesome tank!


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## Williak (Jun 26, 2012)

Looking good Phil, happy to see it back!!

I am considering switching my 80 over to the overflow/sump. Liking the arrangement and open space alot, can't wait to see more!


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

What a great looking tank! The anubias on the driftwood looks picture perfect. I wish you all the best. I am working on a PhD in cellular and molecular biology with a focus on oncology. The University of South Florida has a fantastic partnership with Moffit which specializes in cancer treatment and research. My mother made it 25 amazing years after she was given a terminal cancer prognosis. I’ll be praying for you


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil great to hear from you. I have been wondering how you have been doing. Myself and I am sure many others here will keep you in their prayers.

And the tank looks great. Very well done.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Looks nice, man. Glad to hear from you. Looking forward to the updates, and good luck with round three. Third time's the charm!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Williak said:


> Looking good Phil, happy to see it back!!
> 
> I am considering switching my 80 over to the overflow/sump. Liking the arrangement and open space alot, can't wait to see more!


If you have any questions I'm more than happy to answer and/or discuss them here. I'd say talk about it over on your thread, but I'd prefer to post the pictures here so we can discuss the whole system etc for context.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Greggz said:


> Phil great to hear from you. I have been wondering how you have been doing. Myself and I am sure many others here will keep you in their prayers.
> 
> And the tank looks great. Very well done.


Thanks Greg. I did the hardscape partly blind when the water was all cloudy from uprooting all the plants, hence the need to tweak it a bit. You'd once said that it was clear I had a vision for the first go-round. I've got another one this time, but it needs some time and renovation of the hardscape. My OCD kicks in hard every time I look at it. I want very much to redo it to get that focal point right, but the plants need time to recover and grow after months of semi-neglect and rough treatment during the rescape. Having it in my face all day, every day is killing me! HAHAHA

Thank you for the prayers. I, and my whole family, need them. The past six months have been a trial and the next six promise to be even more so. Once all the chemo's done I still face open chest surgery to remove the dead tumor tissue. 

The GREAT thing is I have almost no hair anywhere anymore. I feel like a younger man if you can consider a 13 year old a man. HAHAHAHAHA Talk about easy to keep clean and not having to shave? It's WONDERFUL!



burr740 said:


> Looks nice, man. Glad to hear from you. Looking forward to the updates, and good luck with round three. Third time's the charm!


Thanks Joe! It's good to have a reason to be back. Visiting the forums when I "don't really" have a tank going is like putting salt on a wound. Being here makes me want to do things that I really shouldn't. It was bad enough having multiple aquascaping and planted aquarium groups on my FB feed all the time. I almost had to stop following some for a while. On top of that, chemo does weird things to the brain so I haven't been thinking as clearly as normal, which makes it a bit hard to answer questions etc. I judged the AGA with "chemo brain" if that makes you feel more confident of your 1st place ranking. LOLOLOLOLOLOL! 

This third time had better be the charm! The first two regimens were what one might call "normal chemo", as in they're regimens that, while harsh, are typical and fairly easy to withstand all things considered. This third one is basically global thermonuclear war except playing is the only way to win. The premise is to first stimulate my bone marrow to eject stem cells into the bloodstream, harvest them, then inject me with a concentration of chemo that would normally kill me and will kill the marrow, then reinject the stem cells and regenerate the marrow. It's essentially a "kill the cancer before we kill Phil" deal. I think I need to make a video of all this and call it Kill Phil vol. 3. What do you think?

@The Dude1 Look up autologous stem cell transplant. That's the procedure we have to look forward to. Your scientific brain may find it interesting.

Phil Edwards, last surviving member of the Nostromo, signing out.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

And now for something completely different! (posted with permission of the author)

Bart Laurens' English article on Dutch aquascaping. It's a very informative read and would personally consider it to be the current defining English language reference. I also point you to Christel Kasselmann's "Planted Aquariums: Creation and Maintenance". It's an older text, but is full of useful and helpful information as well.

Dutch Style Aquarium. | Bart Laurens


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

12.29.17 small update-

One of my daily activities is counting how many shrimp I can see in my tank. Given my history of shrimp genocide, any time I don't see corpses I'm happy. Any time I see multiple of the little buggers living happily in the tank I'm very happy. So far I've counted eight out of what I estimate to be the twelve I originally put in there. The tank's HUGE relative to their sub-adult selves so I'm hoping the "if you see one, there are more hiding in there" rule applies and all of them are still blissfully living out their lives in their 8 cu. ft. condo. What's prompted me to post this update is at least one of the females is starting to make eggs. This may be the first time I've had an F2 generation in one of my tanks. The last time I successfully kept a population of Cherries in a tank was 10 years ago and I didn't keep track of how many generations there were. As long as they live and can find each other to mate, we'll have a very happy Phil when the little ones arrive. 

Water quality update- I added another 10ppm Ca, 2ppm Mg, and 5ppm K via liquids as the plants were showing signs of deficiency and a shrimp expert I got advice from said I should increase GH. So there we go, the current news on the tank. 

Thanks for watching,
Phil


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

For the longest time I did t be same thing with Neons, Cardinals, and Rummynose. I still do although not as fanatically. 
I tried to do carbon Rili in the 11.4 before the Gertrudes, but one by one they would disappear. Once you see one berried you're in a pretty good spot!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Counted nine this morning with one very saddled female and a successful molt. The coloration on all of them is really starting to shine as well. Small victories and all that.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Are you feeding them? I dont know much about shrimp but mine do infinitely better when I feed them well instead of letting them rely on biofilm or whatever


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

There are so few of them in there right now that they've got more natural food than they can eat. Even if all 12 are still alive, they've got about 12.5 square feet of surface area to feed from counting the substrate and leaf and wood surfaces. Once there maybe 50 or so more in there then yes, I'll have to start feeding them. Thankfully I know a lady who knows a lady who keeps a lot of different kinds of shrimp and has food. I'll need to get a population of MTS going before all that so the pest snail population doesn't explode like it did months ago as well as risking secondary pests. Bottom feeding fish are out of the question due to the destruction the last ones wreaked.


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Phil Edwards said:


> There are so few of them in there right now that they've got more natural food than they can eat. Even if all 12 are still alive, they've got about 12.5 square feet of surface area to feed from counting the substrate and leaf and wood surfaces. Once there maybe 50 or so more in there then yes, I'll have to start feeding them. Thankfully I know a lady who knows a lady who keeps a lot of different kinds of shrimp and has food. I'll need to get a population of MTS going before all that so the pest snail population doesn't explode like it did months ago as well as risking secondary pests. Bottom feeding fish are out of the question due to the destruction the last ones wreaked.


Back when I had my highly successful colony of RCS I settled on much longer photo periods and fed very sparingly. Once I had hundreds I would split up a single algae tab every 2 or 3 days. I didn't have fish in that tank, but I had a good population of Ramshorn snails. That was the most successful self sustaining tank I ever owned. I went several months without water changes and noted that there was more prolific breeding... 
I started with about 20 or 25. Fed a small amount daily and manually removed what was left an hour or so later.. weekly water changes.. shorter photo periods... it was like the tank contradicted every accepted guideline to which we adhere.
I even removed eggs from Corys and Angels and dropped them in there and pretty quickly had to scramble to find homes for all of them.


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## Ben Belton (Dec 12, 2008)

If you need plants, I might can send a few in 2-3 weeks. I don't have much. I would send out Tuesday, but this crazy cold we are having is preventing it, and my tiny tank is desperate for a trim. The plants have covered the top of the water and are blotting out the light. I can't wait until it warms back up. I'll should have some soon after it is warm enough to ship though. Lemme know.

Ben


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

The Dude1 said:


> Back when I had my highly successful colony of RCS I settled on much longer photo periods and fed very sparingly. Once I had hundreds I would split up a single algae tab every 2 or 3 days. I didn't have fish in that tank, but I had a good population of Ramshorn snails. That was the most successful self sustaining tank I ever owned. I went several months without water changes and noted that there was more prolific breeding...
> I started with about 20 or 25. Fed a small amount daily and manually removed what was left an hour or so later.. weekly water changes.. shorter photo periods... it was like the tank contradicted every accepted guideline to which we adhere.
> I even removed eggs from Corys and Angels and dropped them in there and pretty quickly had to scramble to find homes for all of them.


Thanks for the anecdote. I always appreciate hearing others' experiences. If I were honest with myself, the current goal is still to keep them alive over the long term. Of course, any breeding activity is cause for excitement too. With so little going on in the tank and not allowing myself to make any significant changes to the aquascape, the only thing to get excited about is the shrimp. Not that that's a bad thing though.  My new challenge/learning opportunity is keeping shrimp in a full tilt planted tank. That being said, this is a pretty low key system for being "full tilt". The real challenge is going to come when more stems are added and the water chemistry gets to be a bit more dynamic over the course of the week. 



Ben Belton said:


> If you need plants, I might can send a few in 2-3 weeks. I don't have much. I would send out Tuesday, but this crazy cold we are having is preventing it, and my tiny tank is desperate for a trim. The plants have covered the top of the water and are blotting out the light. I can't wait until it warms back up. I'll should have some soon after it is warm enough to ship though. Lemme know.
> Ben


I don't really *need* new plants, but I won't say no either. The mass of Crypts on the left side is getting fairly monolithic and I'd like to break it up visually. Pop me a message when you're ready and we'll chat. I agree, it's been pretty cold down here too.


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

This tank is going to look so incredible. The happy hordes of shrimp that you will be able to maintain in here are going to look awesome and keep the flora looking amazing. Are you considering a nano fish or any schooling fish?


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

The Dude1 said:


> This tank is going to look so incredible. The happy hordes of shrimp that you will be able to maintain in here are going to look awesome and keep the flora looking amazing. Are you considering a nano fish or any schooling fish?


Thanks for the faith in the future. If the planned renovation goes as expected, then I think it will turn out to be a nice tank. If not, well, we'll just have to wait and see. A lot has to happen before I can get on that though so it will be some time. Many things will depend on the upcoming treatment schedule, which we'll know more about after my appointment on the 4th. As for fish, I'm still up in the air. I'm leaning toward Pseudomugils as they're my favorite small fish. Which species or mix of species will depend on pricing, availability, and my ability to maintain the tank. Small Rasboras could be cool, but the cost of getting what I'd need for a tank with this much area could be cost prohibitive. A friend has offered to help me get an order done when the time comes which will help with the availability issue. I may go with tetras too depending on what the tank looks like when fully renovated and grown out. Thankfully I've got nothing but time to figure out what would look best and what I'd really want. It's just going to be a shrimp (and snail  ) tank for the foreseeable future. I've never had issues keeping any kind of plant appropriate fish so I'm using this time to challenge myself and overcome the difficulties I've had keeping shrimp.


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Phil Edwards said:


> Thanks for the faith in the future. If the planned renovation goes as expected, then I think it will turn out to be a nice tank. If not, well, we'll just have to wait and see. A lot has to happen before I can get on that though so it will be some time. Many things will depend on the upcoming treatment schedule, which we'll know more about after my appointment on the 4th. As for fish, I'm still up in the air. I'm leaning toward Pseudomugils as they're my favorite small fish. Which species or mix of species will depend on pricing, availability, and my ability to maintain the tank. Small Rasboras could be cool, but the cost of getting what I'd need for a tank with this much area could be cost prohibitive. A friend has offered to help me get an order done when the time comes which will help with the availability issue. I may go with tetras too depending on what the tank looks like when fully renovated and grown out. Thankfully I've got nothing but time to figure out what would look best and what I'd really want. It's just going to be a shrimp (and snail  ) tank for the foreseeable future. I've never had issues keeping any kind of plant appropriate fish so I'm using this time to challenge myself and overcome the difficulties I've had keeping shrimp.


Well my wife and I are finally settled and back onto our vacation schedule. We will likely be heading up that way in July and I certainly hope to have a good stock of Gertude by then and I should be able to bring up a group of 10 for you no problem. We will either be going to our place in TN which is probably just a couple hours from you or my uncle's lake house in North Carolina which can't be far from you at all.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

1.8.18 Update-

Heya folks,

This is more for myself so I can keep track of timing, but I thought I'd share with you too. The shrimp have colored up nicely. The females are all getting a nice red color and all seem to be saddled to one degree or another. The largest girl dropped her eggs last night and is pretty heavily berried. I've counted about five of each sex so breeding shouldn't be a problem at all. One male's got to be close enough to a female at any given time to sense the pheromones and get to her for some sweet, sweet shrimp lovin'. 

On a different note; the Anubias and L. meeboldii got pruned pretty heavily yesterday due to increased GSA growth and/or pinholes from prior neglect getting made larger thanks to the snails. The C. wendtii also got a serious pruning as they were losing a lot of leaves thanks to the transition. They'd handled moving pretty well but I must have hit the roots harder than usual and neglected to remove most of the older leaves as recommended by Jan Bastemeijer as I expected them to be ok like they had before. I was wrong this time. 

Some hair algae's started growing amongst the moss and hairgrass so I spent some quality time with The Toothbrush of Algae Doom. I noticed a few things yesterday that are the likely culprits, 1- I forgot to adjust the CO2 when I changed the light schedule so it was turning off two hours before lights-out. That's been changed back to one hour before lights on and lights out (10am to 8pm). 2- The tank's started getting its Winter morning indirect light so I have the CO2 on from 7am to 830am. With a little luck and closer attention the changes to CO2 and adding K2SO4 to the fert regimen should solve the problems. As far as the rest of the plants go, I moved the H. pinn from the right rear corner to the left rear to give it a little more light and better current. It was getting a bit shaded and lacked optimal flow where it was. The Nymphaea however, it loving that spot and is starting to take off. I hope to have it flower eventually. Overall everything's adjusted to the new conditions, has settled in nicely, and is growing.

Still no fish as it's looking like I'll be starting the new treatment in the nearish future and may not be home for a couple of months. I trust my guy, but there's no need to add fish to the equation just yet.

That's about all I've got, thanks for watching.
Phil


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

1.11.18 photo update-

All's continuing to go well with the tank so I don't have much to say regarding it. I did get some photos though while taking filter shots for a friend. Forgive the lack of focus, my hands aren't as steady as they used to be.















































Filter!! It's a bit messy in there, but it works.





























Thanks for watching,
Phil


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil I've gotta say I am impressed. You have resurrected the tank beautifully.

Really like the layout, and it will only get better as it fills in.

Very, very nice!!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Thanks Greg. Ironically, the design wasn't made so much for aesthetics as it was to maximize flow and light in the front 18". Of course it does have to look good too, just not competition good. With it being primarily Anubias, moss, and Crypts tt doesn't need a whole lot of light, but it does need good flow. In hopes of getting better pictures I moved the other two 6400K bulbs next to the center two and am running all 4 at the moment. I know for certain that the tank will do well with just the two middle bulbs and am wondering how it will do with the outer two going instead of the middle. My expectation is that the grass in front and stems in back will appreciate it while the Anubias and moss won't give a rat's behind. I'm looking at two to two and a half weeks before I get locked away for a few months so I need to try it now while I can see any changes.

Cheers,
Phil


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Agree that's looking very nice. Everything seems very happy too. I find the layout to be very peaceful and aesthetically pleasing, even though you sorta just slapped it together. 

It must be an ability that comes from years and years of scaping, to just naturally put stuff where it looks good...


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

burr740 said:


> Agree that's looking very nice. Everything seems very happy too. I find the layout to be very peaceful and aesthetically pleasing, even though you sorta just slapped it together.
> 
> It must be an ability that comes from years and years of scaping, to just naturally put stuff where it looks good...


My thoughts exactly. This is almost exactly what I want to replicate in my 150. With the driftwood... did you secure them together? Or are they just placed in the areas that you liked? Do you by chance have a photo of just the hardscape? Did you have all of that anubias from the start or did you grow it out, trim it, and then take out the wood and the on new pieces? It just really looks tremendous.

Bump: What is the plant in picture 5? The grape / purple one. It's gorgeous.
Have you decided on fish yet?


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## Jeff5614 (Dec 29, 2005)

I've been fighting the urge for two days now and I can't take it any longer .


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

burr740 said:


> Agree that's looking very nice. Everything seems very happy too. I find the layout to be very peaceful and aesthetically pleasing, even though you sorta just slapped it together.
> 
> It must be an ability that comes from years and years of scaping, to just naturally put stuff where it looks good...


It's just practice, judging tanks, analyzing layout techniques, experience, and s**t luck. Mostly the last one.  Working with these same pieces for a few years now helped as well. It's amazing how much paying attention to touch can make a difference. I have no doubts a blind person could make beautiful hardscapes given enough time to touch well made hardscapes and get the feel in his/her hands. 



The Dude1 said:


> My thoughts exactly. This is almost exactly what I want to replicate in my 150. With the driftwood... did you secure them together? Or are they just placed in the areas that you liked? Do you by chance have a photo of just the hardscape? Did you have all of that anubias from the start or did you grow it out, trim it, and then take out the wood and the on new pieces? It just really looks tremendous.
> 
> Bump: What is the plant in picture 5? The grape / purple one. It's gorgeous.
> Have you decided on fish yet?


Sorry, I don't have pics of the current hardscape. I may have some of previous versions I worked on before the tank got filled. I'll see what I can find. 

I didn't really do much to secure the pieces together other than a little bit of inter-weaving of some bits. They're mostly just shoved down into the substrate with a rock here or there for added stability. I started by placing the large rear piece then just played with the others until I found a position I thought would be good. Most of the positioning was dictated by the Anubias. I did remove some of the bunches to allow a wider array of angle options though. Rather than making an even larger mudhole out of the tank, most of the positioning was done out of the water before placing the piece in the tank. 

The Anubias came from Esther at Aqvinnova a couple years ago when she was at a trade show. For the most part the Anubias hasn't been trimmed except when it got too big for its space. I did have to take them all off the wood at one point to give the wood a major cleaning, but they've been in those positions since then for the most part. Most of the stuff down in the rocks in front and one or two bunches in the very back were placed after the rescape. If you look carefully you can see twist ties where the new plants are. Thanks for the compliments on it, but I really can't take credit. The plants were of very high quality to start with and respond well to getting good current around their roots. All I did was place them on the wood so they got good flow and they did the rest.

That plant is Laegenandra meeboldi 'Pink'. It's a bit pinker in person. No, I haven't settled on fish yet. The guy who was going to take care of my tank while I'm away is going to be on a work trip and vacation during a chunk of that time. If I'm able to find someone else I trust to fill in the gaps I'll keep the tank running. If not, I may take it down. If I can convince myself to just let go and accept that it'll go to hell because of those breaks and that it'll need serious TLC afterward I'll keep it going. The hard part is it's doing so well now that I have a hard time thinking of it "dying". I tend to be an all or nothing thinker when it comes to a lot of things, especially my tanks. Plus, I don't know how much work I'll be able to do on it when I get back due to the infection risk. .



Jeff5614 said:


> I've been fighting the urge for two days now and I can't take it any longer .
> 
> "Green Acres" Opening and Closing Theme Song - YouTube


HAHAHAH, YES! Someone finally did it. This is a farm tank, so what better name than Green Acres?


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

@The Dude1 Here are the pictures of past hardscapes that I could find. Documenting hardscaping wasn't the fashion back when I took the earlier ones so you'll need to use your imagination. You'll see a trend/theme to a lot of them. I grew up in Washington state surrounded by trees/logs covered in mosses and tons of ferns in the understory. That's had a profound effect on my personal aesthetic. I've spent nearly all of my non-biotope aquascaping life trying to recreate different images of that landscape. Mossed wood and epiphytes are especially important to me when it comes to feeling an aquascape is complete.

2002 "West Africa biotope" - back then we didn't have nearly the resources we do now as far as making biotopes goes. This was just two pieces of Mopani wood and a few rocks.










2003 Discus tank - Moss was left out to avoid algae issues due to the high protein discus food. The wood came from an online vendor that's since shut down. I think they were collecting from a swamp somewhere.










2008 75g Nature Aquarium. Not sure what kind of wood this is or where I got it.










2008 90g Nature Aquarium










2008 20g Nature Aquarium










You can see from these three tanks compared to the more recent ones how much having access to quality hardscape materials makes. The technique is still the same as the current 80g, but the materials make a HUGE difference.

2008 Rio Atrato biotope - I was really hoping the swords would grow out of the top rather than stay in submergent form.  The wood came from the 75 and 90 when I rescaped them.










2010 Aquatic plant project, aka Soul Eater, aka Master's research; my largest scale plant growing project to date. Started out with 1287 plants/cuttings/tubers and ended up with 396. We started with three replicates per bucket to make sure at least one of them survived then removed two after three weeks. I have to laugh when fish folks complain about having to run airline. I think I ran somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 mile to 396 buckets, each one separately controlled by its own needle valve, for this project.










2013 Reef rockwork - This was one of the few rock-only aquascapes I've done. I'm not a huge fan of iwagumi style 'scapes. It was 90% of the way there until my boss called and asked for the protein skimmer I was going to use. 



















For @burr740 How to dry start a 300g Dutch tank. This one was unfortunately halted when the company moved to a different state and had to be torn down before it could be filled. The idea was to let everything grow as much as it could before cutting all the stems down to about an inch before filling.










2015 60g that was once the to-be reef. This is when I was finally able to start making my previous vision(s) a reality. These are the four original pieces that have made the foundation for most of my scapes since. It's probably my second favorite wood arrangement and I may try to do something similar again in the future. From 2013 until the move it had been a plant only tank. No hardscape, no showie. 










2016 80g original hardscape - I was pretty happy with this until I bumped a piece while hanging the lights and knocked the whole right side down. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I got a couple of smaller pieces of spiderwood from the store I used to work at, which made a huge difference. I love, love, love the look of lots of branches interwoven around each other.



















Post knockdown rearrangement testing. Not so great.









Final rearrangement and what I think is the best hardscape I've ever done. This one fit the image I've had in my head for years perfectly while still leaving room for good circular flow around the tank. I really wish I'd had the patience to sit on my hands with this one. The planting was great but issues with CO2 and the usual algae breakout with a new tank frustrated me so much that I tinkered it to death and ended up tearing it all down.




























You can see in this last picture the old T5 fixture I had. Wish I'd kept this too instead of selling it to get the Radeons. It really was the perfect plant fixture; 6 bulbs on two independent circuits. The front two, one middle, and one at the far rear were on one with the two others spaced between them. Great light with great bulb arrangement.

Pictures of the wood when trying to sell the plants. I may have been so pissed off that I was trying to sell the "planted wood" too. Can't remember.























































2016 5 rock, 30 minute iwagumi challenge. As I said above, I'm not a fan of iwagumi, but I had an empty tank, extra plants, soil, and rocks so I figured I'd challenge myself to using just those materials to do a scape in under 30 minutes. I'm the kind of person who can easily fall into the trap of doing only one or two things until I've "mastered" it, so to speak. In the interest of being more well rounded I figured I should do a rockscape.










Here it is planted doing a dry start. I really didn't need another wet tank to care for so this was the simple choice.










Another terrarium/dry start tank using extra rock and plants. This one was more carefully thought out with the theme of an ancient cobblestone/rock road that's had generations of plants growing up through the spaces. Think an old Roman road going through an English forest. This one also stayed unfilled.










Finally, a big chunk of wood I grabbed at work. I'll probably end up using it in the 80g once the spiderwood has rotted away.












Thanks for watching,
Phil


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil great post and history lesson.

All of the tanks are great in their own way.

But that Discus tank is simply spectacular. Gave me a "wow" moment there. 

Perfectly executed!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Greggz said:


> Phil great post and history lesson.
> 
> All of the tanks are great in their own way.
> 
> ...


Thanks Greg. That discus tank has been the most critically acclaimed of all my aquascapes so far. I just wish I had pictures of the filtration to show folks that what's trending now was used to good effect in the past. It was running a 20 long DIY sump with the inlet drilled on the side to allow for full sealing as well as a hard plumbed inline CO2 reactor that could be completely controlled via a ball valve, a lot like Cerges reactors are today.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> Thanks Greg. That discus tank has been the most critically acclaimed of all my aquascapes so far. I just wish I had pictures of the filtration to show folks that what's trending now was used to good effect in the past. It was running a 20 long DIY sump with the inlet drilled on the side to allow for full sealing as well as a hard plumbed inline CO2 reactor that could be completely controlled via a ball valve, a lot like Cerges reactors are today.


Yeah Phil it doesn't get much better than a well executed Discus tank. And that is probably the nicest one I have ever seen. I can see why it got much praise.

I have considered setting up a tank like that many times over the years.

It's a long story but I have a spare 120G, so now you have got my head spinning with possibilities.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

I'll be happy to answer any questions I can if/when you do.

The Senske brothers' 2004 discus tank is one that I'd consider "the" perfect discus tank. It leaves lots of open space for the fish and sand for them to pick at food on. Keeping the Glosso and Sag clean was a PITA in my tank.

2004 AGA Aquascaping Contest - #141


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> I'll be happy to answer any questions I can if/when you do.
> 
> The Senske brothers' 2004 discus tank is one that I'd consider "the" perfect discus tank. It leaves lots of open space for the fish and sand for them to pick at food on. Keeping the Glosso and Sag clean was a PITA in my tank.
> 
> 2004 AGA Aquascaping Contest - #141


OK yours is now the second best Discus tank I have ever seen.:wink2:

But seriously, between those two would be a very close call. Both presented so beautifully, and equally impressive.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Now that I think about it. My tank would have been great for Rainbows. I eventually had to rehome the discus and did put some Madagascar Rainbows in there, but Melanotaenids would have shown better.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

1.16.18- 

I just ordered a couple gallons of Biobale from CPR. As much as I've loved having the foam in there it's just not practical for being absent for such a long time. Cleaning those things is a bit of a chore and I don't need to ask the guys to make a huge mess out of the tub. It should also help to keep the sump cleaner overall since it'll be a lot easier to remove for wet-dry vacuuming. Now I just need to go to the dollar store to get a laundry bag for delicates to shove it all into. I also (FINALLY) got some stainless steel mesh (304 steel, #20 mesh size) to cover the overflow inlet. Let's hope that keeps the buggers in the tank where they belong! 

The shrimp are all doing well. Two are berried with expectation that another two will be soon. Sadly, I killed a male trying to get him out of the overflow. But, what's the loss of a male when there are still a bunch in there? Losing a female would be a lot more upsetting. I found out that work will be putting in a livestock order with a supplier so I gave them some Christmas money to get me some more shrimp with. Cross your fingers that they do as well as the current ones and make a lot of babies while I'm gone.

Most of the plants are doing ok. I'm noticing some nutrient issues (GDA) and signs of deficiency so I've upped the P to about 1/8 tsp and started adding K into the mix and am going to go to a 3x/week regimen to see how things do. I've got two and a half weeks to do an assessment before World War 3 starts. If there aren't any clear improvements I'll have the maintenance friend stick with it. I fully expect to come back to a disaster after being gone for three months, but I'd rather the plants do well even if the tank's full of algae.

I think that's it for now. The next few weeks should prove interesting.


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## sdwindansea (Oct 28, 2016)

Thanks for doing this journal, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading it. More importantly it is definitely an inspiration. I have a feeling you already have a lot more RCS than you realize. I hope you are feeling/doing well.


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## Mailbox (Jan 10, 2018)

*Thanks*

Wow, this is a great thread. I'm just starting to get into the aquarium hobby so I love reading these journals. Thanks for all the info and the what's and why's of it all. I hope I can get there one day. Awesome journal thank you.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

sdwindansea said:


> Thanks for doing this journal, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading it. More importantly it is definitely an inspiration. I have a feeling you already have a lot more RCS than you realize. I hope you are feeling/doing well.


Thanks! I know how many I put in and they're just now starting to breed, so I know I don't have more than 12 yet. 



Mailbox said:


> Wow, this is a great thread. I'm just starting to get into the aquarium hobby so I love reading these journals. Thanks for all the info and the what's and why's of it all. I hope I can get there one day. Awesome journal thank you.


Thank you for the kind words. I remember reading folks' journals when I first started, though the format was a little different.  They were inspirational and I just hope I can pay it forward a little bit. Don't worry, you'll get to where you want to be eventually. It's taken me twenty years, so don't feel rushed. Enjoy the journey!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

2.1.18 preparing for the journey-

After a little less than a week away from the tank I noticed some changes when I finally had the energy to get a good look at the tank today. A lot of the C. wendtii melted/died back, but there are new leaves growing too so it's not a major concern. The H. pinn in the left rear corner has decided it prefers to spread along the substrate rather than grow upright. I wonder how much of the tank it's going to take over while I'm away? It's still getting pinholes in all the old leaves. That's something I haven't been able to figure out a cause for since I first got this plant. Here's to hoping it does well enough that it'll still be there in some significant amount rather than a few scraggly plantlets here and there when I come back. The S. repens is bouncing back from a serious mow-and-replant just fine. I'm pretty sure my buddy's going to have to trim that one down a few times over the next few months. The E. pusillis lawn is filling in nicely. I expect that it'll probably get overgrown and full of moss and hair algae, but it could be worse. At least it should all be fairly well rooted as a mat. The L. meeboldi continues to do well. The leaves are getting slightly larger with the reduced photoperiod and I counted a couple daughter plants coming up near it. It's in kind of a tight spot so I hope it doesn't overgrow its location and have problems. Finally, the L. aromatica is a bit worse for wear after not getting the macros it wanted while I was away. That one's been a bit of a problem child in the tank since the start and I'm not hugely invested in it. If it lives, great. If not, no worries. Something else will fill its place in the future. The moss, Anubias, and rest of the Crypts are doing just fine, thankyouverymuch.

The only other things of note are:
1. Successful hatching of F2 shrimp!!! I saw three of the tiny buggers hanging out in the hairgrass bed earlier. The females are all big, red, and seemingly happy so I anticipate many returns of the day as I won't be here to pester them to death.

2. I've got 50ish more shrimp coming tomorrow. A coworker got an order of stuff while at a show in Florida and got me a deal with our show livestock supplier. With any luck that'll diversify the gene pool and stimulate breeding.

3. Changed out the Poret Foam for bio-bale a little over a week ago. I love Poret Foam as a filter media and will be keeping all the stuff I have for use in other applications. However, it just didn't quite work out how I'd envisioned in way I was using it. The bio-bale shouldn't hold on to as much crap and should get better water-media contact. From what I could tell, most of the water flowing through the filter chamber just passed through a small area of the foam so there was less in the way of filtration that I'd originally expected. When water flows through the bio-bale it gets diverted here and there so that a good amount of the stuff gets some water flowing over it when exposed. Plus, as organic crap builds up it's not getting stuck in a foam block that I can't see. Now it's basically flushed into the bottom of the sump so I can see when it's time to get the vacuum out. Cleaning? HA! I don't see a need to clean the actual media like one does with sponges etc. It may get a little shake up now and then, but that's about it. 

*Current specs:*
Two bulbs; xOxxOx where O is on and x is off, 6hrs/day

CO2 on for 6 hrs/day, approx 8 bubbles per second. Remember, I'm not shooting for Magic Guru Approved target numbers; just consistency for the shrimp and crypts. LOL, I almost wrote shrimp and grits there. FYI, cherry shrimp don't taste like anything. Now you know.

KNO3- 3/4tsp 3x/wk
KH2PO4- 1/16 (ish) tsp 3x/wk
Ca- 20ppm via liquid 1x/wk
Mg- 5ppm via liquid 1x/wk
CSM+B- 1/32 (ish) tsp 1x/wk

Pictures will be posted after I've had a chance to detail the tank so we'll have a good before and after set.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

*2.4.18- THE BEFORE, DUN DUN DUN!!
*
Alright folks, this is it. We're headed to the hospital this afternoon so now starts the three-and-a-half months without my tank. *cry*













































































































*Things of note; *

There's a decent amount of BBA on some of the wood pieces and a few leaves. Since I can't risk getting bugs from sticking my hand in the tank they're just going to have to stay there. Hopefully the tank's organic load is low enough and maintenance will be consistent enough that it'll go away on its own. 

The shrimp are doing well; one's heavily berried and the other big female is saddled again. I think third female is somewhere in the breeding cycle, but it's been hard to tell. I'm tickled to death that they're doing as well as they have. Takashi's made it back into the overflow and Lucky's just swimming around living the life of an Otto in a luxury home.

I've been playing around with the idea of having a full hairgrass field wrapping around the hardscape. The real question is will I be willing to deal with that much hair algae and moss growing in it. Also, it's about the same shade of green as a lot of the other plants. But it's so pretty!! The other option right now would be to go with the Stauro. Who knows what'll happen and how much each will grow. Hell, I may luck into some Glossostigma and that will be that. 

There we go, the final pictorial update for a while. I'm really curious to see what it's like when I get back.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil the tank looks great.

But more importantly, I am hoping everything goes well for you with your treatment. 

And I am sure many others in the hobby who you have touched along the way will be doing so as well.

God speed my friend.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Boy I had a blistering 'pics or it didnt happen' post ready to go. So much for that...

Looking good man, bet its an overgrown jungle when you get back. 

Ts and Ps my friend.


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## mbkemp (Dec 15, 2016)

Good luck to you sir! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Ben Belton (Dec 12, 2008)

What is the big olive plant with the big round leave in the drift wood. It's awesome. Crypt? blassi? Its in the center of the second picture.

Looks like it is starting to take off. Will be growing out the top by the time you are done.


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## Williak (Jun 26, 2012)

Can’t wait to hear from you Phil. I’ll look forward to it. Before pic looks great. 

I know when you return home you’ll have a jungle to look forward to. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

burr740 said:


> Boy I had a blistering 'pics or it didnt happen' post ready to go. So much for that...


HAHAHA, what exactly were you going to say?




Ben Belton said:


> What is the big olive plant with the big round leave in the drift wood. It's awesome. Crypt? blassi? Its in the center of the second picture.


That's Laeganandra meeboldi 'Pink' from Burr. It's got a really nice pink undertone in person. The tall Crypt with the long leaves and petioles is a cordata spp. from Dennerle tissue culture. If you can wait a few months I should have enough daughter plants to mail up to you.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Phil Edwards said:


> HAHAHA, what exactly were you going to say?


Something about bigfoot and unicorns, dont remember exactly


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Sadly I'm not getting the right meds for unicorns or bigfoot. I think I've seen some leprechauns though. 

Truth be told, things are going a lot better and more easily than I'd originally thought. After seeing some of the other inmates on the floor I know I've been blessed, all things considered.

Tank news! According to Kyle The Tank Man, there don't appear to be any major algae incidences other than what were there from the start. Woo! The destroyed recliner upholstery says the cats aren't terribly happy.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Kyle, was beside himself with excitement yesterday. He messaged saying there were a ton of shrimp swimming around like fish. I figured it was just a saddled female molting and putting off pheromones. Still, it was really cool to hear someone who's spent a lot of time in the hobby have that sound of innocent/fresh excitement when seeing something new. I could hear the smile on his face when he tried counting the babies on the glass and the males zooming around hither and yon. He's a good guy and a good friend so it was really nice to share that experience with him, albeit remotely. 

So far the tank's looking pretty good. We've decided to let the Limnophila and Nymphaea grow out and flower since he's not seen a Limno flower and I've not flowered whatever species of Nymphaea is in there. The Laegenandra continues to grow gangbusters. I get the feeling the eventual renovation is going to be more of a wholesale rip up and destroy all of the planting. I'll try not to complain too much.  

Sadly, the shrimp order didn't come through and the supplier hasn't responded yet. Perhaps all the tank will need is time to let the population grow. Having a single gene strain worries me a little and I'd like to get some variety in there eventually. One thing at a time. 

Take care all,
Phil


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## Williak (Jun 26, 2012)

Phil Edwards said:


> Kyle, was beside himself with excitement yesterday. He messaged saying there were a ton of shrimp swimming around like fish. I figured it was just a saddled female molting and putting off pheromones. Still, it was really cool to hear someone who's spent a lot of time in the hobby have that sound of innocent/fresh excitement when seeing something new. I could hear the smile on his face when he tried counting the babies on the glass and the males zooming around hither and yon. He's a good guy and a good friend so it was really nice to share that experience with him, albeit remotely.
> 
> So far the tank's looking pretty good. We've decided to let the Limnophila and Nymphaea grow out and flower since he's not seen a Limno flower and I've not flowered whatever species of Nymphaea is in there. The Laegenandra continues to grow gangbusters. I get the feeling the eventual renovation is going to be more of a wholesale rip up and destroy all of the planting. I'll try not to complain too much.
> 
> ...


Great to hear you're doing well, Phil. I was excited to see you posting again.

Happy to hear the skrimp population is booming. I need to diversify my shrimp gene pool as well in my aquarium soon! Maybe with some more intense reds.

Look forward to hearing more and an eventual updated pic of the tank. Stay strong man!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Now that I have tons of time to think, I've been thinking about what sort of fish would look good in here. Keep in mind that it's going to be totally rescaped with some brighter stems like Rotalas and Ludwigias in the back, but the overall tone of the tank will still be relatively dark like it is now. 

What fish would you put in? They must be shrimp safe and non-jumpers. The overflow has a stainless steel mesh so smaller fish are ok too.

Go!


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Phil Edwards said:


> Now that I have tons of time to think, I've been thinking about what sort of fish would look good in here. Keep in mind that it's going to be totally rescaped with some brighter stems like Rotalas and Ludwigias in the back, but the overall tone of the tank will still be relatively dark like it is now.
> 
> What fish would you put in? They must be shrimp safe and non-jumpers. The overflow has a stainless steel mesh so smaller fish are ok too.
> 
> Go!


I'm neck deep in a tetra phase... a huge group of Neons, Cardinals, or green Neons would look killer... but it's probably not the breath of fresh air you were hoping for. A pair of dwarf cichlids.. school of some kind of tetra or pencilfish, and a school of Corys or loaches would be really cool. My 150 is an amalgamation of tetra schools, but it's very enjoyable. Once I get some fry I'm going to move a group of Nigerian Reds into it to mature and pair off. It doesn't have the cohesive nature of some of the display tanks on here, but I literally stare at it as often as possible when I'm home. I got a group of green fire tetras which are really cool, but they are definately jumpers. I've got about 60 Neons in there now and adding another 50 tomorrow. The look is just memorizing.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

@The Dude1, I'm torn between Tetras and Pseudomugil. In the end I think it may depend on what sort of plants I use in the background. If I go with, and am successful with, brighter stems then the Pseudomugil may be the better choice. If I go with darker species such as Crinum and the C. cordata that's getting so tall then I'll likely go with Emperor Tetras.

If I can afford it and they're available, passing up a group of P. luminatus or a boatload of tiny rasboras will be difficult. 

Request for cuttings! Kyle's getting so excited about this tank that I've considered giving him a space to try growing some different plants on his own. If anyone would be willing to donate a small amount of easy stems to encourage and die-hard reefer to get deeper into the plant side both of us would be grateful. I'll post a current pic soon to figure out the amount of space he'll get.


Thanks,
Phil


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

3.12.18 Update-

Treatment continues to go well. My spirits are high and the stomach is doing just fine even as the chemo does its dirty work. I've been sitting here eating pretzels and cheese dip while reading folks' journals front to back. Overall it's not a bad way to spend yet another evening in The Unit.

Thanks to Kyle's care the tank is doing really well. The plants are growing and the shrimp continue to make babies. What more can a guy ask for? Here are a few random pics Kyle took for me this evening during water change time. Except for the first, mom took that one.


What bone marrow stem cells look like. There were 8.1 million cells out of 9 million needed in that bag by the end of that day. The beds in that lab were soooo comfortable and had a big heating pad. I didn't want to get up.









Tank and cat pics in no particular order




































The Crypt cordata have decided it's time to send out runners. 









This is Kazzak. He's my water change buddy. Any time I or Kyle get near the tank he comes over to supervise.









The E. pusillis is really starting to fill in. I may need to have Kyle up the ferts a bit.









I also asked Kyle to get pics of the breeding females if he could. This is the big mamma breeder. Looks like she's getting ready for another brood.









Her sister









Thanks for watching,
Phil


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil I really look forward to you dropping in.

Considering it's running via remote control (Kyle), the tank looks fantastic.

On second, under any circumstances, it has really come along very, very well.

And I must say, I really admire your attitude/fortitude and am wishing you all the best and a speedy recovery.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Thanks Greg! I'm really please with the way things are going overall. I think I need to have him up the NO3, K, and maybe the Ca a bit, but overall everything's going better than I'd expected.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

You may have to hire Kyle on full time when you get out. Dude grows plants better than you do!! 

_Phil Edwards and Associates_

Phil: Lead Aquascaper
Kyle: Head of Plant Growing


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

I may have to do that. He did professional maintenance for 8 years up until he got hired on where I work and he can follow simple directions pretty well.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Hey Phil, tank is looking great! More importantly you are keeping spirits up. Nice to hear you are able to browse various threads throughout the day.
Had to chuckle on the cat pic...
this is my 8 month old









and my year old terror


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Aawwwww, they're adorable!


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## Shaythesalmon (Jan 29, 2018)

Wow, this scape is amazing! 

I am really looking forward to lush growth so I am leaning towards adding CO2 to my set up. 

Shrimp seem like a lot of fun too, but I've got to start with a macro tank before I move on to the nano versions. I believe I may end up with an entire fish room one day. Don't tell my partner, lol. 

I'm also curious what species of Nymphaea you have in there. I'm intrigued by the prospect of emergent plants and flowers on the surface of the water. Especially with these gorgeous open top rimless tanks it creates this image of a little oasis in your living area which I love. In the frozen North, these images are much appreciated  

Thanks for sharing!


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## Williak (Jun 26, 2012)

Phil the tank is looking great man!! Can't wait to see more!

Happy to see you're fast on track to getting well and back at home.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Shaythesalmon said:


> Wow, this scape is amazing!
> 
> I am really looking forward to lush growth so I am leaning towards adding CO2 to my set up.
> 
> ...


YES, YOU NEED CO2! Shrimp will do well in the 55 once it's settled down; especially since you have harder water. I've seen a lot of high tech tanks where they breed like rabbits, but shrimp actually tend to do better in low tech tanks that don't get much in the way of physical or chemical disturbance. If you can get adults large enough that the fish in the 10 won't eat them, grab them while you can! Keep in mind that Amanos need a salt water period to successfully breed so don't get them thinking you'll have babies. Go for things like Cherry Shrimp (the ones I have) as they're tough, affordable, and even I can get them to breed.

I think it's Nymphaea stellata, but I can't remember the species for the life of me. It's called Dwarf Lily in the hobby. Kyle and I are trying to flower it now so I can figure out the species and he can get all excited about flowering a plant for the first time . Emergent growth is really cool, but can cause problems in a 55 since it's so thin. The emergent stuff tends to cover the surface and really cut light penetration. I rotated one species at a time in my old low tech 55 when I could control it (like with stems). The Aponogeton and Echinodorous did their own thing and I had no say in it; at least as far as flowering and/or throwing out emergent runners.



Williak said:


> Phil the tank is looking great man!! Can't wait to see more!
> 
> Happy to see you're fast on track to getting well and back at home.


Thank you both for the compliments. Just wait to see what's in store for it once I get home. > It's still going to be about two months, but at least it's less time than before.


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## david00061 (Mar 11, 2018)

this tank looks great. thank you very much for your help


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

david00061 said:


> this tank looks great. thank you very much for your help


Thank you for the kind words and you're welcome. The PM box is always open.


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## david00061 (Mar 11, 2018)

What substrate is that?


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

It's Aquavitro/Seachem Aquasolum.


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## crazymittens (Jun 4, 2012)

That looks so awesome, and you've _definitely_ convinced me to do shrimp again.

Keep the attitude to recovery going and you'll be home in no time!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

MITTENS!!! You're alive! Welcome to my home away from home away from home. Stay as long as you'd like.

I'm going to get fish eventually and possibly even before I get home if some things work out. It would be interesting though if this were solely a shrimp tank with a single Otto. 

Now go and update your journal.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Kazzak with a Crypt wendtii leaf on his head.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Serious question. Do you find it harder to visit and contribute to other peoples' journals when you don't like looking at their aquarium?


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Now there is a "happy cat" LOL
(get that damn leaf off my head! Stupid human...)

No, not really. Mostly depends if they need help - and more importantly, if I CAN help.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> Serious question. Do you find it harder to visit and contribute to other peoples' journals when you don't like looking at their aquarium?


For me, not too many I don't like looking at. I like seeing the different styles, and many times see something I might incorporate (or avoid) in my own tank. 

That being said, I do draw the line at sunken pirate ships!:wink2:

And when I got started, a few here were very encouraging, which meant a lot to me. So I try to pay back when I can. 

And heck, I still don't have everything figured out, so I look at others journals many times just to see if I might learn something, and many times I do.


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

Phil Edwards said:


> Serious question. Do you find it harder to visit and contribute to other peoples' journals when you don't like looking at their aquarium?


Are ya tryin to say something? Cuz I know you stopped by mine! 

:grin2:

Yes, it is harder. It's human nature, but Miss Manners reminds me about humility and pride and what not, so I go back because I realize I, too, loved *BUBBLING* sunken pirate ships with some sort of spinning wheel at one point and given the go ahead, my wife would probably put one in my tank.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Bubbling pirate ships and sunken skulls are just an opportunity to grow epiphytes. Have you ever seen a Tiki God with a Java Fern Afro? 

I'll admit that I do have trouble, which is why I asked the question. Perhaps it's the judge (as in contests) in me or just needing interest in the tank to feel motivation to visit frequently. There are also times when so many folks have already contributed that there aren't any topics available for me to comment on without being a total dick and recommending a complete renovation.  I really need to go back a few pages here in this thread and remind myself of where I've been and how much I appreciated others' help when I was there, because I wouldn't want to look at some of my past tanks now. Hell, I have a hard time wanting to look at the current iteration. All I can see is what I want to change with it. I know it's set up for easy of maintenance and I'm specifically farming certain plants, but that huge field of hairgrass drives me nuts as does the singular mass of Staurogyne in that corner.


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

If it further helps ya, for every huge field of hairgrass and massive mass of staurogyne, there was someone (me *cough*) who struggled for years to get his languishing hairgrass going and had his staurogyne eaten up by some mystery fish. 

At risk of "forcing" you to visit my tank, here's an old pic from 2014. No one believed me at my LFS, but that soapdish was the only thing standing between that batch of staurogyne and its doom AND that hairgrass had not grown much until the tail end of last year.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

ipkiss said:


> Are ya tryin to say something? Cuz I know you stopped by mine!
> 
> :grin2:
> 
> Yes, it is harder.  It's human nature, but Miss Manners reminds me about humility and pride and what not, so I go back because I realize I, too, loved *BUBBLING* sunken pirate ships with some sort of spinning wheel at one point and given the go ahead, my wife would probably put one in my tank.


No, but I'll be more than happy to help if you'd like. I couldn't sleep last night and after spending a few hours answering questions and going through my list of subbed threads I just felt like perusing journals to see what other folks are doing. I'm going to go read through yours now.


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

Phil Edwards said:


> No, but I'll be more than happy to help if you'd like. I couldn't sleep last night and after spending a few hours answering questions and going through my list of subbed threads I just felt like perusing journals to see what other folks are doing. I'm going to go read through yours now.


Save it for when you need to sleep tonight.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> I'll admit that I do have trouble, which is why I asked the question. Perhaps it's the judge (as in contests) in me or just needing interest in the tank to feel motivation to visit frequently.


Yeah Phil when I read the critiques of what I think are truly spectacular tanks, I don't know if I would want to live in a judges head. So many things I don't have a clue about, nor am I sure I would want to. 

I know my own presentation is chaotic at best. In the end, I just try to create what pleases me. If I can sit down in the den, watch the tank, and it brings me joy.....well, I guess that's good enough for me. 

A little while back Pikez at TBR posted a lengthy list of things to keep in mind when creating a Dutch scape. Made my head spin and made me realize I probably don't have what that takes. The great ones are as accomplished at "art" as growing plants. My hats off to those who can do it.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Greggz said:


> In the end, I just try to create what pleases me. If I can sit down in the den, watch the tank, and it brings me joy.....well, I guess that's good enough for me.


That's all that matters.


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## crazymittens (Jun 4, 2012)

Phil, regarding your question - I agree it can be tough to 'become invested' in others tanks. For me I find it easiest when they have an equivalent setup (size of tank, plumbing, tech level, goals), because then there are obvious lessons to be drawn (and shared!). In those situations a common bond can develop and you can offer encouragement and whatnot. I'm still sub'd to Chayos00's build - although I don't check in as often as I used to.

You've taken a great approach given your situation - forum consultant for folks getting into things. Encouragement and legitimate tech advice, a great combo!

I'd drop in more often but life and work and my multiplicity of hobbies/interests makes it tough.  Keep it up!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

crazymittens said:


> Keep it up!


Chemo says "HAHAHAHAHAHA, we'll have none of that!".

Bump:


crazymittens said:


> Phil, regarding your question - I agree it can be tough to 'become invested' in others tanks. For me I find it easiest when they have an equivalent setup (size of tank, plumbing, tech level, goals), because then there are obvious lessons to be drawn (and shared!). In those situations a common bond can develop and you can offer encouragement and whatnot. I'm still sub'd to Chayos00's build - although I don't check in as often as I used to.
> 
> You've taken a great approach given your situation - forum consultant for folks getting into things. Encouragement and legitimate tech advice, a great combo!
> 
> I'd drop in more often but life and work and my multiplicity of hobbies/interests makes it tough.  Keep it up!


That's exactly it. I couldn't find the words. 

As for the "Ask Ann" thing, I'm surprised I didn't think of it earlier. Some days my brain is so foggy that it takes all day to get caught up. Yesterday was a good example.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

*A little bit of history I found going through the My Threads section of the tool box.*

90g Discus
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/12-tank-journals/2338-my-90g-amanoesque-discus-tank.html

29g Charlotte, NC biotope
2005 AGA Aquascaping Contest - #109
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/12-tank-journals/19067-my-natural-aquarium.html


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

I'm really considering changing up the flow regime in the tank to something a bit different when the rescape happens. I've got a friend sending some Aponogeton which need higher flow than they area they're going into gets. My current best plan is to run the outlet of the Cerges to the right rear so the CO2 rich gas will run along the back where most of the stems/thick biomass will be and benefit from it and then turn the return 180 and have it run from the front left around to the overflow. This would create a gyre to maximize whole-tank circulation, but perhaps not optimize debris entrainment and removal.

A couple things do keep in mind:

1. The Cerges is on an independent pump so the overall flow going into the tank will increase.
2. Due to the sump and pump arrangement, the outlets need to be where I've got them placed.
3. Switching things around so the Cerges discharge comes out on the front right will create more of a mess under the tank than I care to deal with without a compelling reason.

All that being said, I'd like your recommendations as to 3/4" and 1" canister outlets. If I'm going to be spending the money doing this then they need to look nice. Say nothing about the PVC monstrosity that's in there now. The materials were free.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

I like that Discus tank!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Immortal1 said:


> I like that Discus tank!


Thanks Linn. I'm happy to have found the journal for it 15 years later.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

I like the Cross Section of a Beaver Pond, looks just like a natural habitat with a very calm vibe. That Persicaria makes nice trees!


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> Thanks Linn. I'm happy to have found the journal for it 15 years later.


It's also good to know this place has been around that long, and likely will continue to be around. Just think about the massive amount of information floating around in the various threads.
If only there was an easier way to search that information.... http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/8.../1246665-ask-me-anything;-help-beginners.html


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Phil you have such a strong grasp of the basic tenants of this hobby that I can see how you would have trouble relating. Understanding a complex system is as simple as breaking it down into its rudimentary components and working your way up. Most see a series of nearly endless variables each based on the previous variable that has not been correctly determined. As such, you are also in a fantastic position to make it understandable given your thorough knowledge. I very much appreciate your threads and replies.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

burr740 said:


> I like the Cross Section of a Beaver Pond, looks just like a natural habitat with a very calm vibe. That Persicaria makes nice trees!


Thanks Joe. That was a 100% pure biotope from when I lived in Charlotte the first time. Everything, except some of the sand and some fish I had to chase a little, came from the area of that 29 gallon so there wasn't even a chance at mixing microhabitats. It just wasn't pretty enough or photographed well enough to place. I just wish I'd been canny enough to include a Before picture so the judges could have seen how much it actually grew. One of them told me later on that "pulling up plants and dropping them in the tank [isn't worthy].". Oh well. I really enjoyed that one while it was around. 

Bump:


Immortal1 said:


> It's also good to know this place has been around that long, and likely will continue to be around. Just think about the massive amount of information floating around in the various threads.
> If only there was an easier way to search that information.... http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/8.../1246665-ask-me-anything;-help-beginners.html





The Dude1 said:


> Phil you have such a strong grasp of the basic tenants of this hobby that I can see how you would have trouble relating. Understanding a complex system is as simple as breaking it down into its rudimentary components and working your way up. Most see a series of nearly endless variables each based on the previous variable that has not been correctly determined. As such, you are also in a fantastic position to make it understandable given your thorough knowledge. I very much appreciate your threads and replies.


Y'all are going to make me blush.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

YES, I WON MY BET! A week or two ago I'd bet the Mrs. that there would be about 100 shrimp in the tank by the time I get home. She said it would be closer to 50. She conceded yesterday when she got back up here. Great news; there are a bunch of shrimp (even if only tiny babies) in there AND I get a massage. How 'bout them apples? LOL

So yeah, it seems the shrimp are doing just fine without me.  I can't wait to see what the tank's like in person again after only getting pictures. 

I still dump CSM+B dry into the sump, but may now increase that to 2x/week. 

Cheers,
Phil


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

4.2.18 Update- The tank's been doing very well thanks to the skill and regular care under Kyle and Will. Kyle took out nearly half a gallon of moss the other day and really pissed off the shrimp, but the little ones have plenty of space to "hide" in the hairgrass. The C. cordata continues to shoot for the surface and the L. meeboldi 'Pink' is spreading and the mother plant is getting a bit big for its britches. I'm really happy with how much the grass is spreading and how the S. repens is staying in its place. More pictures will be forthcoming soon. Will is going to take his SLR and spend some time taking pics tonight rather than using his phone. 

I can't wait to get home and work on the tank. A friend is going to be sending some Madagascar Lace and another Aponogeton that I can't remember. I think they're going to go great in the background once I've moved the wood forward more. 










My insides showing the lines they use to inject things they want in me. I had no idea how close they were to the heart until I saw this. Oh, and that jelly bean shaped thing at the top of the white stuff is the tumor. 









Thanks for watching,
Phil


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil looking great.....maybe you should hire these guys full time!:grin2:


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Greggz said:


> Phil looking great.....maybe you should hire these guys full time!:grin2:



Shush you! :frown2:


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Advice sought-

I've had a terrible time getting Hygro pinnatifida to grow robustly and without pinholes in the older leaves. It basically just sits there growing new stuff while the old stuff dies. Any advice would be appreciated.

Regards,
Phil


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## crazymittens (Jun 4, 2012)

There's this guy I know who can help. Here, let me link you his build thread: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/12-tank-journals/1223466-green-acres-80-gal-high-tech-6.html/


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> 4.2.18 Update- The tank's been doing very well thanks to the skill and regular care under Kyle and Will. Kyle took out nearly half a gallon of moss the other day and really pissed off the shrimp, but the little ones have plenty of space to "hide" in the hairgrass. The C. cordata continues to shoot for the surface and the L. meeboldi 'Pink' is spreading and the mother plant is getting a bit big for its britches. I'm really happy with how much the grass is spreading and how the S. repens is staying in its place. More pictures will be forthcoming soon. Will is going to take his SLR and spend some time taking pics tonight rather than using his phone.
> 
> I can't wait to get home and work on the tank. A friend is going to be sending some Madagascar Lace and another Aponogeton that I can't remember. I think they're going to go great in the background once I've moved the wood forward more.
> 
> ...


Ya know Phil, was always curious what you looked like. Was not expecting your first picture to be a black and white. I mean, I know you have been around awhile and all but I was at least expecting a color picture :grin2:
Ok, kidding aside, always interesting to see the various things that show up in an x-ray. Took me a few looks to see the jelly bean - I assume the lines wrap up somewhere and "plug into" the jelly bean? Something I wish I had access to was one of my MRI scans (they take a lot more than you would imagine) - watched the Dr. scroll up and down thru me with the mouse wheel. Kinda like micros ferts - fascinating stuff but a bit over my head.


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Chemotherapy drugs are fascinating. I don't know how much you know, but they target fast growing cells indiscriminately. They cause mutation in the DNA of the cells through the use of intercalating agents which wedge in between the bases in the DNA causing the strands of DNA to unwind and basically fall apart. It's a brilliant way to kill cells which have basically become immortalized through the permenant activation of telomerase at the cellular level. We use a similar inducing agent, ethidium bromide, in the lab to break apart DNA for study. Still very rudimentary, but things are slowly progressing. Do they plan to excise the tumors once it's mass is decreased Phil? 
And the tank is really look incredible. That must give you tremendous peace knowing that it is doing well in spite of your absence for the time being. How much longer until you can go home?


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Immortal1 said:


> Ya know Phil, was always curious what you looked like. Was not expecting your first picture to be a black and white. I mean, I know you have been around awhile and all but I was at least expecting a color picture :grin2:
> 
> Ok, kidding aside, always interesting to see the various things that show up in an x-ray. Took me a few looks to see the jelly bean - I assume the lines wrap up somewhere and "plug into" the jelly bean?


The lines are going into a major vein to dilute the chems and get faster distribution throughout the body. If they were infusing via IV they'd burn up the veins so the chems have to go through a big one. I just had no idea how close they got to the heart!



Immortal1 said:


> Something I wish I had access to was one of my MRI scans (they take a lot more than you would imagine) - watched the Dr. scroll up and down thru me with the mouse wheel. Kinda like micros ferts - fascinating stuff but a bit over my head.


I'm that way with CT scans. I think I've finally gotten the hang of reading the top-to-bottom- view showing the whole body at once, but not the view where I'm laying down. 



The Dude1 said:


> Chemotherapy drugs are fascinating. I don't know how much you know, but they target fast growing cells indiscriminately. They cause mutation in the DNA of the cells through the use of intercalating agents which wedge in between the bases in the DNA causing the strands of DNA to unwind and basically fall apart.


Yeah, one of my meds is an alkylating agent that does that and the other targets a slightly different phase of cell growth. 



The Dude1 said:


> Do they plan to excise the tumors once it's mass is decreased Phil?


Yes, as long as there's no active cancer when this is done then yes, I'll be having surgery to resect the mass.



The Dude1 said:


> And the tank is really look incredible. That must give you tremendous peace knowing that it is doing well in spite of your absence for the time being. How much longer until you can go home?


It does, actually. They're both good about texting pictures and slideshows while there. As far as when I get to go home? I'm guessing a few weeks still. I don't think I'll be discharged until Sunday and then I have to stay around for a week or two for tests. 


Cheers,
Phil


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Alkylated agents add a methyl or ethyl group to the amino or into groups in the nucleotides. It alters base pairing affinity... mustard gas is an alkylating agent... I'm literally taking an exam in genetics on this stuff in 2 hours. Did you take genetics previously?? The program im in is very cancer heavy... graduate level stuff is all at Moffit


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Ok Phil, very curious about your Xray. I was assuming (there I go again) that the green circle below was where they were injecting your chemo. Then the more I looked at the picture I realized it may actually be whats in the red circle which, from what I remember from about a year ago, looks very much like a Power Port brand chemo port. If in fact I am correct about the red circle, then you and I have something in common as I still have my port. Then you were saying the tumor was the jelly bean shaped area. Really hard to tell where it is but I think the blue dotted line is correct?


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

crazymittens said:


> There's this guy I know who can help. Here, let me link you his build thread: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/12-tank-journals/1223466-green-acres-80-gal-high-tech.html


I see what u did there...  But perhaps you were really trying to link to his more relevant "help thread"?


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Linn,

I have a Power Port (left) and a central line (right). The port's too small to inject blood products without potentially damaging the cells so they installed the central line. They've only used the central line for injecting anything except when I had to get dye for a CT, then they used the port. Yeah, that blue outline is the tumor. It used to be quite a bit bigger and fully round, so things are working. 

Bump:


crazymittens said:


> There's this guy I know who can help. Here, let me link you his build thread: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/12-tank-journals/1223466-green-acres-80-gal-high-tech-6.html/





ipkiss said:


> I see what u did there...  But perhaps you were really trying to link to his more relevant "help thread"?


Very cute guys. I'm serious though, I need help growing H. pinatifida. I don't know why, but it just sort of languishes and new growth is roughly equal to old and dying growth, and all the leaves have pinholes in them.


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## mgeorges (Feb 1, 2017)

@Phil Edwards Can you post a picture of the H. pinatifida?


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

I'm away from home for the next few weeks, but I'll ask the guy taking care of the tank to get some pictures.

Cheers,
Phil


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## Williak (Jun 26, 2012)

Hot damn that carpet looks great! Tank is filling in nicely Phil!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Those pinholes are some kind of induced deficiency. It was blamed on "micro-tox" when that was still the running excuse for everything. And sometimes reducing micros can fix it, but its not the root cause.

The first thing you should try is raising K a little bit and see if that helps. Hygros do love them some K


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## mgeorges (Feb 1, 2017)

burr740 said:


> Those pinholes are some kind of induced deficiency. It was blamed on "micro-tox" when that was still the running excuse for everything. And sometimes reducing micros can fix it, but its not the root cause.
> 
> The first thing you should try is raising K a little bit and see if that helps. Hygros do love them some K


K and/or micros were the first things that came to mind for me as well.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Williak said:


> Hot damn that carpet looks great! Tank is filling in nicely Phil!
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Thanks Will. All that came from just one pot of TC plants. Patience and breaking them down into little tiny bunches or 3-4 plants each helps. To be fair, it had already been growing in one of the corners so it wasn't just a single pot that started the main lawn. It may have been close to 2.



burr740 said:


> Those pinholes are some kind of induced deficiency. It was blamed on "micro-tox" when that was still the running excuse for everything. And sometimes reducing micros can fix it, but its not the root cause.
> 
> The first thing you should try is raising K a little bit and see if that helps. Hygros do love them some K





mgeorges said:


> K and/or micros were the first things that came to mind for me as well.


Thanks, I'll have the guys add a bit more K with the regular dosing. I'm just wary of making changes that might kill off the shrimp.


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## mgeorges (Feb 1, 2017)

Phil Edwards said:


> Thanks, I'll have the guys add a bit more K with the regular dosing. I'm just wary of making changes that might kill off the shrimp.


Yeah, I hear ya. I wouldn't think it would require a huge bump, especially if it's the only plant showing symptoms. Maybe try adding an extra 1ppm 3x/wk, wait to see how new growth looks and then bump another 1ppm 3x/wk if necessary. If that doesn't fix it, maybe try bumping up micros next.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

mgeorges said:


> Yeah, I hear ya. I wouldn't think it would require a huge bump, especially if it's the only plant showing symptoms. Maybe try adding an extra 1ppm 3x/wk, wait to see how new growth looks and then bump another 1ppm 3x/wk if necessary. If that doesn't fix it, maybe try bumping up micros next.


He's going to add 1/4tsp K2SO4, so that shouldn't affect things too much in a 90 gallon total system.

Random pictures I've received from the guys. I asked Kyle to go to town on the moss as it was really getting thick and he pulled out a literal gallon of the stuff. The water level in the sump went down by an inch.


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## mgeorges (Feb 1, 2017)

Very lovely. Is that S. repens or a different species of Staurogyne? Leaves are much longer than what I've seen on mine.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

mgeorges said:


> Very lovely. Is that S. repens or a different species of Staurogyne? Leaves are much longer than what I've seen on mine.


Thank you. That's normal S. repens. I'm not sure why the leaves are that big. The only thing I changed was which bulbs were on and now they're getting more light than they were previously. Perhaps it's just because they're happier?


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> He's going to add 1/4tsp K2SO4, so that shouldn't affect things too much in a 90 gallon total system.
> 
> Random pictures I've received from the guys. I asked Kyle to go to town on the moss as it was really getting thick and he pulled out a literal gallon of the stuff. The water level in the sump went down by an inch.


Hey Phil, whats the plant that the shrimp is sitting on?


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Cryptocoryne willisii


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Heya folks,

For those of you with Rena filters, how do you like the standard U outlet vs. the spraybar?


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> Heya folks,
> 
> For those of you with Rena filters, how do you like the standard U outlet vs. the spraybar?


Phil I have both and I guess it all depends on what you want.

I much prefer the spray bar, as I keep them pointed up to the surface for a constant surface ripple. If you don't have the spray bar, I know of one you can buy that will work.

The standard outlet is good too. Easy to adjust where the flow goes. Pretty standard stuff and no issues.


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Phil Edwards said:


> Heya folks,
> 
> For those of you with Rena filters, how do you like the standard U outlet vs. the spraybar?


I prefer the regular outlet. It acts almost like a mini powerhead and it still gives good flow 10 days after the filter is cleaned as opposed to the monumental fall off in spray bar pressure at least with my 2 XP3's.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> Looks to me like you need to thin that S.Repens out a little :wink2:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Great looking pics Phil. Always nice to have good help when needed.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Thanks for the input guys. A friend is going to be giving me some Aponogeton so I'll need to increase flow to the rear for them. It'll be fairly easy to replumb the Cerges outlet to run to the U outlet to the right/behind the overflow and have the main return discharge on the left side of the tank. I'm not sure if I'll want to use another U or a spraybar. I guess we'll have to see how the wood rearrangement goes. 

Linn,

You aren't kidding. That Stauro needs both a thinning and a major mow. I think I'm going to end up taking it out of the tank wholesale. It's a great plant and I grew all that out from just a couple of stems, but its time has come I think. I think I'll stick with the Crypts and Anubias 'Petite' and rocks for the midground this time. Besides, if I ever want it again I'll know where to go to get it.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

4.11.18 Update-

Just called work and now have a few pieces of Spiderwood and a couple hundred pounds of Seiryu stone (Moss Rock) on the way. This renovation should be interesting...and woody!










[EDIT] Now the question is do I stick with the plan of mossing all the wood and only having Anubias on the rocks/midground or do I add Anubias to the wood too. First world problems. [/EDIT]


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> Now the question is do I stick with the plan of mossing all the wood and only having Anubias on the rocks/midground or do I add Anubias to the wood too. First world problems.


Have you consulted Kyle???>


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Moss covered wood looks really cool, but its tough to keep it looking good and keeping the underlying layer alive. Even with regular trimmings I normally have to tear it all off and re wrap it every 5 to 6 months. Anubias on the other hand just keeps filling in and is much easier to trim. I would do some anubias and moss on the wood so that you aren't having to trim every branch. Unless maybe fissidens doesn't do that?? Ive only used flame moss, vesicularia mini, and java mass..


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

I just rip the $hit off the wood and let it regrow. Trimming takes too much time and I'm pretty sure I'm done with competitions unless I come up with something amazing by accident.


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Phil Edwards said:


> I just rip the $hit off the wood and let it regrow. Trimming takes too much time and I'm pretty sure I'm done with competitions unless I come up with something amazing by accident.


Maybe its the type of moss you are using. When I pull off the moss it ALL comes off. There is ALWAYS some brown moss underneath that has died and lost its ability to attach. In fact the moss on the spillway in my 11.4 which looked incredible completely slid off when I was getting back there to put a prefilter on the AC intake. I ended up shredding some and putting it back on the spillway and the rest I just threw onto the substrate to act as spawning mops


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Dude,

It's just Plain Jane Java Moss. I've even gone so far as aggressively scrubbing the wood to get rid of it and algae and it's come back. It's in this tank for good. 


4.13 News- I'm going home on Tuesday!!! Kyle brought over the rock and wood after work this afternoon and I can't wait to play with it. He also took some pictures of the tank as it is now. We've been growing out the Limnophila in hopes of getting it to flower. He said the Hygro leaves had no holes in them too so it looks like it was a K issue. Don't believe everyone who says they're getting plenty of K just from normal N and P dosing unless they're running ~40 NO3. I had another friend start adding 1/4 tsp K2SO4 2x/wk while Kyle was on vacation.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Great pics @Phil Edwards ! 

Wow, they are finally letting you go - that is GREAT news!!! Assuming you will be spending a bit of time at home the next few weeks, sounds like you will have plenty of new "tank things" to keep you busy. Look forward to new pics


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Tank looks great Phil! Has a very pleasant nice natural feel about it. Really like it. 

And very glad to hear you are going home. 

I've always thought there is nothing like the comforts of home to help you heal. And after many days away, I'm sure you are looking forward to getting a good nights sleep in your own bed.

And then once you are rested up, looking forward to seeing the next phase for the tank.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Technically I'm not supposed to be gardening for a couple months, but I figure I'll be ok doing tank work as long as I wear gloves, wear a mask, and scour my hands well afterward. For now, any upcoming changes will be pulling plants out to give to friends and replanting some of the grass near the wood where the Staurogyne is now to make room for some large Aponogeton and Crinum. It may end up being more depending on when they want to schedule surgery. It'll need to be somewhat settled before Kyle comes to take care of it again.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Well, I got home on Tuesday and was very pleasantly surprised and somewhat sadly surprised as well. 

The good- The tank was in excellent shape all things considered and there were/are a ton of little shrimpies all over the place. What little algae there was, was mostly BBA on damaged leaves and some bits of old hairgrass that had started to decay at the tip. A good trimming took care of almost all of it.

The bad- The Crypt cordata and L. meeboldi are too big for the tank!! The big cordata leaves are 7-8 inches long and a good two to two-and-a-half across. The Laegenandra mother is simply too large, even with a good number of leaves trimmed off. Thankfully I've got someone who wants the Lag, but I'm going to have to revise my plans quite a bit to account for the cordata. I'm either going to have to wait until I can get an emersed rack up and running to save a few while giving away the rest, or use them for the background plant instead of the Madagascar Lace I'd anticipated. Who would have thought robust and healthy plants would be a bad thing? Little did I know these crypts would eventually start screaming "Feed me, Seymour!" when they started out so small in their little TC cup. Now I've got to find a way to get to the post office. 

The neutral- All the Limno go torn out. It wasn't doing particularly well and was blocking a lot of flow to the right side of the tank. 

Other than that, nothing much has changed visually, so no new pics as of yet. If I end up needing to rehome the cordata I'll be messaging some of you with taller tanks.


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## Williak (Jun 26, 2012)

Awesome man!! Can't wait to see the new pictures of the aquarium after changes!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Williak said:


> Awesome man!! Can't wait to see the new pictures of the aquarium after changes!


As of 10:53 am April 23rd, it's a mud puddle. Not much to see there. 

I got super lucky that it's a mild and rainy day so I could toss the wood on the deck and it won't dry out. Score!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

4.23.18


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

It's been rescaped and replanted. I wish I could have re-created the hardscape on the porch, but it was just a little too big for the tank. It's probably a good thing since the actual one gave me a lot more room to use the ginormous bunches of A. nana 'Petite' that grew. And no, I didn't consult Kyle.  Pictures will come in a day or two once the water's cleared and I make any tweaks needed that a night or two sleeping on it may bring up.

Oh, and I didn't use any of the new rock or wood. I got it on the cheap from work just in case, but the rocks were too big and the old wood worked just fine. Sadly, this will be the last scape with this wood. It's getting old and starting to rot away. Let's hope I won't have to change it or don't bump into it for quite some time.

Cheers,
Phil


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## sdwindansea (Oct 28, 2016)

I'm just trying to figure out where that slipper was in your prior layout . In all seriousness, looking forward to seeing the new layout. How did you deal with all the RCS in your tank? Just try to avoid them as much as possible when vacuuming out the substrate? I'm guessing there are some babies trapped in those plants as well.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

sdwindansea said:


> I'm just trying to figure out where that slipper was in your prior layout . In all seriousness, looking forward to seeing the new layout. How did you deal with all the RCS in your tank? Just try to avoid them as much as possible when vacuuming out the substrate? I'm guessing there are some babies trapped in those plants as well.


The slipper was under the Laegenandra. I needed something to contain it. 

I'm pretty sure I sucked up a few brand-new baby shrimp. For the most part I just went really slow and crimped the hose a bit. Most of the shrimp scooted out of the way and those dumb enough to get sucked up were able to get out again. I'm more concerned with how many are making it into the overflow than sucking them up.  Those little buggers are haaard to get out of the overflow; especially with as small as they are.


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## crazymittens (Jun 4, 2012)

Sheeeesh. Is the no-gardening an effort thing, or a bacteria thing? lol I hope your medical team doesn't follow you here.

Also, did not expect to get your latest update and see a picture of an empty tank. This thread is a roller coaster in every metaphorical way.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

I'm pretty sure that my team would not be terribly pleased with me, but also not quite sure how to categorize what I'm doing. I'm supposed to wear a crazy dense matrix mask and latex gloves if I do dry gardening, but wet? There's no dust, fungus, etc. to kick up and cause issues with the ol' lungs, so I just washed my hands a lot after handling plants or messing with the substrate.

How's this for a roller coaster ride?





































The H. pinn on the left side is "floating" until the side shoots grow large enough to plant with the rest of them and the Laegenandra under the overflow is waiting to be mailed out next week. Otherwise, I think everything else is planted. It's going to need tweaking over time as things grow out and can be moved, or removed, but overall I'm happy with the concept. Playing with big chunks of petite sure was fun.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Beautifully presented. 

Love the whole layout.

Well done sir!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Thanks Greg. Now we play the waiting game while everything fills out. I think I probably overdid it with the Anubias, but I love that plant so much and have nowhere else to keep it that I shoved as much as I could in the tank with plenty extra that I just couldn't find a place for.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> Thanks Greg. Now we play the waiting game while everything fills out. I think I probably overdid it with the Anubias, but I love that plant so much and have nowhere else to keep it that I shoved as much as I could in the tank with plenty extra that I just couldn't find a place for.


I love all the Anubias. If you can keep it clean and algae free, it's beautiful. Has not worked so well for me since I increased my lighting.

Two things I appreciate about tanks like this.

First, the plants look nice and healthy. And that's a tough part to get right, but that's only half the battle. 

The second part is how you present the tank. You obviously have a gift with the artistic creating a vision side of the brain. Much like art, some tanks evoke a feeling, and keep your gaze for a bit longer. To me this one creates a tranquil aura that I very much enjoy.

That part doesn't come naturally to me. In general, I have no large vision or plan, I just keep plopping things here or there until it suits my eye. Maybe I can get better at it, I try to, but I think some people are just born with it, and that's a nice gift to have.


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## vvDO (Oct 18, 2010)

When I saw your sticks lined up on your deck... I thought man this guy’s gonna kill it! Yep, you did, love the layout and I’m sure it’s only going to look better!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Greggz said:


> I love all the Anubias. If you can keep it clean and algae free, it's beautiful. Has not worked so well for me since I increased my lighting.
> 
> Two things I appreciate about tanks like this.
> 
> ...


Your plants look nice and healthy too, my friend! That's more than half the battle. The rest is just a lot of trial and error and studying other peoples' work to get a sense of how things will work together. I've been totally riffing off Amano for years now; including this setup. You can do it too!  To be honest, with your tank I'd just practice grouping plants well. I'm not saying to go full on Dutch, but practice grouping plants like they do. That's where I, and many others, started after we wanted to move on from the 'plopping things here and there' phase. It's a very good way to train the eye and such. 



vvDO said:


> When I saw your sticks lined up on your deck... I thought man this guy’s gonna kill it! Yep, you did, love the layout and I’m sure it’s only going to look better!


Thank you for the kind words. I really wish I could have simply teleported the layout from the porch into the tank. It had the look of a massive and really branchy root wad that I love. Seeing fish swimming around and through dense roots is what I really enjoy most when it comes to having fish in a tank. That layout would have been perfect for that and would have worked well with the plants I've got. I hope this new layout will mature into something with a similar feel.


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## Williak (Jun 26, 2012)

Wow wow wow outstanding hardscape man. Outstanding. 

My 80 looks like an old dusty turd now compared to this lol

I too have been itching to do a full rescape with new hard materials lately. Maybe in a month or two [emoji6]

This is going to look incredible once your plants have filled in a bit more. Plus all that beautiful anubias! Can’t wait to keep seeing new pictures. 


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Williak said:


> Wow wow wow outstanding hardscape man. Outstanding.
> 
> My 80 looks like an old dusty turd now compared to this lol
> 
> ...


Once they fill in more I can turn the middle two bulbs on. :iamwithst 

No, your tank doesn't! It looks like an awesome low light, low energy, and low maintenance tank. There's nothing at all to call an old dusty turd about it.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> Your plants look nice and healthy too, my friend! That's more than half the battle. The rest is just a lot of trial and error and studying other peoples' work to get a sense of how things will work together. I've been totally riffing off Amano for years now; including this setup. You can do it too!  To be honest, with your tank I'd just practice grouping plants well. I'm not saying to go full on Dutch, but practice grouping plants like they do. That's where I, and many others, started after we wanted to move on from the 'plopping things here and there' phase. It's a very good way to train the eye and such.


I'm trying Phil. I actually give it some thought sometimes. I think the first thing I would need to do is create larger groups of fewer species.

But the one thing I've yet to conclude is if I prefer the tamed, balanced, spatial, artistic look of true dutch tanks........or the untamed disorganized kaleidoscope method I use now:grin2:

And remember, I have to keep mine in the context of keeping a Rainbow Zoo!!! That does limit some options, as I need to keep lower growing swimming lanes for the fellas.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Greggz said:


> I'm trying Phil. I actually give it some thought sometimes. I think the first thing I would need to do is create larger groups of fewer species.
> 
> But the one thing I've yet to conclude is if I prefer the tamed, balanced, spatial, artistic look of true dutch tanks........or the untamed disorganized kaleidoscope method I use now:grin2:
> 
> And remember, I have to keep mine in the context of keeping a Rainbow Zoo!!! That does limit some options, as I need to keep lower growing swimming lanes for the fellas.



I'm not talking about the balanced and spatial look of the true Dutch tanks; just putting things in groups and general shapes. You're 90% of the way there. All you need now is a little practice and it won't even require reducing the number of species or wrecking your swimming area. Then again, if you prefer it like it is, like I said before, it's your tank, do what you want with it. Just keep in mind that you CAN achieve greater things when it comes to aquascaping if you so desire. 

Cheers,
Phil


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> I'm not talking about the balanced and spatial look of the true Dutch tanks; just putting things in groups and general shapes. You're 90% of the way there. All you need now is a little practice and it won't even require reducing the number of species or wrecking your swimming area. Then again, if you prefer it like it is, like I said before, it's your tank, do what you want with it. Just keep in mind that you CAN achieve greater things when it comes to aquascaping if you so desire.
> 
> Cheers,
> Phil


Phil you are being kind and I appreciate that. 

And I do understand what you mean. I would like to pick your brain more on this. Would be curious as to your ideas. I know you have a well trained eye, and lots of practical experience, and I am always trying to improve.

I'll take this up with you further on PM (and you can speak freely, I don't bruise easily!).


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## crazymittens (Jun 4, 2012)

That looks amazing. Making me think about plant choices for the rebuild now. I do enjoy the anubias/moss combo.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

crazymittens said:


> That looks amazing. Making me think about plant choices for the rebuild now. I do enjoy the anubias/moss combo.


If only I could send you plants.  And thank you for the kind words. Sometimes things just come together. I'm still not sure if I want to use stems or keep the C. cordata in the back. The cordata will give a nice dark swampy feel, but the stems would be less invasive and can be shaped better. AHHHHHH, too many choices!!!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Yesterday was the first time I've ever had a fellow TPTer over to my place. Having @vijay_06 over for a bit to pick up some plants and talk shop was awesome. I'm lucky to have such a nice guy and fellow plant head nearby. As soon as all this medical crap is over with we're going to start up a plant club here in town. Watch out GWAPA!!!


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## oval291 (Dec 19, 2016)

Phil Edwards said:


> Yesterday was the first time I've ever had a fellow TPTer over to my place. Having @vijay_06 over for a bit to pick up some plants and talk shop was awesome. I'm lucky to have such a nice guy and fellow plant head nearby. As soon as all this medical crap is over with we're going to start up a plant club here in town. Watch out GWAPA!!!



Hi Phil is this tank dirted?


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Still looking forward to some post 4/25/2018 pics :grin2:


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

oval291 said:


> Hi Phil is this tank dirted?


Sort of, yes. I'm using a commercially available substrate made from processed soil. It's not dirt like Mineralized Top Soil.

Regards,
Phil

*4.29.18*
































































There you go. Funny thing. I was about to work on the pictures when I read your post @Immortal1


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Great set of pictures Phil ! Was wondering how you were going to incorporate them. With your clear background they make for a nice back wall definition. Kinda like wall paper without the actual paper, I believe the wife said. The 53B looks nice and happy. I do like that 3rd pic - everything fuzzed out except the lone plant in the background.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Immortal1 said:


> Great set of pictures Phil ! Was wondering how you were going to incorporate them. With your clear background they make for a nice back wall definition. Kinda like wall paper without the actual paper, I believe the wife said. The 53B looks nice and happy. I do like that 3rd pic - everything fuzzed out except the lone plant in the background.


Thanks Linn. The Hygro needs to settle in a bit and start growing, but I think it will do well in there. The plant in the 3rd pic is A. reineckii 'Lila' and has been languishing in a corner of the tank for some time. It's now got a spot with a bit more light and a lot better flow so we'll have to wait and see how things go. As for the Crinum, I've got them all in a vague + pattern fairly well spaced out in the hopes that they'll have plenty of room to grow and spread in the future. My goal with them is flowers so this tank's not going to get screwed around with much until it comes time to move. 

Regards,
Phil


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> Yesterday was the first time I've ever had a fellow TPTer over to my place. Having @vijay_06 over for a bit to pick up some plants and talk shop was awesome. I'm lucky to have such a nice guy and fellow plant head nearby. As soon as all this medical crap is over with we're going to start up a plant club here in town. Watch out GWAPA!!!


Phil that is nice to hear. Must be very enjoyable to spend some time chatting with someone about the hobby. 

Outside of the board, in the real world people there are very few people who have any idea that the hobby even exists.


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## vijay_06 (Apr 11, 2017)

Phil Edwards said:


> Yesterday was the first time I've ever had a fellow TPTer over to my place. Having @vijay_06 over for a bit to pick up some plants and talk shop was awesome. I'm lucky to have such a nice guy and fellow plant head nearby. As soon as all this medical crap is over with we're going to start up a plant club here in town. Watch out GWAPA!!!


Thanks Phil for having me over. It was the first time I met a fellow hobbyist and I thoroughly enjoyed our chat. Your tank looks even more amazing in person and loved it’s dimensions. So much to learn from you and your experience!




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## Ben Belton (Dec 12, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> Yesterday was the first time I've ever had a fellow TPTer over to my place.


I've been to your place!!...... 


20+ years ago :grin2:


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## vvDO (Oct 18, 2010)

Phil Edwards said:


> As for the Crinum, I've got them all in a vague + pattern fairly well spaced out in the hopes that they'll have plenty of room to grow and spread in the future. My goal with them is flowers so this tank's not going to get screwed around with much until it comes time to move.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I read this an thought, man I wish my Crinum would flower... I’ve had it for so long!! Well, what do we have here...



















Send some more plant mojo my way please!


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

The layout already looks great Phil, will be even better once it fills in. It always amazes me how you're able to nail "peace and tranquility" right from the start.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

vvDO said:


> I read this an thought, man I wish my Crinum would flower... I’ve had it for so long!! Well, what do we have here...
> 
> 
> Send some more plant mojo my way please!


Showoff! :crying:

How old's that plant and how do you supplement the tank? Where's your tank journal? I found one, but all the pics were on Photobucket and didn't come through. Do you have a new one?



burr740 said:


> The layout already looks great Phil, will be even better once it fills in. It always amazes me how you're able to nail "peace and tranquility" right from the start.


I think the trick is not filling the tank with brightly colored stems.  What amazes me is how removing one plant/species (Laegenandra) and adding another (Crinum) makes such a difference. 

Bump:


Ben Belton said:


> I've been to your place!!......
> 
> 
> 20+ years ago :grin2:


Dude...that was before TPT was even a thing. You're the first DFWMAS member I had over. Does that make you feel better?


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

*12.25.17*










*1.11.18*










*2.4.18*










*3.12.18*










*4.2.18*










*4.13.18*










*4.29.18*


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

FTS of all aquscapes of this tank from the very beginning until the start of the above FTS series. From start until May was my "Not following my own advice/horribly impatient and angry with the setup not behaving as I expected" phase. Some had to do with hardware issues, but a lot came from my own excessive expectations of myself and a great deal of impatience.

*10.4.16*










*10.21.16*










*10.23.16*










*10.24.16*










*10.25.16*










*10.29.16*










*11.9.16*










*12.4.16*










*Date unknown*










*Date unknown*










*3.11.17*










*3.26.17*










*3.28.17*










*4.9.17*










*4.13.17*










*4.15.17*









*
5.14.17* Switching to T5 made a huge difference and turned things around for the better.










*5.15.17* One week before I was diagnosed.










*10.18.17* Rescaped for ease of maintenance and "benign neglect" after the previous scape "died" while I was unable to care for it properly going in and out of the hospital










*12.25.17* Another "benign neglect" aquascape that was more visually pleasing to me. This was done after we'd made the decision to go with the stem cell transplant so it was intended to stay in this form until May or June. Luckily I got out of jail earlier than expected.


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## oval291 (Dec 19, 2016)

Wow I can only marvel. Thanks for the pictures and the advice you share so freely.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

oval291 said:


> Wow I can only marvel. Thanks for the pictures and the advice you share so freely.


Thank you for the kind words. It's my pleasure to share what I know and also to let folks know that even experienced hobbyists go through hard times. I'm an AGAer deep in my heart and one of the main purposes of the organization is to spread knowledge about aquatic plant keeping, so I do it as well as I can. 

Cheers,
Phil


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> I think the trick is not filling the tank with brightly colored stems.


What??? You better not open the package that is in your mailbox then!:grin2:


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Greggz said:


> What??? You better not open the package that is in your mailbox then!:grin2:


Speaking of which, it's a good thing I added the extra bulb in the back. I'm now running three bulbs!!! GASP!!!




























I wouldn't want such beautiful plants to go to waste. Not to mention the postage paid, so I felt obligated to put them in my aquarium. Thank God he only sent a couple stems of each and The Dude 1 agreed to take some of the C. cordata or I wouldn't have had room to put all of that in there. I think I'm going to have to get rid of the rest of the cordata to make room as things grow in. Anyone with a tank taller than 16 inches want a beautiful big Crypt species? If you plant them all right next to each other they'll make a stunning focal point/specimen plant group.

Oh, and Greg, only the back of the tank is full of bright stems.


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## vvDO (Oct 18, 2010)

Phil Edwards said:


> Showoff! :crying:
> 
> How old's that plant and how do you supplement the tank? Where's your tank journal? I found one, but all the pics were on Photobucket and didn't come through. Do you have a new one?



Purchased and planted on 5/13/17, so it’s been about a year. It grew from a tiny bulb about 1cm thick to about 2-3 inches thick. About 3-4 weeks ago I peeled back a few outer leaves. I also recently removed a bunch of crypts and swords which were growing around it. Something sparked it or it was just time. I dose liquid npk slightly less than EI for my tank, and brightwell multiflorin for micros (dosed irregularly). Dirted tank with turface and BDBS cap. No journal for this tank on TPT, only my local aquatic plant club.



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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

It must be the soil it likes. Hopefully that'll help with mine too.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Ok, I found a source for Pseudomugil luminatus for a very good price once the seller's supplier lists them again. The big question is do what I usually do and just go with a larger group of a single species, or do I try to find another species that will compliment the Pseudomugils? It's a really tough call given that the tank's so shallow.


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Phil Edwards said:


> Ok, I found a source for Pseudomugil luminatus for a very good price once the seller's supplier lists them again. The big question is do what I usually do and just go with a larger group of a single species, or do I try to find another species that will compliment the Pseudomugils? It's a really tough call given that the tank's so shallow.


I have heard that pseudomugil are jumpers. Even after making a screen lid to cover every area other than the area for the light, I had all 12 jump out over the course of 3 months. I LOVED them though... and they bred pretty frequently. I believe Johnson18 said that he had no issues with jumping however. Just something to consider given their cost and the open top on your rimless tank. I had them in a rimless tank as well.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

That's certainly a concern. The last time I had any they didn't jump out of a topless 90g and I didn't have any cats at the time to "hide" the evidence. HOWEVER, I did have all 25 R. espei jump out of this tank over the course of a few months when I first set it up, so I do need to be careful when considering new fish. I've just wanted the luminatus for so long that it's difficult to consider another fish. 

On a different note: for some reason the plants in the front of the tank have started pearling more now that the light in the very back is on. Talk about good reflectors; the fixture's 20 inches above the tank!

Cheers,
Phil


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

So far all the new plants aren't dying. The R. rotundifolia @Immortal1 sent is growing really well, but is getting bent by the current. I hope it straightens out when it gets longer and the bunch eventually gets larger. After a few incidences of getting caught on a leaf and accidentally pulling a plant or two out, the Crinum have settled into a smaller group and seem to be doing well. All the stems @Greggz sent have straightened out and appear healthy. All but the Pantanal have lost come color but are otherwise looking healthy. I don't expect anything to be super colorful like in everyone elses' tanks as I'm not using as much light. As long as they grow and work well in the spot I put them, then I'll be happy.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Good to hear the plants are doing well Phil - both mine and Gregg's. That R. rotundifolia is something else - at least in my tank. I am guessing in the last 4 days it has gained at least 2 ", maybe more. 
Added a couple new pics to my build to show you what I mean. I have a feeling with your substrate and likely closer attention, yours will be over growing your tank within a month or so


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Immortal1 said:


> Good to hear the plants are doing well Phil - both mine and Gregg's. That R. rotundifolia is something else - at least in my tank. I am guessing in the last 4 days it has gained at least 2 ", maybe more.
> Added a couple new pics to my build to show you what I mean. I have a feeling with your substrate and likely closer attention, yours will be over growing your tank within a month or so


Yeah, R. rotundifolia is a great grower and is one of my perennial (even though it's a seasonal) favorites. I love the colors it gets. We'll have to wait and see how it does in this tank. I haven't kept it since switching over to the T5.


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Phil Edwards said:


> That's certainly a concern. The last time I had any they didn't jump out of a topless 90g and I didn't have any cats at the time to "hide" the evidence. HOWEVER, I did have all 25 R. espei jump out of this tank over the course of a few months when I first set it up, so I do need to be careful when considering new fish. I've just wanted the luminatus for so long that it's difficult to consider another fish.
> 
> On a different note: for some reason the plants in the front of the tank have started pearling more now that the light in the very back is on. Talk about good reflectors; the fixture's 20 inches above the tank!
> 
> ...


Wow Phil... I just found some photos of those... they are breathtaking. They are the perfect slection for your gorgeous tank... I really REALLY hope that they work... having a large group to those and slowly losing them would be harder than what I went through with the Gertrudes... and I REALLY loved them.
Plants arrived today in FANTASTIC shape. I had no idea that their colors would be so intense. The purples and pinks are so familiar to me. They immediately reminded me of my Mom. Those were her colors... they have immediately captured a place in my heart. I hope I am able to keep those colors. LED'S... for me... just don't bring out the colors that T5HO do... so I added some into the T5HO 75 as well. It also inspired my gorgeous wonderful wife to surprise me with a wabi kusa set up. I have been struggling with the loss of my mother and the clarity with which I now see my step father. This is my first mothers day without her and her birthday is the 26th. Every year I would buy her roses or a flower arrangement. The last 3 years I put together a large planted arrangement for her. Due to my stepfathers greed her ashes are being kept at the home... which he has moved someone into.. who is now driving my mother's red C7 convertible corvette and wearing her jewelry and corvette jacket.. so I am evicting them both. I am taking everything and rescinding all of his access... but I digress. I have no place to go and be with my Mom. My wife bought me a Deep Blue rimless cube and an asta 20 pendant light. So i am making one last gift for her. All of this came about after seeing the purples and pinks from those cordata. 
Sorry I'm rambling... mothers day is approaching and she is the love of my life.
I just wanted to thank you. All of the plants arrived well and are acclimating. I even placed one into my emersed setup. It will be too large for what i am doing this time, but i want to see what it looks like emersed.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Damn, dude, I'm sorry to hear about all of that. Those sorts of family issues always weigh heavily on the heart.  I hope things get better for you sooner rather than later.


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## Shaythesalmon (Jan 29, 2018)

I’m so inspired by your scape. I’m going to have to be patient to gain the knowledge and experience to create such beautiful and lush habitats 😊


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Phil Edwards said:


> Damn, dude, I'm sorry to hear about all of that. Those sorts of family issues always weigh heavily on the heart.  I hope things get better for you sooner rather than later.


Sorry Phil. I wasn't prepared for May. Things are good for me. I'm grateful. So what is your treatment schedule going forward? How long do you have before the next round? I'm hoping it's long enough for you to get the tank stocked and maybe have some fry popping up. If the luminatus are anything like Gertrude you'll have little fry popping up every few days. I would love to try pseudomugil's again in something like a fully covered 20 long. I would be first in line for fry!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Whelp, it looks like I've got to trim the Myriophyllum tomorrow and the Pantanal pretty soon. Hooray for shallow tanks!


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

@Phil Edwards I was criticized by some for planting a frag tank. >


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> Whelp, it looks like I've got to trim the Myriophyllum tomorrow and the Pantanal pretty soon. Hooray for shallow tanks!


Look out once they really get going you better keep those scissors sharp!!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Greggz said:


> Look out once they really get going you better keep those scissors sharp!!


It's not something I mind doing and I'm glad to do it. Myrio's not a slow grower under just about any circumstance.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Sooooo, I just got a care package from my friend at Brightwell...4Kg of Florin Delta GH+. I don't think I'll be needing a GH booster for quite some time and it means I can foist the liquids on Kyle for his reef. Yeay!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Maryland Guppy said:


> @Phil Edwards I was criticized by some for planting a frag tank. >


Ha ha ha.  It's the same dimensions as George Farmer's Aquascaper 1200! Then again, I don't think he grows stems in his...


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Interesting observation; after seeing lots of microbubbles coming out of the outlet yesterday I decided to close the valve on the reactor a bit more today while servicing the sump. There's noticeable gas build up in the reactor, but the plants are pearling like mad. I did a water change too, so we'll see over the next few days if what I'm hearing now is air left over from the reactor draining and "water change pearling" or if the build up and/or pearling persists. If I can turn the gas down a bit, I'll be a happy boy.

Cheers,
Phil


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

Phil Edwards said:


> Interesting observation; after seeing lots of microbubbles coming out of the outlet yesterday I decided to close the valve on the reactor a bit more today while servicing the sump. There's noticeable gas build up in the reactor, but the plants are pearling like mad.


Particularly don't like the micro-bubble thing myself.

My reactor lets out a little burp every 3-4 hours accompanied with a sort of squeal.
My listening indicator to know that CO2 is working properly.

Pearling on all plants all the time but not like mad.
I can make it that way but they grow quick enough!

The very patient aquarist I am, alter 1 thing @ a time very rarely.
Even when something starts to go "south" I let it go for a bit.
Many are too reactive and never embrace the issue, change all sorts of dosing and such.
#1 line of defense is a good trim and cleanup of one's tank! Then pass judgement.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Maryland Guppy said:


> My reactor lets out a little burp every 3-4 hours accompanied with a sort of squeal.
> My listening indicator to know that CO2 is working properly.


If my Cerges did that I'd think there was something wrong. 

I'm pretty sure the bubbles were the result of turning up the gas for while I was away. I wanted to make sure there was plenty getting to the plants so Kyle, Will, and I wouldn't have to worry about that variable. With the way the tank was set up, microbubbles/poor man's glass diffuser, were a good way to distribute the extra gas. Now that the tank's changed completely it's not quite so good a method. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be so I didn't really notice them, or didn't really care, until the other day when they were "bad". I may also have upped the gas after adding the extra bulb in anticipation of Gregg's plants, I can't remember. It wouldn't surprise me if I did. That would make more bubbles, for sure. I figured I may as well try cutting the flow just a little more and BOOM. The plants had been pearling well already, but this put the plants in back into overdrive. Even the Crinum leaves had bubbles on them! Now that the sump's nice and clean and I've got as much organic stuff out of the tank as I can, it's time to sit back and see how things do in the reactor over the course of the next few days then make adjustments to gas as needed.


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## Williak (Jun 26, 2012)

Looking forward to seeing pics with some pretty stems man.. 

I also turned down my CO2 rate a bit after a refill lately , and now I've got a BBA outbreak all over the center-middle of my microsword carpet. I ordered one of those Dwyer flow meters, I'm hoping it will help with consistently tuning in the CO2. I went back down to 2 bulbs for now... aren't you running 3 now? What is your flow rate at?


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Williak said:


> Looking forward to seeing pics with some pretty stems man..
> 
> I also turned down my CO2 rate a bit after a refill lately , and now I've got a BBA outbreak all over the center-middle of my microsword carpet. I ordered one of those Dwyer flow meters, I'm hoping it will help with consistently tuning in the CO2. I went back down to 2 bulbs for now... aren't you running 3 now? What is your flow rate at?


Sorry to hear about the BBA. I've got it in a few places on wood where it's exposed. It's just getting old and is rotting; perfect for BBA. Hope that flow meter works for you. I just thought of something while typing the lower text; try pulling up all the grass and replanting it. Thinning out that stuff and other plants like it always helped me when things got bad. Plus, it allowed me to really clean down deep where it was planted. I wish I could do the same thing with hair grass. 

Yeah, I'm running three bulbs now; two in the very back of the tank and the one one socket back from the very front. It seems to be working just right as far as coverage and overall intensity, for lack of a better word, goes. If I need more light/PAR then I'll lower the fixture a bit, but I can't see needing to add another bulb with the way the tank's aquascaped. Other than a few tufts of cladophora on some of the wood and in the hairgrass (a perennial hot spot for this kind in my systems), I'm satisfied with the algae issue and plant growth. If I get into "keeping up with the Joneses" mode there'll be nothing but trouble. 

I'll get some pics when I can. The angles are really awkward right now but I'll see what I can do.

ps: I think my pump's running 700 nominal GPH, and I have no idea how many BPS my CO2's running at. I haven't put a flow meter in. That's pretty far down on the list of hobby things to purchase. I need to get fish and an emersed rack for Crypts put up first.

Cheers,
Phil


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

5.29.18- It's been a while since the last pictorial update, hasn't it? Here it is in all of its "glory" prior to a big trim. I tried dropping the light a couple inches and I think it ended up closer to the tank than I intended as far as PAR is concerned. BBA started going mad on all the wood and some of the hairgrass, and the Anubias got blitzed with GSA. I've since raised the lights back up, trimmed what I could, and am finishing up an 80% water change right now. Aside from the lights going back up nothing has changed over the past few weeks so I decided to try front loading ferts to see how it goes. I did an extra large dose the other week and things looked nice, but I went back to the old routine. Things aren't looking as nice so we're off to See What Happens Land. I'm going in for surgery on Thursday and Kyle's coming to take care of the tank Friday and Monday. I fully expect that it will have completely recovered in that time. 

Mixed news. The wood may be getting too old and rotten to keep in there. If raising the lights and trying to stimulate plant growth with front loading doesn't work to help control the BBA growth on the wood and in the moss, it may be time to remove it. Three years of in and out of the tank is a good lifespan for this softwood so it's not too disappointing. The only sad part would be messing up the aquascape. This is another wait and see thing, and is going to require observation for a while.



















































































Our Floof enjoying the AC on the new sofa


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Lol, if I had that much Floof I would want to be in the A/C also! Tank is looking great as always - really like the last pic (before the Floof) - some might even guess the picture was NOT taken inside a fish tank. The third pic is also pretty impressive!

I see the Crinum is doing well - photo bombing every shot


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Hey Phil good to see an update.

I recognize many of those stems. Good to see they are all looking nice and healthy. 

Will be interesting to see how they look in the long run under a little less PAR than I blast them with.

And more importantly, good luck with your procedure. 

I'm sure Kyle will have the tank purring along when you get back!:wink2:


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Looking great man. Good luck over the weekend.

Floof lol


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Immortal1 said:


> Lol, if I had that much Floof I would want to be in the A/C also! Tank is looking great as always - really like the last pic (before the Floof) - some might even guess the picture was NOT taken inside a fish tank. The third pic is also pretty impressive!
> 
> I see the Crinum is doing well - photo bombing every shot


Thanks Linn. Those Crinum are enjoying life, that's for sure. I think every plant has a new leaf coming out and as you saw they've spread across almost the entire surface. The only things keeping them in place are me, current, and the wood. They make trimming a PITA, but they're still my favorite plants in here right now. 



Greggz said:


> Hey Phil good to see an update.
> 
> I recognize many of those stems. Good to see they are all looking nice and healthy.
> 
> ...


Thanks Gregg. From where I sit they don't look as good as they do in the pictures. Most of them did grow a good amount between when I took the pics a week ago and today, but they just don't look as robust or colorful as I expect. I learned my lesson earlier though and I won't be throwing change after change at the tank in short order. I thought it was an issue of lower light which is what prompted me to increase it, but that didn't work and caused more issues than it was worth. That's got me thinking it's a nutrient thing so we'll give that a go for a while and see what happens. 

From what I heard today the procedure is pretty straightforward as long as conditions are favorable. If they're not, then it'll be even easier; they'll just zip me back up without taking anything out. Unfortunately, the scans weren't clear enough to let them know, so they have to open me up regardless. Either way, I'll only be in the hospital for 3-6 days before being released.

Bump:


burr740 said:


> Looking great man. Good luck over the weekend.
> 
> Floof lol


Thanks Joe. It's going to take a while to find the balance and whip into shape, but I'm reasonably confident it'll get there eventually.

I just hope I have cute nurses.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

My Betta tank, home to a lovely little blue female named Kirara. This started out as a home for some Crypts etc and became a place where I tossed cuttings or plants I wanted out of the tank. It gets a strong dose of all ferts when I remember. It gets light from about mid-morning until mid-evening. Photo quality is thanks to sunlight, not any skill on my part. The main culprits are Ludwigia inclinata 'Pantanal' and 'Cuba' as well as Pogostemon "Kimberly" and some Rotala indica. There are a few bits and pieces of other species trying to poke out here and there, but as you can see, they're not having much success competing.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

8.13.18 update- Pictures will come tomorrow

I FOUND Pseudomugil luminatus!!!! 50 of the beauties will be on their way tomorrow along with some plants. I've got the chance to put some rams in the tank too, but am not sure I want to end up with a box full of inbred fish I can't remove.

So, what're the details? I got approval from our wholesaler to put in a personal rather than company order when I saw the luminatus on the list and ordered those and some assassin snails, as well as a Marble Queen radican sword, an Ozelot sword, an Atlandsburg (sp?) sword, and three large Crinum calamistratum bulbs. Yes Linn, the ones you gave me are doing well. I just want MORE! MORE, I SAY!! The hope is the swords will throw a bunch of emergent leaves, making the rear of the tank look a bit like the near-shore area of a lake or swamp. With a 14-inch water column I think there's a good chance of that happening, especially with the larger/taller Summer season plants.

"What about the stems?" you may ask. Look at the picture above. That's a 12ish gallon tote chock full of plants. The biggest Ludwigia is 4ish inches across at the growing tip so there's no lack of stem plant mass. I'm not sure what I'll end up doing with them though. I may possibly try getting them to throw seed and send those off to folks to grow. We'll see.

Other than that there hasn't really been much in the way of changes for a while. After the surgery and the weeks and months of movement restriction and rehab, I got out of the habit of both doing anything to the tank and coming here. See a correlation?  To be fair to myself, the CO2 ran out right after I got home and I couldn't mess with it after having my chest cut wide open so I basically said "screw it" and let it do its own thing. These days the hair grass and Stauro are a little bit yellow and worse for wear, but I'm not terribly concerned. They're hardy and should come back once I get back to fertilizing. 

I did a 100% drain, gave the BBA a liberal hit of Excel, sprinkled some of Carib Sea's mychorrizae product on top of the areas of open substrate in the back, capped them off with another couple inches of stuff I'd removed last year, then refilled. This is all in the photo bomb I'll upload soon. I've been looking forward to trying this product for a while but didn't have a situation where I could properly apply it as it's supposed to go on the glass before adding substrate. The alternative is injecting it via the supplied syringe, but I didn't want to do that. This small reno offered the perfect opportunity to give it a go. There's no way I'll be able to give any sort of valid growth comparison, but using suitable/aquatic mychorrizal fungi is scientifically valid and I doubt it can hurt in an area that'll be dominated by plants which build massive root structures.

There we have it and there we shall leave it until Wednesday or so. I've got to do some reno work on the tanks at work before coming home to do mine, but there won't be a whole lot to do on mine so any photo updates shouldn't be too late in the evening. 

Cheers,
Phil


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil really good to hear from you.

Since you are diving back into the hobby, I take it you are doing well, which is good to know.

Have missed your updates, and looking forward to seeing where the tank is heading next. 

Bring on the pictures!


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Good to hear from you here Phil 
Can fully understand putting certain things on the back burner for a few months - priorities. "Yes Linn, the ones you gave me are doing well. I just want MORE! MORE, I SAY!!" LOL, and I though I sent you more than you could ever use.
Look forward to future pics


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

8.17.18 Update- After fighting with Imgur, the pictures finally got uploaded. Here they are, taken over a couple of days.

Flora Spore! I'm REALLY excited to finally be able to use this.

Yes, that is hair on my arm. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles!









































































Finally going to ditch the PVC outlet *eventually, when I remember to get the hosing from work*









Adding Echinodorus 1- Atlandsburg









Adding Echinodorus 2- Marble Queen Radican and Kleiner Bar


















C. calamistratum doing well and two new plants. Guess which ones came from Linn and which came from the farm...



























Can you find the Pseudomugil? They're in there somewhere.










After too many months of neglect I've finally started the CO2 and ferts back up. Let's see how things go. Oh yeah, I've also got some small root tabs to try out. I wonder how the background plants will respond? "FEED ME, SEYMOUR!!!" is my guess.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Nice update Phil! Looks like some interesting stuff you added to the back corners. And yes, the C. calamistratum looks very happy in your tank. 
Kinda amazed at how well your grass is growing. Picked up some from PetSmart just to try out - have had absolutely no luck getting it to root. Spends most of its time floating around the top of the tank.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> After too many months of neglect I've finally started the CO2 and ferts back up. Let's see how things go.


If that's how it looks after many months of neglect, looking forward to seeing where it goes with some attention. 

All in all layout and presentation is looking great already.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Immortal1 said:


> Nice update Phil! Looks like some interesting stuff you added to the back corners. And yes, the C. calamistratum looks very happy in your tank.
> Kinda amazed at how well your grass is growing. Picked up some from PetSmart just to try out - have had absolutely no luck getting it to root. Spends most of its time floating around the top of the tank.


I'll send you some when it comes time for a trim. This is E. pusillis from Dennerle TC. Not particularly common here in the US.



Greggz said:


> If that's how it looks after many months of neglect, looking forward to seeing where it goes with some attention.
> 
> All in all layout and presentation is looking great already.


Hehe, everything but the very back where the swords went hasn't been changed in some time. It's the same layout I shoved all your stems in, which then got shoved outside and are growing gangbusters.


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## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

How old are those crinum? I got one a few months ago and it began to grow immediately.. it seems to have slowed down. The leaves are no where near the surface. I even made big changes to the scape to ensure it's getting plenty of light. It seems like it grew faster when it was fighting to get light


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> Hehe, everything but the very back where the swords went hasn't been changed in some time. It's the same layout I shoved all your stems in, which then got shoved outside and are growing gangbusters.


Forgot to mention love the pictures of the plants growing outdoors. Very cool to see them thriving on the back porch!

I wonder how the transition would go back to aquatic? I know some can be tricky like L. Cuba. Would be an interesting experiment sometime.


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## Grobbins48 (Oct 16, 2017)

Greggz said:


> Forgot to mention love the pictures of the plants growing outdoors. Very cool to see them thriving on the back porch!
> 
> I wonder how the transition would go back to aquatic? I know some can be tricky like L. Cuba. Would be an interesting experiment sometime.


I was thinking the same thing. That is a good idea though, even just to enjoy the for the summer. I might have to think about that next summer for some trims (maybe this summer?).


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

The Dude1 said:


> How old are those crinum? I got one a few months ago and it began to grow immediately.. it seems to have slowed down. The leaves are no where near the surface. I even made big changes to the scape to ensure it's getting plenty of light. It seems like it grew faster when it was fighting to get light


I got the old ones from Linn a while ago. They were young side shoots and I've got no idea how old they actually were when he sent them. I've had them for about 5(?) months. Crinum, as a genus, are usually slow to get started and don't tend to grow quickly. Even under good light, decent flow, CO2 and ferts, they weren't putting off new leaves that fast. Don't expect too much from them, don't move them/let their roots establish well, and they'll surprise you over time.



Greggz said:


> Forgot to mention love the pictures of the plants growing outdoors. Very cool to see them thriving on the back porch!
> 
> I wonder how the transition would go back to aquatic? I know some can be tricky like L. Cuba. Would be an interesting experiment sometime.


I've got no idea how they'll transition back. I don't have any plans to put them back under water. I'd like to get some flowers and seeds out of them, but may have some to send you too if you'd like to try. I literally tossed them in the water and didn't plant them. All they needed was water column ferts and they went bonkers.



Grobbins48 said:


> I was thinking the same thing. That is a good idea though, even just to enjoy the for the summer. I might have to think about that next summer for some trims (maybe this summer?).


It can be super simple, see above. Next year I think I'm going to go with the mineralized soil route and actually plan things out. Should be interesting.


Thanks guys,
Phil


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

10.18.18 update- 

It appears I can't keep myself out of the hospital. About a month ago I thought it would be a good idea to follow one of my cats onto the roof with the idea of getting him down so he wouldn't get lost/run over/otherwise hurt for being black. It turned out I was a lot better at getting down quickly than he was and I earned a broken pelvis for the effort. I had a cat sitter helping with the tank, so it got neglected. Kyle's position has changed, causing him to travel a lot, so he wasn't able to care for everyone. That means the tank's changed quite a bit, but not for the worst depending on your point of view. There's some BBA in places and some stringy algae popped up in places, but that's not a huge worry. Two of the swords are putting out runners with daughter plants and/or flowers and both the lilies and Crinum are noticeably bigger. Everything needs a couple weeks of good dosing and water changes to recover. Dosing is doable but water changes aren't until I can start putting weight on my left leg again. Hopefully I'll be able to get some decent pictures today to document how everything goes over the next month or two.

I'm not sure how long it will be, but I'll be needing to get rid of some Echinodorus daughters in the foreseeable future. I can't recall the species/variety at the moment but they're either E. 'Kleiner Bar' or E. atlandsburg.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil sorry to hear about the fall. I had one a few years back, and I can still remember the entire episode in super slow motion. On the way down I remember thinking...."this ain't going to be good".

Hope you heal quickly and are back up and around soon.

Look forward to seeing pics of the tank and where it's at now. And I might be interested in the Echinodorus. Haven't kept a sword in awhile, but one with color would be interesting.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Damn son you fell off the roof?? Holy cow!

There's a joke to be had here something about chasing a kitty.....probably too soon. 

Here's to a speedy recovery!~


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

burr740 said:


> There's a joke to be had here something about chasing a kitty.....probably too soon.


Oh, it's not too soon. I'm pretty sure I made the "I've fallen, and I can't get [it] up!" joke not too long after the actual fall. Just remember kiddos. Chasing kitty almost always leaves you badly broken. Know you know (TM).

Here we go. It's nothing at all spectacular or even terribly exciting, but it's something. This time of year invariably leaves me feeling displeased with my tanks as the IAPLC results are made public and I often get pulled in to at least pre-judge a number of the AGA contest categories. I really hope I can come up with something to feel proud of this coming year. 














































Cheerios,
Phil


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Wow Phil that is a beautiful red sword. But boy is it BIG!

Overall I'd say the neglect hasn't been too hard on the tank. 

Looks pretty darn good to me.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Have to admit Phil, the small sword babies growing out the top of the tank is a new one for me 
I also see the Crinum is still pretty happy !

And for those of you not on FB - I probably did poke a bit of fun at Phil after his fall....


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

Been wondering why you "fell" off the forums?:grin2:


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

Looking beautiful as always. Was thinking of that commercial right when I read you had fallen. Damn I am cruel minded lol. Well, when ever you decide to sell (or gift lol) that Anubias remember me please. Lol, your not pleased (oh my, it’s beautiful be proud)


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Greggz said:


> Wow Phil that is a beautiful red sword. But boy is it BIG!
> 
> Overall I'd say the neglect hasn't been too hard on the tank.
> 
> Looks pretty darn good to me.


Thanks Greg. It looks big in my tank, but I'm sure it would only look on the smallish side in yours. The last time I kept Tiger Lotus (actually lilies) was about 10 years ago. It was the old 90 gallon that I just let grow as it wanted. The whole tank was eventually filled with the suckers from top to bottom; all starting with one plant. There are actually three in there, but they're not as big and look to be the green-with-red variety so are a bit harder to see in the pictures. I'm going to have to start trimming them soon to keep them from growing up and out of the tank. 

The swords are in the back. I'll try to get better pictures of them eventually. Balancing on one leg with both hands off the walker makes for some poor pictures. I'm still holding out hope that they'll start growing emergent leaves, but that's looking less and less likely as time goes by.



Immortal1 said:


> Have to admit Phil, the small sword babies growing out the top of the tank is a new one for me
> I also see the Crinum is still pretty happy !
> 
> And for those of you not on FB - I probably did poke a bit of fun at Phil after his fall....


Yes, they are and yes, you did.  Swords are pretty cool that way, huh? Sometimes they throw out daughters, sometimes flowers, and sometimes both. 



Maryland Guppy said:


> Been wondering why you "fell" off the forums?:grin2:


That had more to do with me not being in the hospital all day and then having surgery, which got me out of the habit of visiting. 



SKYE.__.HIGH said:


> Looking beautiful as always. Was thinking of that commercial right when I read you had fallen. Damn I am cruel minded lol. Well, when ever you decide to sell (or gift lol) that Anubias remember me please. Lol, your not pleased (oh my, it’s beautiful be proud)


I'm half tempted to do a rescape once I'm mobile again. The wood still looks good, but it's old and rotting. It may be time to come up with something different; especially now that most of the plants in there are on the large side. I for sure want to ditch the grass and go with something like Glosso again.


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## RollaPrime (Jul 27, 2018)

I'm not sure how I missed this journal. I really like the contrast of plants you have in both leaf structure and color. 

Your crinum is looking insanely happy!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

RollaPrime said:


> I'm not sure how I missed this journal. I really like the contrast of plants you have in both leaf structure and color.
> 
> Your crinum is looking insanely happy!


Thank you. You probably missed it since I don't update it often anymore and there aren't any interesting discussions going on to keep it near the top of the roster.  I wish I could take credit for the Crinum looking like they do. There are seven or eight of them in that group, so looks are deceiving.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Phil Edwards said:


> I'm half tempted to do a rescape once I'm mobile again. The wood still looks good, but it's old and rotting. It may be time to come up with something different


That lotus would be sweet focal point for a Dutch...


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

burr740 said:


> That lotus would be sweet focal point for a Dutch...


Yes it would.  Sadly, it's too big to use for that in my tank. I may have to send you one sometime.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Alright folks, time for some input. I'm super close to deciding to do a rescape and am trying to decide on what to do. The tank's become monolithic, for lack of a better word. Visually, it's crammed with too many large plants; especially the mass of Anubias in the middle. The three options are-

1) Remove all the current wood and use the large stump-like piece I've got with a few rocks to hold it down.

2) Take all the wood out and use only Seiryu stone, which I've got a ton of. It won't be an iwagumi, but rather use the stone to make planting beds and as a place for Anubias to grow.

3) Go with a no-hardscape design with the exception of small rocks for Anubias. 

Also, will anyone want a couple square feet of Eliocharis pusillis? It's a moss magnet in here and I'm tired of maintaining it.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Green Acres was the place to be. Algae growing was the life for me. Don't fall off roofs or a-hurting you will be!

I'm not exactly sure when it was, but not too long after I was able to finally move around back in November-ish I decided to do a rescape...and my CO2 promptly ran out. Being unable to get to the shop to exchange my cans and a lot of the plants had taken a big hit after me being gone for a month so I decided to just let things go. This may sound strange, but I was having a hard time looking at the tank without feeling ill. Memory-body association is a real thing, let me tell you. I thought I was going to be able to forget what I felt like after chemo, but the tank thought otherwise. That was another reason to say "forget it" and leave things alone. At some point I got the bright idea that it would be cool to work up a presentation on how to rehabilitate badly neglected and algae-filled tanks so I didn't do anything for months. Literally. I shut the filter off and only topped off every month or so. Yes, I left the lights on.  Fast forward to the 24th and some motivation to finally get things cleaned up. I'm honestly unsure why though. I'm feeling extraordinarily "meh" about my tank and the hobby in general. It's typically during periods like this when I drop off the face of the hobby-earth so I'm a bit surprised with myself. Hopefully this is a sign of increased interest again. If not, then hopefully some folks will get a good laugh. 

4.24.19- Isn't it lovely? 





































After an hour or so of pulling out 60-gallons wet volume of thread algae, going through roots and leaf bunches to get as much algae out as possible, the sides got a scrape-down and the tank got an 80% water change. The swords and Crypts got hit really hard, but the Anubias and Crinum came through it pretty well. I was pleasantly surprised. It was looking fairly decent and I was starting to get into the look again until I got the bright idea to toothbrush the wood clean and found out how soft it had become. Soft spiderwood is rotten spiderwood so I made the decision to take it out for good this morning. It had a good four-year run, but in the interest of rehabilitating the tank it's time for it to go. The only hardscape in there now is a line of Seiryu stone making a high planting bed in the back. Had I not just put in a bunch of fert tabs back there I may have been tempted to take those out as well. I'm glad I didn't though, looking back through setups with just substrate and plants, I started getting that queezy feeling again. It's almost time for another big WC to clean out even more dust/mulm and do a bit more glass scraping. More pictures will come when it's clean enough to see into the tank clearly.

Cheers,
Phil


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Hey Phil - good to see you back around here. Ya, the tank looks a bit rough for sure. Really wish I could find a pic I remember seeing where somebody grew green hair algae on purpose. Then cultivated it such that it looked like grass. Impressive looking, but likely not for me. Good to hear the crinum is hanging in there. Just got rid of another big crinum plant a few days ago. 

Look forward to your next adventure with the tank. As for the spiderwood - reminds me of the drift wood originally in my tank. For some reason I thought it would last forever - silly me.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

You just bought a new Crinum? Why didn't you ask me first, you silly boy?! I've seen some pretty cool stuff done with green Cladophora in the past and agree that it can be impressive. 

Right now I think the next adventure involves figuring out what the next adventure is going to be. Part of me is tempted to just keep things simple for a while and see if I can get the Crinum to flower. Another part wants to jam it full of stems. I suppose I should keep things as-is in order to be able to actually put that presentation together.


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## vvDO (Oct 18, 2010)

Phil Edwards said:


> Green Acres was the place to be. Algae growing was the life for me. Don't fall off roofs or a-hurting you will be!
> 
> I'm not exactly sure when it was, but not too long after I was able to finally move around back in November-ish I decided to do a rescape...and my CO2 promptly ran out. Being unable to get to the shop to exchange my cans and a lot of the plants had taken a big hit after me being gone for a month so I decided to just let things go. This may sound strange, but I was having a hard time looking at the tank without feeling ill. Memory-body association is a real thing, let me tell you. I thought I was going to be able to forget what I felt like after chemo, but the tank thought otherwise. That was another reason to say "forget it" and leave things alone. At some point I got the bright idea that it would be cool to work up a presentation on how to rehabilitate badly neglected and algae-filled tanks so I didn't do anything for months. Literally. I shut the filter off and only topped off every month or so. Yes, I left the lights on.  Fast forward to the 24th and some motivation to finally get things cleaned up. I'm honestly unsure why though. I'm feeling extraordinarily "meh" about my tank and the hobby in general. It's typically during periods like this when I drop off the face of the hobby-earth so I'm a bit surprised with myself. Hopefully this is a sign of increased interest again. If not, then hopefully some folks will get a good laugh.
> 
> ...




8-10 mL of algaefix will easily rid you of all that algae. If you decide slow growing low tech plants I have some nice crypt nurii, bolbitis, Philippine java fern and needle leaf java fern that I need to thin out soon.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> You just bought a new Crinum? Why didn't you ask me first, you silly boy?! I've seen some pretty cool stuff done with green Cladophora in the past and agree that it can be impressive.
> 
> Right now I think the next adventure involves figuring out what the next adventure is going to be. Part of me is tempted to just keep things simple for a while and see if I can get the Crinum to flower. Another part wants to jam it full of stems. I suppose I should keep things as-is in order to be able to actually put that presentation together.



No, I didn't "buy" one, I sold 1 of the 2 that I kept when I sent you the others. This one was just getting a little too big...


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

vvDO,

I know there are a number of chemicals available to help get rid of algae such as this one, but the whole point of letting it get this bad rather than just shutting the light off and mothballing the tank is to be able to show folks the process of restoring a tank without the use of non-nutrient chemicals. I'm a major proponent of the philosophy of "Biology Before Chemistry" and believe many people are more likely to have long term success by understanding the underlying biological/ecological aspects of their tank rather than always resorting to some chemical to "fix" things. I understand that many serious planted tank hobbyists know of ways to handle situations like the one I went through, but many general hobbyists don't really know how to handle the underlying causes of serious outbreaks, or how to recover a planted tank after a period of prolonged neglect. Those are the folks I'm targeting the eventual presentation for.

As for plants? I think I'm going to stick with what's survived in there for now. We all know it would be easy to cram a tank in this condition full of stems and go off to the races, but that's counter to my intentions as it would basically be starting a brand new tank rather than rehabilitating an existing one. I appreciate your offer of plants though, thank you.\


Regards,
Phil


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> vvDO,
> 
> I know there are a number of chemicals available to help get rid of algae such as this one, but the whole point of letting it get this bad rather than just shutting the light off and mothballing the tank is to be able to show folks the process of restoring a tank without the use of non-nutrient chemicals. I'm a major proponent of the philosophy of "Biology Before Chemistry" and believe many people are more likely to have long term success by *understanding the underlying biological/ecological aspects of their tank rather than always resorting to some chemical to "fix" things*. I understand that many serious planted tank hobbyists know of ways to handle situations like the one I went through, but many general hobbyists don't really know how to handle the underlying causes of serious outbreaks, or *how to recover a planted tank after a period of prolonged neglect*. Those are the folks I'm targeting the eventual presentation for.
> 
> ...



I have a feeling there will be a lot of interested members around here following this topic - me included!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil very good to see you back!

So we now have the "before" pictures.......very much looking forward to the "after" ones.

If it helps your motivation, I am looking forward to seeing where this goes, and I am sure many others here are as well.


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

Welcome back!!


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Well this should be fun!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

ipkiss said:


> Welcome back!!


Thank you!



burr740 said:


> Well this should be fun!


Let's hope so. It could easily become a dumpster fire; we'll just have to wait and see.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

4.26.19- She Cleans Up Well

Here we go. All the algae I was able to get to, all the wood, and one big rock has been removed. Most of the Crinum were too tangled with the algae and got pulled up when I took it out, so they all got uprooted, cleaned, and replanted. 

What have I done so far?

*Day 1-*
Manual algae removal and initial/gross glass cleaning

80% water change, started the filter, CO2, and Cerges back up

Hardscape removal. I'd have kept the wood and rock in there if the wood had still been good

Added bits of fertilizer tabs (regular garden variety MiracleGro) deep into the rear substrate. Given the substrate is soil-based and the bits are down 3 or more inches I'm not concerned with leeching. 

Added 3/4 tsp Baking Soda and 2 tbsp GH booster 

*Day 2-*
Fine/Detail glass cleaning

Manual removal of moss and algae clumps that got missed the previous day

Reduced light from the previous 4 bulbs to 2, on for the regular 6 hrs/day. CO2 is still on for 6.5 hrs/day

Reduced filter output to about 75% now that circulation is better. This wouldn't be an issue in systems without a sump. I did this to a) reduce offgassing and b) now that circulation has been greatly improved I want to keep as much dust in the tank as possible so it's easier to remove during water changes rather than having to deal with the hassle of removing the filter floss and pumps to properly clean out the sump.

95% (including the sump) water change to remove more substrate dust from the tank and clean out all the sediment in the sump. The filter pad wasn't cleaned with the expectation that bacteria in the trapped sediment will repopulate the filter floss.

Cleaned and replanted the Crinum and cleaned up the Anubias. I'll probably be going through the Anubias a few times over the next couple of days as I see stuff in the roots. 

Added 3/4 tsp Baking Soda and 2 tbsp GH booster

*Day 3-* 4.26

Feed the fish.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Fish? Looking at your fist pic it looks like maybe 4 crinum in there? I keep thinking about the 4' long monster I pulled from my tank and just imagined what (4) 4' long monsters would look like in your tank :surprise:
My guess is you have much better plant husbandry than I do. 

Considering how tough things looked just a few days ago - I am impressed.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Immortal1 said:


> Fish? Looking at your fist pic it looks like maybe 4 crinum in there? I keep thinking about the 4' long monster I pulled from my tank and just imagined what (4) 4' long monsters would look like in your tank :surprise:


Yup, four Pseudomugil luminatus survived the whole ordeal and Lucky the Otto is still going strong. They're kind of hard to see behind that basketball of Anubias, but there are actually 7 Crinum in there; one of which has a couple babies starting to sprout up. To be honest, I'm not sure how well they'll do in such shallow conditions. My thoughts are they should do ok as there's a good chance they grow in shallow conditions in the wild, but I haven't been able to verify that. Since the whole goal with them is to try to flower and get seeds I figure shallow conditions would work fairly well. Even if that doesn't happen, I plan on keeping them long enough that they recover and fill in enough to find a home in a taller tank. Since my tank's much more shallow than yours I have little expectation that they'll get to be the monsters you're able to grow. Frankly, I'll be happy if they just settle in and start growing again. They used up a lot of their energy reserves and are rather thin around the base these days. 

It looks like two of the swords hung in well enough to start growing again too. If they do, things are going to get interesting...


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Good to hear on the phish. As for my monster crinum - it went to my friend with the 180g discus tank. Assuming she remembers to add fertilizer and hopefully gets a bit more light than she currently has... I can only imagine how big that thing "could" get


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Immortal1 said:


> Good to hear on the phish. As for my monster crinum - it went to my friend with the 180g discus tank. Assuming she remembers to add fertilizer and hopefully gets a bit more light than she currently has... I can only imagine how big that thing "could" get


I'd love to see how big one of these could get living in a large tank for a long time. Have you recommended Flourish Tabs to your friend? That's probably the best and easiest way to make sure it gets nutrition without potentially causing issues with the discus. Thinking about this makes me miss the old 220. That really was the perfect aquarium. 


My tank note: I've got a bottle of Flourish Advance floating around that will see some use in a few days. It can potentially stimulate existing algae to grow too so I want to make sure I've removed as much as possible as well as let the plants settle in a bit before adding it. Also, I neglected to mention earlier that I had added CaribSea Floraspore mycorrhizal fungi culture to the substrate during the most recent rescape. They're a type of symbiotic fungi that grow into plant roots and help them access soil nutrients. I credit them/the product with helping the plants come through this as well as they did given that I didn't add any nutrients to the water for months. I also expect them to help things to re-establish root systems a bit more quickly than normal; particularly with the addition of Flourish Advance.

Cheers,
Phil


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## wastewater (Apr 5, 2010)

Phil Edwards said:


> I'm a major proponent of the philosophy of "Biology Before Chemistry" and believe many people are more likely to have long term success by understanding the underlying biological/ecological aspects of their tank rather than always resorting to some chemical to "fix" things.



I like this sentence... definitely a pearl of wisdom.


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

I recently moved all plants from a capped soil substrate to an inert BDBS 2" thick substrate.

The result was pearling algae covered plants.
Rather than play with the tank I purchased AlgaeFix.
Having never used such a product in the past, would I use it again?
Most definitely, expedited the situation very quickly vs. the potential loss of many plants.
Granted this bottle will now sit for a long time but that one shot saved $$$ of loss!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

@Maryland Guppy,

I'd argue that you're in the group of folks who know what's going on in a plant tank already and for whom products like AlgaeFix are a useful short term aid rather than a long term crutch. You're not the kind of person I'd be giving a presentation like this to anyway as you could probably teach me a thing or two, too. 

Yes, I'm in charge of Clippings. Yes, I know the lady in the HGTV clip gave bad advice about fish; I assumed that most AGA folks know better.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

4.29.19- 

Still clean after a few days. 























































I added 1/4 tsp KNO3 today to give the Anubias something to chew on. Other than that and some fish food nothing's gone in the tank since the last update.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Pretty impressive turn around from those pics you first posted! I'm still amazed at all the Crinum you have in there 
Really need to get a pic of my friends 180g tank with the 4'+ Crinum in it.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

She finally posted a decent pic  First pic was 3 years ago. About 1 year ago I convinced her to add real plants.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Wow, that guy's got plenty of space to spread out! I've got a nagging suspicion that I'm going to have to get rid of mine before they can get close to being that big. The monster you sent pretty much covered up the surface and that was before I raised the substrate way up in the back.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> Wow, that guy's got plenty of space to spread out! I've got a nagging suspicion that I'm going to have to get rid of mine before they can get close to being that big. The monster you sent pretty much covered up the surface and that was before I raised the substrate way up in the back.


 Given the size of the root structure on the monster crinum, and thinking about how many you have, I would almost guess your entire substrate being roots if the ones you have ever got that big.
Granted, if you're not lazy like me you can selectively pull each plant, trim things up and then re-plant. Yeah, I'm not that ambitious :grin2:


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## vvDO (Oct 18, 2010)

Immortal1 said:


> Given the size of the root structure on the monster crinum, and thinking about how many you have, I would almost guess your entire substrate being roots if the ones you have ever got that big.
> Granted, if you're not lazy like me you can selectively pull each plant, trim things up and then re-plant. Yeah, I'm not that ambitious :grin2:




I just uprooted my big Crinum. Stem was greater than 2” thick, I could not plant anything close by... was like planting in rock the roots were so thick. That was in a 40 breeder. It should flower within a year. As far as I can tell it was not self fertile, so you may need multiple plants flowering or need to save a flower(freeze).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Immortal1 said:


> GI would almost guess your entire substrate being roots if the ones you have ever got that big.





vvDO said:


> I just uprooted my big Crinum. Stem was greater than 2” thick, I could not plant anything close by... was like planting in rock the roots were so thick.



They may not be in there long enough for that, but it'll be interesting to see how much space they take up with 2 cubic feet of substrate to grow in. MUAHAHAHA


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## vvDO (Oct 18, 2010)

Phil Edwards said:


> They may not be in there long enough for that, but it'll be interesting to see how much space they take up with 2 cubic feet of substrate to grow in. MUAHAHAHA




Soon enough you will know how Rapunzel felt... tangled!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Sooooooooooo, I've been offered plants by friends at the AGA convention and need to make some room in the tank. While digging around in the storage closet I found a nice big piece of wood I'd shoved in there. Add a good dose of boredom to the mix and the three combined equal a full tank redo. The wife and I visited my parents to drop off an early Mother's Day gift and I grabbed a masonry chisel and sledge from dad. I now have a bunch of smaller rocks to scape with rather than a group of giant stones. Things could get interesting! 

Photos to come once things are arranged and the glass and water are clean enough to see through.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Hmmm. So I have only the option of "like". What if I like very much? Guess I will have to type that here instead 
Good to have friends in the right place at the right time - look forward to what you come up with. Just finished listening to Dennis Wong's presentation and now I have a picture of your basic tank in my minds eye....


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Sadly the wood isn't going to work. If I had another piece or two I could have come up with something. Alone it only unbalances the tank. Now I get to play with some rock to accent what's going to end up basically being a plant only tank with no real hardscape. It's kind of sad as I'm staunchly on the woodscape side of the fence but needs must. Hopefully my meager rockworking skills will be up to the task. I sure am glad I only broke down a couple of the worst looking big rocks and still have the best of the bunch available for scaping. 

It sounds like you're enjoying the convention. There's nothing like going to an AGA to recharge the batteries and motivate one to improve and/or try new things. I hope you get a chance to sit in on the Sunday auction; those things are a ton of fun. I'm still jealous you were able to go. 


Change log; what did I actually do?

1. Removed all of the water out of the tank and did a few rounds of wet/dry vacuuming of water that drained out of the soil every 15 minutes or so.

2. Dropped a bunch of quartered fert sticks onto the glass in the front, covered that with about an inch of substrate and gave it a heavy spray of a mix of Flourish Advanced (plant growth hormones) and the last of the Floraspore fungi spore powder. I then pulled all the substrate from the back half except for about an inch, dropped the rest of the tab bits down, covered that with about an inch of substrate, sprayed it heavily, then sloped the substrate.

3. Once I figured out the wood wasn't going to work I did an initial tidying up of the substrate and then sprayed the remaining mixture all over the surface and will be letting it sit overnight. 

4. Tomorrow (5.5) I'll be playing with the rock, doing the final substrate tidying, planting what I have, and filling the tank. After that it's a matter of playing the waiting game.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Visual association is real. I've been looking through different journals here and there trying to figure out what else I want to put in the tank and every time I see Monte Carlo, S. repens, and L. aromatica 'mini' I feel sick. The tank had a lot of those in it when I was going through chemo. @Immortal1 have you experienced something similar?


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> Visual association is real. I've been looking through different journals here and there trying to figure out what else I want to put in the tank and every time I see Monte Carlo, S. repens, and L. aromatica 'mini' I feel sick. The tank had a lot of those in it when I was going through chemo. @*Immortal1* have you experienced something similar?


 Yes, I have. At the moment, I feel like I have a much better handle on the variables of plant keeping and I think back to all the various plants I have received that I no longer have cause I killed them off. 



Something that I just received from Maryland Guppy is Ludwigia polycarpa. His comment to me was "Polycarpa can have 3 colors to a stem. Lower greens, midrange orange, and deep red tops."
Might be a pretty cool addition to your new arrangement. 



Joe also sent me some "Hygrophila serpylla, easy carpeting plant. Only been in the hobby for about a year, not many folks have it yet. it'll spread across the bottom with a few wild shoots growing up in the air. Just pinch those off and replant them on the edges." Can imagine you having a large grouping of that in your new collection :grin2:


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

5.6.19-

Just a few pictures for (hazy) viewing pleasure.




















Forgive the pink, I turned on all the lights to get better photos. I normally only run 2 or 4 6700K bulbs. The haze is from brushing settled dust from the rocks earlier this morning. It may be time to find a local with a diatomaceous earth filter...


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Ooooo, I see a lot of possibilities with that layout! Really curious what plants you will be getting in the mail soon.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

So far Maryland Guppy has kindly offered me an assortment of stems and Burr some P. helferi. I have no idea what the rest is going to be; well just have to wait and see.

Bump:


Immortal1 said:


> Joe also sent me some "Hygrophila serpylla, easy carpeting plant. Only been in the hobby for about a year, not many folks have it yet. it'll spread across the bottom with a few wild shoots growing up in the air. Just pinch those off and replant them on the edges." Can imagine you having a large grouping of that in your new collection :grin2:


Feel free to send me some when it's time for a thinning.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Does anyone reading this have Glossostigma elatinoides or know someone who does? If so, please PM me.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

*5.9.19*

Thanks to Maryland Guppy and Burr.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Plant list!

Previously in the tank-
C. wendtii 'Bronze'
C. willisii

All the Crinum and Anubias were removed as they literally and figuratively didn't fit with the tank. I'm now in the process of finding homes for all of them. If you're looking to adopt, let me know. I'd love for them to go to a good forever home.

After planting everything else and sitting on the scape overnight some of the C. willisii on the left need to be moved, but that's a task for another week. Barring adding new plants and doing regular maintenance I'm going to let this sit and do its thing. I hope. We all know how I get so this is going to be a battle against myself.  I reserve the right to up the lighting or photoperiod in a couple weeks once things have settled in, if needed. 

Plants from Woody and Joe-
8 L.cardinalis
12 L.brevipes
18 R.nanjenshan
15 L.aromatica mini
8 L.repens
10 A.senegalensis
3 P.kimberly
4 Hydrothrix gardneri
13 P.erectus
3 P.stellatus
13 Rotala H'ra
4 Ludwigia polycarpa
5 Hygrophila araguaia
4 Pogostemon helferi
3 Ludwigia 'Pantanal'

(I ditched the Hydrocotyle, sorry Joe!)

What've I done since planting?

Added 1/2 tsp KNO3, cleaned the wet/dry prefilter pad super duper well, and turned the flow down a bit. Lighting is still 2x year-old T5HO on for 6 hrs/day with CO2 going pretty hard for 7hrs/day.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Good to see you jumping back in head first!

This should be very interesting.


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Nice layout!



Phil Edwards said:


> (I ditched the Hydrocotyle, sorry Joe!)


Eh....that was Limnophila guinnea

https://www.flowgrow.de/db/aquaticplants/limnophila-sp-guinea-broad-leaf


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

And that, my friends, is why we never randomly ship Phil rare plants.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> Plant list!
> 
> Previously in the tank-
> C. wendtii 'Bronze'
> ...



Looks like Joe and David did a great job supplying you with some new plants! Look forward to seeing how all those fill in :smile2:


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Immortal1 said:


> Looks like Joe and David did a great job supplying you with some new plants! Look forward to seeing how all those fill in :smile2:


They sure did! I've still got some empty spaces left and am in need of some broad leaved stuff like Hygro. corymbosa and a strappy thing like Eliocharis to contrast with all of the fine-leaved stems in there. Time to start up the sniper scan on the auction and sales places. MUAHAHA


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> They sure did! I've still got some empty spaces left and am in need of some broad leaved stuff like Hygro. corymbosa and a strappy thing like Eliocharis to contrast with all of the fine-leaved stems in there. Time to start up the sniper scan on the auction and sales places. MUAHAHA


I have atleast 20 different Hygro Kompac around here - want some?


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## vvDO (Oct 18, 2010)

Phil Edwards said:


> They sure did! I've still got some empty spaces left and am in need of some broad leaved stuff like Hygro. corymbosa and a strappy thing like Eliocharis to contrast with all of the fine-leaved stems in there. Time to start up the sniper scan on the auction and sales places. MUAHAHA




I have a good amount of Hygrophila siamensis 53b 3-4 large stems and blyxa japonicum, might fit the bill. Shoot me a pm with your addy and it’s all yours.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

5.11.19- Looking at the tank this evening I noticed some minor leaf tip curl in some of the Crypts I kept so I added approx 1/8 tsp Calcium Ammonium Nitrate to see if that does anything. It's not much, but if it works then it may become a go-to Ca supplement between water changes. I'm hesitant to continue adding GH booster to address a Ca issue between water changes as I don't want to overload on the Mg and K. With no fish in the tank the Ammonium may be a good thing to jump-start and maintain a cycle. 

I've also ordered 1000 size 00 gelcaps and a couple pounds of Osmocote Plus. Let's see if I can recreate the richness of Amazonia without all the nasty water column shenanigans associated with fresh stuff.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

There's nothing quite like generous friends to force a guy into replanting half his tank to make room for random [censored][censored][censored][censored]. You *almost* got me to take the rock out too. Almost. Thankfully, I was able to resist that temptation for now. 

What else has happened today, 5.11.19?

1. 80% water change. An atrocious amount of substrate dust has been kicking up with everything that's happened of late so I figured I'd try to get as much out as possible. I failed. There's fine sediment everywhere; in the tank, in the overflow, in the sump, on the return pumps...everywhere. To think I just cleaned everything out not too long ago. I see two, perhaps one, option at this point. Wait until all the plants are at trimming stage, pray the plants don't get choked out, and do a couple full drain/fills with serious deep substrate vacuuming; get a diatomaceous earth filter; or both.

Added 2 tbsp GH booster, 1/2tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp KNO3

2. Switched the bulb arrangement from the two middle ones going to the next outside two to get a bit better spread. It's at x I x x I x with x being off and I being on.

3. Moved the filter return to the back right corner. There's better overall circulation now, which I like a lot, but as soon as the stems in that corner grow they're going to start getting blown sideways, which I dislike a lot. I'm starting to see the drawbacks of the tank's dimensions and how the hardware is set up now that it's not arranged how I'd originally intended for it to be. I may make some minor tweaks here and there with plumbing. I really want to replumb everything to make some improvements and perhaps switch out to an inert substrate, but I need to make myself wait.  If I can stay involved with the tank (more or less) as it is until Christmas then I'll let myself make those changes with gift money.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Making Osmocote gelcaps is a pain.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

5.14.19-

The plants from @Saxa Tilly and @Immortal1 came in yesterday and got put in the tank. Waiting on one more from @vvDO and am praying there's enough room for them. 

What's been done since last post?

1. Moved the return back to the center of the tank and turned down output to about 70%. This has helped improve flow throughout the tank and kept plants from getting blown sideways. The side effect is more suspended sediment is settling back down on the rocks and some plants. Once everything's settled in and rooted I'm going to try putting my MP10 in there to get as much dust into the filter as possible.

2. Taped up part of the sump. Even if this doesn't do much for increasing CO2 efficiency it's helped to reduce noise in the living room.

3. Added about 40 Osmocote Plus gelcaps around the different groups of plants. Some were put inside groups that are more spread out and others were put on the edges of more tightly packed groups, like the Crypts. All were put down as deep as I could get.

4. Added 1/2 tsp KNO3, approx. 1/8 tsp KH2PO4, approx 1/32 tsp CSM+B, and approx 0.01ppm Brightwell Ferrion that's in both +2 and +3 forms. The intention is to get some amount of nutrients in their until the Osmocote takes off. I'll likely continue dosing this until the plants show that they don't need it anymore. Since Osmocote doesn't have Ca in it I'll continue adding GH booster with water changes and may need to add either Calcium Sulfate or Calcium Ammonium Nitrate salt in small doses if it looks like it's needed.

5. Planted, of course!

My overall goal is to cut way back on water column supplementation in the hopes it will help the widest variety of plants grow. As easy as it is to dose dries I'm not feeling like messing with it as the sole source of nutrition these days and hope to use them only as supplements to address acute issues. Also, I'm not sure what sort of animals are going to end up in there so I want to keep water chemistry as neutral as possible to give more options when the time comes.

PICTURES!!!


















































































Once the stuff from Vinny (vvDO) comes in the hard part begins; keeping my hands out of the tank until it's time to trim.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Great group of pics Phil! Nice to see the various plants survived the USPS. Should grow in nicely. Really curious how your substrate dosing goes long term. Also, thank-you


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Good to see the tank resurrected!

That's quite a turn around in a short amount of time.

Looking forward to seeing where things go from here.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Thanks Gregg. Given my poor track record with this tank I'm going to hold off judgement for a couple months until after everything's grown in and placed in a more permanent location. 

Vinny's sending some Hygrophila something or other and Blyxa japonica. Once that's in, that's it. No new plants except perhaps some H. pinnatifida and/or a small Saggiteria if it needs some more dark and/or strappy stuff.


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## KayakJimW (Aug 12, 2016)

Phil Edwards said:


> Making Osmocote gelcaps is a pain.


Just curious, what's your technique? When I made a bunch, I'd sit with a bowl of osmocote in front of me, bowl of empty gelcaps on my left, finished products on my right. Then I'd zone out to some Hulu or YouTube while picking up an empty cap, separating it, running the small side thru the osmocote bowl like a scoop, put big side of cap on, then drop in bowl on the right. Found that way easier than trying to funnel or pour the beads into the caps


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

KayakJimW said:


> Just curious, what's your technique? When I made a bunch, I'd sit with a bowl of osmocote in front of me, bowl of empty gelcaps on my left, finished products on my right. Then I'd zone out to some Hulu or YouTube while picking up an empty cap, separating it, running the small side thru the osmocote bowl like a scoop, put big side of cap on, then drop in bowl on the right. Found that way easier than trying to funnel or pour the beads into the caps


That's exactly how I did it. It's just a tedious task and I'm a nitpicky perfectionist who doesn't like to see a gelcap that's not completely full so I end up paying more attention to the process than is reasonable.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Hey all,

A bunch of you have been asking to see a copy of my thesis lately so I did a little digging around and found an early draft. Please keep in mind that this is a rough draft so there are all sorts of grammatical errors, but the graphs are the final copies and it's pretty much a complete document. I had to do some last minute revisions prior to the defense, but it appears that document is lost to the ether. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dkzyIZXIJBIKd3fgkMLkHjIKfvqDpMGh/view?usp=sharing

In the interest of documentation, I decided to put some gelcaps up against the glass away from plants to see what's going on with them over time. I'll get some pictures once lighting is better.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

5.15.19-

Initial planting is DONE! @vvDO sent a very generous portion of Blyxia japonica with some stems of H. siamensis (?) with AMAZING roots, and a Cryptocoryne ihavenoideawhatitis. There is officially no more room in the inn. Now the process of waiting, seeing what lives, growing them out, and eventual aquascaping begins. I can already tell that the species count is going to get thinned out quite a bit. Time to prepare to set up some outdoor tubs and a new tank. 

Junky FTS for giggles. It got a lot dustier in there than I thought from just planting a small amount of stuff. It's going to get a righteous vacuuming when it's time to pull everything and replant. Ooof! Better pictures will come when things clear up.











Full size 00 Osmocote+ gelcap.









I'm really interested to see if a ring of oxidized iron forms. The last time I used Aquasoil there was a distinct band of it about 2 inches from the substrate surface. The protein from the gelcap should spur some strong microbial growth too so there might be some really interesting stuff to see as time goes by. 

That's all for now folks!


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Looks great Phil!

Remind me of the lighting setup you are running??


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Agrobrite 6x T5HO only running 4x 6500K 54w for 6 hrs/day at 20 inches or so above the water's surface. It's getting to be time to replace the bulbs.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> only running 4x 6500K 54w for 6 hrs/day at 20 inches or so above the water's surface.


I hope you got your seat belt on........looks like it should be quite a ride!:grin2:


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Greggz said:


> I hope you got your seat belt on........looks like it should be quite a ride!:grin2:


I hope not! It's dangerous enough having all these stems in 10-12 inches of water. The last thing I need is nuclear lighting. LOL


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

Kind of like a frag tank for sure.
Sharpen them scissors! >

My 80G frag is a bit more forgiving @ 16" deep, not much though.

Regrettably some stems take a while to reach full potential due to trimming.
Effected are limno aromatica (not mini), pogo kimberly and most other pogo species except erectus (it's in a class all it's own).


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## vvDO (Oct 18, 2010)

Phil Edwards said:


> 5.15.19-
> 
> 
> 
> Initial planting is DONE! @vvDO sent a very generous portion of Blyxia japonica with some stems of H. siamensis (?) with AMAZING roots, and a Cryptocoryne ihavenoideawhatitis. There is officially no more room in the inn.




Phil, that’s siamensis 53B, initially got it from Burr.

The crypt is spiralis ‘red’ which I got from tissue culture, should have no problem growing in your rich substrate.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Now we gotta stew going!


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

Gumbo! >


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Maryland Guppy said:


> My 80G frag is a bit more forgiving @ 16" deep, not much though.
> 
> Regrettably some stems take a while to reach full potential due to trimming.
> Effected are limno aromatica (not mini), pogo kimberly and most other pogo species except erectus (it's in a class all it's own).


I'm pretty sure we're using the same tanks, my water column's a little over an inch below the rim due to the overflow. I'll get around to redoing the plumbing and get a riser for the overflow one of these days. With the smaller water column and 4" substrate at the rear I'm left with a fairly shallow growing zone. I'll be sharpening my scissors for sure! 



vvDO said:


> Phil, that’s siamensis 53B, initially got it from Burr.
> 
> The crypt is spiralis ‘red’ which I got from tissue culture, should have no problem growing in your rich substrate.


Thanks for the clarification, I couldn't remember the numerical designation. Ooooh, spiralis? That may be exactly what I need to help with contrast! Thankfully Crypts are one genus I've had a lot of success over the years. I'm looking forward to seeing how this one behaves in this tank. <3



burr740 said:


> Now we gotta stew going!


Yes, a micronutrient stew from all the CSM+B I'm larding on.  Colin was gracious enough to make me a dilute formulation to use so I can use up all the CSM I got earlier. I'm half tempted to call up my old prof and see if he'll let me sneak a few water samples in when he runs stuff on the ICP-MS and see what's going on in there with lean water column dosing. Wouldn't that be something?



Maryland Guppy said:


> Gumbo! >


There aren't any shrimp in there quite yet and I'm a bit afraid to toss andouie in there so soon after setting it up.  The rice might be doable though.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

5.19.19-

The plants are starting to adjust. Some have died, some are melting, some are growing but not thriving, and others are doing really well. Thank you again to @Burr570, @Saxa Tilly, @Immortal1, @Maryland Guppy, and @vvDO! I hope I can do your generosity justice.

As you can see, there's still a significant sediment problem going on. Two and a half years into using Aquasolum is starting to see it break down a bit. I attribute the worst of it to smashing areas when placing hardscape in the past. The plan is still to let everything grow robust enough to pull, trim, and replant. When everything's pulled I'll do a major substrate cleaning and possibly hit is hard with a diatomaceous earth filter if I can get my hands on one. Given the tank's dimension, amount of stems, and required reduced flow, most of the stuff that gets kicked up doesn't stay suspended long enough to get sucked into the filter. 

What's new? I've stopped adding nitrate and phosphate to the water column now that the Osmocote has started diffusing upwards, as seen in the diatoms on the substrate's surface. I'm still adding 1 tbsp Florin GH+ and 1/2 tsp baking soda at water changes and have bumped up CO2. I may need to start adding some Calcium pills around some groups since Osmocote doesn't have any. I don't want to put too much in the water to avoid issues with the Rotalas, but some of the other species may need it. For the first time in a long time there's pearling in one of my tanks, wooo!

The dying leaves aren't helping with water quality problems either. Various algae have started rearing their nasty heads on the plants, but there's not a whole lot to be done about that right now. The plants haven't rooted enough yet to not get pulled up and the dust gets kicked up so badly when I swish around the groups that it's not worth messing with things quite yet. To that end, and thanks to a care package from Brightwell, I've started adding Florin Bacter to help with things. This particular bunch of microbes is a blend of bugs that are pretty good at addressing particulate organics as opposed to MicroBacter 7 which is more of a dissolved organics blend. I hope to see some mitigation of issues and a legit cycling over the next couple of weeks as ammonia/ammonium makes its way into the water column. I need to do some digging around in the storage closet to see if I still have samples of resin blends I made at Cobalt. If I do, and I can find one of the CPR media reactors I'll start running an organic adsorbtion resin. 

On to the pictures! I really need to figure out a good way to adjust the white balance. On the topic of lighting, do any of you know a good site that sells T5HO bulbs and accepts PayPal? It's time to replace these old guys.


















































































































































Thanks for watching!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

5.21.19- First Trim. The Pantanal finally reached the surface and got a good trimming. There are now 5 stems going. The leaves have gotten smaller and less red than the originals, but so far it's looking good to me. Some of the other Ludwigia and a couple of the R. macrandra stems will probably be getting hacked and replanted this weekend. 

Algae continue to proliferate and some plants are still mid-adjustment, but things are looking pretty decent all things considered. I noticed a couple of the species were closing up 30-45 minutes before the lights went off so I cut the photoperiod by an hour and kept the CO2 going until about 15 min until lights-out. That should keep CO2 up high for the duration of the photoperiod and reduce illumination when the plants aren't really using it much.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

5.26.19- What's Old is New Again (this is wordy, fair warning)

I'm thanking the Lord right now for giving me the habit of keeping old aquarium stuff. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about how to improve circulation now that the tank's full of stems. The original return scheme was designed specifically with having a lot of wood in the midground, but it wasn't working well enough for an open format. I was able to get as much flow as I could want out of the return pump and hit the "magic numbers", but overall circulation wasn't good. The front 1/3 and left quarter got the lion's share of current while the midground and right 2/3 of the background weren't getting much. Needless to say this was horrible for nutrient and CO2 distribution as well as debris entrainment. With that in mind, the idea of adding a spray bar to handle discharge from the Cerge's along the back was getting increasingly appealing. However, spending the money to get the PVC, new tubing, and paint was a cost I couldn't justify these days.

Getting back to my hoarder habit; when Brightwell moved from Pennsylvania to Alabama I was the last one there and was tasked with sorting through all the crap in the old warehouse and storage unit. With Chris' blessing I got pick of the litter for my personal use and ended up with a box full of random Eheim parts that I've ended up dragging along with me in the chance that I decide to use canisters on a tank in the indeterminate future. While going through the boxes in storage looking for a media reactor I came across the Eheim box and 30 feet of 1/2 Python hose I'd squirreled away. Much to my surprise, it contained enough parts to put a spray bar along the entire length of the tank! Money saved and it's manufactured stuff to boot! Over time I've come to appreciate clean hardware design as part of the whole aquarium and messy DIY just isn't clean, at least when I do it to a running tank. You can blame too many hours surfing salt water forums and seeing all the cool stuff at trade shows for this conceit. Amano may have had something to do with it too.

With the box of parts and hose firmly in-hand and a dreams of sugarplum fairies in my head I set about putting everything together then disaster struck. The Eheim parts are all 16/22mm and the Cerge's is all 3/4 inch! I thought a trip or three (we all know how that goes) to Home Depot was again in my future. Lo, and behold, while searching the tool box I came across a few Python connectors; one of which was a 3/4 male threaded that is exactly what I needed to attach the 1/2 inch tubing to the 3/4 inch Cerge's. An hour and much mess-making later the spray bar was installed with hardly any disturbance! The second best thing is there's enough back pressure now that I can run the Cerge's wide open without any concern for microbubbles. While I was sitting back blessing my luck I realized that I hadn't put an anti-siphon hole in the downdraft. Somewhere in all the moves over the past couple of years I lost my drill and ended up wracking my brain for a way to get the hole made without having to buy a drill. Oh yes, the screws in the junk drawer, perfect! After much cursing trying to get the screw to bite into a wet hard plastic tube the hole was made and the danger of flooding a second-floor apartment with 80 gallons of water was averted. Someone was looking out for me today.

The best thing is it's let me remove the ugly (Phil DIY!) and problem-causing return in the front so now there's an empty and clean reservoir chamber in the front. Overall flow rate has been noticeably reduced, but circulation is much better and CO2 rich water is getting discharged along the bottom where it can reach all the plants. Not to mention flow is much more gentle so nothing is getting blown sideways. Leaves from back to front and bottom to top are all slowly waving in the current. Reducing discharge has had the benefit of reducing agitation in the overflow and sump input, which has quieted things down appreciably and should improve CO2 retention. 

Ok Phil, that's all well and good, but what about the Old is New thing? My very first high-tech tank was a 90 gallon that ran an old-school siphon overflow into a small garbage can full of lava rock that I'd drilled a bunch of holes in. It sat in a 20 long with CO2 going directly into the return pump's intake that was discharged through a DIY spray bar along the kitty litter and play sand substrate. The hood was a clugey wood affair that had been made with a hand saw and screws housing 300+ of Compact Fluorescent retrofits. This thing was as ghetto as DIY gets, but it grew the hell out of plants as things were counted those days. Fast forward 19 years and I've got a system running a powerful T5HO fixture, a top of the line overflow that drains into a lovely acrylic sump, a CO2 reactor that can handle anything I care to throw at it, an Eheim brand spray bar discharging along the surface of an active soil substrate specifically intended for planted aquariums, and a lot of high end plants. Basically, it's a much more expensive version of that original 90 gallon that pushed me over the edge of the rabbit hole that got me where I am today. It's not quite as clean as I'd like it to be, but that's something to plan for when we move at some point.

All is not sunshine and strawberries though. Thanks to the loss of trees behind the apartment the tank's getting a good amount of morning sun which I think was a heavy contributor to the algae issues I'm having right now. I've turned CO2 on from 7 to 8:30 am to help offset that a bit. Going back to the problems with the original flow scheme, the proliferation of diatoms was causing dust to accumulate on everything. Swishing them off only served to kick up an unacceptable amount of dust which only made matters worse. On top of that, when cleaning off the rocks some small grains of something came off. It turns out the rock I used wasn't the stuff Cobalt had originally ordered and I tested, but it was labeled as what it should have been. Sure enough, these guys failed the vinegar test when I took them out (and kicked up an amazing amount of dust). This pushed me over the top and I ended up pulling all the plants out, rinsing them well, doing a full water change and refill, and removing the substrate by swishing it around in a colander before dumping it in a crate. I estimate 1.5 to 2 inches of fine silty-clay dust got removed. It was hard to tell as I had to do a couple drain-and-refills in the process. The tub was a mud hole when all was said and done, let me tell you! This will be the last time I use a commercial soil substrate in this tank. It's going to get a nice inert one in the future.

Armed with a bottle of apple cider vinegar and a sponge I went to town! The living room smelled like NC style coleslaw, but the glass was clean and I went to bed a satisfied man. The next morning I got to business laying down a layer of Osmocote on the glass and putting the substrate back in colander by colander, letting it drain before dumping it in the tank. In my excitement I forgot to add GH booster on the glass, but it should be ok in the long run. In order to make the water column a bit larger I only put in approx. 2 1/2 inches in the back rather than the almost five that was in the previously. Back in went the plants in only a vague semblance of decent arrangement. It pretty much went tall stems in the back and shorter ones in the front with the Crypts, Blyxa, Hygro somethingorother, and the lone remaining Downoi in the foreground.

All in all everything's worked out well. Some species aren't happy and may end up dying and there's still algae in there but I'm more confident that it'll establish quicker than it would have previously. Some of the stuff is growing gangbusters and has already needed to be selectively topped and replanted.

Pictures will come once the water clears up and I've cleaned everything a bit.

Thank you for reading this most recent novella!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

5.30.19- Order up!

Thanks to the generous folks who actually bought some of my plants and a little cash-back pot I didn't know I had on my card, I was able to put in a stock order for the tank, woooo! Coming soon to an aquarium near me:

12 Otocinclus
25 Amano shrimp
12 Asst. Nerites
12 Sparkling Gouramis
25 Cardinal Tetras
4 pots of H. pinnatifida
4 pots of H. corymbosa 'Kompact'
4 pots of L. cardinalis
3 Java Fern
1 pot of E. montevidensis "Giant Hairgrass"

I hadn't planned on getting that much; I only needed Ottos and shrimp to handle algae, but the supplier has a minimum dollar amount for an order and I was just able to squeak by. Because they're so cool (and don't want to waste time with dealing with a couple of DoA) they added the gouramis as preventative compensation. I had no plans on getting them and am not sure they'll work in the big tank so I may "have" to get the 12 gallon going sooner than I'd thought. One of my old coworkers has been trying to get me to set that tank up as a nano reef for a while and I've almost caved a few times but it may just have to wait. A little low-tech gourami tank sure would look nice here next to my desk.  

I'm pretty sure the L. cardinalis is the original aquarium form and not the "small form" being passed around these days. It's the same stuff from the same farm I've used a lot in the past and will be interesting to see how it does compared to what I got from MG. I'm also curious to see if there's any difference in the two H. corymbosa over time. The Eliocharis was a lark. I'm not sure I want another hair grass again, but the tank needs something tall, dark, and handsome so in it goes. It may end up going in the 12, depending on how I feel tomorrow. It may end up getting split between the two tanks as well, we'll see. Same thing with the H. pinn. If there's enough for both tanks I'll split them, if not, it's all going in the big tank. 

On plant news, the R. macrandra (?) @Saxa Tilly and L. repens @Immortal1 sent have been throwing up stems left, right, and center and have had to be selectively trimmed. Sadly, the P. helferi is nearly all gone. The last plant is just barely hanging on. Just about everything else in the tank has new growth starting to peek out so there's still some hope. 

I know I've promised pictures, but they'll have to wait one more day so I can get shots before and after adding the stuff tomorrow.


On a personal note: I got a call from my soon-to-be boss saying I'll have to wait to come in until Monday because his wife just got a preliminary diagnosis of Lymphoma. A lot of you stood behind me during my trials with cancer and I ask that you please say a prayer for him and his family as they go through this terrifying and confusing time.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

5.31.19 In No Particular Order-

The clean up crew has their work cut out for them...



























































































Bump:


























































































Bump:































































Bump:


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

For the first time ever I was able to see the clean patch left by an Amano shrimp. It was pretty cool in a depressing kind of way. How bad does the algae have to be to see what a shrimp has done? The answer is bad.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> 5.31.19 In No Particular Order-
> 
> The clean up crew has their work cut out for them...


Ha! now it's starting to look like my tank :grin2:


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Quagulator said:


> Ha! now it's starting to look like my tank :grin2:


I could be so lucky!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Whelp,

I have no solid idea why, but the Amanos are doing the usual shrimp thing and dying off a few at a time each day. I haven't touched the water since doing a water change the day before they arrived. The snails and fish are all doing just fine; it's only the shrimp. I'm a bit boggled, to be honest. Before this the cherries did super well with water column supplementation and weekly water changes. This time there wasn't an immediate/quick mass death I would expect with some toxin in the water, like Copper or something. 

I've got two guesses:

1-Temperature. There aren't any heaters in there and it gets hit full-on by the AC vent. 

2- Ammonia. I laid down a good bit of Osmocote when redoing the substrate and a couple pellets have made their way to the surface. I pick a few out each day. But, there's not an immediate tank-wide response and I've been adding FlorinBacter every day. It's a legit bacteria product, I've made batches of the stuff myself in the past, and trust that it does what it's meant to do. Given the preponderance of diatoms, Ammonia's not something I can rule out though, even with the bacteria. I'm a bit skeptical though as there wasn't a fast mass-die off and again, the nerites and fish are doing just fine. 


Thoughts? Advice? The only thing I'm good at with shrimp is killing them, so any words of wisdom are appreciated. If I'm being an idiot, call me out, it's all good. That's not carte blanche permission @Greggz, @Immortal1, @burr740, and @Maryland Guppy.


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

Phil Edwards said:


> Thoughts? Advice? The only thing I'm good at with shrimp is killing them, so any words of wisdom are appreciated. If I'm being an idiot, call me out, it's all good. That's not carte blanche permission @Greggz, @Immortal1, @burr740, and @Maryland Guppy.


Morning Phil :grin2:
Went back to post #235 and did a re-read and haven't found a way to call you an idiot yet. >

Some thoughts:
Temperature as you have already mentioned.
Sunlight from some window where trees were cut down?
CO2 levels, you are using a sump, correct? pH drop been monitored at all?

Some things I don't do:
Baking soda
Flourish Advance
Flora Spore Powder
Calcium ammonium nitrate
40 Gel caps
Brightwell Ferrion / "sodium" feredetate with CSM+B
Florin Bacter

Can't speak to these items but I can understand the ammonium nitrate one.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Maryland Guppy said:


> Morning Phil :grin2:
> Went back to post #235 and did a re-read and haven't found a way to call you an idiot yet. >
> 
> Some thoughts:
> ...


It could be pH, I can't rule that out. I don't have a pH test/probe, but I've been monitoring animal behavior closely since adding them. CO2 was definitely high when everything was first put in there so I reduced it to the point where everyone was behaving normally. pH could still be fluctuating more than I think it is since I can't say it's not. If that were the case though, wouldn't there be higher mortality than just a couple dead overnight? Inquiring minds want to know.

As for all the extra additives and such, I only added a couple tablespoons of GH booster and 1/2 tsp baking soda with the last two water changes and the bacteria each day since adding the animals. Those are the same amounts Kyle and I were adding to the tank when the cherries were in there and doing just fine. *boggle*

Has anyone else out there experienced a similar thing? A rapid and/or mass die-off of the shrimp and snails would be clear, but the low shrimp mortality and no issues with the snails has me confused. The Cardinals are wild-caught Project Piaba fish and I'd expect them to be sensitive to issues with water quality as well. I could be wrong though; they're the ones that survived all the stress of collection, shipping, holding, and all that.


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## Wobblebonk (Feb 13, 2018)

I personally find most shrimp to be more sensitive than fish and both more sensitive than most snails :/ maybe it's just some failed molts from moving to a new tank/parameters but could still be small amounts of ammonia? I dunno about nerites specifically but I'll just throw snails into a tank that's pretty "hot" and they'll still survive and help me get my tank cycled (and I always need more puffer food :/) Personally I feel like things have to get real bad (or I gotta jack up the co2 in a conscious attempt to kill them) for my snails to die off.

It's not uncommon for people's shrimp to slowly die off in less than ideal conditions.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Wobblebonk said:


> It's not uncommon for people's shrimp to slowly die off in less than ideal conditions.


Well, damn. Time to play Fun With Checklists then.


-Bump-

That moment when you've placed your order for a pH pen and Amazon shows a pH and TDS probe set for just a little bit more than you just spent. *sigh*


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil wish I could help you, but have never kept any shrimp. 

Well I did once, but my Clown Loaches had a very expensive dinner........my treat!

No loaches right now, so I am going to try them one more time. For some reason I am not optimistic, as they do seem to be more sensitive to lots of things. My guess is I be will joining you shortly as a shrimp "idiot" if that is any comfort!


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Greggz said:


> Phil wish I could help you, but have never kept any shrimp.
> 
> Well I did once, but my Clown Loaches had a very expensive dinner........my treat!
> 
> No loaches right now, so I am going to try them one more time. For some reason I am not optimistic, as they do seem to be more sensitive to lots of things. My guess is I be will joining you shortly as a shrimp "idiot" if that is any comfort!


Will be curious how your situation works out Gregg. I have had 4-6 amano shrimp in my 75g for a long time. Have never tried putting in cherry shrimp to see what would happen. My 5g (former betta) tank is now pretty full of cherry shrimp but again, it is as simple of a tank as you can get. 

As for you Phil - I have no real idea why shrimp survive in some tanks and not others. The 5g shrimp tank I have gets ThriveC - 1 pump per week. As for the shrimp, a ZooMed Nano Banquet food block maybe once a week - thats it. And every week there seems to be more of the little suckers in the tank. As for fish in that tank - so far I am at 3 breeder quality Bettas, 6 guppys and a Cardinal Tetra. Non survived longer than 4-6 months. Wife thinks the tank just doesn't like fish - starting to think she is right.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

I hope things go well for you Gregg! Please keep us updated on how they do. I hear Rainbows like crustaceans for dinner...


I ended up digging out a heater from storage and chucked it in the tank. The suction cups are too old to stick to the glass and the power cable has hardened enough from prolonged situation in the sump that the only place it will go is basically hanging off the front side of the overflow. I always run double heaters, each at a higher wattage than the manufacturer rates them for a given sized tank so I hope this one is enough to compensate for the direct AC. We keep the place at 75F, but being on the top floor of an old apartment building the AC's on nearly constantly these days. When I drop the wife off at work I'm going to grab a thermometer and some plastic backing to put on the sunward end of the tank. Let's see what positive effects (if any) these changes have before the pH probe comes in and I start dicking around with CO2.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil Edwards said:


> I hope things go well for you Gregg! Please keep us updated on how they do. I hear Rainbows like crustaceans for dinner...


Yeah they could end being a Rainbow snack.

With my heavy planting, I am hoping they can find some places to hide.

The real reason they are going in is that my wife has wanted them for a long time. So I finally gave in and we'll see what happens. She will probably go bananas if I dump them in and the Rainbows have a feast! Mostly because I will be able to say I told you so!:wink2:

And by the way, getting CO2 right and steady is a high priority. It makes everything easier, and is time well spent getting it fine tuned.

Good luck and I am enjoying following the reboot.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Greggz said:


> Yeah they could end being a Rainbow snack.
> 
> With my heavy planting, I am hoping they can find some places to hide.
> 
> ...


I really hope they don't end up getting munched on, even for an "I told you so" moment. 

I'm having a hard time thinking it's a CO2/pH issue since the plants were responding well and everyone else was happy. I'm trying to be a good scientist and accept that it's a possibility, as I can't quantify it either way until the probe comes in. One good thing is, with the changes to the plumbing, I'm pretty sure I could gas the tank with a lot less than was required before. That'll make fine tuning a lot easier.

Good news; no dead shrimp this morning! Is it because only the tough ones are left or did the heater help? Who knows? I sure don't. It's hard to care too, as long as the bugs are alive.

I'm enjoying this latest incarnation too now that the cleaning crew's in there. Just about everything has buds of new growth except perhaps the P. helferi. That one's kind of hard to tell with, but it's not melting like the others so I'll take that as a victory. The P. erectus and a couple of the Rotala covered in algae, but they're basically bottle brushes so it's not terribly surprising. I keep hoping they'll recover but I'm not terribly optimistic at this point. However; they going to stay in there until they get better or rot away. Time will tell.

Finally, the stand of R. macrandra got tall enough that it needed to be topped and replanted. That's a first time for me in a high tech tank.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Captain's Log, 6.3.19-

Just for the sake of record keeping.

Lost another shrimp and a Cardinal this afternoon before the lights came on.

I kluged a piece of cardboard and clips to block light on the sun-side of the tank. Hopefully that'll help mitigate some issues. The front still gets some ambient input, but it's not the more direct stuff the left side was getting. 

The 5lb can ran out today and the shop didn't have any 20 pounders to swap out so I'll be going by in the morning to get more. I can already tell I was running waaaay too much gas for the tank as the canister only lasted a month. Lights have been cut back to a single bulb from the three that I've been running until I get more gas. This is a blessing in disguise as the pH pen should be in tomorrow and I'll be able to get baseline readings after 24 hours with no gas.

Plan to grab a bubble wand and timer to get some extra oxygenation going when the gas is off. Since the original return was removed there's no agitation to speak of in the overflow or sump so that may be an issue with the shrimp as well. I had to add a small powerhead last week to get some surface movement to get surface scum moving to the overflow and for a bit of oxygenation. I'm also planning on grabbing a few feet of new nylon hose so I can move the pump to the reservoir section so the heaters can go back in there. 

I've got 20+ liters of Pond Matrix, 1 liter of Purigen, and Nitrite/Nitrate and Phosphate tests coming sometime in the next couple of days. Right now the plan is to put the Purigen in a bag for use in the overflow. Since it's set up for full siphon there should be in excess of 98% contact. That much Matrix is enough to filter 4000 gallons so combining that with lots of Purigen should be enough to strip the water column of N and organics; possibly P as well. It'll be fun to see what happens when enough aerobic/anaerobic and organic media to run a small pond is added to 90 gallons of water. There's no kill like overkill.

<edit> I just realized that I'm going to have to watch the livestock carefully over the next couple of weeks. That much Matrix may grow enough bacteria to strip so much oxygen from the water the fish suffocate. </edit>

Other than the fact that the plants aren't in any real semblance of arrangement, I'm starting to really like it and am looking forward to the day when it's time to do a proper aquascape.


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

Phil Edwards said:


> Captain's Log, 6.3.19
> 
> This is a blessing in disguise as the pH pen should be in tomorrow and I'll be able to get baseline readings after 24 hours with no gas.
> 
> That much Matrix may grow enough bacteria to strip so much oxygen from the water the fish suffocate.


Captain's Log should be reserved for @Immortal1 >

I'd still run an air stone in the sample for 15-20 minutes befor testing pH.

I really want to say the bacteria will only grow to fit the food source.
I could be wrong and I've been wrong before.


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

Phil Edwards said:


> The clean up crew has their work cut out for them...


What plant is this?
Tulunadensis or sahyadrica? Maybe I'm all wrong?


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Maryland Guppy said:


> Captain's Log should be reserved for @Immortal1 >
> 
> I'd still run an air stone in the sample for 15-20 minutes befor testing pH.
> 
> ...


That's a good point. The plan is to test before turning the airstone on then again in the afternoon once it's run for a while. I'm curious to see how much pH changes between the two as a rough proxy for how oxygenated the water's been since the plumbing change. It should also give a very rough approximation of how gas efficient the system is. 

There are a lot of considerations when it comes to adding the Matrix and the eventual microbial community. In theory they should only grow to the point where the nutrient load will sustain the population. I expect the Purigen will limit DOC and may actually keep the population fairly low, which may not actually be a good thing. Buuut, it's something worth testing. I've spent some time this evening thinking about how to go about getting everything set up and have a rough methodology outlined. As Vin's said about his Kill Tanks, this isn't properly scientific, but it may (should?) provide some info from which to build and more rigorously test hypotheses.

Step 1: Test pH before and after running the air for a few hours

Step 2: Clean the sump out well to make sure all sediment is cleaned out and the current media is clean of debris. Keep a piece of clean fine filter pad over the sump intake to minimize solids entering the filter.

Step 3: Hook up new gas can and run it as normal, testing pH after an hour with adjustments as needed over the next couple of days.

Step 4: Once the supplies have arrived run NO3 and PO4 tests to get an idea of how things are now.

Step 5: Do the regularly scheduled water change on Saturday with NO3 and PO4 tests done before and after. Add 1L of Matrix to the sump.

Step 6: Continue adding 1L Matrix daily and running NO3 and PO4 tests daily prior to adding the new Matrix. Observe the fish and shrimp carefully during this period. Pause Matrix addition if they start looking distressed. If the fish and shrimp are looking ok, continue adding 1L Matrix daily until 10L have been used. Take out enough of the bio bale in there currently so that the Matrix will fill the chamber horizontally and be close enough to the drip plate that agitation is minimized.

Step 7: One week post initial Matrix addition add 1 or 2 cups of Purigen to the overflow. Amount will be determined by sight with the objective being having enough there to get good throughflow and 100% coverage of the sump intake. Take NO3 and PO4 readings prior to Purigen deployment and again every other day for a week to see what's going on. If NO3 readings are below detection, halt testing both NO3 and PO4.

Things that may need to change: 

Purigen- If I feel it's not getting enough contact with water I'll dig out the media reactor and get it going, provided I've been able to get the return pump into the reservoir section.

Amount of Matrix- The final goal is to get all of it in the sump before it's time to add fresh Osmocote. That's contingent on livestock health. If the animals or plants start showing signs of distress I'll remove half of the Matrix and let things be. I don't want to lose any animals and it's now hot enough that sending new plants in the mail will kill them. Hopefully there's enough Osmocote in the substrate that N and P supply won't be an issue. I've got a GH booster for Ca, Mg, and K with specific liquid and/or dry materials to supplement each specifically if needed.

Can any of you process/scientifically minded folks see problems with the above methodology? Extra eyes are always good. 



Maryland Guppy said:


> What plant is this?
> Tulunadensis or sahyadrica? Maybe I'm all wrong?


It's tulunadensis and is very unhappy with me. I'm honestly surprised it's still alive.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Anyone have thoughts as to why Blyxa japonica new growth would be a pale rust color and twisted?


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

6.5.19- The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

I woke up yesterday morning to find two more Cardinals and an Otto dead. Normally that wouldn't worry me so much given their penchant for high initial mortality, but since this is a new format for this tank I'm more sensitive to potential problems than usual. What was the result? Major water change, addition of the bubble wand, and a lot of tweaks under the hood. All of these things were intended changes, but they had to get done earlier than I'd planned to rule out possible causes. 

For record keeping; list of changes-

1) 70% water change including the full drain and clean of the sump.

2) Heavy spray/cleaning of the prefilter sponge pad in the sump. Even though it's a decent sized foam block, I don't consider it part of the biological filter and use it only for mechanical pre-filtering and splash/sound reduction so it typically gets blasted by the shower head during cleaning. Lately though, I've been keeping it dirty with the intention of using it to seed the actual biomedia post-cleaning. 

3) Biomedia cleaning: With as much gunk and dust as had been kicked up in the preceding months, the biobale media had a good amount of sediment on it and I'd intended on hitting it with the showerhead when cleaning the sump, but that got changed. Instead, it got a hard swishing in buckets of tank water. Since it's basically a giant mess of intertwined plastic ribbons it's surprisingly difficult to separate into small enough bunches to clean out really well without spraying it off in the shower/sink. However, needs must, and it got a good dunking instead.

4) Full vacuum and wipe down of the internal parts of the sump. Vacuuming the thing out isn't that unusual and gets done every six months or so unless there's enough visible sediment to require more frequent attention. It's directly analogous to wiping down the inside of a canister filter so I see it as standard equipment maintenance. The inside walls were getting a bit dirty so they got a day at the sponge spa. Once the outsides are cleaned they'll be pretty to look at! Every tank needs a spa day every once in a while, don't you know?

5) Replumbed the return pump. Since Lowe's and Home Depot want $2.00 per foot of janky 3/4" ID vinyl hose sold in 10-foot bundles I made a run down to Cobalt to pick up some of their stuff. If I'm going to spend the money, I may as well give it to folks I like, right? I got 5' of hose* and plumbed the original return pump into the Cerges. It's now sitting back in its original location in the reservoir and is drawing water through the whole sump again. This let me...

6) Put both heaters and a thermometer back in the sump. After a bit of pondering, I realized this is the first Summer there have been fish in the tank. I'm pretty sure there were shrimp in there previously, but not fish. I have to fess up to being careless and not thinking about temperature. The heaters have always been where they are now in this system and all my past systems haven't received direct AC output and haven't really needed a heater (I typically only keep them for Winter months) so I got mentally careless and let myself get away with something as fundamental as temperature management. The tank was down to about 68 when I put the thermometer in there. Mea culpa.

7) Grabbed a timer and bubble wand and got it all set up to be on when CO2 is off. One major issue though (we can't have a tank setup with out a major issue, right?) it's one of Cobalt's newish ones and has a battery back up to keep it running during power outages. I'd forgotten about that, DERP! Time to get the Boxes O' Crap out again and find the simple on/off air pump. It's currently running on the Phil's Finger Timer until a replacement can be found. Ok, ok, it wasn't a major issue, but this is our version of an HGTV show and they require some sort of faux drama so I figured I'd go with the flow.

8) Installed the nice new 20lb CO2 can. Hard to beat $22, swapped. Just in case there's someone out there reading this who hasn't bought their can outright, BUY IT! Don't "rent" it. Pay the extra to outright buy the can from the start; you'll save a lot over the long run and can swap them out anywhere.

9) Minor things: took the nozzle off the powerhead to get a little extra surface ripple and tossed the Purigen packet in the overflow just because.


* They got rid of the old tank that housed the plant display I originally set up and moved everything to a new system a couple months ago. Me being me, what started as a minor cleaning/adjusting turned into a full redo/cleaning of the new plant tank. The plants were doing pretty well, but the hardscape was covered in algae and needed to be re-arranged to optimize flow. What I'd expected to be a half-hour visit turned into three and a half hours. At least I can say I earned the stuff I came home with.  I think I got the better end of the bargain for 5' of hose, some organic removing resin, and a lifetime supply of filter socks for the nano. 


Hopefully the pH pen will show up today so I can start fine-tuning the CO2.


Question: Have any of you folks using Osmocote as your sole nutrient source noticed lightening of plants' leaves? The main goal of the new supplementation regimen is to see what happens when the only source of macros aside from Ca, Mg, and K (from GH booster) comes from the substrate so I haven't added anything to the water in weeks. I laid down a pretty hefty layer of Osmocote when the substrate got cleaned so my assumption is there's plenty of stuff in there for the plants to access; even if some is leaking into the water column. It doesn't look like any chlorosis I've seen before and the most affected plants are growing well. This is the first time I've gone this route and would like to draw from your collective experience.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

pH= 6.91 after bubbling from 8pm 6.5.19 until 1:30pm 6.6.19. That's from CO2 off until 30 minutes before CO2 on and is about as offgassed as the tank's going to get.

<edit 1> pH= 6.20 at CO2+35min. Upped the rate.
<edit 2> ph= 5.77 at CO2+60 min; lights on. Going to test in 60 min to see if the rate needs to be reduced a bit as pH dropped by 0.43 in 25 minutes.
<edit 3> pH= 5.57 at CO2+90 min; reduced the rate. I wish I had a decent flow meter to be able to give you folks specific rate changes. 

Since some plants are visibly paling and the stuff from Seachem came in yesterday I decided to add approx. 0.1 ppm Fe as a mix of Fe 2+ and 3+ (BA Ferrion liquid), 1 tbsp of Florin Delta GH+ (Ca, Mg, and K), and pull a Dennis Wong and add approx. 1 Osmocote ball per plant. Some of the more closely planted individuals are going to have access to more than 1 ball's worth and a couple of the larger bunches got a full tab stuck nearby, but not super close. Time to get the CO2 dialed in and wait the couple days to do the regular weekend water change and get everything on track to start the testing. 

I have no idea right now how much of what the GH booster is adding and what the GH/KH of the tank are. I'm more concerned with which plants do well in the conditions I give them than chasing some magic numbers. It's more important to me to keep a consistent schedule with additives than add layers of potential fluctuation and error by tinkering with individual additives again. Work with the water you have.  There were a number of successful molts and no dead fish or shrimp so I'm happy.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Sounds like you have a pretty efficient system for dissolving co2 into the return water. My crazy system works but I don't think it drops that much, that fast.
I guess the best thought I have is figure out where the needle valve needs to be to keep the fish happy after CO2 has been on for 6-7 hours - then see how fast the ph drops when the system is turned on the next day.
In my case I am using various air stones on WiFi timers to keep the fish happy and the CO2 levels as high as possible. Your 1.34pH drop is a bit higher than mine if I remember correctly


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Immortal1 said:


> Sounds like you have a pretty efficient system for dissolving co2 into the return water. My crazy system works but I don't think it drops that much, that fast.
> I guess the best thought I have is figure out where the needle valve needs to be to keep the fish happy after CO2 has been on for 6-7 hours - then see how fast the ph drops when the system is turned on the next day.
> In my case I am using various air stones on WiFi timers to keep the fish happy and the CO2 levels as high as possible. Your 1.34pH drop is a bit higher than mine if I remember correctly


Not having had the pH probe previously I can't say how much more efficient the current plumbing is than the last setup, but it's noticable. The new/original return pump is pushing out more water than the other one that had been strictly for the Cerges and not for return, is creating less agitation in the overflow and sump, and, when combined with the powerhead, has greatly improved new water distribution. Even after turning gas output down, pH was still in the 5.7s at. CO2+3hrs. I can say fairly confidently that the system is now nutrient limited as I can dissolve a ton of gas and blow PAR up if I added more bulbs and dropped the lights. It's a pretty nice position to be in. 

I've made the final CO2 adjustment for today. Now that the drop is about 1.3 with gas still in the chamber, we'll see how it is tomorrow without any delay possibly confounding measurements.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Added a Truelumen Flora bulb last night to see how it looks. 110 PAR at the substrate... I'll give that a go for a week to see how things react, but will probably end up raising the fixture. I'm not sure I want to deal with that much light.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Date 
06/08/19

Date Time pH NO3 PO4
6.8.19 09:54 7.01 45.0 0.10


NO3 and PO4 tests were done with Seachem NO2/NO3 and PO4 tests. 


I added a fair amount of Osmocote+ (approx 1 pellet per plant with a full gelcap near large groups of plants) two days prior. Nothing else was added to the water at this time. What's interesting, but not terribly surprising is the amount of NO3. The pellets are 15-9-12 and NO3 isn't conserved well in soils so I expected some diffusion; just not 45ppm. 5 pellets had become exposed and were pushed back down into the substrate during the water change. Two or three pellets get exposed each day and get pushed back down to the glass. I don't know if this is due to bioturbation or the pellets getting pushed up when gas releases from the substrate. 

Observations: Most of the stems are noticeably pale or fully chlorotic; the H. siamensis 53B has widespread pinholes (I added some K2SO4 gelcaps near it on the 6th), R. macrandra is significantly stunted from how it was a week ago, the Ammania (?) has curling around the leaf margins, R. mexicana (?) is barely getting by with tiny new growth at multiple nodes, R. H'ra seems to be doing alright but is a slow grower, Limnophila sp. 'Mini' (?), is in very bad shape, and the R. tulunadensis is scraping by with new growth being rotund and small, much like R. rotundifolia's emergent form. The H. corymbosa, L. repens and variants, Crypts, B. japonica, and H. 'Porto Velho' (?) are all happy. The remaining P. helferi and P. erectus stems are recovering nicely. 

Time to do a 50% water change and add 1L of Pond Matrix to the sump.

Additions at WC: 1/2tsp Baking Soda and 3 tbsp of Florin Delta GH+, up from the regular 2. When looking more closely during the water change a number of plants were showing pinholes and some leaf tip curling. Now that the tank is full of high-demand stem plants and the light's higher than before it seems reasonable that the system would require more Ca, Mg, and K; especially given plant health observations. I still don't want to mess around with dosing single materials, but I may have to if things keep progressing like this.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

6.8.19, 15:20- Ran the NO3 test again post WC with the same color result. Either I'm contaminating the test somehow (better stop peeing on my hands!) or concentrations are above detection limits. 

I added 1L Pond Matrix this morning post-WC and will add another liter daily going forward until there's a detectable drop in NO3.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

6.10.19-

Added somewhere around 1.4ppm PO4 (approx 1/8 tsp in 90 gallons), according to rotalabutterfly. CO2 was good, but the plants have been suffering (some badly), there's been little pearling, and the prior reading of 0.1 ppm and all that NO3 finally added up. As anticipated, pearling went through the roof. I'm pretty sure there's plenty of P in the substrate; it may just take more time for the stems to build stronger root systems to access it. I realize adding the PO4 throws a wrench in the plan to not add N and P to the water, but I'm not willing to wipe out the tank quite yet for "science" as we're getting into the worst part of the year for shipping replacement plants to the Southeast. The 1L/day addition of Pond Matrix is still going forward and NO3 gets tested again today.

Some small bits of BBA and Staghorn have starting showing up with the affected leaves getting removed. A modest amount of Purigen was added directly under the drain into the sump two days ago. Hopefully that'll have some beneficial effect.

The animals are all perky and eating well. Small victories.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

6.10.19 Chemo Brain Strikes Again!

I'd forgotten all about rotalabutterfly until I wanted to check yesterday's PO4 dosing, DERP. I checked the GH booster I'm using, and at 3 tbsp K is approx. 27 mg/L! No wonder the plants are angry with me; especially with the extra K in the Osmocote. I did a 70% water change and added 1 tbsp GH booster (approx. 9 mg/L K, 3.8 mg/L Ca, and 1.10 mg/L Mg) then added 15 mg/L worth of Ca liquid and approx. 7 mg/L of Mg liquid. It also got the same dose of KH2PO4 (approx. 1.4 mg/L) and the usual dose of CSM+B. With all the fluctuation going on the "study" is going to have to be delayed until the supplementation schedule is figured out and the plants have a chance to recover. I did add the 1L of Pond Matrix to get it seeded. At some point in the near future I should be getting some USP grade CaCl2 and MgSO4 powders in the mail. 

The new plan is to let the plants recover, grow everything out to the point where the tank can be properly aquascaped, get the filter media switched out to only the matrix, then restart the lean water column regimen. I've got to say, the initial reactions have been interesting and I look forward to seeing how things recover. I've long suspected that high K concentrations cause stems; particularly most Rotala, to lean rather than grow upright. While not a sure confirmation, it seems to be the case for the most part.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Pictures! I'm still not sure what all everyone sent, so if you see something you know, please ID it for me. Nearly all of the gifted plants came in bags of multiple species with the contents on the outside of the bag, or weren't labeled at all, and most species/variants are new to me so it's been difficult to ID them. @burr740, @vvDO, @Maryland Guppy, @Immortal1, @Saxa Tilly. Sorry for the shoddy pictures, even on sport mode the camera sometimes has a hard time dealing with my shaky hands.

1. C. willisi









2. Unknown L. repens variant









3. Store-bought H. pinnatifida









4. H. siamensis 53B









5. A. crassicaulis?









6. P. stellata (either regular or Kimberly, I'm not sure. I got both in the same bag and can't tell the difference)









7. Unknown









8. Green Limnophila? Unsure









9. P. erectus









10. Donated and store-bought L. cardinalis (donated on left)









11. H. araguaia?









12. L. repens 'Super Red'?









13. L, inclinata 'Pantanal'









14. P. sampsonii?









15. B. japonica









16. Unknown









17. Store-bought M. pteropus









18. Rotala 'Vietnam/H'ra'?









19. Rotala 'Mexicana'?









20. R. tulunadensis









21. C. wendtii 'Tropica'









22. L. repens, variant unknown









23. Unknown; some sort of Ludwigia?









24. Unknown









25. B. australis or L. rotundifolia?









26. Donated and store-bought H. corymbosa 'Kompact'











Thanks!


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> Pictures! I'm still not sure what all everyone sent, so if you see something you know, please ID it for me.
> 
> 6. P. stellata Kimberly - I sent you 2 of these
> 
> ...



Selected and noted what I could remember from 05-11-2019 message.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Thanks Linn! With so many people keeping the same plants these days I got a few doubles, but being from different tanks, they looked different and got planted separately. It's good to know what's what, and I don't want to be sending out misidentified cuttings when the time comes.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Heh, just found an old podcast I did back in 2013. If you've got a few hours to listen to me babble about planted tanks, or need something to help you sleep, click below. 

The Planted Aquarium - Setting Up a Planted Tank Part 1 02/26 by Pet World Radio | Hobbies


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## Wobblebonk (Feb 13, 2018)

I thought 16 might be l. arcuata and 23 arcuata x repens but I could be wrong could both be arcuata or I could be totally wrong about 16


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

23 looks like L.brevipes

Ammannia is senegalensis.


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## Wobblebonk (Feb 13, 2018)

Well I'm gonna stand by 16 looks like arcuata to me...


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

6.23.19- Forum titles and Impostor Syndrome

Hello friends, it's time for Waxing Philosophical with Phil! 

This isn't a pity-party post asking for reassurance. Rather, it's something I'm going through at the moment, think it's something we all go through at times, and want to talk about. So often we focus on the technical and artistic aspects of our joint hobby here but rarely about the social and emotional aspects that go with anything having creative and educational elements. Call it being someone who's heavily influenced by feelings (Meyers-Briggs INFP) or the ups and downs of bipolar, or whatever else it may be, but at least for me, this hobby has a significant emotional component to it and that's something we don't talk about much. With little to mention about the tank right now, I thought this would be a good time and place to have a discussion of the more philosophical sides of our hobby and community. 

I was just reading current posts on the beginner's AMA thread and noticed my forum title is "Wannabe Guru". Normally I don't put stock in things like that (post count FTW), but for some reason it struck me as being true this morning. After all the years of keeping plants and working as an aquatics professional I can't count the times I've given people advice on how to start out or improve things in this hobby, yet I still have (sometimes significant) difficulties doing the things I'm supposed to be well qualified to do. How can I give advice to folks when I can't reliably/repeatedly do it myself? I've had enough people tell me over the years how my advice has helped them solve problems or improve how they keep planted tanks to know, on an intellectual level, that I know what I'm talking about. However, the reality of my own tanks doesn't always support it. So many of you Usual Suspects who regularly contribute to this thread are pushing our understanding of the hobby to new and interesting places and here I am struggling to keep simple and easy plants happy and healthy. How can I rightly give advise people when I can't seem to do it myself at times? Wannabe seems a fitting moniker these days.

Have you ever felt this way? If so, why and for what specific reasons? How have you dealt with it/are dealing with it?


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

I'd like to think what you are describing as doubt might just be the beginning of wisdom. 

But, that would be a very prideful thing to say and wisdom is not prideful. 

We all aspire to be more wise in our lives but does recognizing that aspiration, then becomes pride too? 

I'm not wise enough to know that one. Perhaps it's this very doubt that keeps wisdom humble. 

Live wisely, but one should be wise enough to not acknowledge it as such. Otherwise, we may stop aspiring to do so. 

I will, one day, many years from now, hope to be and hope all of you who read this and many others to be healthy enough and sound of mind enough to see this very post of mine and wonder what ailed me to say such things. To doubt myself. To berate my younger self for being prideful enough to even try to describe wisdom.

Edit:
Augh, did I go off the deep end? Perhaps it's not anything that transcendent. Look, I think, let's approach this from a stewardship angle. It's our responsibility to the hobby to at least hold the hands of those who seemingly need help. You guys have all taught me that in your postings. Whether the advice is spot on or not, the service of providing the advice is enough sometimes. It has to be. By giving an answer, you've given a person who doesn't know the way forward a path. Your path. The one @Phil Edwards is actually qualified to give because @Phil Edwards traveled it. And possibly a much better paved one than most. That alone is more gracious than not giving it. It's now up to the person to travel it, someone else's, or go home.

Even more edits: 
How about from the "Total Perspective Vortex" angle? 

Relax, at least you're not telling people how to raise their children.


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## Maryland Guppy (Dec 6, 2014)

@Phil Edwards don't mind the little things, when one's self is aged over 50 who cares! :grin2::grin2::grin2:


Enough joking:

My title says "Planted Tank Guru" which I feel should say "Novice Grower" or "LED Pirate" or "Basement Chemist" or "Really BAD Arduino Programmer".

We can only provide advice on our experiences that have provided success and steer people away from things that have provided trouble or failure.

If it were a perfect world and everyone started with RODI water with a TDS of "0" a more level playing field would exist for better advice.
That is not the case @ all. Most everyone's water is very different.


Advice Giving:

Ever had that thread from hell where you ask a troubled individual a million questions trying to help them?
The post count gets over 60 and all of a sudden the path of enlightenment is found!
Some very important detail in the beginning was a typo, testing the wrong water, spilled whiskey in the tank, and so on.


Following:

My philosophy, do as I say not as I do.
I test many theories, measurements, dosing, etc...
Always feared someone will follow the path I'm posting about, trash everything in their tank and bash me for the next 6 months.
Not that I would really care and I seriously doubt my feelings would be hurt but still.
It's not like I told them to do it, they made a choice, full consent of their own free will.


Our own Tanks:

We will all have ups and downs.
My third algae bonanza in my 80G tank since the substrate change.
Am I trying "new" stuff to fix it, heck no.
Back to basics, changing more water, extra trimming, swapping Poret foam more frequently, removing some of the density for better flow etc...
Thing are coming around, not as fast as I'd like but Rome was not built in a day!


Really Growing Plants (not phish)

Tough road, too many species, water quality, fert recipes, lighting (PAR), trimming, alkalinity, hardness, substrate.
There is a lot to balance here.

Just some of my thoughts to share!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

I suppose The Big Question is this: as people who others look up to and seek out for advice, have you ever been in a place where you felt you shouldn't be giving advice? If so, what sparked it (algae, dying plants, etc.) and what did you do to move on or was it just a momentary thing?



On tank topic for a moment- I added approx 16 liters of Pond Matrix and increased CO2 (7.5 hrs/day) and light by an hour per day (7hrs/day) a week ago and now have some very unhappy plants. Like seriously chlorotic, holey, and dying leaves. I thought this was due to total N loss from the water column, but I tested this morning and it still maxes out at 50ppm. Interesting. With all that matrix in there and relatively low flow through it I had expected NO3 to either be really low or undetectable. Either I'm running the test wrong (not very likely, but possible) or NO3 is high, like Gregg's tank after a visit to the Rainbow breeder high. I added the usual 15 mg/L Ca, 8 mg/L Mg, 15 mg/L K, 1/8thish tsp CSM+B (twice the usual dose) yesterday with the scheduled water change along with a new load of Osmocote. A couple of the plants are showing strong interveinal chlorosis so I added a couple extra mg/L Mg this time. After running the NO3 test the tank got 1/4 tsp KH2PO4 (2.5-3.0 ppm-ish) PO4 this morning to see if that helps the plants take up more of the NO3. The high levels could be due to the new Osmocote as I didn't think to test NO3 before adding it, I'm not sure. The only non-maintenance thing I've done is trim and replant the tops of some of the Ludwigia stems that got near the surface. 

Some species are doing relatively well, namely the B. japonica, the L. repens group, the Limnophilas, H. pinnatifida, and the Staurogyne 'Porto Velho'. The rest are either screaming at the top of their lungs or are going Emo in a corner. 

The odd thing is the nearly brand-new nano with it's ridiculously rich substrate, no CO2, 8 hr photoperiod, and two Osmocote balls in the filter sock is doing great.


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## Desert Pupfish (May 6, 2019)

Thanks for sharing this, Phil. I think any of us who find ourselves as someone people turn to for advice plagued with the same self doubt at some point. And that's a good thing--otherwise we'd be overweening narcissistic egomaniacs, and the world has one too many of those at the moment....

While I am a rank novice in planted tanks (and have the pea soup to prove it, thank you very much), I do have enough experience in other parts of my life where people expect me to lead, provide advice, etc. And I have my share of dark nights of the soul where I wonder who the f*** am I to be doing this, or tell other people what they should do? But as ipkiss says, the best we can do is acknowledge what we don't know, and keep striving to learn. And share that with others--as you all do so brilliantly on this forum, and for which I'm very grateful. There are certainly some examples of people here who feel they have all the "right" answers, and take it upon themselves to vehemently disagree they feel don't. While it can be hard to know what one should do, there are plenty of instructive examples of what not to do.

You've shared your experience with beating cancer, and I too have survived cancer & HIV. Nothing like being told you're gonna die to put life in very stark perspective, and to stop sweating the small stuff. And that makes one more reflective, and humble--which are good things. After all, none of us get out of this alive, so we might as well practice what we learned in kindergarten to be nice to each other, and to share.....

Jeff


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

Maryland Guppy said:


> My title says "Planted Tank Guru" which I feel should say "Novice Grower" or "LED Pirate" or "Basement Chemist" or "Really BAD Arduino Programmer".


I like 'LED Pirate' 



Phil Edwards said:


> I suppose The Big Question is this: as people who others look up to and seek out for advice, have you ever been in a place where you felt you shouldn't be giving advice? If so, what sparked it (algae, dying plants, etc.) and what did you do to move on or was it just a momentary thing?


Yes, this, too shall pass  

Like you said, when the tank is misbehaving, the self doubt creeps in. But then you come out of it and you have a new life experience to share with others. In the meantime, you can probably reread your own threads from the beginning all over again and either a) see where you went wrong or b) be comforted in people's gratitude. So thank you for being you, Phil!

Edit for spitballs: 



Phil Edwards said:


> Some species are doing relatively well, namely the B. japonica, the L. repens group, the Limnophilas, H. pinnatifida, and the Staurogyne 'Porto Velho'. The rest are either screaming at the top of their lungs or are going Emo in a corner.
> 
> The odd thing is the nearly brand-new nano with it's ridiculously rich substrate, no CO2, 8 hr photoperiod, and two Osmocote balls in the filter sock is doing great.


Who am I to give the great Phil advice but just throwing spitballs at the wall. I took a read back at the posts for last month and obviously, based on your level of experience and responses, I see nothing wrong. So, I blame the boogeyman: CSM+B! Time to get on the Burr Micros bandwagon? Your precision target dosing demands it! :hihi: Also, it feels like you are sort of wack a mole-ing with your various dosing and changes for the past month. It's seemingly to address what you perceive to be problems but .. clearly your plants have other ideas? Maybe a dose of patience, let things ride for a couple of weeks, knock back a libation or two instead of tweaking and let whatever survives survive? I've only got a 20G with generic stems, but I'll be happy to farm up whatever you want from it if you need some replacements.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

ipkiss said:


> Also, it feels like you are sort of wack a mole-ing with your various dosing and changes for the past month. It's seemingly to address what you perceive to be problems but .. clearly your plants have other ideas? Maybe a dose of patience, let things ride for a couple of weeks, knock back a libation or two instead of tweaking and let whatever survives survive? I've only got a 20G with generic stems, but I'll be happy to farm up whatever you want from it if you need some replacements.


Whack-a-mole, hehe. I've used that analogy with others in the past.  You're not entirely wrong either. That's what happens when you take a scientist out of a research environment and make him use his own tank(s) to satisfy curiosity. The fight against satisfying curiosity and the need to have ones only display system being satisfying to look at. I really need a tank room again! 

My recent intentions have been to get the system set up for using Osmocote only for everything but Ca and Mg, and strip the water column of everything else. Clearly the system has had other plans! I had really hoped to be able it set up properly to begin the process, but it just didn't work out as I'd intended. It's important to get any useful study set up properly from the start, but the tank's been difficult in that regard. However, that too, is an observation/result in its own right and should be accounted for. 

Sky high NO3 and essentially undetectable PO4 in this tank is something worth knowing. Dumping a load of PO4 into the tank yesterday had immediate positive results in the form of heavy pearling. That's been something I've observed frequently for years and isn't a big surprise to me. What is surprising is that it hasn't been happening this whole time. Osmocote Plus has a fair amount of P in it, but if it's not getting into the water (even with a shallow active substrate) and/or to the plants via roots then where's it going? My guess now is that it's getting stuck in the substrate or sucked up by the filter bacteria; possibly both. Now I have an observation that's easy to work with for the next month or two: add PO4 to the water, monitor it, and compare against plant health. Fortunately I had the misfortune of nearly killing a lot of plants so the baseline is pretty well established; no PO4 supplementation will kill my plants if everything else is kept the same as it has been. Time to see if things continue to decline or if they recover and start growing faster than I can keep up with.


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

With all that you know, how do you know when to apply what? The basis of your conundrum, and perhaps, your earlier doubt.  Hence my philosophy. Time to knock back a cold one. or whatever your vice. 

Go help some more people with their problems, maybe you'll have a eureka moment!


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Maryland Guppy said:


> [MENTION=650]Enough joking:
> 
> My title says "Planted Tank Guru" which I feel should say "Novice Grower" or "LED Pirate" or "Basement Chemist" or "Really BAD Arduino Programmer".


Great post MG, and the quote above brings up a funny story.

I once got a PM from someone who had recently joined the board (will remain nameless). After we had discussed several issues, he asks me how does the board knows that he is an "Algae Grower". He hadn't even posted any pictures of his tank.

It took me a minute, but then I realized he was talking about the title under his name!:grin2:

I wish I could have seen the look on his face when I explained it. Needless to say he was a bit embarrassed, and it was a LOL moment for sure.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

ipkiss said:


> With all that you know, how do you know when to apply what?


I'd be lying if I said I knew what to do all the time. I have a lot of "DERP!" moments when I know what's going on and what to do, but don't realize I knew it until much later. Lack of application has sent a lot of what I learned into long term storage where it takes a while to access. That's why this forum is so useful; it gives me a place to write down stuff that I can then go back to later if I need to. Getting others' input is very helpful as well; the more eyes the better! You guys have helped me remember things that I thought I'd lost to the years more times than I can count. <3

I'm definitely one of those folks who realizes the answer to a question I was asked two weeks ago while I'm in the shower but then promptly forgets it as soon as I get out. By now it's probably not surprising to you guys, but it takes quite a bit of mental energy for me to focus and think through things; I'm more intuitive than logical so a thorough analysis can be difficult at times. I can't tell you how many times while doing things like chemical or mathematical calculations I found myself in the situation of knowing something was wrong but not being able to figure it out and having to go back through step, by painful step, to work it out. I went into ecology because I'm a big picture thinker and the systemic level of things makes sense to me. Folks like Joe, Vin, and Gregg, who get down into the details of specifics, work in a world that is often difficult for me to reach. That's why I talk a lot here. You guys are both my local aquarium club and a resource for knowledge and points-of-view that I'm weak in or lack. 

For some reason, it's easier for me to figure out what to do when it's someone else's system. Probably because I assume they're a blank slate and can work from there rather than working with assumptions about my own systems (and certain expectations of myself) when trying to troubleshoot them. The current PO4 thing is a perfect example. I had the knowledge and many years' experience with similar situations in the recesses of my brain, but certain assumptions about the Osmocote got in the way of making the mental connections until the problem was glaringly obvious. It's probably not the only issue, but it's the best one to start with. 

Does that answer your question?


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Is anyone out there keeping Staurogyne 'Porto Velho'? If so, could you post a picture or pictures of mature specimens? The stuff I've got is starting to get some dark dull purple coloring and I'm not sure if that's natural under high light or if it's signs of a deficiency.

Thanks!


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## vvDO (Oct 18, 2010)

Phil Edwards said:


> Is anyone out there keeping Staurogyne 'Porto Velho'? If so, could you post a picture or pictures of mature specimens? The stuff I've got is starting to get some dark dull purple coloring and I'm not sure if that's natural under high light or if it's signs of a deficiency.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks!




Mine stays pretty green with a little tint of purple in higher light. I think someone maybe Burr, gave you sp. purple.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

vvDO said:


> Mine stays pretty green with a little tint of purple in higher light. I think someone maybe Burr, gave you sp. purple.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


The stuff I got was from someone else and it's staying pretty much green in the nano with no CO2 and lower PAR than the main display, hence my concern. The stuff in the display is getting really purple; to the point where I'm concerned with PO4 (and possible NO3 GASP!) deficiency. This is a brand new species for me so I have no point of visual reference other than what's in the nano and that's not a very good comparison given the different environments. If you've got a picture of yours I'd love to see it.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

Phil Edwards said:


> 6.23.19- Forum titles and Impostor Syndrome
> 
> Hello friends, it's time for Waxing Philosophical with Phil!
> 
> ...


Thank you for being generous of yourself and helping beginners. What you do is valuable and so appreciated. 

Somewhere in another thread I recognized what you do for beginners- Im not sure where. But, it doesn't matter--- your generosity and kindness are an asset to this forum.


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## vvDO (Oct 18, 2010)

Phil Edwards said:


> The stuff I got was from someone else and it's staying pretty much green in the nano with no CO2 and lower PAR than the main display, hence my concern. The stuff in the display is getting really purple; to the point where I'm concerned with PO4 (and possible NO3 GASP!) deficiency. This is a brand new species for me so I have no point of visual reference other than what's in the nano and that's not a very good comparison given the different environments. If you've got a picture of yours I'd love to see it.



Here’s what I have, sorry not the best, you can hopefully see the first pic it’s a bit on the purple side as it got closer to the edge of my lighting (24” light over a 36” tank and it’s planted in the very front corner which is my lowest par area of the tank.). Most of the time it’s stays green.



























Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

That first picture is exactly what I was looking for, thank you.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

7.7.19 update-

It appears that the Osmocote isn't sufficient to supplement this tank. I've been having to clean up a lot of dead leaves from the overflow every morning and a lot of the less hardy species have been showing various signs of deficiency and/or snail damage (another sign of unhealthy plants). Adding extra Ca, Mg, K, and P helped some and a few of the species perked up a bit, but die off was still significant as I count things. I started adding KNO3 a couple of days ago and am waiting to see how things respond. If things respond well I'll probably only use the Osmocote to target feed individual plants and/or groups going forward.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

7.26.19-

Just a quick update. It appears that Osmocote isn't sufficient as a stand-alone nutrient source in my tank over the long term. After using it alone both in this tank and the nano, the plants responded well for the first month, then noticeably declined. It was much more pronounced in this tank given the higher light. Nearly every plant in here showed signs of one deficiency or another; from chlorosis and pinholes to leaf curling and outright death. Adding some extra PO4, Ca, and Mg helped a bit, but it still wasn't enough. I'd wake up to a bunch of leaves clogging the overflow every morning and, at its worst, in the afternoon when I got home from work too. There was enough nutrition available for everything to grow, and some species, especially the various Ludwigia, did relatively well, but nothing was thriving. Eventually BBA started growing all over, prompting a full pull, clean, and replant. At this point there are still a lot of pellets in and on top of the substrate doing whatever it is they're doing, but I'm transitioning back to dry supplementation. The good news is even with all the exposed pellets, the shrimp are thriving which was an original concern since the O+ contains Copper. 

Long story short; in my two tanks using a commercially available active substrate, Aquasolum and Florin Volcanit, Osmocote + seems to be a good means of providing an initial "first flush" of nutrients to help establish a new tank, and may be a useful means of secondary/supplemental nutrients over time, but it's insufficient as a stand-alone nutrient source.


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## Quagulator (May 4, 2015)

Great update Phil,

Can't say I'm surprised. O+ never claims to be slow release while in aquatic environments. Working with terrestrial fertilizer every day, they are meant to quickly dissolve into soil solution, and those that are treated to be slow release are often coated with an enzyme or a polymer which are both broken down with the presence of water so... 0 slow release capability. 

The longer (6 month+) slow release coatings are few and far between, but are again, broken down with the presence of water. I'm mostly talking Nitrogen here, but the coatings act the same... exposing the granule to the elements as the water present degrades the coating / treatment.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Quagulator said:


> Great update Phil,
> 
> Can't say I'm surprised. O+ never claims to be slow release while in aquatic environments. Working with terrestrial fertilizer every day, they are meant to quickly dissolve into soil solution, and those that are treated to be slow release are often coated with an enzyme or a polymer which are both broken down with the presence of water so... 0 slow release capability.
> 
> The longer (6 month+) slow release coatings are few and far between, but are again, broken down with the presence of water. I'm mostly talking Nitrogen here, but the coatings act the same... exposing the granule to the elements as the water present degrades the coating / treatment.


I've got a feeling O+ would be more effective as an enrichment for a true soil substrate with significantly lower diffusion rates and better nutrient retention. We compared non-enriched and enriched pond soil in my study and found noticeable, if not always statistically significant, differences between the two in favor of the enriched stuff. That's what I was trying to suss out here too and even though it's not been even close to "scientific" the observations are real. There could be some value in using a small amount of pellets in an overflow filter to provide a short term source of nutrients at start up or when away on a trip. Now that I think about it, that's likely an excellent means of consistent nutrient supplementation for a couple weeks.

I'll get some pictures in the near future. Hopefully I'll be able to get things turned around well enough to have a decent photo series of the recovery. The tank's still in fairly poor shape at the moment.

Regards,
Phil


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

Interesting. So, it's not how long the O+ lasts but more how good and how long the substrate holds onto what the O+ gave it.

But I guess then, that's the case for any active substrate all over again.

Maybe I should get a syringe and inject a slurry of dry ferts deep into my aquasoil clone.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

ipkiss said:


> Interesting. So, it's not how long the O+ lasts but more how good and how long the substrate holds onto what the O+ gave it.
> 
> But I guess then, that's the case for any active substrate all over again.
> 
> Maybe I should get a syringe and inject a slurry of dry ferts deep into my aquasoil clone.


I wouldn't recommend it since what you've got going is working well.


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

The desire is in experimentation right? We simply can't leave a good thing alone. 

That, and despite appearances, I still am challenged by my crypt flamingo, and by extension, my red crypts. Behind on updating my journal but the latest news is that I pretty much acquiesced to its petulance by lacing the "aquasoil" beneath its area with about 20 odd balls of osmocote. 

Results were interesting, but not optimal. Trying to figure out if the effect ran out or if its hinting at me, "Try again, bud, this time with something else, please."


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## Desert Pupfish (May 6, 2019)

Phil Edwards said:


> I've got a feeling O+ would be more effective as an enrichment for a true soil substrate with significantly lower diffusion rates and better nutrient retention. We compared non-enriched and enriched pond soil in my study and found noticeable, if not always statistically significant, differences between the two in favor of the enriched stuff. That's what I was trying to suss out here too and even though it's not been even close to "scientific" the observations are real. There could be some value in using a small amount of pellets in an overflow filter to provide a short term source of nutrients at start up or when away on a trip. Now that I think about it, that's likely an excellent means of consistent nutrient supplementation for a couple weeks


Fascinating, So do you think O+ would also do well as an enrichment in a non-soil but high-CEC substrate like STS?

Like your idea of using O+ pellets in an HOB filter as a short-term nutrient source. Have you or anybody else tried this? My 2 month old tank has an STS substrate and the heavy root feeders like val are threatening to take over (a meter long already, and spreading like crazy) whereas my stem plants, java fern, etc are all sulking. I've started dosing the water column with nilocG's Thrive, but often travel for a week at a time, so it's hard to be consistent with the water column dosing.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Desert Pupfish said:


> Fascinating, So do you think O+ would also do well as an enrichment in a non-soil but high-CEC substrate like STS?
> 
> Like your idea of using O+ pellets in an HOB filter as a short-term nutrient source. Have you or anybody else tried this? My 2 month old tank has an STS substrate and the heavy root feeders like val are threatening to take over (a meter long already, and spreading like crazy) whereas my stem plants, java fern, etc are all sulking. I've started dosing the water column with nilocG's Thrive, but often travel for a week at a time, so it's hard to be consistent with the water column dosing.


As a secondary source or to target specific plants, sure. I wouldn't depend on it as a main source of nutrients though. As for using it in a filter, yes, I have. I'm currently running a couple small pellets in my nano's filter. It's a lower light and slower growing system than the 80 so it works a bit better. It would certainly be worth trying to see how it works for your tank before going on your next trip.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Due to an unexpected, emergency, move situation I had to sell the farm. The only aquarium stuff I have left now is the nano, a CO2 system, and some Phosban reactors in case I ever decide to do salt again. I haven't been this bereft of aquarium hardware since moving back from Japan. At least the system found a very good home.


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## crazymittens (Jun 4, 2012)

Phil Edwards said:


> Due to an unexpected, emergency, move situation I had to sell the farm. The only aquarium stuff I have left now is the nano, a CO2 system, and some Phosban reactors in case I ever decide to do salt again. I haven't been this bereft of aquarium hardware since moving back from Japan. At least the system found a very good home.


Nooo! Is this a temporary thing, or undetermined hiatus?


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

Wow. Unlike. Unlike. 

Hope all is better and that things work out in a good way.


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## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

crazymittens said:


> Nooo! Is this a temporary thing, or undetermined hiatus?


 Given his new space limitations I think what we need to do is twist Phils arm towards a nice 20g standard tank. Enough room to make something unique and cheap enough to fit most any budget. Pretty sure I still have a decent light for a 20....
Phil?


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## Econde (Oct 13, 2015)

Awe man. I'm sorry to hear that. Hope everything works out for you.


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

crazymittens said:


> Nooo! Is this a temporary thing, or undetermined hiatus?


It'll probably be at least a year, possibly more. The apartments I'm currently in didn't do their due diligence and we had some severe electrical issues which ended up being a fire hazard that didn't go detected for over a month. The end result was the city cutting our power for a week so everything in all the tanks died. The way they handled, or more correctly *didn't*, handle the situation has me moving to another place. I have no idea how long we'll be there, but there just isn't room for an eight square foot tank in the new floorplan.  The system went to a local guy I've known for years and I couldn't be happier that he got it. It's a bummer that I had to get rid of it as I spent years and a few thousand dollars putting it all together, but it is what it is and I know the guy will love it and get a lot of joy out of having it. 



ipkiss said:


> Wow. Unlike. Unlike.
> 
> Hope all is better and that things work out in a good way.


Things are working out well so far. Unless the new apartments come up with a unit with a den, which they might, we just won't have the space for anything larger than the nano. 



Immortal1 said:


> Given his new space limitations I think what we need to do is twist Phils arm towards a nice 20g standard tank. Enough room to make something unique and cheap enough to fit most any budget. Pretty sure I still have a decent light for a 20....
> Phil?


I still have the nano and a nearly-new 20lb CO2 can to run it. That should last a good couple of years.  Once we get moved and situated, look for updates to it.



Econde said:


> Awe man. I'm sorry to hear that. Hope everything works out for you.


They are. The place we're going is a lot better and has a much more responsive and responsible maintenance staff.


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## Econde (Oct 13, 2015)

Phil Edwards said:


> It'll probably be at least a year, possibly more. The apartments I'm currently in didn't do their due diligence and we had some severe electrical issues which ended up being a fire hazard that didn't go detected for over a month. The end result was the city cutting our power for a week so everything in all the tanks died. The way they handled, or more correctly *didn't*, handle the situation has me moving to another place. I have no idea how long we'll be there, but there just isn't room for an eight square foot tank in the new floorplan.  The system went to a local guy I've known for years and I couldn't be happier that he got it. It's a bummer that I had to get rid of it as I spent years and a few thousand dollars putting it all together, but it is what it is and I know the guy will love it and get a lot of joy out of having it.


Well at least you're not in a possible deathtrap anymore. Still sad to see you sold your tank, but like you said, it is what it is. And you seem pretty content with your buddy getting it. Life sucks at times and I wish you and your family the best. As long as you guys are safe and healthy, there will always be some time later for hobbies. :smile2:


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

_***Tina Belcher frustrated sigh***_

It's tough to keep a positive outlook when difficult life crap happens. Glad it doesn't have you too down.

At least there's the nano! Looking forward to your updates.


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## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Phil sad to see the tank go.

You've always been a positive force in the hobby, and your knowledge can still help others here.

Just saying hope you still drop in from time to time, and looking forward to the next chapter.

Good luck with the move and I hope all goes well.


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## ipkiss (Aug 9, 2011)

Yup, you can pick up on your AMA thread and live vicariously through the rest of us for now!


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## Phil Edwards (Jul 18, 2003)

Thanks all, it's appreciated.


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