# UNS 120U Build



## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Stand build: 

I'm planning on a typical 2X4 construction stand. The plan is roughly the same as this one: https://aquanerd.com/2010/04/diy-aquarium-stand.html

I'll be modifying that design since it's way overbuild and you can accomplish almost the same thing using 2X4's. 

I haven't decided on a height yet, but it'll be just high enough for the equipment, but not too high to make getting into the tank to perform maintenance difficult. I need the internal dimensions to be deep enough to fit the FX6 if that's the direction I wind up going in, and high enough to accept either a 5 lbs or 10 lbs bottle. One of the reasons I have 5 lbs even listed is because there's a home brewer store nearby where you can pay for two full bottles at $90 each and then just bring the empty back for an exchange at $25 each. I'd buy two just to have a spare when the one runs out. I'm usually short on time so I wouldn't be able to run to do an exchange right away so having the spare gives me some time to get the tank swapped out. 

The general idea of how I'll change the design of that stand is to make two rectangular boxes out of 2X4 slightly smaller than the footprint of the top. The top is solid butcher block from HD and is slightly larger than the tank. So basically the support structure, or the 2X4 rectangle will be the exact size of the tank footprint. 

I'll have 6 2X4's that connect the top rectangle to the bottom one and long enough to touch the ground and add support for the top. I've seen some designs where those uprights aren't actually supporting the top, but why even have them if they're not supporting the tank itself in any substantial way? 

Since those uprights will be inside the boxes, directly in front of them sandwiched between the top and bottom boxes will be 2X4's to support the box. I'll also include 2X4 supports in this manner on the sides in the corners as well. So basically there will be 8 of these rather than 6. 

I'll also add in a few cross members made out of 2X4 to provide support for the base and the top boxes. I have a 4X2 sheet of 1/2" birch that I was going to use for another project in the house, but I decided to do something different. That will sit inside the base of the stand. I'll probably do some less expensive plywood around the outside of everything else, or at least the back and sides since the plan is to paint it all white. 

I'm still not sure how to finish the front. I'm not sure what material to use to build the doors, or how to finish the front of it. Do I use plywood, get some square 4 sides wood and make the doors flush similar to the ADA style stands? 

The plan is to head out to buy as much of this material as I can this week so that I can spend Saturday building it and hopefully finishing the same day, or into Sunday. 

I'll have help lifting the tank up and moving this stand into place. After the experience of bringing the tank down my stairs, I'm not building this stand outside and then bringing it in. I'll be making cuts outside, and then building and painting/staining it inside my laundry room and moving it 15 feet lol. 

I actually bought the butcher block countertop yesterday before I picked the tank up so that I had a base that didn't flex when I put the tank in the back of my 4runner. My choices were Birch or Acacia. I went with Acacia since my experience staining birch isn't positive. For whatever reason Birch doesn't seem to want to evenly accept stain. I don't have any experience with Acacia so it was worth a gamble. I'm sure it can't be any worse than Birch is for accepting stain. I'm going to stain and poly the top in a grey finish and the rest of the stand will be white. I considered staining the doors grey too, but all white seems like it would look better. 

I'm open to any ideas on how to finish the front of the stand from a build perspective. My skillset in finish carpentry is still very much in the novice category so I welcome any suggestions. I'll take ample pics throughout the process and share them in this thread since they'll probably help someone out.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> Tank: UNS 120U
> Stand: Custom build
> Filtration: Undecided but the FX6 is a likely candidate
> Lighting: Undecided
> ...


I definitely suggest going with a diy inline heater. I wish I did that for mine. The trouble with heaters on the market is that they only use 5/8" openings which will be a flow downgrade for you.

If you want enough depth to plant in and essentially a flat substrate bottom using only fluval stratum, then you are probably looking at 5 of their 17lb bags. If you want a slope, you will need more.

Regarding rock, rock is really really really expensive. If you want enough of it to make a dramatic hardscape in a tank this big, you are probably looking at 1000 to 2000 dollars for rock alone assuming you went with something like dragonstone. Alternatively you can buy just a little bit and end up with a situation where you have a big tank and a few stones that look super tiny in it by comparison. This is what most people do because they don't want to spend thousands of dollars on hardscape. In my opinion, it tends to not look great.

My advice is to look around you for rocks that you like and can be easily obtained for less. So for example. Frequently landscaping supply companies will carry stones that will look really nice in an aquarium and their prices are usually significantly less then what most fish stores (online or local) will charge for dragonstone.

But the best by far is finding rocks on the ground and using those. If you have property that has rocks or know someone that has property with rocks, going out and picking up a wheelbarrow full of rocks will be the best option by an order of magnitude. This is what I do for all of my tanks.

Another thing to think on is fertilizer. Are you going to be using an auto doser or dosing manually? What fertilizer system will you be using, pps-pro, EI, something else? Are you going to use an off the shelf product like Nicolg Thrive, etc. This is an easy to fulfill but essential part of the plan.

For co2, if at all an option, I'd go with a 10lb tank simply because of cost and refills. Either way, the height of the co2 tank with regulator attached is likely to be your limiting factor for how tall your stand can be. So you may wish to settle on this first, and actually obtain these items before building your stand or get solid measurements from someone who already has them. The cost of refilling your 5 lb tanks seems high since I pay a dollar or 2 less to refill my 10 lb tank, but this will vary by region and frankly there is a lot to say for convenience.

A word about the stand, be careful not to have a vertical support actually come into contact with the bottom of the tank or the butcherblock that the tank is sitting on. The reason being that wood shrinks and grows with humidity over the course of a year. Not much, mind you, maybe 1mm at most vertically given the likely lengths involved. BUT you do not want a 1mm pressure point on your 120 gallon rimless tank.

This is why any stand design worth spit will have the tank sitting on a rectangle made up of horizontal pieces and not a single vertical support actually touching the tank or the stand top.

Some stand designs have guides that stick up vertically past the supports holding the stand up but not all the way to the stand top. These pieces are there to assist in attaching the stand top, and that is all they do.. well maybe they help a little with wracking, but that's not their stated purpose. This was a design popularized by the King of DIY youtuber. Frankly, I think he just does it because he films himself building stands and it looks a lot smoother and more coordinated to neatly slide a top in place rather then spend a lot of time a lot of time fiddling with glue, clamps, screws, and the like to hold things in place before the stand gets skinned.

Hopefully this is helpful.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> I definitely suggest going with a diy inline heater. I wish I did that for mine. The trouble with heaters on the market is that they only use 5/8" openings which will be a flow downgrade for you.
> 
> This is one of the reasons I'm considering adding a Biomaster Thermo to the FX6. I've been looking at inline heaters and haven't been impressed with reviews. Depending on which of the Thermo's I'd decide on, that could also allow me to move down to an FX4. Basically the thought I've been mulling over is surface scum isn't fun to deal with and having lily pipes with a surface skimmer going directly into the FX6 would require more frequent filter maintenance on a filter that looks like it can be an ordeal to maintain. I'm still not fully read up on the Oase line, but it seems that it has a pre filter which I'm assuming is the first stage the water enters the filter. If that's the case, it looks really easy to pull the pre filter out once a week to clean it and not need to take the whole filter apart. You also get the heater functionality too. This will cost a lot more than I want, but if I can use it to also drive the CO2 reactor and UV, then it might make sense. What are your thoughts on this?
> 
> ...


Replied above but came back to edit and add this drawing. After looking at a few stands for ideas on how to finish it off, this seemed like the easiest solution. The writing is S4S for square four sides. I'm considering making doors that sit in flush and using hardware to allow me to push on the door to get them to come out, along with those soft close hinges. The only way I think I can do this successfully would be to take some of the S4S wood I buy and do a glue up of them to make the doors. So the only plywood I'll use is that sheet of Birch I have laying around for the inside base of the stand, and I'll buy a sheet to cover the back up and use the remainder for the sides.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Do you mean you want to use an oase biomaster thermo and a fluval fx?

If planning to use both, you can use standard sized lily pipes and still have pretty decent flow because you would have 2 sets of lily pipes in the tank. Certainly an oase will be strong enough to use a skimmer intake and a co2 reactor and a uv. I would not go for just the oase though as they are frankly not very powerful, you would need another filter if you used the oase.

Just the FX6 by itself would be powerful enough alone so long as you were careful about flow with your inline equipment (ie not narrowing the diameter below the 1" tube diameter the fx6 uses). But 2 filters would allow you to be a lot more carefree about how you use your inline stuff.

I hope you can find some nice rocks for fairly cheap. In the meantime, look at some similar sized tank journals or pictures that you like the look of, and try to estimate how big the rocks are in those tanks and how many you might need. Then look at your local fish store and see what they are charging. My local fish store charges 6 dollars per pound of rock. They typically have about 100 lbs in stock after a big delivery. My 120P tank on the other hand has approximately 400 lbs of stone in it and lately I've been thinking I really should have had some more in it. Also the back half of the tank is lavastone from the hardware store so I wouldn't need to use as much rock. /shrug dramatic hardscapes require a lot of rock. If you have access to some decent wood it tends to be cheaper (volumetrically) then stone so going more heavy on the wood might be a way to get a look you want.

I would thus be pretty willing to switch to something other then dragonstone if you see something interesting. Speaking of, carry some vinegar with you if you go to the landscaping supply store. Dribble a small amount on a rock and see if it fizzes with tiny bubbles. Not a perfect test, but if it does, there is a reasonable chance that it will add hardness to your water like seiyru stone.

Most cabinet doors are either floating panel doors or fake floating panel doors. The latter is where the 'panel' in the middle is plywood and it is surrounded by real wood that makes a frame. You can route out a groove for the plywood panel to be inside of, or you can make a rabbit and have the plywood be glued into the rabbit like glass is held in place in a picture frame (does that make sense?). Either way will work for your purpose, just depends on your tooling and preferences.

Alternatively you can do away with the hinges and make the front one big panel held on with magnets. This is definitely easier to make by a LOT, but it means when you do service you need to pull this giant panel off and stick to the side somewhere. Plus if you have small kids with access to the tank, it makes it easier for them to get into and impossible for you to childproof. If you want to have a center support like in your drawing, then you could do the same with smaller panels held on by magnets, but will still have the same childproofing issues.

My stand is a total of 33" tall from floor to where the tank starts. Inside if measured from underneath a center support for the top it is 26" tall. If not under one of the center supports it is 28.75" tall.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> Do you mean you want to use an oase biomaster thermo and a fluval fx?
> 
> If planning to use both, you can use standard sized lily pipes and still have pretty decent flow because you would have 2 sets of lily pipes in the tank. Certainly an oase will be strong enough to use a skimmer intake and a co2 reactor and a uv. I would not go for just the oase though as they are frankly not very powerful, you would need another filter if you used the oase.
> 
> ...


Thanks again, replied above!


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

I don't know if it will help you at all, but this is what 180 lbs of Seiryu Stone looks like in a 6' long tank. It was a total of about $600 including shipping.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> I don't know if it will help you at all, but this is what 180 lbs of Seiryu Stone looks like in a 6' long tank. It was a total of about $600 including shipping.


It's definitely helpful! It's great for getting scale of what you get for a set amount of lbs. 

I will definitely need at least that amount for what I'm considering. I'll need to take a look at some of the contest tanks and use them to draw out what I have in mind. I'm definitely not planning a contest scape though lol. Just a scape that I really like and don't mind looking at for a long time.


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## Vadim Shevchuk (Aug 28, 2009)

Can't wait to see your journey. I was in the same boat a you. I really wanted a 5x2x2 tank and I think Redsea has one, but it was just too much for my budget. I went with a Waterbox 4820. I Actually hard scaped it today. I bought dragonstone from an online vendor. Price wasn't too bad. I think $400 of stone would do it. PM if you need a link.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Vadim Shevchuk said:


> Can't wait to see your journey. I was in the same boat a you. I really wanted a 5x2x2 tank and I think Redsea has one, but it was just too much for my budget. I went with a Waterbox 4820. I Actually hard scaped it today. I bought dragonstone from an online vendor. Price wasn't too bad. I think $400 of stone would do it. PM if you need a link.


Thanks, I look forward to checking yours out as well. If you wouldn't mind PMing me that link I'd greatly appreciate it!

It's a shame that more companies don't make tanks with those dimensions. I bet if UNS made a 5X2X2 it would sell like hotcakes. I initially considered their 180U but the cost and difficulty getting into my basement put it out of consideration pretty quickly. If I wind up getting another big tank for my basement, I'm going acrylic just for the ease of getting it down my stairs lol.


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## sm1ke (Jun 30, 2016)

If you're looking at buying typical hardscaping rock (seiryu, ohko, holy lace, etc), check with your local "mom and pop" aquarium stores. Sometimes they will let you buy in bulk. For example, I bought a 55lb bag of blue seiryu stone for $110 CAD. Not only is the price per pound much cheaper, you also save a ton on shipping costs. Just keep in mind that most hardscaping rock that is sold in stores is broken up into 6-10" pieces.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

sm1ke said:


> If you're looking at buying typical hardscaping rock (seiryu, ohko, holy lace, etc), check with your local "mom and pop" aquarium stores. Sometimes they will let you buy in bulk. For example, I bought a 55lb bag of blue seiryu stone for $110 CAD. Not only is the price per pound much cheaper, you also save a ton on shipping costs. Just keep in mind that most hardscaping rock that is sold in stores is broken up into 6-10" pieces.


I intend to go this route as well. I'm fortunate to live 1 mile outside of Chicago so there are numerous small LFS within a half hour drive of me. My goal is to get a hold of someone at SR Aquaristic and see if I can talk them into letting me walk through their warehouse and hand pick a few of the largest pieces that will be more or less the "centerpieces". From there I can fill in what I need from the local shops, and online shops. I likely will do an order of a bulk box online mainly because it's fun getting a box of mystery rocks. One of the reasons I'm going the dragon stone route is the ability to shape the stone with a hammer and chisel. 

The one concern I have is with using 2-4 really big showpiece rocks, would the best route to protecting the bottom glass be egg crate or something else? I've never really protected the bottom of my tanks before, but I've also never used massive rocks. 

One thing I need to keep reminding myself of is that no matter how much effort I put into developing a scape that I will enjoy for a long time, it'll be covered by plants so there isn't a point in getting overly crazy lol. I spent a bunch of time scaping my nano and you can't even see the rock all that much. But this is part of the fun....learning what works and what doesn't.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Not much of an update per se, but one thing is going to slow down this build a little bit. I took my crazy Aussie puppy for a consultation/evaluation with my buddy's dog training facility. He said that he can be trained and it won't be overly tough, but he recommended 2-4 weeks of training at his place. I've never owned a working breed before, and honestly wasn't supposed to be getting an Aussie with a high herding drive since the breeder breeds for pet temperament. My little guy has full blown Aussie working drive so training him is fairly outside of my skillset. I'm waiting on pricing and will be getting the "friends and family discount", but this is still going to be a pretty big investment. 

The first year I'm actually getting a tax return and it will likely all go into dog training lol. In any case, it will impact the speed in which I'm able to acquire everything. This is what I've been thinking as far as the plan for acquiring equipment and supplies: 

1. Build stand - this weekend
2. One or both filters
3. Lighting or CO2
4. Whichever I didn't get in the last step
5. Substrate
6. UV sterlizer
7. Lily pipes, tubing, etc. 
8. Finish buying hardscape (wood and rock)

I'll probably scoop up whatever hardscape I run across as I stop by various LFS. 

I think what will end up happening is I scratch off each category each month. So this month is getting the stand knocked out. Next month one or both filters, and so on. 

The one thing that will accelerate this build is closing a big deal at work, which is what will be the most likely route to getting this tank up and running within the next 3 months. I love credit cards, but I love paying them off as soon as whatever I charged posts. I did some dumb things with credit cards in my youth that basically involved digging myself into a deep hole that I only dug myself out of last year. Since then I use my credit cards instead of cash, pay them off immediately, and then use the points for cash back, etc. 3 years ago this tank would have been up and running by the end of next week lol.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I didn't have a chance to start building the stand yesterday, but did pick up all the 2X4's, glue, screws, and some other odds and ends. 

I need to make one more trip to get some slightly longer screws. 

The one thing I didn't do was pick up any of the plywood. Part of the problem is I can't get a full sheet in my truck, and I've had the big boxes cut wood for me before and I'm not going to do that again lol. I came home with pieces that were all slightly different lengths. Once I build this stand I can take some accurate measurements and head over to a hardwood dealer near me and have them make the cuts. The one place by me even does glue ups, projects, etc. so they're at least competent in making accurate cuts. 

I haven't decided if I'm going to use 1/2" birch ply all around, or maybe just use some MDF for the back, and then do birch for the sides and front. I'm going to build doors out of what remains of the ply and rabbit it into a frame made of some decent S4S cheaper hardwood, maybe pine. Needless to say, that won't happen until next weekend. It was cold yesterday here, and will be again today (30's). 

Regarding filtration, I've put a little thought into this since my next purchases will focus on that. 

Initially I was thinking an Oase bombaster thermo (600 or 850). This would mainly be for the integrated heater, and I'd use a surface skimmer on the intake to take advantage of the pre filter being so easy to clean and remove. It's something so easy to do you can do it weekly. If I go with the 850, it's advertised at 400 GPH. Fill it with media, 3' or so of head height, and now we're down to 250 GPH. I figure with displacement caused by rock and wood, I'm looking at 100 actual gallons of water. I've always shot for a turnover rate of about 10X aquarium volume so I'd need to be at 1000 GPH. The thing is until recently, I've always based this calculation on advertised flow rates. If I went with advertised flow rates, I'd need the FX6. 

As I continued searching for other options I saw that GLA has an ADA "inspired" design with a flow rate about what I'd need. It's roughly $100 more than I'd want to spend on that second filter, but it's also pretty sexy. I also found "Fzone" also has a line of similarly inspired filters, but the larger model I'd need seems to be out of stock. It's probably stuck in a container ship off the coast of California. I really like the idea of the external DC pump since it gives me the ability to buy a second pump in the event mine dies. 

I don't know if GLA sells the DC pump separately, or if they're just using one that's commonly manufactured that I could buy on my own, but after taking a look at flow rates, I might be able to get away with just buying the largest model they sell, which would put me at about the cost of an Oase and the Fluval FX4 or 6. The only thing is I'd need to go back to the drawing board on inline heaters. But this would drastically simplify my equipment. I'd be able to come off the filter with their recommended tubing size 16/22mm, and then hard pipe all of my additional equipment inline. 

It seems Hydors are nowhere to be found. The only option is a Chinese brand "DaToo" and based on reviews, has cooked some fish. The one way around cooking my tank is to use a heater controller, which I'd use anyway with the Oase since that can still cook your fish if it fails on. 

I'd be curious to get everyone's thoughts on this. I'm beginning to get to that confused stage if it's not apparent from reading this post lol. These are the options I'm seeing right now:

1. Oase BM Thermo 850 and Fluval FX 4 or FX 6 with a heater controller
2. The 180L GLA canister, inline "DaToo" fish cooker inline heater with a separate heater controller
3. Oase BM Thermo 350, GLA 15L canister, and a heater controller. 

There'll be a CO2 reactor plumbed into either of the options. I think I'm going to abandon the UV. I ran multiple reef tanks over the last decade and didn't have UV on any of them and never had any of the problems that they're intended to solve. 

I considered forgoing the heater but my basement is 72 degrees right now, and during the summer it gets much colder since the thermostat is upstairs and my upstairs is always warmer which keeps the AC on longer making the basement much colder. Even with the vents shut it gets pretty cold. I'd probably guess high 60's in the summer. I'm sure some fish would be able to stand that, but I'd rather have the tank at a comfortable 78 degrees year round. 

Anyhow, I'm going to head out to pick up the odds and ends I need for this stand and start building it by noon. I'll update with some pics I'll take throughout the process. 

I'm definitely interested in seeing what everyone thinks about the filtration ideas I have above. Personally I'm sort of leaning towards the GLA oversized canister route, but only if I can buy the DC pump separately to have as a spare. Option 3 does away with the inline heater, but also adds about $100 to the costs. The gain of it would be the Oase pre filter since I'm going to surface skim as part of the intake. If I do option 3, surface skimming will just be on the Oase intake. If I do option 2, I'll need to do extra maintenance on the GLA filter. My guess would be every other week.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

I'm a big fan of the canister with external DC pump approach, so I think that's a good way to go here. 

I made an inline heater with temp controller for my most recent build, and would definitely do that again.


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## Le duke (Jun 29, 2021)

Question: 

A canister filter is just a container that holds media. The pump can be something made by a third party; as long as it has a flow rate and in/outputs if the appropriate volume and size, respectively, does it matter?

So, along that line of thought, you could go with a cheap ADA-style canister and an expensive DC pump of known quality and durability. That way, purchasing a backup separately from the manufacturer is less important. If it puts your mind at ease, you can buy a cheap DC pump and have it configured, ready to go as a backup. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

I own one of the fzone filters, I'm running it the past few months on my newt tank. The thing is a) built like a tank, b) a little rough with fit and finish, but still looks sexy from say 3 feet away, c) is absolutely silent with the recommended pump.

I'm using the smallest model. The only reason to get a bigger canister is if it comes with a bigger outflow/inflow pipe. Otherwise you can get even the smallest model, and stick the biggest pump they sell on it which I think is rated for something like 5000 liters an hour.

Anyway there was a bit of discussion about these guys a little while ago and I think the conclusion was the fzone and gla models are the same thing except slightly different motor mounts.

The amount of media even the smallest one holds will be adequate for a planted 120 gallon tank.

I made an inline probe holder for my temperature controller when building out my 120p. After the fact, I learned there are much better ways to do it ;P including seals basically designed for the purpose. That's the way to handle the heater issue, plus you need to make sure your heater is installed vertically and is always submersed in water even during a water change. That will keep it from cracking (if it has a glass case that is).


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> I'm a big fan of the canister with external DC pump approach, so I think that's a good way to go here.
> 
> I made an inline heater with temp controller for my most recent build, and would definitely do that again.





Le duke said:


> Question:
> 
> A canister filter is just a container that holds media. The pump can be something made by a third party; as long as it has a flow rate and in/outputs if the appropriate volume and size, respectively, does it matter?
> 
> ...





minorhero said:


> I own one of the fzone filters, I'm running it the past few months on my newt tank. The thing is a) built like a tank, b) a little rough with fit and finish, but still looks sexy from say 3 feet away, c) is absolutely silent with the recommended pump.
> 
> I'm using the smallest model. The only reason to get a bigger canister is if it comes with a bigger outflow/inflow pipe. Otherwise you can get even the smallest model, and stick the biggest pump they sell on it which I think is rated for something like 5000 liters an hour.
> 
> ...


Thanks, appreciate the input! I asked a friend of mine from my reef keeping days about the heater issue and he reminded me about the Lifeguard Aquatics inline reactors. I went to the website and sure enough they have a reactor that you can add a 1/2 to 3/4" diameter heater to and plumb it inline. I'll need to explore the solutions for plumbing the heater controller probe inline as well because my initial inclination was just to put it in the tank, but if I can get it out of the tank, even better. 

One of the reasons I may go with the GLA is just because of the sizes they have available. I tend to overstock my tanks a bit, so having enough bio media in the canister, along with room for a sponge/filter floss as a pre filter, some purigen or something for chemical filtration would cover any needs I'd have. From a sizing perspective if I were just doing bio media, the smallest Fzone might be pushing it if it were just all filled with ceramic rings, or something else to use as biological media. Since I'm planning on using this to surface skim as well, I need some additional space for pre filters in the housing to keep that surface scum out of the bio media. 

I guess the question is go with the model listed for a 120 tank, or go up a size. Looks to be about a $150 jump in price, but you get 7 more liters of capacity and the pump gives you up to an additional 1500 liters/hr of flow rate. 

I will admit that getting the big one is crazy, but it'll give me peace of mind knowing that I have some wiggle room on stocking levels and can use a sufficient amount of chemical filtration media.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Didn't make a ton of progress on the stand yesterday, but did get all of the 2X4's cut to the correct lengths and glued and screwed the two boxes together. 

One of the challenges was finding decently straight lumber. I spent about an hour combing through 2X4's to find 10 that were usable. Even with all that work, they still weren't great. 

The top box that the tank will rest on, the top side is perfectly flat. I did the same thing for one side of the bottom box that will rest on the floor. 

The plan today after work is to screw in the six uprights that connect the bottom to the top box, then cut the 1/2" plywood to fit inside the stand for the base, then mount the top box, and insert the 8 pieces between the top and bottom boxes to support the actual weight of the tank. 

I'm more than likely being optimistic in what I can get done after work with everything else I have on my plate, but the above is the goal. Realistically, I'll probably get the six uprights glued, drilled, and screwed together and maybe the 2X4' sheet of plywood marked for cutting tomorrow. 

I initially planned on adding the plywood for the inside base of the stand after I had it assembled but then realized that it would be difficult to impossible to get into the stand in one piece. 

The long 2X4's in the pic are 48" long, and the cross members are all 21". 

For anyone looking to build a stand, I used 4X48", and 8X21". 

I'll include measurements and amounts for the rest of the build as I get to it. 

The one thing I need to see is if I can use 1/2" plywood to wrap the stand, or if that would be too thick and either be flush or stick out further than the top. I don't think it will, but I'll need to double check it. 

Quick pic so far. It's coming along, more slowly than I'd like but any time I've built something really fast, it never looks good.


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## Le duke (Jun 29, 2021)

What kind of plywood do you plan on using?

My wife built two very nice baby changing stations (one for us, one for her sister/BIL) using an oak frame (I think) and baltic birch plywood. Really nice stuff. Great veneer with a grain that is fine but takes a stain or wipe-on polyurethane very well. We used 3/8" and it's held up very well.

Did you get the tank yet? I want to see what the big UNS tanks look like.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Le duke said:


> What kind of plywood do you plan on using?
> 
> My wife built two very nice baby changing stations (one for us, one for her sister/BIL) using an oak frame (I think) and baltic birch plywood. Really nice stuff. Great veneer with a grain that is fine but takes a stain or wipe-on polyurethane very well. We used 3/8" and it's held up very well.
> 
> Did you get the tank yet? I want to see what the big UNS tanks look like.


I'm probably going to do birch since that seems to be the most readily available, but my initial plan was to paint it white. I stained birch plywood once before and for whatever reason it didn't stain well. The knots absorbed stain and made those areas super dark and blotchy. But this was using stain and a poly separate. I think I did like 4 coats with sanding in between coats. I'm doing a stain and poly in one for the top so I'll test it on a small scrap piece of birch and see how it looks. Hopefully I'll have a small piece with a knot in it. It's possible I went overboard the last time I stained birch. 

I did get the tank but it's on the floor of my basement on top of some long scrap pieces of wood to make sure it was sitting on a flat even surface. The whole tank is wrapped up and protected right now because of my puppy. Once the stand is built and at least wrapped and painted/stained, I'm going to get a hand from someone moving it, getting the stand in place, making sure it's level, and then putting the tank on it. From there I'll probably do a quick leak test after a few days of letting the tank and stand settle. Attached a pic so that you can at least get an idea of the size. One of the things I still need to do is pull that area rug over another 6-12". Right now it's 28" off the baseboard shoe molding. I figured that would be enough but it would be nice to play in the tank and avoid having to cover the rug every time.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

Birch is very prone to blotching when you stain. Instead of the stain / poly mix, just do a coat of pre-stain before doing anything else. Run over it with some fine sandpaper to remove any raised grain, and then stain it. It will turn out much better than stain only.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> Birch is very prone to blotching when you stain. Instead of the stain / poly mix, just do a coat of pre-stain before doing anything else. Run over it with some fine sandpaper to remove any raised grain, and then stain it. It will turn out much better than stain only.


That's exactly what the result was when I tried staining birch - blotchiness. 

I think the easy button here would be to paint the stand white, but just stain/poly the top. I believe the butcher block is Acacia which I have no experience with, but at the same time the majority of it will be underneath the tank so however the stain/poly one coat stuff works, you'll only see the edge of it more or less. 

I have some pre-stain laying around somewhere so I'll try that first on a scrap piece and see how it comes out. If I can get it to accept stain without blotching, I'll stain the rest of the stand, but if I can't I may as well get some less expensive sanded plywood and just prime and paint it. Staining would be my preferred route since all of my furniture is the same color as the stain (grey).


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Got a little further than my realistic prediction, short of my goal.

Tomorrow I'll get the top brace on, and get the pieces sandwiched in front of the upright 2X4's, and 4 on the corners to support the full weight of the tank.

I was able to break in my DeWalt barrel grip jigsaw and I don't think I can ever go back to a regular jigsaw.

Anyhow, here's what it's looking like so far. I will hopefully have this done by tomorrow, and then start working on acquiring the skin. I'm going to take my time with the doors because there's no rush. I can get the tank on the stand and mount doors a bit later. It would be amazing if I can complete this by the weekend, have paint and/or stain dry, and move it into place and get the tank on it. It probably won't happen, but we'll see how far I can get. It's a lot more work than I thought it would be lol.

I'll come back and edit the post with the lengths of the uprights. I can't remember exactly. Since the height isn't critical since they're not touching or supporting the countertop, I cut them about 1/2" shorter than flush with the bottom of the countertop. I figured if I needed to level things, I could wiggle it up/down and not need to worry about cutting the uprights. 

I may need to pick up a flush trim bit for my router because that plywood is ever so slightly hanging off the front side, and one of the sides. When I say slightly, I mean I could probably get plywood on the front and it won't interfere, but I'll always think about it so I might as well flush it up.


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## Le duke (Jun 29, 2021)

Man, using routers in handheld mode scares me. I've had them hit a knot and kick off going 10,000rpm a few too many times. You are a braver soul than I. 

Only way I use a router now is mounted through a workbench.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Le duke said:


> Man, using routers in handheld mode scares me. I've had them hit a knot and kick off going 10,000rpm a few too many times. You are a braver soul than I.
> 
> Only way I use a router now is mounted through a workbench.


I'm not highly experienced with routers, but I know exactly what you're talking about. Usually when I've had that problem it's because of trying to take off more than I should in one pass. I think skinning that front edge should be pretty straightforward. I'll need to take a closer look at it tonight when I finish it up, but if it's hanging over minimally, I may just hit it with the orbital. 

I bought 3 new tools a few months ago that haven't had any use: DeWalt orbital, barrel grip jigsaw, and palm router, all batter operated. So far I've used one and have been dying to use the other two lol. 

Once I get the stand finished tonight I'm going to throw the butcher block on top to get a sense of how much room I'll have as far as overhang. I'll likely wrap this with 1/4" birch and give staining it a shot. Worst case it doesn't look great and I'll need to prime and paint it. I have the pre stain conditioner, stain, and poly so I have everything I need. The question will be whether or not it turns out looking good. I'm glad I bought the butcher block when I did because the prices went up $20.

ETA: was thinking about the doors and my plan is to have openings the exact width and height between all the 2X4's. So these will be really big doors. I may need to edge band the opening though which I'm not a fan of, but since I'm going the plywood route, it's the only option. I could leave it bare with just stain because you won't see the edge unless the doors are open, but if I'm going to finish it I might as well finish it completely. Even though this has been and will be a lot of work, I figure I'm saving at least $500-700 and getting a far more sturdy stand. When I think back to all the stands I've owned over the years, I can't believe they actually held the weight of full aquariums lol. They literally use the worst possible materials for building stands.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

ddiomede said:


> ...snip...
> When I think back to all the stands I've owned over the years, I can't believe they actually held the weight of full aquariums lol. They literally use the worst possible materials for building stands.


I've had this exact same thought. My 6' 125G tank is now on a custom stand to make it an in-wall tank, but the stand that it originally came with was incredibly cheap. I couldn't believe that it was made to hold up 1000+ lbs of water and "stuff". Most of it was held together with STAPLES!!


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## Le duke (Jun 29, 2021)

Yeah. My wife learned how to build furniture at an early age; she started when she was 7. All of the furniture in our bedroom (queen sized bed made from walnut + jatoba, walnut dresser, walnut chest of drawers) and a couple of other pieces around the house was made by her. She nicked off the tip of one of her fingers a couple years back using a router in handheld mode; it grew back but it wasn't pretty for a while. Family policy (me, wife, and her dad) is now table-mounted only. A razer blade spinning at 10,000rpm isn't something we want moving laterally.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> I've had this exact same thought. My 6' 125G tank is now on a custom stand to make it an in-wall tank, but the stand that it originally came with was incredibly cheap. I couldn't believe that it was made to hold up 1000+ lbs of water and "stuff". Most of it was held together with STAPLES!!


It blows my mind how "professionally manufactured" stands are made. It's like they're made to just hold the weight of a filled tank, and a small margin of error as a cushion. Even worse is they're particle board, which is horrible when it gets wet. 

I believe that's how UNS makes their stands too and the price of the stand for this tank was like 70% of the cost of the tank. I'm actually glad that they weren't in stock because my laziness would have gotten the better of me and while I'd have a really nice, sleek stand, I'd always be concerned about it.


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## Le duke (Jun 29, 2021)

Re: stands. This is exactly the reason I made my own, too. The idea of supporting ~1,000lbs of tank, water, substrate, etc. with PARTICLE BOARD was simply unacceptable to my wife, particularly with the possibility of even small spills during water changes causing swelling and decomposition of particle board over time.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Le duke said:


> Yeah. My wife learned how to build furniture at an early age; she started when she was 7. All of the furniture in our bedroom (queen sized bed made from walnut + jatoba, walnut dresser, walnut chest of drawers) and a couple of other pieces around the house was made by her. She nicked off the tip of one of her fingers a couple years back using a router in handheld mode; it grew back but it wasn't pretty for a while. Family policy (me, wife, and her dad) is now table-mounted only. A razer blade spinning at 10,000rpm isn't something we want moving laterally.


Ouch. If you'd have seen the compound miter saw I used to do the trim in my basement you'd have cringed. It was missing the guard lol. I bought a 12" non sliding dual bevel miter saw and couldn't be happier with it and wished I'd have bought it instead of using my dad's saw.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

Another thing I didn't see you mention, but you may want to plan for a mat underneath the rimless tank. They need full support from corner to corner, and any imperfections in the wood will create stress points. I've even heard of tanks cracking and leaking because there was a single grain of sand beneath it.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Le duke said:


> Re: stands. This is exactly the reason I made my own, too. The idea of supporting ~1,000lbs of tank, water, substrate, etc. with PARTICLE BOARD was simply unacceptable to my wife, particularly with the possibility of even small spills during water changes causing swelling and decomposition of particle board over time.


My last reef tank that I took down when I moved last year was a 60 gallon rimless cube with starfire glass. For what it was, it was heavy. 

When the movers lifted the tank off the stand I went to move the stand away from the wall and it fell apart lol. All the humidity inside the stand with the sump running and splashing and whatnot waterlogged the stand to the point where the particle board drew in all the excess moisture. I still don't understand how it was holding the tank up at that point. I obviously tossed it but kept the tank. If I ever set that tank up again I'll do what I'm doing now, but incorporate some computer fans to draw moisture out of the stand.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> Another thing I didn't see you mention, but you may want to plan for a mat underneath the rimless tank. They need full support from corner to corner, and any imperfections in the wood will create stress points. I've even heard of tanks cracking and leaking because there was a single grain of sand beneath it.


UNS actually provides one with all their tanks. I lucked out and it wasn't damaged. I'm actually surprised it wasn't because the idiots who pack the tanks put it inside the bottom piece of cardboard, under the tank itself. I honestly don't know why they think it makes sense to do that.


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## Le duke (Jun 29, 2021)

Do they provide a listed weight for the tank?

Per Google, 12mm Starfire is 9.7lbs/sq ft. Using rough numbers, a 4x2' tank has 32 square feet of glass. So, 310lbs. Does that seem right?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Le duke said:


> Do they provide a listed weight for the tank?


Believe it or not, I still can't find that weight listed anywhere. My cousin was the person who helped me pick it up and bring it into my basement and he kept asking me for the exact weight. The owner of the LFS that ordered it for me couldn't find it either. I'm not sure why they don't list the weights. Everyone else does for aquariums. 

If you made me guess, 150-170 lbs. It was heavy enough to be difficult to move, but seemed lighter than I thought it would be just lifting and holding it. The weight became an issue trying to squeeze it through the door, and around the bend at the bottom of the stairs. Otherwise just lifting, holding, and walking with it wasn't bad with those glass suction cups.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Ran into a snag tonight. Because construction lumber has been terrible, the 4 2X4's to sandwich on the sides of the stand sat higher than the other supports. When I put the two rectangular boxes together I made sure that at least one side of each was perfectly flush. One side would sit on the floor and the other supporting the top. Because of this, the other sides are not flush and the cross braces on the ends stick up a bit further than the 48" 2X4's. I managed to get the 6 main uprights glued and screwed in. 

Tomorrow the plan is to take my oscillating tool and skin those areas down to flush enough to get the 4 side uprights to sit flush with the other 6. I'd use a chisel, but that would take longer to achieve the same thing. Once that's done I'll mount them, then add some glue, set the top box in place and then screw it all in. I did drill and countersink pilot holes already for the top brace so that should save me a lot of time. I basically just need to go back with the drill once the top brace is in place and hit each hole one time to get the other 2X4's started with a pilot, then screw everything in. I might also remove the birch plywood I have in there and rather than using the router to flush it up, I'll just run the circular saw across the areas where it's slightly too long. I think that'll be safer and quicker. Hopefully I can find a break in the storms to run outside and do that. 

One of the other challenges tonight was I didn't cut enough uprights. I had 8 cut and needed 10. Since it was dark outside, I couldn't bring the miter saw out and can't wait until tomorrow since they're calling for storms all day. I wound up cutting the pieces I needed with my jigsaw. 

Once that top brace is glued and screwed in I can place the butcher block on it to take some measurements for the plywood. I don't think I'll be able to get the plywood until Saturday morning. The hardwood shop closes at 4:30pm every day and I usually don't wrap up with work until 5-6pm. I will be looking for any opportunity to run over there though before Saturday. 

I also need to make one more drip to the hardware store for some finishing nails. I'm basically out of nails and need them for the plywood.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Quick update. 

Aside from the plywood skin, doors, staining and then mounting the top, the frame is done. 

Hopefully I can get over to the hardwood store tomorrow or Friday so that I can get a jump on getting this to the point that I can begin staining. 

I'm debating whether I should cut access holes for the power cords, filter hoses, and openings for the door prior to staining. I'd almost rather just stain the whole thing and any scrap pieces I can possibly use for the doors. 

Next time I do this, I'm paying more for milled lumber. Construction grade is terrible. I spent over an hour picking out boards that were the straightest, and even then they still had some bend or twist that couldn't be seen by eyeballing. It created a lot of unnecessary work. 

With that being said, it is sturdy so shouldn't have a problem holding the weight of the tank. 

Once everything is stained, I'll get a hand moving the tank, moving the stand into position, mounting the butcher block, leveling if needed, and getting the rubber mat and tank onto the stand. 

I haven't opened the butcher block yet but set it down on top to get a sense of how it'll look. One thing I may still do is borrow a planer and hand plane the stand and just make sure everything is flush enough to mount the plywood onto a nice flat surface. 

I need to start thinking about lighting since that'll be after filtration. My biggest concern is how wide the tank is and the depth. Let's say I went with a Twinstar SP or SA 1200 (I think that's the model). Would I need two for sufficiently high enough light to grow a carpeting plant closest to the front glass, and also stem plants in the back? Would one cut it?


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

The twinstar should work fine, but you might wish to hang it to get more spread. This may or may not be needed though, so if it were me, I wouldn't bother buying a hanging kit until after I had the light and tried it out.

I suggest cutting all access holes in the plywood before it's on the stand. That way you can replace it easily if you screw it up and you can get nicer holes with less chip out if you have the piece flat against a sacrificial backer.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> The twinstar should work fine, but you might wish to hang it to get more spread. This may or may not be needed though, so if it were me, I wouldn't bother buying a hanging kit until after I had the light and tried it out.
> 
> I suggest cutting all access holes in the plywood before it's on the stand. That way you can replace it easily if you screw it up and you can get nicer holes with less chip out if you have the piece flat against a sacrificial backer.


That makes sense. I’ll set the plywood on place, mark where the holes and access will go and then cut them in.

I’m stuck between the Twinstar, and Chihiros WRGB 2 Pro. I’m leaning more towards the Twinstar even with the lack of customization just because of issues I’ve read about with Chihiros. Perhaps these pros are improved but I’m probably a month out at least from lighting.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Just wanted to add...

Forgot to post what I've finally decided on as far as filtration. 

Last night a buddy from my reef keeping days gave me a call before bed. After telling him what I was thinking we boiled my needs down to the following:


Sufficient biological filtration
Room for chemical filtration
Ease of heating the water

In a nutshell, the 22L GLA filter is way too big. The next size down makes more sense after reading a whole lot more about these filters, and watching a YouTube video review. 

I want to avoid too many unnecessary plumbing steps, or complicated plumbing even though this is an area I'm particular well versed in (did plumbing for about 15 years). With one reactor being tied in, adding a second reactor for just a heater just adds something else to complicate the build and add costs and time. 

Hydor inline heaters are literally nowhere to be found. There are a few options on Amazon for inline heaters, but I haven't seen any real world, long term reviews on them so they make me wary. 

I'm going to buy that 15L GLA canister filter to make sure that I at least get one and they don't sell out of them. I actually purchased it last night. I'll keep my eye out for Hydor heaters coming back in stock, but a few people I've talked to said that I might be waiting a really long time because they've been sold out everywhere for a while. Have they gone out of business or has that product line been discontinued? 

If I can find a Hydor, I'll plumb it inline along with the reactor, add a fine, medium, and coarse mesh filter pads to the GLA filter, and add a surface skimmer lily pipe. 

If I can't find a Hydor, I'll just add an Oase. The Biomaster Thermo with a large enough heater is I think the 600, and that's just way too big. It's my understanding that you can add a heater onto the regular Biomasters. I'm sure I'd be limited by the height of the heater chamber so I'll either get a Biomaster that will fit the heater I'll need, or just settle on a slight underpowered heater by getting the BM Thermo 350. If this is the route I go, then the surface skimming lily pipe will go on the intake of this, and the GLA filter will be 100% bio media. 

So I have a decent plan I think for getting filtration checked off along with heating. Whichever route I take, a heater controller will 100% be used. I've suffered a couple catastrophic losses over the years, and one of them was due to a heater failing in the on position and turning my tank into fish soup. It happened when I was in HS and it must have malfunctioned at some point over the night because I didn't see the issue until I got back from school that day and saw the horror show. 

One thing that's new is learning that this GLA filter doesn't come with anything....no tubing, shutoff valves, outflow or intake pipes (even though I would use them), or media. It just comes with the filter, pump, and two flat trays that you sandwich the media in between. I guess that's a good thing in a way considering that most won't use the pipes, but tubing and shutoff valves IMHO should be included. It looks like GLA has quick disconnect valves so I'll probably order a set next time I place an order which will probably be when I get a regulator. I'm not in a huge hurry for a regulator though since that's one piece of equipment that if they're out of stock, I can find elsewhere. 

If anyone has a source for clear filter hose, please let me know. I can go to the local big box and buy hose, but it's my understanding that there are hoses available without any printing on them. If I can get hoses without printing that would be ideal.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

If its in the budget, I would stick with the bigger one. You can always divert or split flow to reach different areas of the tank, but the excess water flow and biological filtration can never hurt. 

A significant part of our algae problems come from dissolved organics, which break down to ammonia, etc... Having extra filtration and biofiltration can only help to remove that from the water column.

On my 125G tank, for example, I'm running an FX6 (rated for 400 gallons) and an Oase 850 (rated for 225 gallons). I still wish I had more filtration.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

ddiomede said:


> If anyone has a source for clear filter hose, please let me know. I can go to the local big box and buy hose, but it's my understanding that there are hoses available without any printing on them. If I can get hoses without printing that would be ideal.


I personally prefer Silicone over Vinyl, and have bought all of mine from Mcmaster Carr.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> If its in the budget, I would stick with the bigger one. You can always divert or split flow to reach different areas of the tank, but the excess water flow and biological filtration can never hurt.
> 
> A significant part of our algae problems come from dissolved organics, which break down to ammonia, etc... Having extra filtration and biofiltration can only help to remove that from the water column.
> 
> On my 125G tank, for example, I'm running an FX6 (rated for 400 gallons) and an Oase 850 (rated for 225 gallons). I still wish I had more filtration.


Normally I'd agree 100% with you, but one of the things that really changed my perception on biological filtration was having a reef tank. I basically didn't have biological filtration at all. All of the rock work in the tank served as the biological filtration along with chaeto in the refugium to suck up as much excess nutrients as possible between the weekly water changes. I was significantly over the recommended stocking levels for a reef tank and my biggest challenge was keeping nitrates in check because of my fish load. The weekly large water changes helped, but if you tested my tank daily, which is something I did once the tank was established and fully stocked, you could watch the nitrates slowly rise over the week. My margin of error for laziness was the most time I could go before I began noticing issues with the corals was two weeks. 

One of the reasons I do think it's important in a planted tank is that typically the rock work we're using can really only house bacteria on the surface assuming we're not using porous rock. Great example of this is the Seiryu stone. It's one of the reasons I really like dragon stone. It's a bit more porous than other types of stone, and it definitely is visually appealing. Even then I still don't think it's enough to handle a sufficient bio load. 

I do like the idea of two canister filters for the reasons I mentioned earlier....one goes down, you still have one running. Even though it would be a simple matter of buying an extra external DC pump to have on hand, the thing that keeps running through my mind is what if I'm out of town and a filter goes down? I can't really expect any of my family members to swap out a DC pump even though it's really easy. At least if I have one canister running, I don't have to worry very much about coming home to a catastrophe. Worst case if there's a crucial piece of equipment plumbed inline, like a CO2 reactor, I can just have them unplug the solenoid on the regulator, and unplug the light since when I do go out of town, it's a couple days at most. 

I might up my choice to the BM Thermo 600 though since you do bring up a valid point and I hadn't considered what would happen if I was out of town for a couple days. 

I'm in no hurry to buy it though. It's one of those purchases where it likely won't be hard to find even with the supply chain issues. I bought the GLA because I've noticed one of their smaller canisters has been out of stock for a while, along with their reactors. I'd hate to get close to getting the tank up and running and not be able to find the filter. If I can't find that specific Oase, I'm sure the tank will be fine until I'm able to get one, with the tank just running on the GLA filter. The tank will likely be fine without a heater for a while too since I probably won't stock this with fish for a few weeks after setup. Worst case I dig the heater I was using on my reef tank out and toss it into the tank temporarily. The average temp in my basement tends to stay at roughly 70-72 year round.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

To each, their own. Many very successful planted tank enthusiasts and groups stress over-filtration for planted tanks, like Greenaqua out of Hungary and ADA. Tom Barr, Joe Harvey, and Greggz all overfilter their tanks because of the reasons I mentioned. Just because I'm curious, is there a reason besides budget that you would want less filtration? I can't see how it could possibly be harmful.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> To each, their own. Many very successful planted tank enthusiasts and groups stress over-filtration for planted tanks, like Greenaqua out of Hungary and ADA. Tom Barr, Joe Harvey, and Greggz all overfilter their tanks because of the reasons I mentioned. Just because I'm curious, is there a reason besides budget that you would want less filtration? I can't see how it could possibly be harmful.


I don't think a 15L GLA canister and a biomaster thermo 600 would be less filtration. The FX 6 holds under 6 liters of media. I'm sure the Oase holds even less than that (can't find exactly how much each model holds). Unless I'm not calculating something correctly, it seems like the 15L GLA alone would be more than sufficient, way more than would be necessary for this size tank. On top of that I'd be adding more getting an Oase 600. 

I guess I'm confused because it seems like you're saying that I won't be running enough filtration when the opposite on paper seems to be true.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

I feel extremely comfortable and saying your plan for using two filters will work. I say that because what we're trying to do in our tanks is honestly not that complicated, and your plan is definitely overkill. Sort of like saying that you want to buy a Ferrari to go pick up a jug of milk at the corner store, where the corner store is located half a block away. You could just walk to it, or ride a bike, or get a cheaper less expensive car, but you want to buy the Ferrari. The Ferrari will work, but it's not even a 'just in case' kind of solution. It's just straight up overkill for buying a jug of milk.

Buying a Oase thermo just for a heater is a similar level of overkill. I don't know if this will make you feel any better, but I use the datoo inline heater on my 120P tank. It is definitely a piece of crap. I also own the hydor heater. And it is also a piece of crap. They both are clearly terrible. Fit and finish is rough, and restriction of flow is pretty bad. But, they both work fine. Or at least they will work fine until they break, which is somewhat inevitable. This is why I wish I had just made my own inline heater when building out my tank. Again, I don't know if this will make you feel better or worse, but canister filters do leak from time to time. I doubt they have any less failure rate, then a properly set up DIY plumbing solution, like a DIY inline heater. But it does happen, it's just not very likely to happen anytime soon.

Similarly, biological media is essentially a scam. Yes it works. But so does everything else. Just as in a reef tank, live rock ends up being the main source of filtration for biological in a tank, our substrate is the main source of filtration for biological in a freshwater tank. In a freshwater tank having 1.5+ inches of substrate is pretty typical. That is a lot of surface area. In a saltwater tank, having that much substrate is pretty atypical. A lot of saltwater people are going bare bottom these days.

In my stainless steel canister filter, I keep just foam. I cut the foam to fit myself and I bought some quick disconnect shut-offs for the intake and return on the canister filter. I bought the cheapest ones I could find from Amazon, and they work fine. When I go to clean out this filter, I take out all the foam and rinse it in regular old tap water, I'm scrub it pretty decently to get out all the gunk. This 'should' kill all the beneficial bacteria in that foam. But when I reinstall it and put it back into the tank, do I see a mini cycle? No, not at all. This is because my tank has well established substrate and plants, and they can handle the ammonia production of it dozen or more fish, and up to 16 newts. Meaning this tank is extremely overstocked, or at least it was when I had all the babies still in it. Yet it does just fine without even the slightest detection of ammonia or nitrite.

I just took apart. My fluval FX4 the other day for a thorough cleaning, and did the exact same thing with rinsing it in the sink. I do this whenever I clean a filter. And again, there is no detectable ammonia in my 120P tank, because there's a bunch of substrate in there and plants.

The disadvantage of using biological media in a filter is that 1) it tends to be expensive, 2) tends to not be as porous as foam and thus will restrict flow, 3) tends to be more annoying to clean. But it certainly can work to biologically filter a tank, because anything can work.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

ddiomede said:


> I don't think a 15L GLA canister and a biomaster thermo 600 would be less filtration. The FX 6 holds under 6 liters of media. I'm sure the Oase holds even less than that (can't find exactly how much each model holds). Unless I'm not calculating something correctly, it seems like the 15L GLA alone would be more than sufficient, way more than would be necessary for this size tank. On top of that I'd be adding more getting an Oase 600.
> 
> I guess I'm confused because it seems like you're saying that I won't be running enough filtration when the opposite on paper seems to be true.


Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were going with a single filter, and downsizing to find the one that was "made for your tank size"

With both, you should be fine.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

Personally I want to see you plumb something really elaborate and complicated because I enjoy reading and learning from those threads ha. But I'm enjoying following along regardless!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> I feel extremely comfortable and saying your plan for using two filters will work. I say that because what we're trying to do in our tanks is honestly not that complicated, and your plan is definitely overkill. Sort of like saying that you want to buy a Ferrari to go pick up a jug of milk at the corner store, where the corner store is located half a block away. You could just walk to it, or ride a bike, or get a cheaper less expensive car, but you want to buy the Ferrari. The Ferrari will work, but it's not even a 'just in case' kind of solution. It's just straight up overkill for buying a jug of milk.
> 
> Buying a Oase thermo just for a heater is a similar level of overkill. I don't know if this will make you feel any better, but I use the datoo inline heater on my 120P tank. It is definitely a piece of crap. I also own the hydor heater. And it is also a piece of crap. They both are clearly terrible. Fit and finish is rough, and restriction of flow is pretty bad. But, they both work fine. Or at least they will work fine until they break, which is somewhat inevitable. This is why I wish I had just made my own inline heater when building out my tank. Again, I don't know if this will make you feel better or worse, but canister filters do leak from time to time. I doubt they have any less failure rate, then a properly set up DIY plumbing solution, like a DIY inline heater. But it does happen, it's just not very likely to happen anytime soon.
> 
> ...


There are two specific occasions in my fish keeping days that made me question what I knew about filtration. 

The first was when all we knew were under gravel filters. If you didn't have an under gravel filter, you essentially didn't have a biological filter. At least that was the understanding at the time. 

My buddy set up an African cichlid tank in a 75 gallon. Didn't reach out to ask me any questions so the tank was a surprise when I stopped by his house. His filtration.....a Marineland emperor 400. The tank was packed with cichlids the majority of which were adult sized. I couldn't believe the tank had been up over a year and looked the way it did, and the fish as healthy as they did. He actually handed me test kits after I told him that he wouldn't be successful and would eventually see deaths. I actually ran tests and aside from higher nitrates, everything was perfect. It was one of those cognitive dissonance moments where I kept trying to rationalize what I was seeing. He had extensive rock work and sand in the tank. That tank went on like that for years with the occasional old age death. 

The second example is when I got into reef tanks. There was a roughly 15 ish year gap between trying a reef tank in the 90's to starting a new one. I remember trying to figure out filtration and everyone telling me I didn't need bio balls. Bio balls were all the rage in the 90's, and it seems they still are to a certain extent in fish only saltwater tanks. I started reviewing tank journals on a local forum and was shocked that everyone was keeping a successful aquarium using high levels of flow, protein skimming, and refugiums with chaeto. I think I set my reef tank up in 2011, and added 2 additional reef tanks. Once they were running, I basically stopped spending time researching new methods of filtration, lighting, etc. My tanks were overstocked with fish, which tends to be a big no no in reef keeping. With weekly water changes, I don't think my nitrates ever exceeded 20-30ppm. You could usually tell when they started nearing the point where a WC was required because the SPS would start looking angry (polyps not fully extending). That was usually the sign that I needed to to a WC that day. I did them weekly but sometimes would be a day or few days late. 

I'm going to check out those inline heaters. I think the only reason I was set on Hydor was because they were the only game in town for a long time. But after a quick google search it looks like I can DIY a solution using PVC and uniseals. If you happen to have any links to go write-ups on how people have built them, that would be awesome! I found a couple links to write ups, but am interested in seeing as many approaches as possible. 

Based on how much media this filter will hold, I don't have any doubts that it is already likely overpowered. If I do use a DIY heater solution, which is seeming to be more and more likely, I'll probably still add an Oase, also with a heater, but it would mainly act as a backup with bio media, and the spare heater that I won't even have plugged in unless something happens to the other one. The other reason I'd go this route is because I like the idea of the Oase having a removable prefilter. The surface definitely will need skimming and adding a surface skimmer onto the GLA just increases the amount of maintenance I'd need to do on it. With the Oase prefilter, I can set up a surface skimming lily pipe on it and pull the prefilter off weekly and rinse the filter pads out. 

I think we talked about how much better a sump would have been, and all of these workarounds wouldn't be necessary because I'd just chuck a heater anywhere in the sump lol. But this tank size, even though it's a foot shorter than what I envision as the perfect tank size, if it were drilled this would undoubtedly turn into a reef tank. I'd honestly be surprised if it took me longer than a couple years to make that change. Since this tank isn't drilled and I have no intention of doing so, there's no risk of me breaking it down and turning it into another reef tank. Sometimes I have to work around myself when it comes to hobbies lol.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> Personally I want to see you plumb something really elaborate and complicated because I enjoy reading and learning from those threads ha. But I'm enjoying following along regardless!


My goal is to avoid getting too complicated, but at the same time well laid out PVC is so clean and neat lol.


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## Le duke (Jun 29, 2021)

You should take a look at this heater that @EmotionalFescue made.

DIY Inline Heater with Temperature Controller | The Planted Tank Forum

This way, you won't have to reduce flow by reducing hose size.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Le duke said:


> You should take a look at this heater that @EmotionalFescue made.
> 
> DIY Inline Heater with Temperature Controller | The Planted Tank Forum
> 
> This way, you won't have to reduce flow by reducing hose size.


Thanks, that actually helps a lot and gives me some ideas. it seems like the biggest obstacle to overcome is the heater controller probe being affected by the higher temps of the PVC after absorbing so much heat. 

My initial thought is to do something like this:

Filter, CO2 reactor with temp controller probe built in, then heater. My thought is that if you have the temp controller getting readings before the heater, you can avoid any issues with the heater itself manipulating the temp readings. I actually did something similar with my reef tanks. The temp probe from my Apex's always sat where water entered my sumps and the heater was in the last chamber where the return pump was. This limited both the heat given off by the return pump, and the heater when it needed to kick on. 

The only thing that I'm somewhat uncomfortable with is cutting the cord and rewiring. I noticed further into the post that @EmotionalFescue mentioned that it would be possible to use a cable gland large enough to just fit the heater body itself in it without the need to cut into the cord. I'm assuming that's what Oase uses for the heaters in their filters. That is the route that I'd likely take to avoid cutting and splicing the power cord. 

I really like this idea because it seems far better built that the Lifeguard Aquatics reactor. The weak point on their reactors have always been the caps, and that still seems to be the case based on the reviews of their heater reactor. With this solution, you get rid of the crappy plastic cap and use hard fitting with the cable gland.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> Thanks, that actually helps a lot and gives me some ideas. it seems like the biggest obstacle to overcome is the heater controller probe being affected by the higher temps of the PVC after absorbing so much heat.
> 
> My initial thought is to do something like this:
> 
> ...


There's any number of ways to do this, but if you don't place the controller's thermometer probe in the heater housing itself you will absolutely have to use a heater with its own thermostat. Otherwise, if you just used a titanium element like I did but didn't place the controller's thermometer in the housing, and you turn off the pump but forget to turn off the heater, there's nothing to stop the element from overheating the very small volume of water in the housing. If you use a traditional heater with its own thermostat, you're really going to have to lean on that as your primary safety backstop to prevent overheating. I personally think it's much more robust to have the controller's thermometer probe at the top of the housing with the housing itself mounted vertically. I have multiple times turned off the pump and forgotten to turn off the heater - it has shut off as expected every time.

For what it's worth, there have been no issues with the thermometer probe in the housing itself. Note though that I encased its wire in silicone-filled pond tubing to get it to seat well in the cable gland. That would insulate it from the effect you're describing.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> There's any number of ways to do this, but if you don't place the controller's thermometer probe in the heater housing itself you will absolutely have to use a heater with its own thermostat. Otherwise, if you just used a titanium element like I did but didn't place the controller's thermometer in the housing, and you turn off the pump but forget to turn off the heater, there's nothing to stop the element from overheating the very small volume of water in the housing. If you use a traditional heater with its own thermostat, you're really going to have to lean on that as your primary safety backstop to prevent overheating. I personally think it's much more robust to have the controller's thermometer probe at the top of the housing with the housing itself mounted vertically. I have multiple times turned off the pump and forgotten to turn off the heater - it has shut off as expected every time.
> 
> For what it's worth, there have been no issues with the thermometer probe in the housing itself. Note though that I encased its wire in silicone-filled pond tubing to get it to seat well in the cable gland. That would insulate it from the effect you're describing.


Thanks I appreciate the additional info. That definitely makes sense.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Had a little setback on this stand. 

Last night I didn't really do anything with the stand since I couldn't get the plywood, which turned out to be a good thing. I went into my laundry room to clean up a bit and noticed that the stand developed a pretty good wobble. Two corners on opposite ends diagonally seem to have lifted a bit. When I started thinking about putting the top brace on, I remembered that those two 2X4's required more force to fit them inside the top box. Between the time I cut them, mounted them, before getting the top box on they must have twisted/bowed a significant amount. I had to force those two corners into the box, which caused the rocking. 

I texted a buddy who is a carpenter to see if he had time to swing by and take a look and he stopped by a few minutes ago and said I have 3 options:

1. Remove the screws, and since I glued everything I'll need to use a Japanese saw to cut the uprights away flush with the wood on the bottom stand and then replace them with straight uprights. It'll require another trip to the store to buy more wood. 

2. Since the uprights aren't really structural...mainly just connecting the top box with bottom box, and for keeping the main structural supports in place, I could remove the top box, mark how much I'd need to cut to get them where I wouldn't really need to bend them to get them into the top box, and then glue and screw them back in. I was concerned hearing this but he said like 99% of the weight of the tank is being supported by the pieces that are sandwiched between the top and bottom boxes and that as long as I'm not cutting away more than half of the 2X4, and only enough to get the top box to fit without bending it, I'll be perfectly fine. He said that he'd be perfectly fine cutting away 2.5" of the 2X4, but saw how shocked I was and said don't cut more than half otherwise you'll have to go with number 1. 

3. He said he'd just get the stand in place, then use shims, but I'd also need to shim the top. 

I asked him what he'd do and he said 3 is the easiest and you'll literally never have a problem. 1 would be second easiest but it requires a lot of time, but if I really don't want any concerns even though there shouldn't be any, then do this. He said depending on how much wood you have to cut away, 2 is what he'd do if he didn't want to shim it. 

He told me to try 2 first, and if I'd have to remove too much wood or something really wacky happens, then go with number 1. He insisted that shimming it would be perfectly fine too because with the butcher block, it'll literally never move. 

One of my concerns is trying option 2, and then those 2X4's warping further. His response was "not with over 1K pounds on it lol". 

I'm going to try number 2 tonight and see if that relieves the pressure and gets the stand to sit flat again. If I have to remove too much wood, or something weird happens I'll move onto number 1. 

I'll never use "premium" construction grade lumber for anything ever again. I've wasted so much time working around the issues with it that the expense of milled and properly dried lumber would have saved me money and time. 

I'll work on this tonight and hopefully get it fixed. First thing I'm doing in the morning is heading to the hardwood shop to get the plywood. 

He laughed at how ridiculously overbuilt this was though. He said next time to let him know and he could have saved me a lot of money on lumber costs by just using plywood with the butcher block top. He said he could build a stand out of plywood that would easily support a ton and cost half as much in raw materials. Personally I prefer the overbuilt route. Once it's level, it's not moving ever again.

Forgot to add: we removed the top brace to allow the wood to settle again. We took a couple 50 lbs weights and put them in those corners to get the wood to settle back to where it was. He told me to leave them on there for a few hours and then go check. If the bottom is level again. toss the weights onto the top brace to get that to settle again as well. He advised me to not mark and cut anything until it settles back to level where it was.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Another thing to try/keep in mind is that chances are pretty good that most of the floors in your house are not actually flat. It's pretty common to need to use footers or shims under a tank stand to make up this difference. If you are talking about a wobble of like a 1/4 or less, I would just move it around your floor a bit and see if it gets any better. If it does, you know its probably just your floor. Personally I use non skid rubberish footers or felt under most pieces of furniture I build including stands. This resolves the issue most of the time. If it's really bad, I look for a different spot to put the stand.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> Another thing to try/keep in mind is that chances are pretty good that most of the floors in your house are not actually flat. It's pretty common to need to use footers or shims under a tank stand to make up this difference. If you are talking about a wobble of like a 1/4 or less, I would just move it around your floor a bit and see if it gets any better. If it does, you know its probably just your floor. Personally I use non skid rubberish footers or felt under most pieces of furniture I build including stands. This resolves the issue most of the time. If it's really bad, I look for a different spot to put the stand.


It's under 1/4" for sure. Bending the two uprights even caused the top box to bend. When we put it on the floor it rocked as well, but to a much lesser extent. Probably 1/16". 

Right now the stand has two 5 gallon water jugs on either corner to get it to bend back. The floor in my basement is fairly level but I did see that it would need shimming, but it's nowhere near as bad as the stand was. Hopefully removing some material allowing the uprights to sit into the top brace without much force required gets the stand to be relatively rocking free. 

When we removed the top brace you could see the uprights slowly moving back. I figure I'll need to cut about 1/2" to 5/8" off the side of the uprights to get them into place. 

Honestly when I noticed this last night I began staring at my reciprocating saw with violent thoughts lol. But it's not bad enough to be unfixable. My buddy insisted that I only needed to shim and it would be perfectly flat and fine. When I called him he said do not do what I have a feeling is going through your mind right now...we can fix it lol. 

Out of curiosity I priced out milled furniture grade poplar. 1X3's for this project would have run me about $180. Honestly I probably should have just spent the extra $90.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

So I relieved the stress on the two boards and it helped a little bit. There's probably half as much wiggle. 

I gave my buddy a call and he said don't try doing anything else to it. Just shim it when you get the stand in place. 

The one thing he did recommend was that I do my best to really secure the butcher block to the stand. He said that those plastic countertop mounting brackets won't be good enough. He didn't have a whole lot of time to talk but told me to look into steel L type brackets and get a bunch of them to secure the countertop to the stand. I'll need to look for something like he mentioned. 

Tomorrow the plan is to get the plywood in the morning, cut it, temporarily mount it in place and then mark where I'll need to make the cuts for the doors, hole for cords to go through the back, and perhaps some of those elongated rounded cuts in the side for the tubing. I'll make two of these, one for the intake and one for the outflow tubing. I'll glue and nail them in, then focus on staining. I probably won't be able to get it done tomorrow and will likely need to continue Sunday. My best guess is I'll get it into place by next weekend and get the tank onto it. This will give me the week to mount the countertop to the stand and paint the inside and caulk it. 

I haven't really started thinking about doors yet. The easiest would probably be to buy some 3/4" plywood, cut it larger than the openings, edge band it, stain and poly, and then mount the soft close hinges. The other option would be to get 3 or 4 quarter hardwood, either cut a dado or rabbit, and then mount some 1/4" birch, stain, glue it up, and then get them mounted. This is one part of the stand where there's no hurry. 

GLA shipped the canister so that should be coming early next week. I keep going back and forth on the heater problem. While I like the reactor idea, the frustration this stand has caused me makes me want to mash the easy button and get the Oase. I won't buy that just yet though. Lighting will be the next big purchase. I'd ideally want everything purchased that I'd need to get the tank up and running. My biggest fear is having everything and not being able to get a light so that will be next. I'm not sure when I'll be ready to buy, but it probably won't be too long.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> So I relieved the stress on the two boards and it helped a little bit. There's probably half as much wiggle.
> 
> I gave my buddy a call and he said don't try doing anything else to it. Just shim it when you get the stand in place.
> 
> ...


I would need to see a picture of the stand as it is to be sure, but I suspect you still have plenty of support. I would not use the top as anti racking support though. The top is solid real wood. So it WILL move with humidity. Not much, a couple of mm, but it will move. If it's attached too tightly to the rest of the stand, it will literally tear the stand apart to swell and contract. A few screws in the center will be plenty to stop it from moving around on you when you put the tank on top. After that weight and gravity will hold it in place. The granite on my 120p is not attached at all for example.


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## Le duke (Jun 29, 2021)

I used figure 8s to attach my butcher block to the stand itself. They allow for some shrink-swell action. Specifically designed for this purpose.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> I would need to see a picture of the stand as it is to be sure, but I suspect you still have plenty of support. I would not use the top as anti racking support though. The top is solid real wood. So it WILL move with humidity. Not much, a couple of mm, but it will move. If it's attached too tightly to the rest of the stand, it will literally tear the stand apart to swell and contract. A few screws in the center will be plenty to stop it from moving around on you when you put the tank on top. After that weight and gravity will hold it in place. The granite on my 120p is not attached at all for example.


I'll post up some pics of where I made the relief cuts today. Getting ready to head out to the hardwood store to pick up the plywood. I agree on the top though. I'm not sure he thought that tip through a whole lot. Metal L brackets would be good if there was a lot of force pulling the top of the stand itself. But once the tank is on the stand the only force will be downward.



Le duke said:


> I used figure 8s to attach my butcher block to the stand itself. They allow for some shrink-swell action. Specifically designed for this purpose.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Thanks, I've actually never heard of those before and think they'll will work perfectly.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I'll get a that pic up soon. 

Just got back from the hardwood store. $140 later and I have plywood. 

I had them make the cuts slightly longer so that I can do the final cutting with my circular saw and saw guide. 

I picked up a full sheet of 1/2" birch plywood. I was trying to avoid a full sheet but because of the sizes of the front and side panels, a full sheet was the only option and least expensive. I had them make the cuts probably an inch and a half longer, except for the side panels which are just an inch wider than they need to be. 

The guy said for the rear panel, it's going to require a full sheet and asked if I was staining or painting the rear panel. I told him it didn't matter since it's behind the tank. He steered me in a cheaper direction. I've never heard of it before but it's called Meranti. It looks close to Birch and was only $30 per sheet of 1/4". He said next time if I have exact measurements that they can do them. I did, but I'd rather do them myself. 

I spoke to him for a while describing what I'm doing, and the difficulties I've been having. He asked me how much I paid for my lumber and I told him. He asked if I cut them yet because if I could return them he had some straight, twist and bow free wood that's stronger than pine, and wouldn't have costed me much more than I paid. I should have gone there first. Live and learn. 

The biggest challenge I have today is it just started raining and will likely start snowing soon too so I'm kind of stuck at this point. I'm very tempted to start staining since that'll at least let me make some progress today, but I'll need to fill the nail holes in after mounting so I can't. 

I need to figure out what to do about the base to hide any shimming that I'll need to do. My inclination is to buy some unprimed quarter round and stain it to match, but I don't think it will match since it'll be finger jointed pine, or I can pay a bit more and get oak, but that'll likely not really match either. I spoke to my carpenter buddy and he said instead of edge banding the plywood that'll be exposed, they sell outside corner casing molds out of oak. I could use that to make it a little different, and then the stain will help the quarter round or shoe molding match with that. He said furniture carpentry isn't his area of expertise, but that's what he'd do to solve both problems and have something that's better than edge banding. After looking it up, it actually wouldn't look too bad on the corners of the stand.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I keep forgetting to take pics lol. By the time I remember I already have everything piled on top of the stand. 

My carpenter buddy came by today to look everything over and brought a bunch of his tools. 

He said the stand itself can hold a short bus filled with kids jumping around inside of it lol. 

My floor is pretty out of level where I'm building the stand. We shimmed the stand to bring it to level, and then he turned on a laser to check everything. There's about a 1/16" difference in height from one side to the other. He said it could still be the floor, or it could be the stand. The floor is so pitched towards the floor drain that we got it shimmed about as close as we could. 

He pointed out what I'd need to do from there and left. I got as far as cutting the sides, front, and rear panels, and attached the side panels. Tomorrow I'll attach the front panel, mark the doors and cut them in with my jigsaw, and then attach the back panel. 

I don't really like how the edge of the plywood looks, and since I'm planning on using oak shoe once I get the stand in place and shimmed, I'll pick up some oak outside corner moulding and get that on the four corners. 

Since that oak will look different once it's stained, I'll pick up an oak board and use it to make the doors. I'll rabbit in some 1/4" birch. I think once all that's stained, the oak will look different enough to be a nice touch. 

Anyhow I'm getting ahead of myself. Finishing the woodwork is first, then staining, then painting and caulking the inside. I'm planning on staining the butcher block as well, but I'm not going to mount it until the stand is in place. The stand itself is stupid heavy already and adding the top on would just make it worse. 

I'll save the updates until I get the stand stained and poly'd. Hopefully I can get that all done by the weekend because I'll be able to get a hand moving it into place and getting the tank onto the stand. 

The one thing I didn't do is cut in any access holes for power, tubing etc. For power I'm just going to use a hole saw and cut a hole in the back panel a bit larger than a plug. Once I have all the equipment and figure out how I'm going to plumb everything, then I'll cut access for the tubing. 

The GLA filter arrives Tuesday I believe. I'll post some pics of that once I get it. 

Even with all of the hiccups, time invested, and aggravation so far, I'm still at half price or less of what the UNS stand costs.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Filter arrived today. The box was bigger than I thought it would be. Don't mind the blankets on the chaise. My pup thinks that's his spot on the couch. You can see the tank all wrapped up on the floor which is where it will be. My pup will need to move over because that will be my spot once the tank is up and running lol. 










I was curious to actually get my hands on the filter so I decided to open the box. I wasn't the only one whose curiosity was piqued. 










I'm honestly surprised he didn't try eating it. 

It came with tubing which was unexpected. They don't mention providing tubing so it was a bit of a surprise when I lifted the canister out of the box, opened the lid, and saw the tubing at the bottom of the canister. 

I took a close look at it and the welds look really good and clean. If you've never seen the inside of one of these, it's literally all room for media, except for like an inch or so at the bottom. There's a bottom grate made out of stainless with legs that raises the filter media off the bottom. They also include another grate to put on top before shutting the lid. The clasps seem solid too. 

Things I immediately saw that I want to order spares of are the pump, o rings, and tubing that connects the DC pump to the filter. 

Still working on the stand. I should have the back on tonight and filling nail holes on the plywood. The wood filler says it dries pretty quickly but the last time I used it, it took overnight before it fully cured. At least enough to harden all of it so that I could sand. I'm using Varithane stain which claims you only need one coat. Based on my experience with staining, it never just needs one coat and usually takes a couple hours between coats with light sanding in between. I think getting it done and the stand moved in place by the end of the weekend might be a bit optimistic. I'm going to do everything I can to be done with this, even if it means staying up late Friday night.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> Thanks, that actually helps a lot and gives me some ideas. it seems like the biggest obstacle to overcome is the heater controller probe being affected by the higher temps of the PVC after absorbing so much heat.
> 
> My initial thought is to do something like this:
> 
> Filter, CO2 reactor with temp controller probe built in, then heater. My thought is that if you have the temp controller getting readings before the heater, you can avoid any issues with the heater itself manipulating the temp readings. I actually did something similar with my reef tanks. The temp probe from my Apex's always sat where water entered my sumps and the heater was in the last chamber where the return pump was. This limited both the heat given off by the return pump, and the heater when it needed to kick on.


I have a Biomaster Thermo where the heater and pump are on different cords. I use an Inkbird aquarium controller as a safeguard for a runway heater event. It also has high and low temp alarms. I plug both cords into a Kasa smart plug(with an AC splitter) which is controlled by Alexa. I have an Alexa Echo but you can do this with just an Alexa smartphone app. 

All that I need to do is say "Alexa, turn off(on) pump" and both the pump and heater turn off(on). I now have an external pump with the Oase so that is the pump which is connected to the smart plug.

Works great and no worries with over-heating or leaks from additional connections. The Inkbird sensor is well hidden behind my "Little Shop of Horrors" swords lurking in the back of the tank.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> I have a Biomaster Thermo where the heater and pump are on different cords. I use an Inkbird aquarium controller as a safeguard for a runway heater event. It also has high and low temp alarms. I plug both cords into a Kasa smart plug(with an AC splitter) which is controlled by Alexa. I have an Alexa Echo but you can do this with just an Alexa smartphone app.
> 
> All that I need to do is say "Alexa, turn off(on) pump" and both the pump and heater turn off(on). I now have an external pump with the Oase so that is the pump which is connected to the smart plug.
> 
> Works great and no worries with over-heating or leaks from additional connections. The Inkbird sensor is well hidden behind my "Little Shop of Horrors" swords lurking in the back of the tank.


Thanks, this is the route I'm most likely to take at this point. While I enjoy DIY, I need to be realistic about how much spare time I have. When I rush a build, it never comes out well and the rushing and lack of quality cause frustration. The stand I'm building has taken way longer than I thought it would, but I'm purposely taking my time with it at this point rather than setting deadlines and getting angry with myself. 

I'll pick up a BM Thermo probably as the very last piece of equipment since that's the one piece that I don't have to worry about not being able to find. Worst case scenario is I buy a submersible heater and chuck it in the tank temporarily if I can't find an Oase in stock. 

It's funny you mention hiding equipment. If I can't get equipment out of the tank, I usually do my best to hide it behind hardscape or plants. I agree about the Inkbird and that is what I intended on buying. I've never owned one so I don't know a whole lot about them. All of my reef tanks were all controlled by Apex controllers so I never had the need for one. 

One of the things I'm having trouble with is deciding on a light. As best I can tell, there are three that would provide sufficiently high light:

Twinstar 1200 S, SA, SP

Chihiros WRGB 2 Pro

Chihiros Vivid 2 

The Twinstar is in stock, is powerful, but you're stuck with it being fully on. From what I've read they don't recommend using inline dimmers on this specific model due to the power. You also are stuck with a particular configuration. For example you buy the S model, but you need to raise it. Or you buy the SA and can't raise it high enough. I think this is one of the biggest disadvantages over the Chihiros since you can either mount it to the tank, or hang it based on your needs. I actually don't understand Twinstar's decision to offer three different configurations of each model. That must add costs to the manufacturing process, packaging, etc. They'd probably get higher margins if they simplified this process and offered all three configs in one package, and just charged a little it more. 

Chihiros WRGB 2 Pro is not in stock the last I checked. There are also several negative reviews on the build quality of the lights (bluetooth going bad). The bad reviews aren't on the pro model though, but they just hit the market so there won't be long term reviews for quite some time. I'm not a fan of beta testing new equipment lol. 

Chihiros Vivid 2. Controllable. Extremely powerful. Available. But I'd need two. I've read that the fans can be loud also. 

For a while I was set on Kessil since I ran one on my larger reef tank and it was awesome. After reading reviews on their planted tank models, I'm not sure it's the right direction to do in, plus I'd need two. 

It's really too bad that Twinstar hasn't made a controllable version of their S lights and have the ability to adjust the legs or hang it based on your preferences without needing to buy a whole different model. I've had a hard time finding bad reviews of the Twinstar lights in general.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> Thanks, this is the route I'm most likely to take at this point. While I enjoy DIY, I need to be realistic about how much spare time I have. When I rush a build, it never comes out well and the rushing and lack of quality cause frustration. The stand I'm building has taken way longer than I thought it would, but I'm purposely taking my time with it at this point rather than setting deadlines and getting angry with myself.
> 
> I'll pick up a BM Thermo probably as the very last piece of equipment since that's the one piece that I don't have to worry about not being able to find. Worst case scenario is I buy a submersible heater and chuck it in the tank temporarily if I can't find an Oase in stock.
> 
> ...


You can just hang the twinstar and then if its too bright for your tank, you just raise it up higher in the air to effectively dim the light at substrate. Fluval 3.0 according to a recent review is now much brighter then it was a few years ago, and is also an option if you want something controllable.

Sbreef light is also potentially available. Not as pretty a light as some others. And their website lists it as 'out of stock' but if you are seriously considering it, contact the seller. I have found them to be pretty responsive within 24 hours, and they likely can tell you how long until they get one in, or just make one on the spot.

I don't know anything about them, but I know ONF also has lights available that will work, though you will either need 2 or really raise up the 36" model.

If it were me, I'd buy the twinstar and a hanging kit.


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## sm1ke (Jun 30, 2016)

It seems to me that you could hang any of those lights with a stainless steel picture hanging wire kit. The lights come with the risers that sit on the tank - instead of using those, you could thread in the screws that come with them directly into the predrilled holes on the side of the light. Then, you can use those as anchor points to hang the light. Not the most elegant solution, but probably the easiest. Alternatively, you can have some custom "hanging brackets" 3D-printed, that you could use instead of the risers. These would give a more OEM look to the hanging design. Or if you didn't want to hang the lights, you could have bigger or smaller risers 3D-printed for your needs.

I would attach pictures but almost everything is blocked on my network. You can google search "twinstar hanging kit" for some ideas.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> You can just hang the twinstar and then if its too bright for your tank, you just raise it up higher in the air to effectively dim the light at substrate. Fluval 3.0 according to a recent review is now much brighter then it was a few years ago, and is also an option if you want something controllable.
> 
> Sbreef light is also potentially available. Not as pretty a light as some others. And their website lists it as 'out of stock' but if you are seriously considering it, contact the seller. I have found them to be pretty responsive within 24 hours, and they likely can tell you how long until they get one in, or just make one on the spot.
> 
> ...


The Twinstar pendant seems like the only choice at this point, especially at the price point. I just really wish they were controllable. 

I've seen a few reviews of the ONF, but as you mentioned I'd need two, and they are $400 a pop. 

I'll have to read up on hanging solutions for the light. 

With regard to the stand, it's looking more and more likely that it won't be until next weekend that I get it done enough to get it into place.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

sm1ke said:


> It seems to me that you could hang any of those lights with a stainless steel picture hanging wire kit. The lights come with the risers that sit on the tank - instead of using those, you could thread in the screws that come with them directly into the predrilled holes on the side of the light. Then, you can use those as anchor points to hang the light. Not the most elegant solution, but probably the easiest. Alternatively, you can have some custom "hanging brackets" 3D-printed, that you could use instead of the risers. These would give a more OEM look to the hanging design. Or if you didn't want to hang the lights, you could have bigger or smaller risers 3D-printed for your needs.
> 
> I would attach pictures but almost everything is blocked on my network. You can google search "twinstar hanging kit" for some ideas.


Awesome, thanks for the tips! I'll run a google search for that to get a sense of what I might want to try. The wall behind the tank has nothing on it so I can pretty much mount whatever I want.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> It's really too bad that Twinstar hasn't made a controllable version of their S lights and have the ability to adjust the legs or hang it based on your preferences without needing to buy a whole different model. I've had a hard time finding bad reviews of the Twinstar lights in general.


I have the Twinstar 1200SA. It is adjustable for both height and width. I use this timer/dimmer with it and it has been working great. See my journal for details.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> I have the Twinstar 1200SA. It is adjustable for both height and width. I use this timer/dimmer with it and it has been working great. See my journal below for details.


I think you've just sealed the deal for me lol. The colors look perfect on your tank.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> I think you've just sealed the deal for me lol. The colors look perfect on your tank.


@minorhero's idea of hanging the light is also a good option to use with the dimmer. The SP model is made for hanging.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> @minorhero's idea of hanging the light is also a good option to use with the dimmer. The SP model is made for hanging.


I did almost the same thing with one of my reef tanks except I used 3/4" copper and soldered it all together. The only thing is I'm trying to stay away from having anything blocking the view on the left side of the tank. 

I'm not sure if I saw it on here, or somewhere else but someone used galvanized pipe, mounted it to a piece of wood that they stained, and mounted that onto the studs in the wall. It came out far enough to be centered in the tank and seemed very sturdy. I wish I could remember where I saw it and I have it in my mind's eye but didn't bookmark it.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> I did almost the same thing with one of my reef tanks except I used 3/4" copper and soldered it all together. The only thing is I'm trying to stay away from having anything blocking the view on the left side of the tank.
> 
> I'm not sure if I saw it on here, or somewhere else but someone used galvanized pipe, mounted it to a piece of wood that they stained, and mounted that onto the studs in the wall. It came out far enough to be centered in the tank and seemed very sturdy. I wish I could remember where I saw it and I have it in my mind's eye but didn't bookmark it.


You may have seen it somewhere else too, but that is what I did for my large tank.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> I did almost the same thing with one of my reef tanks except I used 3/4" copper and soldered it all together. The only thing is I'm trying to stay away from having anything blocking the view on the left side of the tank.
> 
> I'm not sure if I saw it on here, or somewhere else but someone used galvanized pipe, mounted it to a piece of wood that they stained, and mounted that onto the studs in the wall. It came out far enough to be centered in the tank and seemed very sturdy. I wish I could remember where I saw it and I have it in my mind's eye but didn't bookmark it.


Personally I think emotionalfescue's version is better. But I something similar as well.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> You may have seen it somewhere else too, but that is what I did for my large tank.
> 
> View attachment 1040459


Yours is definitely similar. But that is the general idea.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> Personally I think emotionalfescue's version is better. But I something similar as well.


I had a feeling it was your tank. Which tank is that over? I took a quick look when I first brought this up but couldn't tell which one. 

Galvanized is probably overkill, but I like the way they look. 

I did notice UNS has a solution too, but you have to live with clamps on the back of the tank. I'll have to price out both and see how much cheaper the galvanized route would be. If it's 50% of the UNS solution which is about $100, I'd rather do it than have those clamps on my tank.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> I had a feeling it was your tank. Which tank is that over? I took a quick look when I first brought this up but couldn't tell which one.
> 
> Galvanized is probably overkill, but I like the way they look.
> 
> I did notice UNS has a solution too, but you have to live with clamps on the back of the tank. I'll have to price out both and see how much cheaper the galvanized route would be. If it's 50% of the UNS solution which is about $100, I'd rather do it than have those clamps on my tank.


The way I have my light bracket setup is definitely overkill. Especially if you are hanging something lightweight like a twinstar. You could probably get away without the reinforced bottom part of the bracket. Depending on how much you pay for the wood, you will almost certainly be less then 50 dollars for the bracket build.

I just updated it, so you probably realize right now, but this is for the seahorse tank.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> The way I have my light bracket setup is definitely overkill. Especially if you are hanging something lightweight like a twinstar. You could probably get away without the reinforced bottom part of the bracket. Depending on how much you pay for the wood, you will almost certainly be less then 50 dollars for the bracket build.
> 
> I just updated it, so you probably realize right now, but this is for the seahorse tank.


The hardwood shop I went to had a lot of options for smaller pieces so next time I head there which will likely be pretty soon, I'll take a look at what they have available. Surprisingly most of their hardwoods were somewhat reasonably priced. 

If I can get a decent piece with the pipe and fittings for under $50, I'll be doing it. I imagine screwing it into two studs should be sufficient, but I'll need to check where the studs are. I'll probably position the tank and stand where it'll all be centered.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

If you screw directly into studs, you can skip the hardwood. For me. The hardwood was there because the studs did not line up perfectly where I wanted the tank. So the hardwood is screwed into the studs and then the brackets are screwed into the hardwood. The hardwood provides enough support for the brackets to hold up the light. But, if you're going to center the tank on where the light is going to hang, rather than the other way around, then you can skip the hardwood step


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I ordered the Twinstar 1200SP from glass aqua and the light controller off amazon. 

As soon as my interest free loan to the government comes in I'll order a dual stage regulator from GLA and pick up two full 10lbs CO2 tanks. 



minorhero said:


> If you screw directly into studs, you can skip the hardwood. For me. The hardwood was there because the studs did not line up perfectly where I wanted the tank. So the hardwood is screwed into the studs and then the brackets are screwed into the hardwood. The hardwood provides enough support for the brackets to hold up the light. But, if you're going to center the tank on where the light is going to hang, rather than the other way around, then you can skip the hardwood step


One of the reasons I still want to do the wood is I like the look. I'll stain it the same color as the stand. If I can find a small enough piece of oak, it'll match the trim pieces I add to the stand and the door frames for the stand.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Last night I started to sketch out the light hanger and one thing I couldn't come up with a plan for was hiding the cord for the light. 

My plan is to avoid painting or using a window film on the rear glass because my wall is a very pale shade of grey/blue which might actually look good as a background. The one thing that UNS light hanging clamps have going for them is the ability to fish the cord through the hanger and hide it. 

The way the tank will be set up, the left side and front of the tanks are the panels you'll see the most. The left side as you walk through the door, and the front obviously when you're looking at the tank. All the plumbing stuff will be oriented on the right hand side. One of the reasons I didn't want the clamps on the tank is you'd see them if they were on the back panel, but I saw a review pic where they had them on the sides of the tank. 

I'll be spending a bit trying to figure out how to hide the cord with the galvanize pipe because this would be my preferred option. I considered threading on a couple extra T's so that I could fish the cord through but then I'm still stuck with the cord at the wall. The only other solution would be to open up a couple holes and use those in wall cord hiders. Since this isn't an external wall I wouldn't be overly concerned about a power cord being inside a wall. But then again that's against building code, and for good reason. So that idea won't work. 

Unless I can figure out a solution for this by the time I'm ready to move the stand and tank into place I'll have to settle for the UNS light hanging solution. 

I don't know if anyone can tell, but I'm getting kind of antsy and want to get the tank set up, but I also don't want to rush and start sacrificing stuff just to get the tank wet. I've done this before and what ends up happening is cobbling equipment together once the tank is running. I'd like to set this up how I did my largest reef tank....have everything in hand and set up the tank with the equipment that will be running on it for the foreseeable future so that I'm not changing things and changing the conditions in the tank. 

Having had aquariums most of my life there are only a handful of bucket list things I've wanted to keep, some of which will likely never happen:


large planted tank - this build
large reef tank - likely won't happen any time soon. This would possibly be a retirement project.
octopus - lots of challenges, and very short lifespan
cuttlefish - same as above
jellyfish - I could see getting bored with something like this
seahorse softie tank - I get to live vicariously through @minorhero on this one lol.
sharks - I'll never have sharks even though they're a bucket list item. Ethically I've never been a fan of fish being made available to aquarists who can't possibly provide them with what they need due to the sizes they can grow to.

I did manage to cross frogfish and anglerfish off my list. Long story short, the angler is somewhat more entertaining, but both are extremely boring. I wound up rehoming them after a few months of having each one. Imagine having a pet rock that moves once in a while. That describes both except for feeding time where the angler is slightly more entertaining when you tease it with a thawed frozen fish in tweezers. 

Totally off topic but I regret joining FB groups on fish and shrimp keeping. If you want to shake your head in disbelief, and be amused at the same time I highly recommend joining as many of them as you can. If you begin praying for an asteroid to hit the earth and kill most of us, then I'd strongly advice against joining those sorts of groups lol. You'll just pray harder for that asteroid 😂


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> Last night I started to sketch out the light hanger and one thing I couldn't come up with a plan for was hiding the cord for the light.
> 
> My plan is to avoid painting or using a window film on the rear glass because my wall is a very pale shade of grey/blue which might actually look good as a background. The one thing that UNS light hanging clamps have going for them is the ability to fish the cord through the hanger and hide it.


I went through this same exercise with my build. I prefer to have the back of the tank clear, and it was going against a pale-colored wall, but I wanted to conceal the lights' power cords and didn't want to run through the wall. I used PVC cord concealer that I painted the same color as the wall. After running the cords through the pipe and using the cord concealer, it's really out of the way, visually. And I'm pretty fussy about such things. Here's a recent pic:










You can still see it, obviously, but everything is a compromise, and I prefer this to window film. Also, I'm using spot lights, so I get a bit of a shadow on the side, but with a panel you wouldn't get that effect much, if at all.

Another option is something I did for another tank... I affixed blocks to one end of the stand. The blocks held 3/4" galvanized pipe that went up and over the tank as a light hanger. I used that approach for both a Twinstar and a pair of Kessils. It worked well and kept the tank unobstructed on the one end I really wanted open. Here's a pic (from the day I tore that one down - the tank didn't normally look like this lol):


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> I went through this same exercise with my build. I prefer to have the back of the tank clear, and it was going against a pale-colored wall, but I wanted to conceal the lights' power cords and didn't want to run through the wall. I used PVC cord concealer that I painted the same color as the wall. After running the cords through the pipe and using the cord concealer, it's really out of the way, visually. And I'm pretty fussy about such things. Here's a recent pic:
> 
> View attachment 1040498
> 
> ...


Those are both great solutions! I think the second might be doable since I'm stuffing as much on one side of the tank as possible. The good thing is that the butcher block is 1" wider than the tank, so I have 1/2" to use as a "lever" of sorts. With half inch blocks, that should push it out enough to be supported by the edge of the butcher block. 

My friend said a canopy would be the way to go, but then you have to work around a canopy any time you need to do anything inside the tank, and with a rimless tank it would need to be mounted to the wall. 

But the second one definitely seems like the way to go. Using the Tee to fish the cords through is a pretty good idea lol. Would you say that the Twinstar's power cord would be long enough to be fished through the second solution?


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> But the second one definitely seems like the way to go. Using the Tee to fish the cords through is a pretty good idea lol. Would you say that the Twinstar's power cord would be long enough to be fished through the second solution?


Yeah, the first time I made one of these mounts with pipe I drilled holes to feed the cables through and it was a nightmare. Tees are so much easier. You might need to get an extension for the twinstar's power cord (I have done this - it's a standard size, so you can get on Amazon for like ten bucks), but maybe not if you have the end of the light with the cord on the same side as the mount. In fact, you could just have a tee on the upright portion about the same height as the panel will hang and run the cord out laterally to that. Rather than going up...


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> Yeah, the first time I made one of these mounts with pipe I drilled holes to feed the cables through and it was a nightmare. Tees are so much easier. You might need to get an extension for the twinstar's power cord (I have done this - it's a standard size, so you can get on Amazon for like ten bucks), but maybe not if you have the end of the light with the cord on the same side as the mount. In fact, you could just have a tee on the upright portion about the same height as the panel will hang and run the cord out laterally to that. Rather than going up...


Thanks, yep I think there'll definitely be a way to make it work. I was taking a look at a video of an unboxing of the 1200S and there looks to be enough cabling before the brick to fish it through. It would definitely need to be oriented closer to the side of the tank. I really like how this will look. I'll probably rattle can it grey before mounting it after the pipe is all assembled.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Well, one of the things I said I'll do is pick up hardscape that catches my eye when I see it. 

Found this one as a WYSIWYG and it looked to be the perfect size and shape I'm looking for. Surprisingly it wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be ($100 shipped). 

It's tall enough that it'll likely be above the water surface once I build up some slopes, and wide enough to stretch over to the opposite side of the tank. 

I took a gander at the XL pieces of dragon stone and they had a couple massive pieces but they were obscenely expensive. 50-60 lbs single showpiece rocks.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

That's a nice looking piece of wood!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> That's a nice looking piece of wood!


Agreed. I was immediately drawn to it and once I saw the price I couldn't pass it up. 

The one thing I'm trying to keep in mind with buying hardscape is that more than half of whatever I do will be covered up by plants. I learned that with my nano tank. I spent way more time than I care to admit scaping it, and you can barely see any of it lol. 

It'll be nice to get it into the tank once I get the tank on the stand and then see if I can find one more unique piece of wood for the other side of the tank. From there I'll get a sense of what I'm looking for as far as rock goes. 

It's a shame that the big pieces of dragon stone were so absurdly priced. They had a couple that would have been perfect. I'm just not spending almost $300 on a single piece of stone lol.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> Agreed. I was immediately drawn to it and once I saw the price I couldn't pass it up.
> 
> The one thing I'm trying to keep in mind with buying hardscape is that more than half of whatever I do will be covered up by plants. I learned that with my nano tank. I spent way more time than I care to admit scaping it, and you can barely see any of it lol.
> 
> ...


I like dragon stone but yeah I don't blame you for passing at that price for sure.

The part about plants covering it up is definitely something I learned scaping my 75. There was discussion in another thread recently about hardscape and it seemed many people were any agreement that driftwood was always equal or more prevalent in the final setup than you originally imagined and stone was way, way less prevalent. I thought my 75 was heavy on dragon stone but it's probably the last thing someone would notice.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> I like dragon stone but yeah I don't blame you for passing at that price for sure.
> 
> The part about plants covering it up is definitely something I learned scaping my 75. There was discussion in another thread recently about hardscape and it seemed many people were any agreement that driftwood was always equal or more prevalent in the final setup than you originally imagined and stone was way, way less prevalent. I thought my 75 was heavy on dragon stone but it's probably the last thing someone would notice.


The one thing I have in mind which is why I was looking at the really large stones is having a few of them sticking out from the substrate and base of the wood on an angle. Sort of the same idea as the Iwagumi style rock formations. In a tank with this height and width, I'd need fairly large stones to come up with something that really captures it. I've personally never been a fan of the Iwagumi look for my own personal tanks. I do love the way they look, but I enjoy seeing wood mixed into scapes since it's more along the lines of what you'd see in nature.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Laziness got the better of me last night, and more or less tonight as well. For anyone that has a double coated dog, you'll understand this completely, but my dog has begun his first coat blowing. 

I noticed that it started a few days ago with him itching a lot, and finding tufts of hair all over the place. He has shed a lot since I got him in August at 8 weeks old, but it was manageable with my Dyson vac every 3-4 days. The last few days I've needed to vacuum every day. It's like I took him for a walk through the reactor containment vessel at Chernobyl. It's so bad that I started looking to see if he'd started balding because he's losing an absurd amount of hair lol. I decided I'd spend the evening with the undercoat rake and try to remove as much of it as possible, or at least without getting too aggressive with it. I filled up a kitchen sized garbage can with hair. 

The piece of wood I ordered arrived today and it looks much better in person. I didn't totally remove it from the box because it showed up between meetings, but did open the box to take a peek. Once I can get the tank in place and get the piece of wood in there I'll have an idea of what I'll need for another piece and then will be watching like a hawk for one. 

I need to run over to HD tomorrow to pick up a few materials I still need for the stand and once I get back I'm going to focus on conditioning the wood, followed by staining. I may try to work in the butcher block top at the same time. It will be difficult because I don't have much room where I'm working on the stand so the top may be a project I tackle during the week. I figure I can stain the stand tomorrow, and then on Sunday get the poly on it. In between the poly coats I can start priming and painting the inside of the stand and then caulk it during the week after the paint has dried a bit. 

I found out that my interest free loan to the government is being direct deposited next week so I figured I'd go ahead and order the regulator and some other stuff from GLA. I ordered their Pro DS1 dual stage regulator. Maybe next Saturday I'll pick up the CO2 bottles. 

Aside from the stand, everything is coming together more quickly than I thought. The last thing I need for CO2 is a reactor and while I was going to try building one, NilocG has their own that I may just order so that it saves me a little time. DIYing the stand and a mount for the light is about as much DIYing as I can manage right now. I have a few time consuming DIY home improvement projects I'm getting ready to start once my pup goes off for two weeks of training so anything I can do to eliminate more work will be a weight off my shoulders. 

I'm going to test ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates on my nano tank now and then update that thread after I've done that.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Well it looks like I'll need to take the stand in a different direction. 

I applied 3 coats of stain and I'm just not liking the way it looks. It basically looks like the panel I stained is dirty, like it was dragged along a dirt road lol. 

I think I'm going to let that fully dry for now and then prime and paint it white. I suspect the color stain I chose is just too light. 

The outside corner moulding I picked up which is oak, I'll stain that since it'll probably accept the stain more readily than birch and use it as an accent to match what little you'll see of the butcher block which will also be stained. 

Once I build the doors, I'll paint the inside panel white, use oak for the frame of the doors and stain those. I'll also pick up oak quarter round to nail along the bottom after the stand is in place and stain that as well. 

I had a feeling this might happen which is why I mentioned it several posts back. I was going to paint it white from the beginning but figured I'd give it a shot. The good thing is I know that if I ever want to stain plywood, to use a different species because birch is one I have yet to have success with. 

This direction change will help more than it slows things down though.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I basically have the butcher block stained. I'm debating whether or not I should apply poly. On the one hand, it'll protect the surface of the butcher block but on the other hand, it's mostly going to be under the tank. For four coats I'll probably need about 8 hours, 9 if counting applying the poly, and maybe a couple extra hours in the event that I need to lightly sand between coats. This makes doing it impossible during the week. I'd really like to have the stand moved into place by this weekend because next weekend my Saturday is completely booked and Sunday isn't much better. Doing poly on Saturday would effectively make it impossible to get the tank onto the stand because it wouldn't have cured enough by Sunday. With my limited experience with poly, you really want to let it cure 48 hours before it's fully dried and hardened. I guess unless there's a compelling reason to apply it, I may skip it. 

I'll be running to a couple shops after work tonight to pick up some additional odds and ends for painting. But having this done by Saturday would be fantastic. 

One thing I need to buy is a bunch of media for the GLA canister, as well as enough for whichever Oase thermo I settle on. There are endless debates about which media is "the best". I've used most of them except Matrix. I'm not sure the benefits of Matrix are really that much better than the standard ceramic rings. The costs certainly aren't better. More than likely once the GLA canister is set up, it'll be a rare occasion that I open it up to do maintenance on it. One of the things I'm having trouble on is deciding whether or not to put some filter foam/sponge at the very bottom of the canister to filter out larger particulates, but with the way the canister is designed, literally all of the biological media will be compressing it fully. I imagine some sponge is better than no sponge, but at the same time I won't be surface skimming with the GLA. I think I'll just set it up with ceramic rings, and if I suddenly can't pinpoint the source of high nitrates, then doing maintenance on the canister will be required. The Oase will have a surface skimmer on it so the pre filter will be the only weekly maintenance I'll need to do from a filtration perspective. 

Here's what is left to do before this tank gets set up:


purchase Oase
pick up a couple 10 lbs CO2 tanks
reactor
Inkbird controller
Light fixture hanging
stainless lily pipes (one set with surface skimming, the other without)
additional clear tubing to use with the Oase
Fluval Stratum. I'm guessing at least 5 of their big bags, likely a few more
stone - lava to build up a couple humps
2-4 large pieces of dragon stone with several smaller pieces
one to two more pieces of wood
doors for stand

I figure I'm at least one month, if not two from this tank getting set up. If I'm going to pack this full of plants from the beginning, that plant order is going to be ridiculous. I did this with my nano and I think the biggest mistake I made was planting it so heavily that it looks almost fully grown in on day 1, but then the plants start growing and they've been planted too close together. I'm going to be more careful with this tank so that I'm taking into account the size of the fully grown plants. It's kind of like how people buy ornamental trees and plant them without taking into consideration how much room they take up. Once I settle on a scape, I'll just draw plants at fully grown sizes to determine where to plant and how much. 

That leaves me with a question....since my only experience with aqua soil is limited to my nano, I did have much time to play around with it. Let's say that I get all my hardscape and start playing around with it until I settle on something that I like. Would it adversely affect the soil if I added it to the tank and it sat exposed to air for a few weeks? The humidity level of the room the tank is in doesn't seem to go higher than 50% when it's warmer out. I think right now the humidity is around 35%. 

I'll probably pick up some egg crate as well to protect the bottom panel of glass from the rock.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Definitely 100% take the time to apply the poly (or whatever waterproofing you want to use) to the butcherblock.

You need to do this for a couple of reasons,

1) The butcherblock as a natural wood product will grow mold if left unprotected and allowed to stay damp (which it 100% will be damp shortly after the first spill over the side when the water wicks under the tank).

2) Because it is real wood, it can swell and contract with moisture. If left unprotected you could have a situation where one side swells while the other side (more dry) does not and that could cause your tank to crack.

So take the extra few days and apply a few coats of waterproofing to the butcherblock.

And no, aquasoil being left out in the air will be fine. It's just processed dirt.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> Definitely 100% take the time to apply the poly (or whatever waterproofing you want to use) to the butcherblock.
> 
> You need to do this for a couple of reasons,
> 
> ...


Thanks, that was exactly the push I needed to do the poly. I'll probably throw a coat on at lunch and add 2-3 more before the end of the evening tonight. I'll wait until Thursday and do the other side and the edges. That gives me Wednesday and Friday to prime and paint the inside and outside of the stand itself. 

I'm glad the aquasoil won't be affected by exposure to air. That makes playing around with the scape a whole lot easier. 

Thanks again, I appreciate all the help!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I wasn't able to get to applying poly to the top yesterday, so this morning I applied the first coat to the bottom side and all the edges. The can says 3 coats minimum, so with doing a coat at lunch, another after work, that'll put me at 3 and I can look at it and decide if a fourth is needed, and if light sanding is also needed between each. I'll let it cure until Friday morning and then flip it and do the top. That should hopefully be fully cured by Sunday when there's a good chance I'll be able to move the stand into place and get the tank on it. 

I've been searching for biological media for the GLA canister, as well as having enough for the Oase once I get that. Having been out of freshwater tanks for almost 10 years, it doesn't seem like a lot has changed aside from marketing hype from all the various companies. Some of the companies even go as far as claiming you should replace the media every six months. A great example is Eheim Substrat Pro. If you rinse your media when you do filter maintenance, unless the media is dissolving, there's no reason to replace it. Back in the under gravel filter days, your gravel was your biological filter. We didn't replace our gravel every six months lol. 

With that being said, I've been thinking about my reef keeping days and almost none of us use biological filtration media. The live rock in the tank is your filter. Unfortunately aragonite IMO is one of the best types of rock due to how porous it is, however, it affects the PH by keeping it high. There is one type of rock that is very porous - lava rock. 

Since I was going to buy lava rock to build up a couple islands in the tank so that I'm using less aqua soil than I'd need for a build up, I was thinking of just using lava rock in my filters as the biological media. I don't have experience using lava rock as a filtration media, so my main concern is it breaking down and winding up inside the tank. The plan that came to mind was breaking the bigger pieces of rock down to where they're maybe an inch, stuffing them into filter media bags, or just one massive bag for the GLA and using it. I just want to make sure that the rock doesn't break down further than that. The more I look at the various "best" biological media, the more it looks like lava rock lol. 

If anyone has experience with lava rock I'd be interested in hearing about your experiences. If this idea is crazy, then let me have it lol. The one reason I'm not doing this is to save money, but it is a nice little benefit. 

The light did arrive yesterday. The regulator and various odds and ends for it from GLA are arriving today. I may take a ride into the city Saturday to pick up a 10lbs CO2 tank. Ideally I'll get two of them, but depending on the cost I may just get one for now and pick up the other one after I get the tank set up. There's really no need to have two 10lbs tanks laying around or having funds tied up when I'm not even using them. Having one though will help me lay out all the equipment once the stand is in place.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> I wasn't able to get to applying poly to the top yesterday, so this morning I applied the first coat to the bottom side and all the edges. The can says 3 coats minimum, so with doing a coat at lunch, another after work, that'll put me at 3 and I can look at it and decide if a fourth is needed, and if light sanding is also needed between each. I'll let it cure until Friday morning and then flip it and do the top. That should hopefully be fully cured by Sunday when there's a good chance I'll be able to move the stand into place and get the tank on it.
> 
> I've been searching for biological media for the GLA canister, as well as having enough for the Oase once I get that. Having been out of freshwater tanks for almost 10 years, it doesn't seem like a lot has changed aside from marketing hype from all the various companies. Some of the companies even go as far as claiming you should replace the media every six months. A great example is Eheim Substrat Pro. If you rinse your media when you do filter maintenance, unless the media is dissolving, there's no reason to replace it. Back in the under gravel filter days, your gravel was your biological filter. We didn't replace our gravel every six months lol.
> 
> ...


Lava rock will work fine as a biological media since, you know, everything works as biological media ;P

Anyway, I have some in the substrate of my 120p tank. I have in years past used it in filters before I discarded all biological media as unnecessary. If you want to put it in media bags that won't negatively affect it. But its also not really needed. It only 'sheds' when being handled, typically when your hands break off some of the more delicate edges to the bubbles. Even then it will just look like dust. 

Speaking of dust, you will want to wash it pretty thoroughly when you first get it because it will be dusty from pieces breaking off when rubbing against other bits of rock. Definitely don't spend money buying premium stuff, the bags sold in the hardware store will work fine for this purpose.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> Lava rock will work fine as a biological media since, you know, everything works as biological media ;P
> 
> Anyway, I have some in the substrate of my 120p tank. I have in years past used it in filters before I discarded all biological media as unnecessary. If you want to put it in media bags that won't negatively affect it. But its also not really needed. It only 'sheds' when being handled, typically when your hands break off some of the more delicate edges to the bubbles. Even then it will just look like dust.
> 
> Speaking of dust, you will want to wash it pretty thoroughly when you first get it because it will be dusty from pieces breaking off when rubbing against other bits of rock. Definitely don't spend money buying premium stuff, the bags sold in the hardware store will work fine for this purpose.


Yep, my perspective has changed considerably after having reef tanks. 

There was a shift in the mid to late 90's where "bio media" became all the rage and seems to have continued on through today. Back then an under gravel filter was fine and if you wanted to do some chemical and mechanical, you'd add on an HOB or canister. I think bio balls started the craze with wet dry filters. The LFS I worked at in my teens we had a huge DIY sump/wet dry and just used larger pieces of crushed coral as the bio media and never had a problem with our saltwater system. 

Lava rock it is then! I'll definitely rinse it off really well before using it. I figured there's no way I'll use a whole bag on building up for my scape, so why not use it in the filters. 

The thing that gets me though is how these companies manage to convince people to replace their bio media every six months lol. Unless it degrades, there's no need to replace it. My last freshwater planted tank had a canister filter on it. I want to say it was a Filstar, one of the larger ones. I used the Eheim stuff that you're supposed to replace every six months and never replaced it lol. Ran it on my tank for at least 2-3 years, then sold the filter to a friend who is still running that same media a decade later. 

I guess if I were a manufacturer I'd be telling people preposterous stuff to get them to buy more of my products though


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## sm1ke (Jun 30, 2016)

Lava rock is definitely the way to go. Cheap, efficient, and usable for many other purposes. I bought mine from the "home and garden" section of a local hardware store (places like Home Depot, Canadian Tire, Lowe's, Rona, etc.).


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

The bottom side of the butcher block has 4 coats of poly on it, along with the sides, front, and back. Tomorrow morning I'm planning on flipping it and doing the top side. 

I need to take a run over to Lowes after work to pick up an online order and some other stuff I need and then beginning to prime the inside and outside of the stand. Since I'll be focusing on poly on Friday, that'll give me time to start painting it as well. Saturday I'll be able to caulk everything, cut the outside corner moulding and pick up quarter round, cut, and stain both. I just need to play around with the quarter round and corner moulding to see how I'll attach both. I might need to cut all the corner moulding longer than needed, and then final cut them once the stand is in place and shimmed. The quarter round can all be cut to size though. 

My biggest disappointment is not being able to stain the plywood. The butcher block looks amazing with the stain and poly on it. I just couldn't live with how the plywood looks with the stain. It was way too light and didn't darken with each new coat. For the last coat I applied, I even tried leaving it on longer than recommended and that didn't seem to help either. It's too bad because the butcher block turned out exactly as I imagined it would with this particular color stain. I can't be too disappointed considering I was planning on going with white anyway. It was worth a shot and I learned about staining birch. 

I received the GLA dual stage regulator and the additional stuff I ordered from them yesterday. I only opened the box for a minute to take a look at it and it looks as nice as I imagined it would be. 

As long as there aren't any hiccups between now and the weekend, I hope to be able to have the stand in place with the tank on it on Sunday. Hopefully I can get a hand and if not, next Sunday I might be able to get some help from a friend. 

I really want to get the stand in place and the tank on the stand this weekend so that I can get the equipment into the stand and start figuring out the doors, orientation of the equipment, access holes, etc. Doing that will give me the ability to start working on the light mounting bracket as well. I drop my puppy off on the 25th for two weeks of training which gives me two weeks to do a couple projects inside my home that were never done when I moved in, so having the stand done and in place is extremely important. I basically have this weekend, next week after work, and next Saturday evening and Sunday to get as much done with this stand and tank as possible until I shift my focus onto the home projects. 

For as far as I've come, I'm still a long way away. I'd guess this tank will be up and running by June but things can always change.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Went to Lowes last night and despite it being a 10 minute drive normally, I caught a freight train on the way there and another on the way back. It was also very busy for some reason. So basically what should have been a half hour trip took me two hours smh.

I took my time and walked around to look at a few things for the stand and saw 4/4X2" red oak that will match the trim. I'm not going to buy it at Lowes but just wanted to get my hands on some pieces to make sure the sizes would be right for the doors. Once I get my openings measured, and account for an overhang I'll head over to the hardwood store and pick some up.

I also stopped by plumbing to take a look at 3/4" gas pipe and fittings and couldn't believe how expensive it was. Once the stand is in place I'll need to run over to HD and see how much they want for pipe. My dad is in the process of retiring so he's been getting rid of all his plumbing tools. I'll probably ask him this weekend if he still has his pipe threading stuff. That would potentially reduce the costs. If the costs of this exceed $50, I may either mount a board onto the wall into the studs and then use less pipe, or just buy the UNS brackets. Honestly the price of the pipe was shocking. It's probably 2X what it cost 15-20 years ago when I did plumbing. Thinking about the time it'll take to DIY the light brackets and the costs of the materials has me wondering if the UNS brackets would be a wiser choice. I saw a few pics of people who use them and didn't realize that you can mount them onto the sides of the tank. For whatever reason I never looked closely enough at the brackets and assumed that the uprights were fixed facing forwards.

My buddy may come over tomorrow and hand plane the top and bottom just to make sure it's perfectly flat. In the morning I'm planning on running over to the CO2 place in the city. I gave them a call and full, brand new 10 lbs tanks are $160. I'm debating whether or not I should just get two so that I don't need to drive back out there once the tank is set up. I was tempted to wait because eventually my paintball CO2 tank will run out and it'll need to be refilled, and with $160 sitting around in a second CO2 tank that I might not have a need to use for a few months, it seems like it makes more sense to invest it elsewhere in the build. One tank is enough to not stop the build and the $160 I'd spend on the second 10lbs tank can fund other stuff that's necessary for the build. At the end of the day, two 10lbs tanks is a luxury that I don't need right away. I will once the tank is running though so that I can swap tanks out if one empties and then run over to get it refilled on a Saturday. If it emptied at the beginning of the week the aquarium would need to go the entire week without CO2, and I know what happens when this occurs because it happened to me when I had my last planted tank up. I started getting BBA shortly after my 5 lbs tank exhausted and couldn't get over to the place to get it refilled until a week later.

Anyhow I probably won't have an update until something changes, or I have the stand in place with the tank on it. I'm not expecting any more equipment and I'll be doing everything possible to get that tank onto the stand Sunday.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

I have bought a few new tanks from these guys, but they also have recertified tanks for about 1/3 the cost. Maybe worth considering, especially if you might do swaps instead of refills.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> I have bought a few new tanks from these guys, but they also have recertified tanks for about 1/3 the cost. Maybe worth considering, especially if you might do swaps instead of refills.


I was actually looking at them a month or so ago. 

Swaps would be great but I have only two options, one of which is airgas. The closest location for them is in a really bad part of the city. The next closest is over an hour away. The only other option for swaps is a home brew supply store, but you're limited to 5 lbs tanks, and overall the costs are higher. 

I saw that empty 10 lbs tanks were $140 ish, and the place I'll be going to is $160 filled so it's not too bad. A lot of these places also require you to have the tank certified and pressure tested by them even if it's brand new. I'm not sure if that's an actual requirement for safety, but it seems like they're just milking more money out of people lol.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I managed to get the stand fully primed this weekend, along with having the top brace planed by hand. Everything is perfectly flat and ready for a couple coats of paint. 

My buddy gave me some direction on how to mount the butcher block since he's a custom cabinet maker. I'll be focused on getting the stand painted today and tomorrow and will work on getting the top on. I was going to wait before mounting the top just to cut down on weight, but my friend said do it now so that it can settle, and any caulking you do can dry completely. 

Once the stand is in place, after leveling it I'll install quarter round, then cut the outside corner moulding to sit on top of the quarter round and marry up to the underside of the butcher block. I'll hopefully be able to get a hand Saturday evening or Sunday moving this into place and finally getting the tank off the ground. 

Last week I forgot that Sunday was Easter so once I remembered I decided to slow things down rather than rushing. 

On Saturday I ran over to the CO2 place and asked for a 10 lbs CO2 tank. The lady working there said "you're lucky, we're beginning to run out and are still waiting on orders from January". I asked if she had another and after sending someone to look, he came back with another one after filling it. So I have two 10 lbs tanks now. I didn't want to spend the extra $160, but I would eventually and didn't want to risk not being able to get another tank. I'd be able to find one online no doubt, but then I'd have to take another trip again. I wanted to wait until my paintball canister on my nano ran out and then when I refill that I'd just buy another 10 lbs tank but I have no idea how long those little paintball canisters last. It's been running about 3 weeks or so now and based on some of the threads on here it seems like they could last a few months before needing refilling. 

The only equipment I'm missing at this point is:


Oase BM Thermo
CO2 Reactor
Light hanging solution
Stainless lily pipes - one set with surface skim and the second without
Extra filter tubing
Substrate
More hardscape

I think once the tank is on the stand I'll be able to get that first piece of hardscape in the tank and then figure out how I want to scape the tank. I have an idea, and the first piece of spider wood fits, but until I see it in the tank I won't know what else I'll need. 

I may start looking for the stainless lily pipes. I found a set on aqua rocks Colorado's website with a built in skimmer. It looks like it's their own design. Unfortunately they don't have the non skimmer sets in stock so I'd need to order those elsewhere and amazon seems to have an abundance of build in skimmer styles, but not much in the non skimmer variety, at least not many options with good reviews. 

I was going to build a CO2 reactor but I may just mash the easy button and get the one that NilocG sells. It's similar to one that I'd build but it looks like they have improved upon that design. It probably costs twice as much as what I can build, but at the same time if it's saving me some time then it's worth the cost. Even though I'm pretty good with plumbing and did plumbing for a decade in my younger days, any time I'm building something it always requires 2 or more trips to the hardware store lol. 

I think the one thing that I will do once the tank is ready to get filled up is using tissue culture cups for everything. Even though I looked over all the plants I got for my nano with a fine toothed comb, I still wound up with pest snails. I really don't want any pests in this tank so the only option is to go pest free with tissue culture cups. So far my experience with them has been nothing less than stellar. The Crytocoryne Undulatus and H Pinatifida are doing amazingly well, prolific even and they both came out of TC cups. I even noticed some of the dwarf hair grass in my nano started growing long thread algae. With a tank this size, and going high tech, the last thing I need is more maintenance than I'm already anticipating. 

When I first fill this tank, using RODI likely won't be possible. I'm planning on ordering a 55 gallon food safe drum but even filling that up completely doesn't even fill half the tank. My RODI has 1 pre filter, two carbon blocks, a DI stage, and two membranes. It's rated for 150 gallons per day. More than likely what will happen is I use the whole drum, and then use tap for the remainder. 

I have a commitment I can't get out of this Saturday so getting doors for the stand started won't happen for a while. I have a hallway that needs a lot of work done (trim replaced, painting, access hole cut in wall under stairs to open up storage space, building a barn door, etc. A week from today my puppy will be gone for two weeks so I don't have a whole lot of time to get all that done while he's gone. Just thinking about the next two weeks stresses me out. Hopefully the work I'm planning won't take as long as I think it's going to take. One of the biggest issues I have is my stairs have brand new carpeting that I'll need to completely cover and constantly worry about since I'll be painting, sanding, etc.

Forgot to add: I was reading through reviews and watching YouTube videos of the Oase. I think I'm going to get the BM Thermo 600 and mainly due to the wattage of the heater it comes with. The 350's heater is too small and likely be on constantly. I honestly believe the 600's heater is also too small, but it won't be on nearly as much as the smaller one. Getting the 850 for the heater would make the most sense given the wattage of the heater, but then this build becomes even more absurd than it already is. I'll need to spend some time thinking about this because the difference in price between the 600 and 850 is about $50, but the jump from the 350 to 600 is $100. Do I just go full potato and spend the additional $50 for the 850 lol?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I got a coat of white paint on the stand last night. After work tonight I'll check to see if it needs a second. If it does I'll do one more coat and then tomorrow get the butcher block top mounted, along with caulking the inside. 

Either Saturday afternoon/evening, or Sunday I'll have some help moving the stand into place and getting the tank on it. I'm glad I was able to get someone to help with this because making room in my laundry room is necessary for the work I'm starting in my hallway next week. The pup will be dropped off Monday morning for training and won't be coming back until two weeks later and the quicker I can get the hallway done, the quicker I can get back to finishing up the stand and acquiring whatever else I need for this tank. 

Once the tank is in place I'll take some pics. I likely need to head back to the hardwood shop next Saturday so I may take advantage of my time there by picking up the material for the doors. I just need to spend some time on measuring how much I'll need. 

I think the next two purchases will be the CO2 reactor and substrate. I'm thinking 5 of the big bags of Stratum to start. I'll get the lava rock in some filter bags and start playing around with the scape ideas and throw all the stratum in the tank to see if I'll need more. Those won't happen until next month though. This was an expensive month so I need to calm down lol.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

You're making progress! Can't wait to see the pictures.

If you're going to make the jump from the Oase 350 to 600 I think it would make sense to just go with the 850 if it's really only $50 more at that point.

I might've missed it previously but any specific reason you're going with Stratum? You could do PFS and more than make up the price difference between the Oase 350 and 850.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> You're making progress! Can't wait to see the pictures.
> 
> If you're going to make the jump from the Oase 350 to 600 I think it would make sense to just go with the 850 if it's really only $50 more at that point.
> 
> I might've missed it previously but any specific reason you're going with Stratum? You could do PFS and more than make up the price difference between the Oase 350 and 850.


Thanks, yep I'm pleased I'm finally getting close to the tank going onto the stand. It's been a pain, but I haven't learned a lot from the mistakes I've made. 

I agree about the Oase. The heater is larger and more suited to a tank this size so it'll use less electricity, although it's debatable how much it'll save going up in pump size and its electricity consumption. Six of one, half a dozen of the other I guess lol. 

The main reason I'm leaning towards Stratum is I'm planning on doing a carpeting plant and keeping PFS clean and free from soil just adds a whole lot of work for maintenance. I was toying with the idea of ordering Amazonia but the costs would be a lot higher for something that will eventually turn into mud over time and need to be replaced. I'm still not 100% on which direction I want to take the scape. I think the direction will likely be dictated by the hardscape I wind up with. 

I did see an intriguing use of soil on YouTube but wasn't sure how well it would work in a high tech tank. MD Tanks puts his soil into bags, and I'm assuming the reason is that he breaks down tanks and changes scapes more often than I wash my floors and it makes it easier to reuse the soil. I was wondering if it would be useful to bag the soil, then cap with sand, and this would prevent the soil from eventually mixing with the sand, but also making it a lot easier to replenish once the soil breaks down after a year or two. At that point it would be removing the plants, remove the bags, then replace with new bags and new soil. I just don't know how bags of soil would perform since MD Tanks isn't doing long term testing on it, or using plants that are more difficult and require CO2.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

I love that this journal is 6 pages in and it's still just the stand lol. 

Someone here on the forum was talking about their experience using the bags of soil and they were happy with them long term. They said the soil did not leach out much at all and the plants managed to dig their roots into the soil even through the fine mesh, to the point that some bigger plants were impossible to disentangle from the bags and he had to cut roots to free them. So it's definitely worth a shot I think. You'd still have to contend with the sand getting dirty but if you went with black sand it probably wouldn't be bad? I have light sand in my jar and honestly I'm embracing the muck, it looks lived in, or so I tell myself. 

Not sure if the carpeting plants would manage to reach down low enough to reach the soil in bags? How deep do they root?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> I love that this journal is 6 pages in and it's still just the stand lol.
> 
> Someone here on the forum was talking about their experience using the bags of soil and they were happy with them long term. They said the soil did not leach out much at all and the plants managed to dig their roots into the soil even through the fine mesh, to the point that some bigger plants were impossible to disentangle from the bags and he had to cut roots to free them. So it's definitely worth a shot I think. You'd still have to contend with the sand getting dirty but if you went with black sand it probably wouldn't be bad? I have light sand in my jar and honestly I'm embracing the muck, it looks lived in, or so I tell myself.
> 
> Not sure if the carpeting plants would manage to reach down low enough to reach the soil in bags? How deep do they root?


Haha, the thought of how long this thread was already crossed my mind the other day. I think mainly I like typing out my plans so that I have them on paper and can think my way through them, and also as a sanity check so that other folks can pop in and be like "that's kinda crazy" and I begin reevaluating 😂

The one thing I'm very uncertain of are how carpeting plants root. Based on everything I've read, they tend to have very delicate roots where if you don't regularly trim, the plants underneath begin to die and the whole carpet floats up off the substrate. I'm guessing that probably means that they have very short roots. Dwarf hair grass wouldn't have this problem because I've noticed the root systems have begun digging pretty deep into the substrate in my nano tank. But I really want to keep something like HC or Montecarlo, or take it in a completely different direction. I've decided to not think too much about planting until I have a scape built and then plan my planting based on where they'll fit in the best. I have some plants in mind, but they keep changing almost daily when I look at scapes on Instagram lol. 

I didn't think I'd like the look of aqua soil by itself, because spherical clay balls doesn't really look natural, but at the same time it's getting covered by the plants so I don't really notice it as much in my nano tank. A tank this size it'll be unavoidable though, at least for the first few months while everything grows in. I definitely need to decide on something even if it means buying 4-5 large bags of aquasoil because I'll probably need a bit more than that if the whole tank is soil. But 4-5 would be good if I bag and cap it with PFS or something similar. I don't need a lot for building up a couple islands or hills since I'm planning on using lava rock for that and adding the aqua soil on top, using rockwork to act as a dam of sorts. 

Reef tanks are so much easier from the scaping and substrate perspective. You buy enough marine sand or substrate to cover the bottom, or no substrate at all, then add in some live rock or reef rock and you're ready to start cycling. This has definitely been a more challenging aspect than my reef tanks. 

One thing I have stayed away from successfully thus far is thinking about fish stocking. I'll drive myself crazy if I start thinking about that now lol.


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## sm1ke (Jun 30, 2016)

It seems like keeping the aquasoil in bags would work just fine, assuming the capping substrate is deep enough for the plants to root in. The aquasoil would leach the nutrients into the cap and water column over time, while keeping the soil separated. Seems like a great idea if you want to keep the capping substrate uniform.


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## CGY_Betta_Guy (Jul 26, 2010)

Example of how deep HC roots can go from my edge tank. Obviously YMMV. Hope it helps.









Edit: This is in Tropica Aqua soil


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

sm1ke said:


> It seems like keeping the aquasoil in bags would work just fine, assuming the capping substrate is deep enough for the plants to root in. The aquasoil would leach the nutrients into the cap and water column over time, while keeping the soil separated. Seems like a great idea if you want to keep the capping substrate uniform.


While what I'm planning will require more maintenance than a low tech tank, keeping the substrate clean would definitely be a requirement for me because it's always extra work picking stuff out that shouldn't be there. 

I'll definitely need a lot of bags for the soil though because if I go this route, I want everywhere I'm planning on planting to have bagged aquasoil underneath whatever I use to cap it. 

I was thinking about options for capping the bags of sand, and while I absolutely love the look of sand, sand and pythons for WC's don't do well together. I'll have to look at options for a grain size between standard aquarium gravel and sand. Just big enough to not get sucked up during maintenance sessions, but not too big where it looks like aquarium gravel. 

I'm debating the order I need to purchase everything else I need. I was going to buy the soil first, but now I'm thinking buying everything I need to build my scape first makes more sense because then I'll know how much soil I'll actually need. Each bag of soil is $50, which can buy about 5 tissue culture cups of plants so I definitely want to take advantage of any areas where I can save a bit, to invest it elsewhere in the tank. 

When I finally get to the point where everything is in place and the tank is ready for plants, my plan is to plant the whole tank the day I fill it up.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

CGY_Betta_Guy said:


> Example of how deep HC roots can go from my edge tank. Obviously YMMV. Hope it helps.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wow, so they root pretty deeply. I guess I misunderstood the "delicate root systems" to mean short, when it just meant thin. 

Thanks that's extremely helpful!


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

ddiomede said:


> Wow, so they root pretty deeply. I guess I misunderstood the "delicate root systems" to mean short, when it just meant thin.
> 
> Thanks that's extremely helpful!


You're also correct in that frequent trimming is key. If lower levels of the plant don't receive any light and die, then it won't matter how deep the roots are. If the plant itself melts, it will float away.


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## sm1ke (Jun 30, 2016)

ddiomede said:


> I was thinking about options for capping the bags of sand, and while I absolutely love the look of sand, sand and pythons for WC's don't do well together. I'll have to look at options for a grain size between standard aquarium gravel and sand. Just big enough to not get sucked up during maintenance sessions, but not too big where it looks like aquarium gravel.


Some of the more popular options are CaribSea Super Naturals, specifically the Peace River, Torpedo Beach, or River of Doubt colours. Each of them have a different grain size and colour, but I think one of those would probably work.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

sm1ke said:


> Some of the more popular options are CaribSea Super Naturals, specifically the Peace River, Torpedo Beach, or River of Doubt colours. Each of them have a different grain size and colour, but I think one of those would probably work.


Thanks for the lead, I'll check those out! I've always liked CaribSea's substrates.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Quick update that I probably should have done in a reply above lol.

The stand didn't need a second coat of which paint. Two coats of primer really made a difference and only required a single coat of paint afterwards.

I took the time to caulk the inside of the stand. It took a tube and a half to complete. Not small tubes, caulk gun sized tubes. But it's all sealed.

Tonight I'll mount the butcher block. Tomorrow I'll probably caulk around the butcher block on the underside to prevent water from seeping in that way.

I should hear back from a cousin about which day he can give me a hand this weekend. I'm guessing it'll be Sunday.

One thing I'm kind of angry about today is my puppy is scheduled to go off to training Monday morning. The schedule they shared with me is dropping him off Monday, then picking him up on the 6th. Today I get an email with a completely different schedule. I'd drop off Monday, pick up Friday, have the pup over the weekend, then go back Monday, then pick up Friday again. The facility isn't very close so that's a lot of driving, but more importantly this affects my plans of getting work done on my house. The dog can't be here, and the weekend is the bulk of the time needed to finish the work. If there's no other option than having to follow this new plan, then I'll probably make more progress with the tank lol.

I broke down and ordered the UNS light hanging brackets. After stopping by HD, the costs were over 50% of what these brackets cost, minus the time I'd spend to DIY and I decided to order. I'm actually glad I did because they're really nice. Very well made. I also ordered the advanced co2 reactor for NilocG.

I'm down to needing some extra filter tubing, two sets of stainless lily pipes (one set with skimmer), the Oase, and the inkbird. That would check all equipment off the build list I believe. I'd say another $650-700 would be what I'm looking at.

I was thinking of delaying the purchase of the Oase because I really don't need heat until I start stocking fish. But I like checking stuff off of my lists so I probably will buy it just to cross it off lol.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> Thanks for the lead, I'll check those out! I've always liked CaribSea's substrates.


I love the reddish hues of peace river and rio grande......


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> Haha, the thought of how long this thread was already crossed my mind the other day. I think mainly I like typing out my plans so that I have them on paper and can think my way through them, and also as a sanity check so that other folks can pop in and be like "that's kinda crazy" and I begin reevaluating 😂
> 
> The one thing I'm very uncertain of are how carpeting plants root. Based on everything I've read, they tend to have very delicate roots where if you don't regularly trim, the plants underneath begin to die and the whole carpet floats up off the substrate. I'm guessing that probably means that they have very short roots. Dwarf hair grass wouldn't have this problem because I've noticed the root systems have begun digging pretty deep into the substrate in my nano tank. But I really want to keep something like HC or Montecarlo, or take it in a completely different direction. I've decided to not think too much about planting until I have a scape built and then plan my planting based on where they'll fit in the best. I have some plants in mind, but they keep changing almost daily when I look at scapes on Instagram lol.
> 
> ...


oh yeah, set aside at least 15 pages or so for debating stocking ideas 

yeah I like to jot down general thoughts and plans in my journal too, it really does help. And sometimes I think I'm writing for myself and someone pops in with a super cool suggestion and it's win-win ❤


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I went ahead and ordered the Oase Biomaster thermo 850 🙃

Just need some stainless lily pipes, one set with a built in surface skimmer and one without, an Inkbird, and that's that for equipment I think. 

If anyone has leads on the stainless lily pipes I'd appreciate it. Most of the ones on Amazon don't have the greatest reviews. Aqua Rocks Colorado seems to have their own design which is different from the spinning weir that seems interesting. It's basically mimicking the way an overflow box works, but in the shape of a stainless lily pipe. The other option is to just buy Dynamax pipes since you can get both versions. 

Last night I mounted the butcher block. I'll caulk around it after work. Because I stupidly used 1/2" plywood for the front panel, the butcher block's width is barely wide enough to cover the width of the stand. It was a pretty dumb mistake that could have been easily avoided had I taken a bit more time at the hardwood store. Because of this mistake, I'll need to apply the caulk a bit more carefully. I'll probably apply some painters tape onto the edge of the butcher block, apply caulk, smooth it out and then remove the painters tape and gingerly smooth any ridges out. 

I've known about this mess up for a while but the thought of tossing $100 in plywood kept me from doing anything about it. One of the reasons I even had 1/2" in my head is because I wanted the side panels to be half inch since access holes for tubing would be cut into the sides and I wanted a little more rigidity. I was so focused on the overhang on the side that I didn't really think about the front/back overhangs smh. It looks fine, but it's one of those things that bothers me since it was a mistake. 

Anyhow I'll be busy most of the day tomorrow and will see when my cousin will give me a hand moving the stand into place. It's looking good so far though. I'll probably hold off on pics until the tank is on the stand and the trim pieces are mounted, minus the doors since I won't be getting to those right away.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> I went ahead and ordered the Oase Biomaster thermo 850 🙃
> 
> Just need some stainless lily pipes, one set with a built in surface skimmer and one without, an Inkbird, and that's that for equipment I think.
> 
> ...


I own several stainless steel lily pipes at this point. The best are my JARDLI I got from amazon. They have a different model now which frankly looks nicer then the one I have.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> I own several stainless steel lily pipes at this point. The best are my JARDLI I got from amazon. They have a different model now which frankly looks nicer then the one I have.


Thanks, I think I’ll order a set for my Oase. I’m thinking for the GLA, I’ll order a set of Dymax pipes without the skimmer since the options for skimmerless pipes on Amazon are minimal for some reason, and not well reviewed.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Stand and tank are in place. I was able to get a hand this evening. 

I'll be working on trim next. I'll need to grab some quarter round tomorrow and start staining it. 

I was thinking about getting the filtration inside the stand along with the CO2 stuff, but without doors, and my crazy dog, I don't want to risk any of that expensive stuff turning into impromptu chew toys. I'm going to spend some time tomorrow planning the doors and will pick up some wood next Saturday, unless I can run over to the hardwood store during the week. 

I'll probably install the light brackets and hang the light for now, along with getting that branch in the tank to see what it looks like and give me an idea of what else will fit in with the scape. I'll get a pic up once I do that. 

But it's finally coming together. 

The one thing that really surprised me how how tall the tank is once it was on the stand. I'm 6 foot and I'll need a step stool lol. I can touch the bottom but my armpit is pressing on the top of the glass.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Oooooh it’s a beauty!! Well worth the 7 page wait 😆


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nicely done!!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Couldn't help myself and went ahead and set up the brackets, light, and added the spider wood I picked up a week or so ago. 

I think once I get a couple hills built up to raise that branch about 6-8", it'll make it so much better. 

Anyone know if they make shades for these Twinstar lights? The one thing I know will bother me sitting on the couch is the blinding light.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Yeah even my tiny nicrew that I use over the jar lights up the whole room like an operating theater. It’s weird that they don’t come with shades.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

Looking good!

Yeah, all the panels should really come with barn doors...


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Nothing really new to update other than deciding to order the rest of the equipment. I ordered a skimmerless Dymax stainless lily pipe set off Amazon. This set will go onto the GLA filter. The second set I ordered is from Aqua Rocks Colorado. They have a stainless lily pipe set with built in skimmer of their own design that I spent a great deal of time looking at and even managed to find a video review on YouTube. They were about the same price as the Jardli set, but I figured I'd give these a shot since the design is so different and really reminds me of an overflow for a reef tank, just cylindrical rather than box shaped. It seems like it would minimize the issues with snails and fish getting caught in it. This set will be attached to the Oase so that I can leverage the pre filter and ease of cleaning it because it'll get pretty nasty since it will be skimming the muck off the surface.

Inkbird arrived yesterday. I haven't even opened it yet. I'll need to order a power strip soon so that I can start organizing everything. The reactor arrives tomorrow or Thursday I believe. Once I have that I should be able to start laying everything out and mounting stuff. The one thing I need to decide on is whether or not I'll be plumbing any of this with PVC. As of right now, I don't think there's a need to do it, but once I get everything in place if the tubing looks unruly I may hard pipe some of this to clean up the mess. Honestly though I may just be wanting to plumb this just to plumb it rather than doing it out of necessity. I've noticed that I've just been looking for any excuse to hard plumb it lol. I may just make everything neater by taking advantage of all the internal space I have and use pipe clamps and screw the tubing to the stand itself and just leave enough slack to maintain the canisters. I just need to see everything inside the stand to orient it so that everything is easy to access for maintenance, but also neat.

The one thing I definitely need is an extension for the Twinstar light's plug. The cord that comes out of the light isn't long enough to hide the dimmer inside the stand. I probably need a 12" (edit, need 2') extension for it. If anyone has a link to something on Amazon I can buy I'd appreciate it. I'm not sure what size the plug is, or what exactly I'd need to be looking for wattage wise/amp/etc. As you can tell electrical isn't my specialty. I can change out lighting fixtures and outlets, but my expertise ends there lol.

Tonight I'll head over to HD to pick up the rest of the trim for the stand. I'll need to cut, stain, and poly it all before mounting it to the stand. I may also pick up some lava rock while I'm there. I'll need to order a whole bunch of filter bags from amazon for the rock, as well as one large enough to fit inside the GLA canister that will be fill with lava rock. The work I'm planning on the house will also be starting. I dropped my pup off yesterday so this will be the first full weekend I have where I can get a lot of work done on the house. I have to be honest, I was going to start the work yesterday, but with the house so quiet, and not needing to take a dog out for 6 walks a day, I took advantage and literally laid on the couch and watched TV all night, taking short breaks to clean stuff up lol. On Saturday I'll be up super early to go pick up the materials I need to trim out the rest of my hallway. Fortunately I don't need a whole lot since I have a lot left over from when I did all the floorboards and trim in my basement. The trim is from one place about 20 minutes away. I'm planning to drive to the hardwood shop that's 45 minutes away from there after that to pick up material for the doors for the stand. There's a landscaping supply store near the hardwood place so I'll stop there and take a look at what type of rock they have.

I haven't put much thought into how to build a shade of sorts for the light. I probably won't start thinking about this until the light bothers me enough to start figuring it out.

I'll post an update if anything new happens, or I find some really cool rock or another branch. If I get the equipment laid out, I'll post an update with a pic. But this is where I'm at currently.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

That sounds like quite a lot of progress nonetheless!

Your ‘was gonna work when the puppy left but then watched tv all night’ is so me hahaah. Except with kid instead of dog. All the best plans for productivity in his absence and then.... nope 😂


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LOL, this was the shortest amount of time between updates so far. 

I'm sitting on the world's most boring conference call and after posting I start browsing SR Aquaristik's WYSIWYG wood pages and immediately added this one to the cart and continued looking. This was the only piece that really fits on the left side of the tank so I ordered it. 

That just leaves rock and substrate. 

I can't believe this piece was only $90, like the other piece I bought. I think what drew me to this piece is that most of their pieces seem to be good fits for the right sides of tanks and not many are suited to the left side. That branch on the bottom right pointing towards the right hand side will give me some flexibility with how I get the two pieces to mesh with one another while creating a vanishing point of sorts. I'll get another pic up once it arrives and I set it down inside the tank.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> That sounds like quite a lot of progress nonetheless!
> 
> Your ‘was gonna work when the puppy left but then watched tv all night’ is so me hahaah. Except with kid instead of dog. All the best plans for productivity in his absence and then.... nope 😂


You'll find this funny then. My checklist for yesterday looked like this:


HD for trim and lava rock
stop at bank
get gas
move stuff in hallway
clean up corner of laundry room
start taping off carpet from trim to paint


I did absolutely none of that lol. I need to do my best to not let that happen again tonight lol. Fortunately I'll be forced to not let it happen since I have an HVAC tech coming out to do the annual inspection and cleaning on my system, and there is a lot of crap that will be in his way.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> You'll find this funny then. My checklist for yesterday looked like this:
> 
> 
> HD for trim and lava rock
> ...


I’m a pro at making great to do lists and then advancing them not at all. I’m of the ‘do it when there’s literally no way out’ school of time management.

That new wood is super beautiful.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

@LidijaPN @ddiomede 

You two should Google “Tim Urban: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator". It's a HILARIOUS TED talk on the mind of a Procrastinator.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> @LidijaPN @ddiomede
> 
> You two should Google “Tim Urban: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator". It's a HILARIOUS TED talk on the mind of a Procrastinator.


I'm going to watch that tonight lol. 

Every time I try to do something about my procrastination I always decide to put it off until later.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

ddiomede said:


> I'm going to watch that tonight lol.
> 
> Every time I try to do something about my procrastination I always decide to put it off until later.


I'm completely the opposite. I grew up in a very strict military household (both parents were officers, different branches). Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, was done to a schedule. 

Now as an adult, I simply cannot have "free time". I actually get a sense of anxiety if I look at my planner and there's a gap, and I have to fill it with something. I even have TV time scheduled hahahaha.


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## pseudomugil (Aug 12, 2013)

LidijaPN said:


> I’m a pro at making great to do lists and then advancing them not at all. I’m of the ‘do it when there’s literally no way out’ school of time management.


 Ha me too! I'm trying to work on it because the 'do it when there's no way out' method doesn't seem to work to well in graduate school.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

jellopuddinpop said:


> @LidijaPN @ddiomede
> 
> You two should Google “Tim Urban: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator". It's a HILARIOUS TED talk on the mind of a Procrastinator.


Watched it it’s brilliant ♥


jellopuddinpop said:


> I'm completely the opposite. I grew up in a very strict military household (both parents were officers, different branches). Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, was done to a schedule.
> 
> Now as an adult, I simply cannot have "free time". I actually get a sense of anxiety if I look at my planner and there's a gap, and I have to fill it with something. I even have TV time scheduled hahahaha.


That sounds a lot like anxiety 😅 My husband is a little bit like that and it.... causes friction hahah. We’re both in complete befuddlement at how the other one lives.


pseudomugil said:


> Ha me too! I'm trying to work on it because the 'do it when there's no way out' method doesn't seem to work to well in graduate school.


Works even less well in general adult life 😑 It’s too late for me, save yourself!

No seriously, I found that just setting a crapton of alarms for myself is strangely effective. Doesn’t help for everything but definitely helps.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

LidijaPN said:


> That sounds a lot like anxiety 😅 My husband is a little bit like that and it.... causes friction hahah. We’re both in complete befuddlement at how the other one lives.


I don’t know, I get a lot of fulfillment from accomplishing tasks. Call it an old school Puritan work ethic, or whatever you like, but I enjoy it.

As a side note, (this might be triggering to some), I feel like laziness breeds laziness, and depression breeds depression. There are a lot of folks with clinical, diagnosable depression, but there’s another significant number of people who are just depressed because of a lack of activity. Sometimes, forcing yourself to get up and go to the gym, mow the lawn, make your bed, clean the dishes, etc can improve mental health. This pandemic has been proof of this. Sooo manyyy peopleeee are now “clinically depressed” from sitting in the house for 2 years. These people don’t need pharmaceuticals or therapy, they need tasks, routine, structure, and activity. Just my $.02.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> I don’t know, I get a lot of fulfillment from accomplishing tasks. Call it an old school Puritan work ethic, or whatever you like, but I enjoy it.
> 
> As a side note, (this might be triggering to some), I feel like laziness breeds laziness, and depression breeds depression. There are a lot of folks with clinical, diagnosable depression, but there’s another significant number of people who are just depressed because of a lack of activity. Sometimes, forcing yourself to get up and go to the gym, mow the lawn, make your bed, clean the dishes, etc can improve mental health. This pandemic has been proof of this. Sooo manyyy peopleeee are now “clinically depressed” from sitting in the house for 2 years. These people don’t need pharmaceuticals or therapy, they need tasks, routine, structure, and activity. Just my $.02.


I agree. I think depression tends to be an issue that seems to continually perpetuate the conditions required to keep a person depressed. A good example would be being affected by the change of seasons and less sunlight. Less exposure to sun, fresh air, and the outdoor in general causes depression in many people, me included, but once people reach a certain level of depression it seems that they'll make choice that continue to keep them out of the outdoors, further exacerbating the condition. 

Whenever I'm feeling down in the dumps I try to do everything I can to get outside in the sunlight for a couple hours each day. Getting a dog has helped me tremendously over this winter. He's forced me to go outside during a time of the year when I could go days without going outside. My friends in warmer states "Hey how's the weather up there"? Me: "I dunno, haven't been outside in days" lol. 

My procrastination definitely can cause depression in me, especially if I've put off enough things where completing them all seems insurmountable. The checklist approach, ordering it by priority seems to help a lot. I focus on one project/issue at a time and eventually the list continues to shrink. One of the things I avoid doing is adding anything to that list as I go. Psychologically I like seeing the list shrink and it motivates me to continue shrinking it.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I hadn't intended on posting another update so soon but couldn't help myself after receiving the Oase BM Thermo 850. I thought the GLA canister filter I bought was big, but holy crap is the Oase massive! 

I opened it up just to check it out and was impressed with the build quality. The prefilter seems like it's going to handle the job I have in mind for it very well. I couldn't believe how many trays there are inside the canister itself. I stopped counting but my guess would be 7-8 trays. It comes with what looks like K1 media, two trays worth. This was really big back in my early reef keeping days but a few people swore up and down about K1 media reactors. I've never personally used it, but I do remember the people who couldn't stop talking about K1 stopped after a while. I'm debating whether I should keep it, or remove it in favor of bagged lava rock. Also with as many trays as it comes with, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to fill them all up with. The plan was to use one of the trays for Purigen. One tray for finer sponge, another for coarse sponge, and then I still have a bunch of trays. 

I won't twist myself up over this but figured I'd share my surprise and my confusion with the Oase trays lol. 

I found a power strip with individually controlled outlets, well on/off is about as controlled as they are, but that makes maintenance easier since I don't need to touch plugs with wet hands.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> I found a power strip with individually controlled outlets, well on/off is about as controlled as they are, but that makes maintenance easier since I don't need to touch plugs with wet hands.


Care to share more info? I need this in my life ha.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> Care to share more info? I need this in my life ha.


This off of AmazonPower Strip

ETA: I really miss my Apex lol. Having fully controllable outlets is amazing. I still have my Apex but I'm planning to use it for a reef tank that I'll start working on during the winter.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Virtus said:


> Care to share more info? I need this in my life ha.


For a little more you can get a kasa smart power strip. This is what I am using on my seahorse tank. I use the amazon echo a lot in my house, it is pretty automatic to use smart switches for everything. I can program these to turn off groups of plugs with a voice command. So on my 120P I tell it to turn off the 'water change' and the filter, co2, and heater all turns off at the same time. Turning on the 'water change' turns them all back on again. I haven't gotten around to setting up the group yet for my seahorse tank, so currently they are just labeled, seahorse pump 1 and seahorse pump 2, etc.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

minorhero said:


> For a little more you can get a kasa smart power strip. This is what I am using on my seahorse tank. I use the amazon echo a lot in my house, it is pretty automatic to use smart switches for everything. I can program these to turn off groups of plugs with a voice command. So on my 120P I tell it to turn off the 'water change' and the filter, co2, and heater all turns off at the same time. Turning on the 'water change' turns them all back on again. I haven't gotten around to setting up the group yet for my seahorse tank, so currently they are just labeled, seahorse pump 1 and seahorse pump 2, etc.


Oh wow! This is perfect as we already have a ton of Kasa switches and outlets and an echo. So you can set each individual outlet as a separate device?


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Virtus said:


> Oh wow! This is perfect as we already have a ton of Kasa switches and outlets and an echo. So you can set each individual outlet as a separate device?


Correct. There are other smart power strips that can do this as well, but at last check (about 4 months ago) the kasa was the only one that had 6 controllable plugs. Most only have 4 controllable (some have a few extra that are not controllable). The kasa one also has individual manual switches for each plug (that little circle next to each plug is actually a button to turn that plug on/off).

On my seahorse tank I have each plug labeled and each is controllable for on/off with a voice command. So I could turn off the 'seahorse doser' or the 'seahorse temperature controller' etc. For my 120p I am using a different smart strip but I still labeled things I care about so I can turn off the 'amazon filter' or the 'amazon heater' etc. And because its a smart plug, I can set timers for anything.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

minorhero said:


> Correct. There are other smart power strips that can do this as well, but at last check (about 4 months ago) the kasa was the only one that had 6 controllable plugs. Most only have 4 controllable (some have a few extra that are not controllable). The kasa one also has individual manual switches for each plug (that little circle next to each plug is actually a button to turn that plug on/off).
> 
> On my seahorse tank I have each plug labeled and each is controllable for on/off with a voice command. So I could turn off the 'seahorse doser' or the 'seahorse temperature controller' etc. For my 120p I am using a different smart strip but I still labeled things I care about so I can turn off the 'amazon filter' or the 'amazon heater' etc. And because its a smart plug, I can set timers for anything.


Ordering one now!


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## CGY_Betta_Guy (Jul 26, 2010)

I do this as well. So convenient to be able to turn different groups of things on or off for feeding time or water changes.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

CGY_Betta_Guy said:


> I do this as well. So convenient to be able to turn different groups of things on or off for feeding time or water changes.


I'm way more excited about this than anyone should be about a power strip 😂


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Virtus said:


> I'm way more excited about this than anyone should be about a power strip 😂


Like my friend with her airfryer hahaha


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

jellopuddinpop said:


> I don’t know, I get a lot of fulfillment from accomplishing tasks. Call it an old school Puritan work ethic, or whatever you like, but I enjoy it.
> 
> As a side note, (this might be triggering to some), I feel like laziness breeds laziness, and depression breeds depression. There are a lot of folks with clinical, diagnosable depression, but there’s another significant number of people who are just depressed because of a lack of activity. Sometimes, forcing yourself to get up and go to the gym, mow the lawn, make your bed, clean the dishes, etc can improve mental health. This pandemic has been proof of this. Sooo manyyy peopleeee are now “clinically depressed” from sitting in the house for 2 years. These people don’t need pharmaceuticals or therapy, they need tasks, routine, structure, and activity. Just my $.02.


This is very true. There’s all sorts of people tho. My friend literally has to be productive or she crawls out of her skin. We went to a spa once and it was painful to watch lol. She was a step away from alphabetizing their towels.

And some depression is just chemical imbalances in the brain. My family has a lot of that. But keeping yourself going, staying productive, sure does help. It’s ok to slow down sometimes tho.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Had the adult version of Santa Claus arrive today (UPS) with a few boxes. 

First box I opened was the spider wood I ordered lol. Turned the light on and stuck it in the tank to get a sense of how it would look. Did some twisting and turning and took a few shots. They'll obviously change once I build up the base with bagged lava rock, but I really like the look of these branches. 



































I jammed both together just for the heck of it as well. 

It's going to be fun once I get the bagged lava rock in there, some aqua scaping rocks, and substrate and start tweaking everything. For example that branch on the right side, if you lift the back side higher, the branch totally looks different. 

Both sets of stainless pipes arrived today. Of course I ordered the wrong size on one set smh. I ordered 12/16 instead of 16/22. I did a return and ordered the correct size. I'm not setting the tank up this weekend or anything so no big deal, but I hate needing to return stuff. It's another trip to the UPS store that I didn't need to make. 

Aside from that replacement set of pipes, I believe I have all the equipment I'll need, for now. One of the boxes contains the reactor. Haven't opened anything else yet though.

I'm just trying to do my best to visualize both of these pieces of wood 6-8" higher. The pic with the two branches joined together is really appealing to me even though it's the exact opposite of what I have in mind.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

Yeah, I was going to say I really like that second picture with the branches together. Offset to the left side a bit would be -


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> Yeah, I was going to say I really like that second picture with the branches together. Offset to the left side a bit would be -
> View attachment 1041660


I definitely suspect I'll need to do some pruning once I get to actually scaping this tank. Some of the branches don't allow too much turning before you're hitting one of the sides or front/back of the tank. But I do like that pic too even though I didn't think I would. 

One thing I need to do is go pick up a 2X4' sheet of egg crate. I looked for it at HD last night but couldn't find it and for whatever reason I decided to not check my phone for the exact location in the store because I thought that I remembered seeing it wasn't in stock at the location I went to. But I'll be putting egg crate under the scape to protect the bottom glass panel. I'm kind of clumsy and if I get some bigger rocks, something dumb will happen lol.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> I definitely suspect I'll need to do some pruning once I get to actually scaping this tank. Some of the branches don't allow too much turning before you're hitting one of the sides or front/back of the tank. But I do like that pic too even though I didn't think I would.
> 
> One thing I need to do is go pick up a 2X4' sheet of egg crate. I looked for it at HD last night but couldn't find it and for whatever reason I decided to not check my phone for the exact location in the store because I thought that I remembered seeing it wasn't in stock at the location I went to. But I'll be putting egg crate under the scape to protect the bottom glass panel. I'm kind of clumsy and if I get some bigger rocks, something dumb will happen lol.


This is the stuff my store carries. 

If you have everything, get your substrate and hardscape in the tank and start playing around. Take your time with the hardscape. Even if it takes you a few weeks. Sleep on whatever design you think is final. 

You will probably never again get as good a time period to really play around with the hardscape as you will right now. (because next time you redo it, you will probably have fish and plants in buckets while you muck around with it)


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> This is the stuff my store carries.
> 
> If you have everything, get your substrate and hardscape in the tank and start playing around. Take your time with the hardscape. Even if it takes you a few weeks. Sleep on whatever design you think is final.
> 
> You will probably never again get as good a time period to really play around with the hardscape as you will right now. (because next time you redo it, you will probably have fish and plants in buckets while you muck around with it)


Yep, that's exactly what I was planning to get but couldn't find it just looking around. It was getting late so I didn't bother spending a whole lot of time looking for it. 

Walking around the garden section at HD I was pretty surprised to find the interesting selection of bags of rocks they have. They have river rock, but they're not large river rocks, more or less palm sized in big bags. They also have a few other types of gravel sized rocks that were interesting. Stuff I didn't expect to see. 

I agree 100% though. Even though I really want to set the tank up, the next expensive purchase will be substrate and rock. Then plants will be ridiculous because my intention is to fill this up as much as possible, and that will get spendy if I just use tissue culture plants. But the time between purchase substrate and rock, and then playing around with the scape will let me replenish my hobby fund lol. I really want to get this to a point where I'll enjoy it for longer than a year or two. I am definitely considering adding aquasoil into mesh bags rather than just dumping it in the tank. I figure that once the soil begins to degrade and isn't benefitting the plants any longer, I can just pull the old bags out and replace with fresh aqua soil. I think that'll give extra life to the scape.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> Yep, that's exactly what I was planning to get but couldn't find it just looking around. It was getting late so I didn't bother spending a whole lot of time looking for it.
> 
> Walking around the garden section at HD I was pretty surprised to find the interesting selection of bags of rocks they have. They have river rock, but they're not large river rocks, more or less palm sized in big bags. They also have a few other types of gravel sized rocks that were interesting. Stuff I didn't expect to see.
> 
> I agree 100% though. Even though I really want to set the tank up, the next expensive purchase will be substrate and rock. Then plants will be ridiculous because my intention is to fill this up as much as possible, and that will get spendy if I just use tissue culture plants. But the time between purchase substrate and rock, and then playing around with the scape will let me replenish my hobby fund lol. I really want to get this to a point where I'll enjoy it for longer than a year or two. I am definitely considering adding aquasoil into mesh bags rather than just dumping it in the tank. I figure that once the soil begins to degrade and isn't benefitting the plants any longer, I can just pull the old bags out and replace with fresh aqua soil. I think that'll give extra life to the scape.


Or you could save yourself a hundred or more dollars and skip the aquasoil 

My 120P doesn't have a spec of aquasoil in the tank, just sand. Works pretty well. Liquid ferts is all you need.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> Or you could save yourself a hundred or more dollars and skip the aquasoil
> 
> My 120P doesn't have a spec of aquasoil in the tank, just sand. Works pretty well. Liquid ferts is all you need.


I had always meant to ask you about that but always forgot to.

One of the reasons I set up a nano was to experiment with aquasoil since it wasn't really around back when I had my last planted tank. When I began my research prior to setting up that nano it just seemed like it was a universal to just use aquasoil.

I'm glad you brought this up because these are my observations, albeit over a very short period of time that can probably be explained away by the "plants getting used to my parameters".

When I set the nano up, I used a whole bag of aqua soil...specifically the 8 lbs bag of Fluval Stratum.

Planted everything, and saw minimal growth, especially from the dwarf hair grass. It literally did not grow at all for the first month.

I was tediously dosing all of the Seachem ferts during this time. I switched to EI and that's when I began seeing a lot heavier growth. This is about the time I added a tissue culture of H. Pinatifida. That plant has basically turned into a noxious weed at this point with how fast it has overtaken the tank. I need to trim it heavily this weekend when I do my WC. The dwarf hair grass has also started sending out runners. Basically a month with zero runners with the Seachem ferts, to switching to EI and seeing runners within a couple weeks.

I think the only benefit the soil has added is buffering the PH, KH, and GH and keeping it lower than my tap water. Eventually though I'll have my RODI hooked up and will be remineralizing that so buffering capabilities kind of seem pointless.

I've read up on the ADA method quite a bit. It seems that their fertilization method is extremely lean, which seems like it requires aquasoil. Since I'm planning on doing the EI method with this tank also, perhaps the aquasoil would just be a waste of money?

Would you agree with this? Just wondering if this is your understanding of it as well. I have just been running with the assumption that you need aquasoil for a high tech tank.

ETA: if I don't need aquasoil, then that saves me at least $250 lol. I was figuring at least 5 of the largest bags of Stratum, possibly 1-2 more. That's like 25+ tissue culture plants lol


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Sooooooooooooo

Does aquasoil work? Sure it works. It definitely works. Thousands of tanks are using it with great results.

BUT

Sand also works. Why? Because plants don't care a lot about whether you are using compressed clay or sand so long as you have nutrients they need. Aquasoil 'in theory' can store fertilizer and release it over time. That's the main selling point for aquasoil. The PH/gh buffer works until its full and then stops working. Meaning if you are relying on that to keep your tank a certain ph /hardness level you are bound for disappointment. How quickly it stops working depends on how hard your water is and how much aquasoil you are using.

The downside to aquasoil is expense, and aesthetics. It works its way to the surface and looks very unnatural in my opinion. 

I personally won't put it in another aquarium and I regret that its currently in 2 of my 3 tanks leftover from a time I was using it.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> Sooooooooooooo
> 
> Does aquasoil work? Sure it works. It definitely works. Thousands of tanks are using it with great results.
> 
> ...


The little clay balls look anything but natural lol. That's my one complaint about it. I like natural looking tanks and looking at aquasoil has taken some time to get used to. 

I guess what I'm taking from our discussion is that aquasoil is pointless if you're using EI since we're technically overdosing ferts and the plants will get them from the water column. 

I think this is what I've found with my nano. The only change I've made is my method of fertilization and growth is crazy. Even my Fissidens Fontanus, which looked ugly for a month has put on bright green growth that looks great. It was happening much more slowly when I was just using the Seachem ferts which I believe falls into the lean method if you follow their spreadsheet and directions. 

While I may not use pool filter sand, I think you've swayed me away from using aquasoil. I'm going to have to look at the CaribSea recommendations from earlier in the thread and pick one I like. I like sand, but I like sand that's a little heavier grained than PFS. 

Thanks for the push lol! I get fixated on ideas sometimes and thankfully I don't have cognitive dissonance where I'd argue the benefits of aquasoil just to make myself feel better about the direction I want to go in lol. If someone makes a logical point, then it's worth exploring. So no aquasoil will be used in this build. 

You just saved me enough money to probably plant half of this tank 😂


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Any guesstimates as to how many pounds of sand I’ll need? I figure at least 100lbs but I imagine I’ll likely be way off. The torpedo beach sand from CaribSea is really appealing.

Edit: after looking at the torpedo beach sand, tell me how that’s not regular pool filter sand given a sexier name and packaged. I’m guessing 3 bags of HTH should be good.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> Any guesstimates as to how many pounds of sand I’ll need? I figure at least 100lbs but I imagine I’ll likely be way off. The torpedo beach sand from CaribSea is really appealing.
> 
> Edit: after looking at the torpedo beach sand, tell me how that’s not regular pool filter sand given a sexier name and packaged. I’m guessing 3 bags of HTH should be good.


How much you use will depend on how you do your aquascape. If you are just putting down 2 inches throughout then 3 bags will be fine. If you want a hill or a valley between two built up sides etc, then it can easily be more. I think I have five 50 lb bags in my 120p and I was using lava rock to take up space in the back.

I also recommend using some small stones with the sand to break up the coloring a bit. A few handfuls is all you need. I used safe-t-sorb in my 120p for this purpose. In my bookshelf newt tank I used some fine natural gravel I bought at PetSmart.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> How much you use will depend on how you do your aquascape. If you are just putting down 2 inches throughout then 3 bags will be fine. If you want a hill or a valley between two built up sides etc, then it can easily be more. I think I have 5 bags in my 120p and I was using lava rock to take up space in the back.


Wow, I can’t believe you have 5 bags in there! I’ll probably pick up 5-6 bags and if I need more it’s a 10 minute drive. To vary the grain size I was considering also buying two 20 lbs bags of that CaribSea sand and mixing it in.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I’m also considering taking whatever rock I use for the scape, smashing a piece to bits and then using that to randomly scatter around to make it look more natural.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> Wow, I can’t believe you have 5 bags in there! I’ll probably pick up 5-6 bags and if I need more it’s a 10 minute drive. To vary the grain size I was considering also buying two 20 lbs bags of that CaribSea sand and mixing it in.


The pictures don't really give it good scale but I have a lot built up in the back.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> I’m also considering taking whatever rock I use for the scape, smashing a piece to bits and then using that to randomly scatter around to make it look more natural.


Depends on the rock. A lot of rocks look terrible all smashed up. Better if you can use smaller rocks even if they are not the exact same type, similar colors are usually enough. But not all rocks have this problem.

For me it's super easy because I get my rocks from the wild so if I need some pebbles I walk outside and pick some up.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

I'm also surprised you have 250lbs in your 120P @minorhero.

I've got 100lbs in my 75g but it's mostly flat. I will say the HTH went further than I thought it would. I bought 3 bags but only used 2 for the coverage I wanted.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Virtus said:


> I'm also surprised you have 250lbs in your 120P @minorhero.
> 
> I've got 100lbs in my 75g but it's mostly flat. I will say the HTH went further than I thought it would. I bought 3 bags but only used 2 for the coverage I wanted.


View this morning from the side:










Its that depth all the way across. Even with lava rock back there there is a lot of sand heh. I was surprised I needed that many bags as well. I originally bought 4 and had to go back and buy 2 more (only used one of those) to finish it up.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

minorhero said:


> View this morning from the side:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yep, that explains it ha! Mine at it's deepest is probably only a little higher than the very front of your tank.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I think I've settled on a plan.

I'm going to pick up 5-6 bags of sand. In addition to those bags of PFS, I'm going to pick up two 20lbs bags of the CaribSea torpedo beach sand. I was looking really closely at the grains and the caribsea sand is different, slightly, but the most noticeable thing is the varying grain sizes. The plan will be to add the PFS into the tank first, get it built up most of the way, then mix in the caribsea sand.

On Saturday I need to take a ride out to the hardwood store and the landscaping place is within 5 minutes of there so I'm going to stop by there to see what kind of rock they have.

If I'm not able to find any interesting rock there, Sunday I'll take a ride over to the LFS and see what they have available. The one closest to me is where I picked my dragon stone up from, and I remember him having some really big rocks. But they were way too big for my nano so I don't recall the actual size of them.

I'd love to get what I need as far as substrate and rock as soon as possible so that I can start playing around with scapes.

I received an update on my puppy yesterday. As predicted, when I dropped him off on Monday he was stressed out the whole day because he realized I left. But since then he's settled in and has been having a ton of fun and beginning to pick up on what he's being taught. They sent some pics and he indeed looks like he's having a blast, even meeting other dogs and playing with them. My buddy who is doing the training uses his own pack to train client's dogs. His pack consists of dogs that were scheduled to be euthanized for behavioral issues, mostly highly aggressive issues. Now they're some of the most well behaved dogs. I think the thing that surprised me the most is how busy he is. There were a lot more dogs in the pics than just his pack. Apparently being a good dog trainer is lucrative work. The breed he sees the most of in his training facility.....various forms of "doodles".

Anyhow, that's where things stand right now. I probably won't have time to work on doors, trim, or messing around with the position of the equipment inside the stand until next week or next weekend. I have the trim for the stand, but don't have material for the doors yet. I'll likely pick that up Saturday. Tonight I'll do some measurements and draw out a plan for the doors.

ETA: forgot to mention the trim I bought. So the other day when I went to HD and couldn't find the egg crate, I picked up some oak quarter round for the bottom of the stand. My plan is after staining all the trim, to mount that first, add the outside corner moulding to the corners of the stand, and then I was kind of stuck because I wasn't sure how to tie that corner moulding into the top. Because of my screw up with the thickness of the plywood on the front, I basically have no overhang on the butcher block in the front. Basically that corner moulding would stick out further than the butcher block, at least in the front. I began looking at various types of oak trim and what I had in mind while looking is something that is thin on one edge, but then thicker on the other edge. The thin edge would be mounted flush with the bottom edge of the butcher block, and the thicker edge would meet up with the corner moulding. The issue was crown is all pretty wide....I think the narrowest piece of crown I found was 2.5" which would be a bit too wide, leaving only a narrow strip of the plywood between that and the doors. I ran into the moulding you use for doorways. I can't remember the exact name for it, but it's what the door stops against in a door casing. I bought that because it fit exactly what I had in mind, and was well under 2" in width.

One more thing I forgot to add...

The NilocG advanced reactor arrived yesterday and I had a chance to look it over last night. Build quality is excellent. There are two things I found really interesting about it. The way they get the tubing into the reactor is by using a fitting that I honestly am not sure the name of, but it's a 90 with an additional threaded port coming out of one side. They threaded in a cable gland the size of the CO2 tubing into that port. You basically position the tubing where you want it, and then tighten down on the cable gland nut. The second thing I found interesting is the instructions they provided. They don't say how to position the tubing inside the reactor....like closer to where the water enters the reactor, the middle, bottom, etc. What really confused me is that they wrote that for the first 24 hours, the valve should be fully shut. After 24 hours if I see that the CO2 is being pushed out of the bottom, only then should I start adjusting the bypass valve. This doesn't make sense to me. What exactly changes after 24 hours that you wouldn't see almost immediately? I'm assuming they're referring to the build up of a CO2 bubble in the reactor. That's the only thing that makes sense. But given the flow that's going to be going through this reactor, there's no way CO2 won't be immediately blown out of the bottom of the reactor and directly into the aquarium. Anyhow, aside from those things I'm pretty happy with the reactor. My plan was to copy their reactor, but after spending a few minutes trying to find that weird elbow fitting I figured I'd spend a lot of time searching, effectively wasting a lot of time.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> I think I've settled on a plan.
> 
> I'm going to pick up 5-6 bags of sand. In addition to those bags of PFS, I'm going to pick up two 20lbs bags of the CaribSea torpedo beach sand. I was looking really closely at the grains and the caribsea sand is different, slightly, but the most noticeable thing is the varying grain sizes. The plan will be to add the PFS into the tank first, get it built up most of the way, then mix in the caribsea sand.
> 
> ...


Looking forward to seeing it all set-up! Yeah, doesn't really make sense to me either why you would have to wait 24 hours before utilizing the bypass. As far as the CO2 tubing the only thing I can add is that have it positioned at the halfway point in the product photos. Ultimately as long as you have full dissolution it probably doesn't matter, just another way to fine tune it vs the bypass valve.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> Looking forward to seeing it all set-up! Yeah, doesn't really make sense to me either why you would have to wait 24 hours before utilizing the bypass. As far as the CO2 tubing the only thing I can add is that have it positioned at the halfway point in the product photos. Ultimately as long as you have full dissolution it probably doesn't matter, just another way to fine tune it vs the bypass valve.


I definitely had that "huh" look on my face when I read that in their instructions. This being my first CO2 reactor, it's definitely less complicated than a calcium reactor. I'm sure it should be fairly straightforward to tweak it until it settles itself. 

I read somewhere on here that you basically want the bubbles to be suspended in the flow. So if they get blown out of the bottom, tweak the bypass valve a bit and see what effect that has, then tweak as needed. I'm sure this will be like a week long process though lol.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

Unless that reactor has a pressure release valve, the 24hr instruction is probably to speed up the process of purging the air that's trapped in there when you first install. I always buy housings with pressure release valves and I always install a ball valve downstream from the reactor so that I can close that ball valve and depress the pressure release to instantly purge all the gas out of the reactor. If you don't have that, you can just wait for the air to dissolve and escape (which is a loud and lengthy process), or you can turn the reactor upside down while the system is running.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> Unless that reactor has a pressure release valve, the 24hr instruction is probably to speed up the process of purging the air that's trapped in there when you first install. I always buy housings with pressure release valves and I always install a ball valve downstream from the reactor so that I can close that ball valve and depress the pressure release to instantly purge all the gas out of the reactor. If you don't have that, you can just wait for the air to dissolve and escape (which is a loud and lengthy process), or you can turn the reactor upside down while the system is running.


Ahh, now that makes complete sense. 

I don’t think there’s a pressure relief valve on this reactor so I’ll probably need to manually purge it from time to time.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

EmotionalFescue said:


> Unless that reactor has a pressure release valve, the 24hr instruction is probably to speed up the process of purging the air that's trapped in there when you first install. I always buy housings with pressure release valves and I always install a ball valve downstream from the reactor so that I can close that ball valve and depress the pressure release to instantly purge all the gas out of the reactor. If you don't have that, you can just wait for the air to dissolve and escape (which is a loud and lengthy process), or you can turn the reactor upside down while the system is running.


I understood none of this but it sounds incredibly cool.

On the dog training, that’s amazing what your friend does, and I’m not even a little surprised he’s in demand. So many people have no idea how to handle their dogs and so often dogs get blamed for ‘bad behavior’ when it’s the humans that have failed.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

LidijaPN said:


> I understood none of this but it sounds incredibly cool.
> 
> On the dog training, that’s amazing what your friend does, and I’m not even a little surprised he’s in demand. So many people have no idea how to handle their dogs and so often dogs get blamed for ‘bad behavior’ when it’s the humans that have failed.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Virtus said:


>


Ahahhaahhahaahhaha omg why is it so accurate 😂😂😂

This is why I don’t want to do CO2 lol. Literally all gear talk sounds exactly like this to me 😅


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## Chucker (Apr 9, 2011)

Heheheh, some of the equipment my company manufactures uses Rockwell and A&B components. But sadly, no retro encabulators.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

This is crazy, but I've been trying to find HTH pool filter sand locally, and can't find it in stock anywhere. I can do a ship to store at HD, but the price is obnoxious. 

My local Menards has a different brand of pool filter sand and it's very inexpensive, like $7-8 for 50lbs bags. Has anyone used this brand of sand before? The best part is I was there last night and they had a whole pallet of it.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> This is crazy, but I've been trying to find HTH pool filter sand locally, and can't find it in stock anywhere. I can do a ship to store at HD, but the price is obnoxious.
> 
> My local Menards has a different brand of pool filter sand and it's very inexpensive, like $7-8 for 50lbs bags. Has anyone used this brand of sand before? The best part is I was there last night and they had a whole pallet of it.


I'm assuming you don't have an Ace Hardware then? That's where I got HTH.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> I'm assuming you don't have an Ace Hardware then? That's where I got HTH.


I can, but I can buy 3 bags of the stuff from Menards for what they're charging for one bag of HTH.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> I can, but I can buy 3 bags of the stuff from Menards for what they're charging for one bag of HTH.


For the price you could try the Menards sand and if you end up not liking you're not out much. Either way you'll still save a ton vs using aquasoil ha.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> For the price you could try the Menards sand and if you end up not liking you're not out much. Either way you'll still save a ton vs using aquasoil ha.


Agreed. I actually saw a video of someone with that Menards sand and I think the thing I notice most different is that the grain sizes are all different...some small, some larger, etc. HTH seems very uniform which is one of the reasons I was considering buying a couple 20 lbs bags of CaribSea to mix in. If the grain sizes are as varied as I saw, then I won't need to get any of the other sand to mix in.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

Sounds like it might be perfect for you then. Can't beat the price for sure.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

I've been using the Lighthouse brand of PFS. I usually get it at Leslies Pool Supply.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Looks like I'm stuck with dragon stone. 

I went to 3 different landscape supply stores and all of the big stones they had were either not what I want, or they had the look of seiryu and would ultimately effect the water parameters. I added some drops of vinegar and those stones all began bubbling. 

It was disappointing because bulk rock at these places was ridiculously inexpensive. 

In a couple weeks I'll place an order for a 44 lbs box of "large" dragon stone and see what I get. Hopefully it'll be enough to scape one side of the tank and then I can just order another similar box unless I find some stone at the LFS nearest to me. 

I'd probably order stone now but couldn't believe how much trim just cost me. Since about June last year the price of primed pine trim has gone up 25%. I really regret not finishing up my hallway last year. What would have costed another $150 just cost $200 smh. 

The weather thwarted my plans for doing the trim today because it's raining on and off all day. A garage will be my next big investment on the house so leaving a miter and table saw outside in the rain isn't really an option. I'll be focused on patching and painting today instead. Sunny day tomorrow so I'll be able to get the miter saw and table saws outside and start cutting and mounting trim. Since I'll have those out I can spend time and get all the trim pieces for my stand cut. 

I phoned the hardwood store today and they have red oak S4S in stock. I think I'll do 3/4 X 3" for the doors. They'll actually cut a rabbit in the wood for me at no charge so I'll probably just have them do it. If not I can just cut a rabbit on the table saw next weekend. Rather than mitering the frame together I think I'll just butt the sides up to the top and bottom. If anyone knows of a decent doweling jig, I'd appreciate it. I don't have a biscuit or domino joiner so I'll need to use dowels.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> In a couple weeks I'll place an order for a 44 lbs box of "large" dragon stone and see what I get. Hopefully it'll be enough to scape one side of the tank and then I can just order another similar box unless I find some stone at the LFS nearest to me.


If the stone is smaller than expected you can do the popular aquascaper trick where you take smaller stones and use superglue and either cigarette filters(you can buy them in bulk...who knew) or cotton facial pads to glue them together to form larger structures. It seems to be very effective. If done properly you cannot tell that it is multiple rocks. It is also very sturdy.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> If the stone is smaller than expected you can do the popular aquascaper trick where you take smaller stones and use superglue and either cigarette filters(you can buy them in bulk...who knew) or cotton facial pads to glue them together to form larger structures. It seems to be very effective. If done properly you cannot tell that it is multiple rocks. It is also very sturdy.


One of the things we did with reef scapes back in the day was if you wanted to get crazy, you'd drill the rock and use acrylic rods and aquarium safe epoxy. I may need to experiment with the cigarette filters and superglue. That's definitely something new. I'll definitely just buy bulk cigarette filters rather than cigarettes. I'll end up smoking the cigarettes because I have no willpower....I gave them up about 10 years ago lol.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

One would think that after spending April through August of last year doing home renovations that I'd have at least somewhat gotten better with estimating how long projects would take. 

My main goal these two weeks was to get my hallway completely redone to take advantage of my puppy being gone. What I thought would take me a couple hours yesterday took me 8 hours. That includes a trip to the hardwood shop to buy the rest of the trim that I needed. What I did yesterday accounted for 10% of what I need to do. I can probably, realistically get another 40% of the work done today. That leaves smaller bit sized pieces I can do after work the rest of the week until I pick my dog up on Friday after work. 

The only thing I definitely won't be able to finish is painting the actual walls, which is kind of why I started this project lol. You can't really mask trim that you just painted, unless its for a really short period of time. Painting the walls isn't going to be fast because of the shape of the hallway. 

Anyhow, since I'll have the miter saw outside, I'm going to take some time to cut the trim pieces of my stand. I won't install them just yet since they need to be stained, but at least they'll be cut. 

I should have just paid someone to do all this work, but if it's something I can do well, I always want to do it myself. 

But the next week will just be focusing on getting as much of this work done as I can before Friday. 

Here's a pic of my pup and the girlfriend he met at training. My buddy said that the two of them pair up, ignore the other dogs while outside during their free time to roam and they just play fight the entire time lol. As you can see he looks quite happy lol.


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## RodgerCPT (11 mo ago)

There is a 1 2 3 rule in renovation. 1 you decide to do it. 2 it takes twice as long as planed and 3 it costs 3 x as much as estimated.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

All the trim for my home project has been cut and installed. I finished that up after work yesterday. Since I had the miter saw outside I also took some time and cut all of the trim pieces for my stand. Once they're stained and I've poly'd them, they'll be installed. I'm hoping I'll be able to get to that this weekend, but chances are I won't. One of the problems created by my home renovation project is a massive mess in my laundry room from moving things around. That all needs to be cleaned and organized which I'll probably do this weekend. Once that's done I'll have room to set up a couple sawhorses and start staining. 

I believe the second set of lily pipes arrives today. 

My goal the rest of this week is to remove caulk from the existing trim, mask the carpet so that I can paint the existing trim, patch the nail holes in the new trim, mask the floors, prime and paint the new trim. I'll have to caulk everything, and then prime and paint one side of one door and the casing, then prime and paint one whole door and the casing for it. I'm hoping between today and tomorrow I can get all the trim painting and caulking done and then focus on painting those doors and casings Thursday. I'm strategically going to focus on the areas I can't prevent my dog from accessing and leaving the area where I can gate him off in the event I don't get as much done as I hope. 

What a pain. It would be nice to have a day off but work has been crazy the last couple weeks.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I actually made some decent progress the last few days. The only thing I haven't been able to do is caulk around some of the new trim in an area I can't keep the dog out of. I may try to do that around lunch today because I won't be back until 8pm or so with the dog after picking him up and doing my final training session with him. That should give it enough time to solidify where he can't lick it or eat it lol.

Anyhow, with most of the work done, after I clean up this weekend I can transition back to the tank. Today I took a chance and ordered a 44 lbs box of dragon stone from SR Aquaristik and chose the large stones. I imagine that should at least let me scape half the tank. If the stones are really nice and the right size, I might order a second box. I do plan on hitting up an LFS next weekend to see what they have. The one thing I think I did right is I bought ridiculously large pieces of spider wood so that should cut down on the amount of dragon stone I actually need to come up with a halfway decent scape. 

The expenses of the tank and the project I'm in the middle of in my house really set my discretionary funds back so I'm going to purposely slow down this build and really focus on the scape. I'll also focus on doors for the stand. I've drawn up an idea and just need the material now. I really, really want to get this tank wet but I realized that I was going more quickly than I planned initially.

I did install an LED backlight on top of the butcher block behind the tank. Didn't think I'd like it, but it looks pretty awesome lol. I'm sure it'll look different once the tank is filled but it'll add some interesting mood lighting at night after the lights go out.

I already have lava rock so once that dragon stone arrives I'll figure out which side the pieces fit best on and then build up the base with bagged lava rock. I'll obviously post pics once the rock arrives.

I did find HTH locally. It's crazy how the cheapest I've found it is still 2X the price of the stuff at Menards. Sand will probably be last on the list of stuff to purchase.

I'll probably start playing around with organization under the stand. I haven't quite figured out the best way to position everything. My goal is to avoid having to move things when I need to maintain the canister filters. I'll get pics up of that process as well.

ETA: well, turns out I don't have to pick my pup up today. My buddy emailed me asking if I wouldn't mind him pushing my training and pickup to tomorrow afternoon. He wants to do more offsite training with my dog by taking advantage of the Saturday crowds out shopping. That gives me more time to finish more of the work that I need to do.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I found HTH locally and the price wasn't as crazy as I've seen it at other stores. Meijer has HTH for $15.99 a bag. I ordered 5 bags and pick it up tomorrow morning. 

I figure if I need another bag I can take a run over to Ace and pay $10 more per bag. If it turns out that I need well more than a bag or two I'll just place another order from Meijer. 

I initially had 8 bags in the cart but started thinking about what I have in mind for my scape, and the bagged lava rock is going to take up a lot of space, along with the dragon stone and spider wood so I reduced my order to 5 bags. 

I'm assuming I'll need to rinse this stuff prior to putting it in the tank? I don't mind rinsing, but just didn't want to waste time rinsing unnecessarily.

You won't believe this but the rock I ordered earlier today will be delivered tomorrow! I'll definitely be opening it up tomorrow to have a look when it arrives.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> I found HTH locally and the price wasn't as crazy as I've seen it at other stores. Meijer has HTH for $15.99 a bag. I ordered 5 bags and pick it up tomorrow morning.
> 
> I figure if I need another bag I can take a run over to Ace and pay $10 more per bag. If it turns out that I need well more than a bag or two I'll just place another order from Meijer.
> 
> ...


Can't wait to see everything come together. I didn't rinse my HTH and didn't have any issues.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> Can't wait to see everything come together. I didn't rinse my HTH and didn't have any issues.


Awesome, that'll make it a lot easier to manage once I play around with the scape. Wet sand will eventually dry, but if I don't have to deal with rinsing then that would be awesome.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Finally had a chance last night to open the box of dragon stone that I received on Saturday. 

To say I was shocked at what I received is an understatement. There are 6-7 very large stones. I didn’t dig around a whole lot but I’m not sure there are any smaller stones. Each stone is packaged in cellophane which was unexpected. 

I’d say that the stones are anywhere between 10-12” in length, maybe 3-4”X3-6”. 

I’ll try to lay them all out later tonight and get a pic. I should be able to find some time this week to play around with them inside the tank. Once I see what I’ve got, I’ll be able to figure out what I need to complete the scape. 

I’ll for sure need some smaller stones and some that are medium sized, but likely not another whole box. 44 lbs was way more than I thought it would be.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> Finally had a chance last night to open the box of dragon stone that I received on Saturday.
> 
> To say I was shocked at what I received is an understatement. There are 6-7 very large stones. I didn’t dig around a whole lot but I’m not sure there are any smaller stones. Each stone is packaged in cellophane which was unexpected.
> 
> ...


Can't wait to see pictures! I just sent you a link for a good source for smaller and slightly less expensive dragon stone.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> Can't wait to see pictures! I just sent you a link for a good source for smaller and slightly less expensive dragon stone.


Thanks, just replied. 

But here is a pic of the rocks still in the box. I'll remove them tonight and lay them out on my coffee table and get a pic.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

Dragon Stone can be easily broken with a hammer and chisel. You can always break a couple of them in half to get some smaller stones.

I should add... those stones will be absolutely packed with clay. Once you clean out all of the clay, the true texture shows through.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> Dragon Stone can be easily broken with a hammer and chisel. You can always break a couple of them in half to get some smaller stones.


Absolutely, that's one of the reasons I went with dragon stone, aside from how they look. That big fat piece at the bottom of my pic will be one of the most likely candidates to get the hammer and chisel treatment. Rocks shaped like that are hard to scape with. I'll need to see though once I get everything in the tank. 

@Virtus sent me a link to another seller on Etsy and he recommended that I just get a 20 lbs box. I ordered it so hopefully it'll arrive before the weekend. We're supposed to get rain on Saturday so that will give me time to play around in the tank.


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## Bootsy (Jul 4, 2021)

jellopuddinpop said:


> should add... those stones will be absolutely packed with clay. Once you clean out all of the clay, the true texture shows through.


This x 100. You will wonder at some point whether there’s anything but clay in there. It was a real pain to get them clean, but I love the look.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Bootsy said:


> This x 100. You will wonder at some point whether there’s anything but clay in there. It was a real pain to get them clean, but I love the look.


I was able to experience that first hand with the small amount of dragon stone in my nano tank lol. I almost turned into Curly from the Three Stooges and had a meltdown because I kept hosing it down and it continually shed clay lol.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

I cleaned mine out with my wife's Waterpic. She wasn't happy about it.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

The 20lbs of dragon stone I ordered from Etsy just arrived a few minutes ago. 

Again I'm surprised by the amount of stone I actually received. There are a few pieces I'd consider medium, and a few small stones. 2 of the pieces are 10" long roughly. I imagine I'll need a handful from the LFS, but I'll have time this weekend to rinse the rocks and then play around with the scape. 










Aside from this, I'm not expecting any other packages for this tank for a while. I have yet to stain the trim but plan on getting that done this weekend as well. I either need to buy or borrow a slightly smaller gauge nail gun. I have a 15 gauge and it'll leave holes that are a bit too large. An 18 gauge would be much better. Hopefully one of my buddies has one laying around that I can use. 

I may also run over to the hardwood store to pick up some red oak for the doors. I really don't want this tank up and running without doors on the stand keeping the noise to a minimum. 

Definitely excited though! I'll be outside after work to fertilize my lawn. Having done nothing but mow since I bought the house last July, I'm fairly ignorant of how to turn a weed filled lawn into a well manicured one, but I have a Scott's triple something or other fertilizer so once I weigh out what I need for the two sections of lawn, I'll apply it tonight. We're supposed to start seeing rain tomorrow night so I really want to apply it 24 hours before that happens. Since I'll be outside I'm going to start hosing down this rock so that it's ready to go into the tank and stay there until it's ready to get it filled and running. I'll get a pic of all the rock together once it's all clean.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Thassalottarock!! 

I hate when they cut them flat on two sides, like tree stumps.... like what do I do with that... I really like the shard-like chunks.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> Thassalottarock!!
> 
> I hate when they cut them flat on two sides, like tree stumps.... like what do I do with that... I really like the shard-like chunks.


That was my first thought when I saw that piece. The only way I can see using it is having another larger rock on top with the bottom covered by sand and plants, or taking a hammer and chisel to it but even then you're still left with a flat side. 

The shard-like chunks are my favorite. That shape really gives you a lot of flexibility with your scapes. It's the boulders and the above type where you're like, what the heck do I do with this lol. 

I'm actually pleasantly surprised with the sizes of the rocks in comparison to the weight. The first order and second order together seem like more weight than they actually are. 

I'm looking forward to it all being clean so that I can see what I have.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Alright, just finished hosing all the rock down. 

There are chances of showers and thunderstorms today, but it's also party cloudy so the sun keeps peeking out for 15-30 minutes at a time. As long as the rock dries off, I may be able to start messing around with the scape this evening. 

But very impressed with the rock. A lot of red, oranges, and even greens in these rocks. Here they are all laid out while drying.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Had a couple setbacks this weekend. I lucked out with the weather on Saturday and the rock was able to dry sufficiently. 

I began doing some yard work and around 6pm I decided to start filling up filter bags with lava rock and rinsing them down. I filled up 10 5.5X8" bags, hosed them down and let them dry in the sun. 

Just before sunset I went out and grabbed them. I figured I wouldn't need any more than 10 full bags. Boy was I wrong lol. In filling those 10 bags, I had maybe 3 bags worth of lava rock left. I decided to call it a night. 

The first part of yesterday was filled with more yard work. Around 2pm I took a ride to HD to pick up a couple more bags of lava rock. I also ordered another 20 filter bags. I still have 10 more here. If you've ever gone to an HD in spring on the weekend, you'll know what I mean but I'm not doing that again. WAY too many people there. I don't particularly avoid crowds, but crowds do make the shopping trip take way longer than it needs to. 

Anyway got back home and unloaded the bags. I was kind of tired so I took a nap lol. I expect the rest of the filter bags today so after work I'll fill up more bags and hose them down. 

My plan is to get the base built up in the tank with the bags of lava rock, and then dump the sand in. I built one side up as best I could so that I could elevate one of the branches and start putting rock in the tank but I think it would be easier if all the sand was in the tank. Before I dump the sand in, since the biggest pieces of hardscape are the spider wood, I really need to figure out their positioning before getting any of the rock in the tank. 

I have a feeling I'll be playing with the scape for a while. I'll post pics once I find ideas that seem to work.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

So I finished washing the lava rock after bagging it. I wound up with 30 bags. They were mostly dry so I did a fairly even build up in the tank. 

Out of curiosity I decided to flip the original position of the two branches. 

What does everyone think about the positioning of the spider wood? It honestly took me by surprise since I never considered moving them this way.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

I like it better. Definitely an improvement. 

But if at all possible, moving them so the opening between them is not the center of the tank but a bit off to one side, I think they would look even better. To make it fit you would likely need to move one forward and twist it sideways a bit. 

Just my 2 cents


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Agreed with @minorhero on both counts. Looks cool already! A little off center would be sweet. And you did get some super handsome rock!! I’d be tempted to sort by color and attempt a gradient.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> I like it better. Definitely an improvement.
> 
> But if at all possible, moving them so the opening between them is not the center of the tank but a bit off to one side, I think they would look even better. To make it fit you would likely need to move one forward and twist it sideways a bit.
> 
> Just my 2 cents


I'm definitely limited by the actual spider wood, unless I start cutting. The left piece is being held from rotating the right side towards the back by the highest branch which is hitting the back of the tank. 

I kind of jostled everything around a bit, including moving the right piece over to the left a bit more, and the left piece over as much as possible while still leaving some room to clean the glass. 

It looks like it's now off center, but it's definitely not approaching the rule of thirds. This look any better or would I need to resort to cutting anything that keeps me away from moving it over to the left more?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> Agreed with @minorhero on both counts. Looks cool already! A little off center would be sweet. And you did get some super handsome rock!! I’d be tempted to sort by color and attempt a gradient.


Thanks, and that would definitely be cool, but something that would likely drive me insane trying to accomplish lol. 

My thoughts on the rock are to have the largest pieces in front, then they get smaller and smaller as they head towards the back of the tank. Not all the front pieces will be huge just because I don't think they'll fit in without blocking a couple branches of the spider wood that I definitely want to see. 

Next step after I'm happy with the spider wood is to fill the tank with about 3-4 bags of sand and see what it looks like. Once that's in there I can start playing around with the rocks since they'll have some support by sticking them into the sand.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Can’t wait to see. This stage is so fun!!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> Can’t wait to see. This stage is so fun!!


I'm dying to get it filled but doing my best to not get too crazy. I'm looking forward to being happy with the scape and then planning the plant layout. I just have to remember to not cover all of the hardscape this time lol.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

Looks great! Can’t wait to watch it all come together.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

Scape is looking awesome!


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## Katmanreef (Jul 6, 2017)

The Driftwood pieces are amazing!


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> I'm definitely limited by the actual spider wood, unless I start cutting. The left piece is being held from rotating the right side towards the back by the highest branch which is hitting the back of the tank.
> 
> I kind of jostled everything around a bit, including moving the right piece over to the left a bit more, and the left piece over as much as possible while still leaving some room to clean the glass.
> 
> ...


I personally wouldn't cut it unless I was sure I would like it more. Getting wood to fit inside a glass box is a pain


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Personally I think the rule of thirds is more forgiving with a two-island scape. The main branch on the left is of center and you could add a rock or move a rock to extend one of the islands to "move" the open-area a bit. Looks good, make sure you can clean the glass all the way around it.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

It looks great!!!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Thanks everyone, I really lucked out finding these two pieces. 

Tonight the plan is to make sure I'm good with the positioning and the bags of lava rock, then I'll take about 3-4 bags of the sand and dump them in. Once the sand is in there I can start playing around with the dragon stone. 

I'm not sure if the stone I have will be enough, although it sure seems like it. I can take a ride to the LFS if need be to get more. 

Once the rock is in place, I'll take the remaining bag/s of sand and dump them in. Once that's all done I'll see if I need another bag or two of sand. Just judging by the height of the lava rock, I'm thinking 5 bags won't be enough. 

After this is all done I'll need to start playing around inside the stand to get things mounted into position, holes drilled for filter tubes and power, and make sure that everything is easy to maintain. 

I still need to stain the trim pieces, mount them, and then buy wood for the doors, stain the wood, build and mount. 

I'll probably take a day after work this week to start staining the trim pieces. Maybe Saturday I'll run over to the hardwood place to pick up what I need for the doors. 

One of the things I've been debating is if I should fill the tank, cycle it, then drain the water as much as possible and add plants. Since I'm going with mostly tissue cultures I'd love to do whatever I can to minimize losses.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

After my latest tank I vote to begin cycling as soon as you're happy with the hardscape.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Personally I think the rule of thirds is more forgiving with a two-island scape. The main branch on the left is of center and you could add a rock or move a rock to extend one of the islands to "move" the open-area a bit. Looks good, make sure you can clean the glass all the way around it.


I'm thinking once I get the dragon stone in there, that "path" will look a lot different especially if I specifically add larger pieces on the right side, and more narrow pieces on the left of that path. It'll give the illusion of being a bit more left. 

The good thing is that if I wind up needing more dragon stone, it seems like SR Aquaristik ships ridiculously fast and I get it a day or two later. I also have an LFS I can run over to and pick some pieces out, but worst case I can order a box of medium stones. I won't really know until I start getting stone in the tank. Hopefully I can the next day or two.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> After my latest tank I vote to begin cycling as soon as you're happy with the hardscape.


I definitely think it makes a lot of sense. The great part about that is once it's cycled and I add the plants, I'll be able to start adding fish too. 

My guess is this will be filled within the next couple weeks and I'll start cycling. Then midway through June I'll order plants. I really want to take my time with plant choices and positioning. I went overboard with my nano so I want to make sure that everything has room to grow, their size (height and width) once they grow is taken into consideration, and that specific parts of the scape are left exposed. 

I would be nice to have the stand finished before I fill it. But we'll see how that goes. I suspect once we hit Memorial Day weekend, I'll take an extra day off so that I can have more time to get tank stuff done, and stuff around the house. I lose half of one of those days with a commitment I can't get out of.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I'm thinking once I get the dragon stone in there, that "path" will look a lot different especially if I specifically add larger pieces on the right side, and more narrow pieces on the left of that path. It'll give the illusion of being a bit more left.
> 
> The good thing is that if I wind up needing more dragon stone, it seems like SR Aquaristik ships ridiculously fast and I get it a day or two later. I also have an LFS I can run over to and pick some pieces out, but worst case I can order a box of medium stones. I won't really know until I start getting stone in the tank. Hopefully I can the next day or two.


Oh I must have missed this, your covering up the LR and adding DS? Also I assume your pre-soaking the Spiderwood.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Oh I must have missed this, your covering up the LR and adding DS? Also I assume your pre-soaking the Spiderwood.


Yep, I have a bunch of dragon stone. The lava rock is just being used to build up the two islands.
My plan is to glue the spider wood to the dragon stone so that I don’t need to pre soak it. With the size of some of these pieces of dragon stone the wood will be held down sufficiently.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Yep, I have a bunch of dragon stone. The lava rock is just being used to build up the two islands.
> My plan is to glue the spider wood to the dragon stone so that I don’t need to pre soak it. With the size of some of these pieces of dragon stone the wood will be held down sufficiently.


Ah, got it. You'll get tannins from the SW without the pre-soak, but they're usually not as heavy as some of the other woods like manzanita, malaysian, etc.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Ah, got it. You'll get tannins from the SW without the pre-soak, but they're usually not as heavy as some of the other woods like manzanita, malaysian, etc.


One way I’m planning to combat that is with carbon. Based on my experiences with actual wood in tanks, if you can change out carbon weekly, within a few weeks the wood stops leeching tannins.
That oase 850 has a ridiculous number of media containers so one or two will be loaded up with carbon. Once tannins are done leeching I usually pull carbon out and don’t use it again unless I need to.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> One way I’m planning to combat that is with carbon. Based on my experiences with actual wood in tanks, if you can change out carbon weekly, within a few weeks the wood stops leeching tannins.
> That oase 850 has a ridiculous number of media containers so one or two will be loaded up with carbon. Once tannins are done leeching I usually pull carbon out and don’t use it again unless I need to.


Yes the carbon will help. Many are afraid to use carbon in planted tanks thinking it will remove ferts, but I always use carbon for the first two months. During startup is when the the bio-filter/plants are weak so the carbon acts as a bridge to remove organics/toxins, etc before the tank really gets going. You can also use it, to help with an algae issue if one arises down the road as it will aid in removing organics in addition to water changes.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Yes the carbon will help. Many are afraid to use carbon in planted tanks thinking it will remove ferts, but I always use carbon for the first two months. During startup is when the the bio-filter/plants are weak so the carbon acts as a bridge to remove organics/toxins, etc before the tank really gets going. You can also use it, to help with an algae issue if one arises down the road as it will aid in removing organics in addition to water changes.


Absolutely. One of the other things I'm going to add, perhaps not right away or at least until the tank is done cycling, is purigen. I've never used it before but it seems like it's what a lot of folks are using in planted tanks. 

The thing I dislike about carbon is depending on how "dirty" the tank is, it really requires replacement on a regular basis otherwise it just turns into more biological filtration media lol. 

The GLA filter will rarely be maintained. I'm thinking something like once every 6 months I might crack it open and shake the bag of lava rock in a bucket of tank water. The Oase will be maintained a bit more regularly, but only as much as needed to replenish the purigen. I need to read up more on that to learn. But the prefilter module will be removed weekly since the surface skimming lily pipe is being attached to the Oase.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

Asteroid said:


> Yes the carbon will help. Many are afraid to use carbon in planted tanks thinking it will remove ferts, but I always use carbon for the first two months. During startup is when the the bio-filter/plants are weak so the carbon acts as a bridge to remove organics/toxins, etc before the tank really gets going. You can also use it, to help with an algae issue if one arises down the road as it will aid in removing organics in addition to water changes.


Does carbon remove ferts? Would help explain why the plants in my 20 are doing better than my 75 despite lower fert dosing...


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Virtus said:


> Does carbon remove ferts? Would help explain why the plants in my 20 are doing better than my 75 despite lower fert dosing...


No, not to any extent that I could see. I've used it with every startup and never had a problem. I can't account for low-tech, but with high tech and regular dosing never a problem. This is actually how ADA recommends setup your filter for the first 1-2 months.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> Does carbon remove ferts? Would help explain why the plants in my 20 are doing better than my 75 despite lower fert dosing...


I'd suspect it does, but only to a certain extent. Carbon's ability to clean the water really gets depleted quickly. If you divide what the manufacturers say in half, you're getting close to how long it's effective for. I generally only use carbon initially and once the tank is cycled I don't use it unless the tank is not crystal clear for whatever reason. 

If you slack on maintenance, carbon will help lol. I think it serves a purpose, but shouldn't be used long term unless you have a fish only tank with a huge bio load. Planted tanks generally don't have the same problems fish only tanks do since we're not going crazy with stocking. I tend to go a little more crazy than most, but I also do my best to not overcrowd the tank.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Absolutely. One of the other things I'm going to add, perhaps not right away or at least until the tank is done cycling, is purigen. I've never used it before but it seems like it's what a lot of folks are using in planted tanks.
> 
> The thing I dislike about carbon is depending on how "dirty" the tank is, it really requires replacement on a regular basis otherwise it just turns into more biological filtration media lol.
> 
> The GLA filter will rarely be maintained. I'm thinking something like once every 6 months I might crack it open and shake the bag of lava rock in a bucket of tank water. The Oase will be maintained a bit more regularly, but only as much as needed to replenish the purigen. I need to read up more on that to learn. But the prefilter module will be removed weekly since the surface skimming lily pipe is being attached to the Oase.


I hear you on the carbon, I've used purigen too, but I have personally found carbon more effective.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I hear you on the carbon, I've used purigen too, but I have personally found carbon more effective.


It's definitely a lot less expensive.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Yes, it is. 

I tend to overkill preventive maintenance since most of my setups are hardscape heavy and less plants so I feel the carbon is another tool in addition to regular water changes, good light mgmt and co2. I also don't use many fast growing stems these days and my tanks are mostly epiphytes, but I still use good light and co2 since I feel the growth is fuller. It's much easier to prevent algae than dealing with it after it occurs.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Well, I just started going at it after finishing up with work and taking the dog out for a long walk. 

I added 4 bags of sand and that covered up the lava rock, and built up a nice layer everywhere in the tank. 

Once I did that I just went nuts adding rock here and there until I wound up with this:










I definitely need more rock, but skinny and smaller pieces to fill in some of the areas. 

This will likely change a bit once I'm able to run out to the LFS. Unfortunately they're already closed for the day. I figure 4-5 skinny longer pieces, and a bunch of smaller pieces to stuff into areas. Otherwise I'm pretty pleased with how it looks so far. The front left needs a rock in that small gap. Similarly about midway between the front and back on the right side, that also needs a rock. I also think the front right needs a small piece or two. I also would like a nice skinny long rock to to replace the rock that kind of looks like the middle finger center back right lol. 

The final step after I settle on the scape is to start gluing rocks to the wood, then open that last bag of sand and start filling in behind the rocks. 

I think the thing I was going for was the two island look, but more nature style. I think so far it fits the nature style look. It kind of looks like the branches got stuck in rocky outcroppings. 

Before I glue anything, I'm going to take some time to figure out stem plant positions. My plan was to fill in the back with stems so I need to make sure I have room to plant.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Lol, I changed it already. I wasn't liking how the back left side was pretty empty and the front left piece of rock is kind of ugly. I swapped some of the rocks around and like it much more. 










I'm still not totally in love with it but it's getting there. Once I pick up a few more pieces of rock it should come together. I just need to keep envisioning plants.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

I think I like the first one a little better. The left side of the second one is good but I feel like too much of the spider wood is hidden on the right and it detracts from the arch created between the two pieces.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> I think I like the first one a little better. The left side of the second one is good but I feel like too much of the spider wood is hidden on the right and it detracts from the arch created between the two pieces.


I agree. It's that dang ugly piece that I moved from the left side lol. I'm going to remove it and see how that looks, and if it doesn't look good I may take a look and see if there's another piece I can swap it with where its ugliness is hidden a bit. Worst case that ugly piece fits in better somewhere else and I can find something nicer at the LFS tomorrow.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> I think I like the first one a little better. The left side of the second one is good but I feel like too much of the spider wood is hidden on the right and it detracts from the arch created between the two pieces.


Here we go. This will probably change again after the trip to the LFS tomorrow, but I think it's getting there. 










Here is what I think it needs as far as additional rock:


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

definitely getting there!!


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Purely what I see

I think it really depends on your planting. If your covering up most of the wood with plants it won't matter, but right now the rocks are swallowing up the wood. I think the wood should either by higher to expose more of the branches or use just one or two of those size rocks you have there and the rest smaller scattered around. 

I would also remove any rock you have behind the wood. Leave that for green and more light to enter if your planting stems. Ultimately it's your setup and YOU should be satisfied.


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## Chucker (Apr 9, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I think it really depends on your planting. If your covering up most of the wood with plants it won't matter, but right now the rocks are swallowing up the wood. I think the wood should either by higher to expose more of the branches or use just one or two of those size rocks you have there and the rest smaller scattered around.


I was thinking the same thing. Focus on rock or wood - don't have equal amounts of both. Of course, how you choose to hardscape is also dependent on what you plan to stock plant-wise...


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Hmm I actually really like how it seems like a seamless transition from rock to wood


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

I agree with some others that the stone is taking away from the wood. I think the stone needs to appear lower by either raising the wood or using smaller stones in front. 

Ultimately, it's your scape so you need to be happy with it. Don't let us change your mind!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Purely what I see
> 
> I think it really depends on your planting. If your covering up most of the wood with plants it won't matter, but right now the rocks are swallowing up the wood. I think the wood should either by higher to expose more of the branches or use just one or two of those size rocks you have there and the rest smaller scattered around.
> 
> I would also remove any rock you have behind the wood. Leave that for green and more light to enter if your planting stems. Ultimately it's your setup and YOU should be satisfied.


I'm definitely not sold on the rocks in the background, but the idea was to do rocky outcroppings where the wood just kind of naturally looks like it wound up getting stuck in those spots. 

I'll likely be messing with this for a couple weeks so nothing is set in "stone" haha. 




Chucker said:


> I was thinking the same thing. Focus on rock or wood - don't have equal amounts of both. Of course, how you choose to hardscape is also dependent on what you plan to stock plant-wise...


I think if I went with a scape like this, choosing plants is going to take me a while. I really need to consider how large they get, how much of the rock and wood is left exposed, and how each plants compliments the rock, wood, and surrounding plants. 




LidijaPN said:


> Hmm I actually really like how it seems like a seamless transition from rock to wood


That's more or less what I was going for. I was trying to make it look as natural as possible, like sticking your head underwater and not being surprised seeing a scene like this.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> I agree with some others that the stone is taking away from the wood. I think the stone needs to appear lower by either raising the wood or using smaller stones in front.
> 
> Ultimately, it's your scape so you need to be happy with it. Don't let us change your mind!


In theory I agree. The difficulty going in that direction is maintaining a sense of depth or making sure it looks 3 dimensional. With bigger rocks in front, slowly decreasing in size as they move further towards the back gives it more of a feel that it's deeper than it is. I think where I've struggled is the back. One of the things I did over this past week was look at a lot of the ADA videos, and green aqua videos to get ideas and a few of those videos used large rocks in the background, almost to the top of the tanks and the stem plants more or less peeked over the top of the rocks. 

The one thing I'll try to do is get shots from different angles because from head on, it looks like a lot of the wood is covered by those front rocks but if you move over a foot or two in either direction, the wood becomes exposed.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I think the one thing I'll do to open up the back a bit more is on the left side, to the right of that large rock in the back there's another rock. If I remove it, it matches the opposite side a lot more. 

While I'd like there to be some rock in the background, I really need to open up some gaps in between them for the stem plants to be another layer of depth.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> That's more or less what I was going for. I was trying to make it look as natural as possible, like sticking your head underwater and not being surprised seeing a scene like this.


I kinda understand, but I still think the rocks are too big in the front. Definitely don't think you need more rock, maybe break the ones you have. Also if your going to put plants on the rocks it will cover up things even more. You'd be surprised at how much hardscape gets hidden after planting and growth.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I kinda understand, but I still think the rocks are too big in the front. Definitely don't think you need more rock, maybe break the ones you have. Also if your going to put plants on the rocks it will cover up things even more. You'd be surprised at how much hardscape gets hidden after planting and growth.


The one thing I may try doing after work is really working those front rocks into the sand a bit more. I don't remember if they're pressed all the way in or if I just pressed them in enough to hold them in position. 

But yeah the plants covering everything is definitely on my mind. My nano is a great example of how it seems like regardless of how great a scape is, it'll get covered by plants. This is one of the reasons I'm going to take a while to choose plants and locations. 

I think on the top of many of the near vertically oriented rocks I'll glue some Montecarlo so that it kind of hangs down. I'm also going to use some dwarf hair grass in certain parts of the scape while HC will be the predominant carpet. 

I'll have fissidens fontanus and maybe Christmas or willow moss on some parts of the branches. The background will be a mix of stem plants....oranges, reds, different shades of green, etc. along with as many different leaf shapes as possible. 

I'll also use a lot of Bucephalandra. I'll stuff many of the holes in the dragon stone with anubias. It would also be nice to mix in one or more variations of AR. I know I also want to use microsorum trident and pogostemon helferi. I'll probably regret this, but H Pinatafida will also be used. 

Basically the way I'm going to choose and position plants will follow this flow chart:


How big does it get/how much space will it take up and how tall and wide
what color is it
what will it cover behind it

If I can take these types of things into account, it'll keep the hardscape visible and even improve how it looks. 

The one thing I've picked up from watching videos on YouTube is that the tanks that really appealed to me didn't have a plant in one section, then another plant next to it, and so on. They had plants mixed in with other plants which really made it look less artificial. Artificial is such a strange word when we're talking about live plants, but what I mean is it doesn't look "planted" by a person. 

There's one stem plant that I just can't find the name of but it really stuck out. It was a stem plant, bright green, and each node was star shaped. If I can find a pic again I'll grab it but it was really something else.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Here we go, found it. Does anyone know what the bright green, star shaped stem plant is in this pic? It's amazing.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

ddiomede said:


> In theory I agree. The difficulty going in that direction is maintaining a sense of depth or making sure it looks 3 dimensional. With bigger rocks in front, slowly decreasing in size as they move further towards the back gives it more of a feel that it's deeper than it is. I think where I've struggled is the back. One of the things I did over this past week was look at a lot of the ADA videos, and green aqua videos to get ideas and a few of those videos used large rocks in the background, almost to the top of the tanks and the stem plants more or less peeked over the top of the rocks.
> 
> The one thing I'll try to do is get shots from different angles because from head on, it looks like a lot of the wood is covered by those front rocks but if you move over a foot or two in either direction, the wood becomes exposed.


I know what you're going for, but that style isn't usually seen with wood added as well. The sense of depth will be completely ruined with wood in the scape. It breaks the illusion so to speak. 

I'm open to being proven wrong though. Have you seen this style with both diminishing stone size and wood in the same scape before?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> I know what you're going for, but that style isn't usually seen with wood added as well. The sense of depth will be completely ruined with wood in the scape. It breaks the illusion so to speak.
> 
> I'm open to being proven wrong though. Have you seen this style with both diminishing stone size and wood in the same scape before?


There are a couple in this video. 

I can't find the actual tank on the IAPLC site that really emulated an iwagumi with wood look. It wasn't in the most recent year, but was a couple years back. I just can't find it but will look through the albums again tonight. The website loads dreadfully slow. Do they have the server on dialup lol? 

I like iwagumi tanks, but I just can't see myself having one, while all wood tanks kind of have that same impression for my tastes. What I like about the iwagumi tanks are the rock outcroppings. I guess I'm trying to capture that look, while also using wood and not having either one overpower the other. The one pic I ran across in the IAPLC albums really did a good job of blending everything. I suspect the way they planted had a lot to do with it. 

The Brazilian style scapes are the ones that seem to mix the two really well. About half of them use large rocks in the background, while the other half mix them in with wood. I'm likely trying to blend too many different styles.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

I can picture what you're trying to do and absolutely love dragon stone but agree with others that I think your spider wood should be the focal point of your hardscape.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> Here we go, found it. Does anyone know what the bright green, star shaped stem plant is in this pic? It's amazing.
> View attachment 1042728


That looks like some sort of eriocaulon? Maybe? Eriocaulon cinereum looks a bit similar but I've never seen it grow tall.... They grow like little sea urchins.

Heteranthera Zosterfolia grows star shaped but not this neat..... 


I bet @MoreliaViridis would know exactly what it was.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

After I head out to the LFS after work I'm going to try three different things:

1. Find the pieces of rock that will fill in the sections that I drew above. 

2. Remove the wood, put the rock in the way I want it and then set the wood in there and fiddle around until the wood is in there sufficiently with spots that I can glue to the rocks

3. Go with a mountainous background, set the wood in the mid ground, and smaller dragon stones in the foreground, and/or laying some of the pieces more flat, or if on an angle a very low angle. 

The fourth option which I didn't list because it would require moving sand and lava rock is to go with a center island combining both pieces of wood, with dragon stone jutting out at different angles surrounding the wood. The challenge with would be moving all the lava rock and repositioning in the center. 

I'm going to follow the order above and not even consider the 4th unless the other three don't seem to work. I have no intention of setting this tank up any time soon because there's still a lot of work that needs to be done on the stand and sorting out the equipment inside the stand, so I have plenty of time to play around. I do like the two islands, so the fourth option probably won't happen. 

The one thing I tried before putting the sand in was one island, one one side of the tank connecting the two pieces of wood where the longer one stretched out to the other side of the tank. I didn't like it so I went away from it.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> That looks like some sort of eriocaulon? Maybe? Eriocaulon cinereum looks a bit similar but I've never seen it grow tall.... They grow like little sea urchins.
> 
> Heteranthera Zosterfolia grows star shaped but not this neat.....
> 
> ...


The Eriocaulon definitely looks really similar. I wish there was more to go off of as far as scale, but the way it looks in the pic, it's hanging with other stem plants which makes me believe it's a stem plant of sorts. I've seen it once before but admit that I really only focused on the star shape lol.

ETA: you know what, I think that's what it is. I just zoomed way in on that pic and you can see aqua soil directly underneath. Too bad it wasn't a stem plant. That would look amazing mixed in with a bunch of different stems. But, I'm going to try to use it somewhere in this tank because it's so different.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

I think it's awesome to really take your time with this stage. Most of us are in a rush to get to the 'fun' planting and populating part so the scape gets put together in a 'eh good enough' fashion.... But there's a lot to be said for really sitting with it, trying different things, letting it sort of slosh around in your mind until you get clarity on what looks best to you.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> The Eriocaulon definitely looks really similar. I wish there was more to go off of as far as scale, but the way it looks in the pic, it's hanging with other stem plants which makes me believe it's a stem plant of sorts. I've seen it once before but admit that I really only focused on the star shape lol.
> 
> ETA: you know what, I think that's what it is. I just zoomed way in on that pic and you can see aqua soil directly underneath. Too bad it wasn't a stem plant. That would look amazing mixed in with a bunch of different stems. But, I'm going to try to use it somewhere in this tank because it's so different.


Could it be just plain old anacharis/ elodea? It looked a little too nice.... but anacharis will grow tall stems with the star pattern. But has sort of soft somewhat translucent looking leaves....


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> I think it's awesome to really take your time with this stage. Most of us are in a rush to get to the 'fun' planting and populating part so the scape gets put together in a 'eh good enough' fashion.... But there's a lot to be said for really sitting with it, trying different things, letting it sort of slosh around in your mind until you get clarity on what looks best to you.


Definitely. I want nothing more than to start planting tomorrow, but I also want to be able to have a scape I can live with for a number of years. Constantly changing scapes on a tank this size would be a lot of work. I'm lazy so I want to eliminate anything I don't like about the scape before it gets filled with water lol.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> After I head out to the LFS after work I'm going to try three different things:
> 
> 1. Find the pieces of rock that will fill in the sections that I drew above.
> 
> ...


Wow, I'm impressed by all the thought going into this. I'm sure whatever you decide it will come out great in the end. 

If your looking at top IAPLC tanks I would pick a style you like and go with that, but keep in mind the pics get the most out of those tanks by exploiting depth, etc. To me there are 3 things you need to do a good scape. An eye for it, healthy plants and hardscape inventory. Many if not most of the IAPLC entries you see they are somehow connected to the industry and have endless hardscape to choose from. Doing a five stone iwagumi is much harder if you have only 5-7 stones in your inventory, but if you have 100 you'll find the perfect pieces. 

Also as your probably aware Dragon stone is very brittle, so with a basic screw driver and hammer you could break them.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> Could it be just plain old anacharis/ elodea? It looked a little too nice.... but anacharis will grow tall stems with the star pattern. But has sort of soft somewhat translucent looking leaves....


One of the things I want to do with the stem plants in the background is to have a really colorful background, but also a bunch of different leaf shapes. For example I don't want a bunch of different colored Rotala if they all have the same leaf shapes. I envision mixing in H'ra, bonsai, wallichi, ludwigia, perhaps some bacopa. I guess it will really depend on what's available once I'm ready to start planting.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

It has like a million different names but yeah, elodea/ egeria najas sort of has that star shaped look and is a stem.... they also call it 'egeria densa'. It's infuriating when the same plant has like a thousand names.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Wow, I'm impressed by all the thought going into this. I'm sure whatever you decide it will come out great in the end.
> 
> If your looking at top IAPLC tanks I would pick a style you like and go with that, but keep in mind the pics get the most out of those tanks by exploiting depth, etc. To me there are 3 things you need to do a good scape. An eye for it, healthy plants and hardscape inventory. Many if not most of the IAPLC entries you see they are somehow connected to the industry and have endless hardscape to choose from. Doing a five stone iwagumi is much harder if you have only 5-7 stones in your inventory, but if you have 100 you'll find the perfect pieces.
> 
> Also as your probably aware Dragon stone is very brittle, so with a basic screw driver and hammer you could break them.


The thing I like most about the IAPLC tanks is that they're good to draw ideas from. I think having a diorama tank would get old pretty quick. I've noticed that "buy a scape" has become a thing lately out of Indonesia where they'll build you a diorama for your tank. I think that's fine for some people, but it takes the fun out of it. Part of the fun of scaping a tank is playing around with it until you like what you see. I did that with my reef tanks. I really took my time until I looked at it and said "that's it, that's what I was going for". My last reef tank was up from 2013 until last year. I literally changed nothing on it as far as the scape since setting it up and just let everything grow. I think the only reason I didn't set it up at my new house after moving is the last two years it had been up I really had no interest in it any longer. I intend on this scape being up for a number of years so I really want to get it to where I'll like looking at it two years from now. 

It would definitely be awesome to just be set loose in a warehouse of scaping materials. 

The best advice I was given regarding any of the "arts" is once you learn the techniques, there are no rules. I always find myself adhering to various rules and my results are almost always "meh" when I do.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> One of the things I want to do with the stem plants in the background is to have a really colorful background, but also a bunch of different leaf shapes. For example I don't want a bunch of different colored Rotala if they all have the same leaf shapes. I envision mixing in H'ra, bonsai, wallichi, ludwigia, perhaps some bacopa. I guess it will really depend on what's available once I'm ready to start planting.


Yeah that's what I'm sort of seeking as well, a variety in leaf quality so to speak..... Things I've found so far:


Aponogetons for that twisty curly broad leaf look, I find they really stand out.... not a stem per se, I guess it's more of a rosette but very cool unique looks.
Pogostemons have a lot of fun leaf patterns, from star shapes of erectus, to long flowy tentacles (and purple tips!!) of stellatus octopus, to crinkly wavy firm stars of helferi...
Crypts like balansae and crispatula have a really unique leaf texture and can bring a lot of fun to a tank, also tend to grow out in weird and unexpected colors, tinged with orange, purple....
Frillies like cabomba, limno sessiliflora, myriophyllum etc are a whole different look to regular leaves....
Lobelia cardinalis has these cute round leaves and grows in a sort of spiral which I find really fun and unexpected
Not stems, but buce, anubias, java ferns, bolbitis all give really interesting leaf shape and quality to the tank.... The leaves are a little more solid, they have more personality than stems somehow.
If you like star shapes check out eicchornia diversifolia, I'm barely getting mine to progress because it would really like a high tech tank but it has a super cute palm tree look, I think you'd like.
Ludwigias are super weird and fun and come in tons of varieties....



ddiomede said:


> The best advice I was given regarding any of the "arts" is once you learn the techniques, there are no rules. I always find myself adhering to various rules and my results are almost always "meh" when I do.


I find this true in illustration (I'm an illustrator). As long as you're following the rules, you're making things people have already made.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> Yeah that's what I'm sort of seeking as well, a variety in leaf quality so to speak..... Things I've found so far:
> 
> 
> Aponogetons for that twisty curly broad leaf look, I find they really stand out.... not a stem per se, I guess it's more of a rosette but very cool unique looks.
> ...


This is very helpful, thanks! The biggest challenge will be researching a lot of plants to understand how tall/wide they get so that I can place them appropriately. 

When I took guitar lessons in my teens, my guitar teacher taught me theory, technique, and how to train my ear. About a year into it I was having trouble really creating music that was different because at a certain point it all starts sounding the same. He laughed and said "you know all the rules, now throw them out of the window because there are no rules". I didn't understand him at first and left that lesson thinking "well what the heck have I been paying you for all this time"??? A day or two later it dawned on me lol. When it comes to art, photography in particular, the rule of thirds is important, but I've broken that rule a lot and I noticed that friends always seemed to gravitate to those pics. 

A great example is my buddy who is a hardcore reef keeper, and a fellow multi tank syndrome sufferer, has seen the pics I've been taking of this tank and he loves the scape so far. I like it, but I'm definitely not in love with it. It could be as simple as pushing a few of the stones further into the sand, and adding a couple more stones in the spots I highlighted. But I'll still experiment with it if that doesn't do it for me. I'm not a fan of Iwagumi tanks. I do however like the rock work. For my tastes, they're kind of boring tanks. Usually they consist of one or two plants max, and if I were to set one up it probably wouldn't make it six months before I tore it down. I like looking at Iwagumi tanks, I just wouldn't want one for myself. 

I definitely appreciate all the feedback and help so far. One thing I think where I differ from most is many of the tips involved featuring the wood over the stone. I don't want either the wood or the stone to be overly prominent. The sense of depth is most important to me, along with a lot of detail. The stone and wood coming together really provides a lot of detail. I just don't think I've nailed it yet so I'll continue to experiment and take lots of pics so that if I try something drastically different, I can put everything back again. 

At the end of the day, I think once plants start growing, whatever scape I settle on will be covered by plants even doing my best to avoid that. This is one reason I'm going to take so long with plants....I'm going to choose them so that they're also adding a sense of depth and perspective to the tank.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Totally with you. I was so happy with my wood and stones (though from this perspective they’re almost laughably small, but I knew nothing then) and they looked so good when they were alone in the tank... now you have ti dig through the plants to see them 😑

Only plants I’ve found so far that don’t overwhelm with their growth- mosses, AR mini, anubias and buce, some crypts, eichhornia. (But some of those might be just because of low tech).


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> Totally with you. I was so happy with my wood and stones (though from this perspective they’re almost laughably small, but I knew nothing then) and they looked so good when they were alone in the tank... now you have ti dig through the plants to see them 😑
> 
> Only plants I’ve found so far that don’t overwhelm with their growth- mosses, AR mini, anubias and buce, some crypts, eichhornia. (But some of those might be just because of low tech).


I'm definitely planning on using AR mini. It seems to stay nice and compact and red. 

Moss seems to be a slow grower, but if you take a look at my nano tank, and the time period from when I added it to when I trimmed it, it gives you a sense of the difference between co2 and no co2. It actually surprised me with how fast it grew. I thought moss would be the slowest grower. The funny thing is when I think back to my decision making process with selecting plants I could have bought a small portion of Christmas moss instead of the massive portion I ordered. All I needed to glue to the wood was a really tiny amount instead of just ripping a piece off the big portion, slathering glue onto it and then pushing it onto the branches lol. All I did was make sure that you couldn't see any of the hardscape. 

Whenever I look at my nano is just reminds me to do way more due diligence on plant selection for this tank lol.


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## MoreliaViridis (May 19, 2021)

ddiomede said:


> Here we go, found it. Does anyone know what the bright green, star shaped stem plant is in this pic? It's amazing.
> View attachment 1042728



That is some kind of Syngonanthus species.
I think its lago grande but it could easily be something else.
From the pics its not in the best shape. It should be solid green all the way.

BTW only wussies use hardscape.
And you won't be able to keep syns if you use any KH-leeching stones in your tank.
They do best at 0dKH. For some easy species up to 4.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

MoreliaViridis said:


> ...BTW only wussies use hardscape.


Oh it's on. Farmers vs Scapers


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Alright, so I took many of the suggestions to heart and stopped at the LFS and picked up some additional rock. Most of the pieces were long and skinny. I also picked up some really small rocks to fit into cracks. 

The first thing I did when I came back home is pushed the rocks in the front as far down as they'll go. That seemed to make a huge difference, especially with depth perception. 

I added a few rocks here and there where it seemed like something was missing, as well as removed two large rocks. 

Now the wood is more exposed and as a fringe benefit the sand under the wood is exposed. 

What you'll need to envision is more sand being added underneath the wood to build up the mounds more now that the rock will hold it in as much as possible. 

Thoughts?










I need to get a cup and move sand from the front onto the mounds. Didn't have a chance to do that yet. Each time I moved a rock it turned into a landslide lol.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

😍


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I intend on hulk smashing one of the rocks so that I can use dragon stone as rubble to scatter around. 

Dennerle makes these rock chips that are perfect, but the wrong color....they're grey. If only they were a bit more dragon stone colored I'd probably order a bag to randomly scatter around the tank like salt bae lol. 

If anyone has recommendations or can point me in the direction of rock along those lines I'd appreciate it. I haven't found anything searching the web.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Last night my google-fu was working well and I found dragon stone rubble. I figure between hulk smashing one of my rocks, and the 5 lbs of rubble I ordered I should have all I need to complete the scape. I'm still open to ideas, but the scape is growing on me. It's really close to the "this is exactly what I was going for" feeling. I think a little more tweaking of rocks might do it. 

In the meantime I need to get to staining the trim pieces and start figuring out the equipment inside the stand. I haven't drilled holes for the filter hoses or power cord yet so that will probably be done once I figure out the orientation of the equipment. The one thing I definitely need to do is either look around for a GFCI outlet or just go buy one. I went years and years of fish keeping without being electrocuted....well at least not badly lol, but I really need to install something that at least gives me a measure of safety. 

I was talking with the owner of the LFS I bought the rock from, who I also picked the tank up from and basically told him how far I've gotten, which honestly still isn't that far. He asked how I planned on cycling the tank and mentioned what he uses for cycling client tanks that he does maintenance on. He didn't mention the name, and for whatever reason I didn't ask, but he said it's a refrigerated bacteria that you only add once, and then you dose ammonia and test regularly. The one thing that surprised me is he said it cuts cycling time in half if you just go with a regular bacteria in a bottle. He said that the fastest it has worked for him is the tank was fully cycled by the end of the second week. 

I think once I get to the filling with water stage I'm going to run over there and get that bacteria and some ammonia and try it out. 

I kind of feel bad that I'm a typical consumer in that I basically didn't buy anything from that LFS except some rocks and the tank lol. He can get a lot of tropica plants so I may order some from him even though he's probably 15% higher than I can buy online. I'll still order a bunch online but I'd like to give him some business too even if it means I'm spending a little more money. 

For fish, I'll be getting them all from him. He said if I order fish, expect about two weeks wait because he wants to quarantine them beforehand. This might be a little goofy, but he had some really nice Apistogrammas so I might be adding a pair once the tank is up, depending of course on availability. 

Once I'm set on the scape, I really need to start deciding on plants.

ETA: and deciding on fish! I keep forgetting that I won't be adding plants until the tank cycles, but that also means I can start adding fish at that point too.


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## rzn7z7 (Aug 17, 2013)

ddiomede said:


> Here we go, found it. Does anyone know what the bright green, star shaped stem plant is in this pic? It's amazing.
> View attachment 1042728


I'm guessing it's some sort of syngonanthus species


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> Last night my google-fu was working well and I found dragon stone rubble. I figure between hulk smashing one of my rocks, and the 5 lbs of rubble I ordered I should have all I need to complete the scape. I'm still open to ideas, but the scape is growing on me. It's really close to the "this is exactly what I was going for" feeling. I think a little more tweaking of rocks might do it.
> 
> In the meantime I need to get to staining the trim pieces and start figuring out the equipment inside the stand. I haven't drilled holes for the filter hoses or power cord yet so that will probably be done once I figure out the orientation of the equipment. The one thing I definitely need to do is either look around for a GFCI outlet or just go buy one. I went years and years of fish keeping without being electrocuted....well at least not badly lol, but I really need to install something that at least gives me a measure of safety.
> 
> ...


I really like where you're at with the scape too. The only thing that stood out to me is I would probably try to angle the circled rock back slightly to widen the path just a little more. You may need to move the rock above/behind it slightly to the right as well to keep the sense of depth.










I am definitely curious on the bacteria they use and how it works; I used Dr. Tim's One & Only to help get my 20 long over the hump and it seemed to work well. 

You're/we're really getting into the exciting stages!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> I really like where you're at with the scape too. The only thing that stood out to me is I would probably try to angle the circled rock back slightly to widen the path just a little more. You may need to move the rock above/behind it slightly to the right as well to keep the sense of depth.
> 
> View attachment 1042762
> 
> ...


That is definitely one area I wasn't pleased with. I'll see what I can do with it after work. The second area that I'm not a huge fan of is back right. The back left I think looks great, and while I don't want to exactly replicate it on the other side, what's there now just isn't doing anything for me. I'll mess with both areas tonight. 

Regarding the path, I'm wondering if doing whatever I can to push the left rocks along that path further left, if that would change anything. From what I remember I tried but the bagged lava rock was basically forcing me to place them there. I don't remember for sure so I'll play with that too.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

I feel like back right needs something else relatively small sticking up from behind!

Your LFS guy sounds amazing. I love these true dedicated decent people who want to do their job really well. I will often pay higher prices to support places like that over Bezos and Co.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> I feel like back right needs something else relatively small sticking up from behind!
> 
> Your LFS guy sounds amazing. I love these true dedicated decent people who want to do their job really well. I will often pay higher prices to support places like that over Bezos and Co.


This guy in particular owned an LFS that was a mile or so away from the LFS I worked at in my teens during the mid 90's. His original store had a massive fire and he moved further away with a massive storefront and was there maybe a decade or so and then downsized and moved to his new location which he's been at probably 15 years now. I actually ran into him multiple times when I'd go hand pick saltwater fish and coral at a wholesaler. Really nice guy and really is an aquarist at heart. 

Heck, he found this tank for me when I couldn't find it anywhere in stock. I probably have 6-7 other LFS within 20-30 minutes of my house, but I just go to his shop.

ETA: I'm sure I'll find something that will make that right corner look more appealing tonight.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Really nice guy and really is an aquarist at heart.


I'm sure he is, but does he know aquatic plants. Most of them don't. So great that your supporting him, I would do the same, but most of these guys if you tell them you have phosphates in your tank they'll sell you phosguard. 🤪


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I'm sure he is, but does he know aquatic plants. Most of them don't. So great that your supporting him, I would do the same, but most of these guys if you tell them you have phosphates in your tank they'll sell you phosguard. 🤪


Surprisingly he does know a lot about plants. Probably the bulk of his clientele own nano tanks, whether they're planted or reef so he's set the store up to cater to those clients, and the rest are geared more towards community tanks. One of the reasons I didn't get my spider wood from him is he just didn't have pieces large enough since most were more suited to smaller tanks. But great selection of dragon stone, seiryu, elephant, and probably another 6-8 different types of rock. But again most of the rocks were better fits for nano tanks, which was great for me yesterday since I didn't really need any more big rocks.

ETA: lol, but he did try to sell me what effectively was a German companies version of ADA's power sand 😂


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Surprisingly he does know a lot about plants. Probably the bulk of his clientele own nano tanks, whether they're planted or reef so he's set the store up to cater to those clients, and the rest are geared more towards community tanks. One of the reasons I didn't get my spider wood from him is he just didn't have pieces large enough since most were more suited to smaller tanks. But great selection of dragon stone, seiryu, elephant, and probably another 6-8 different types of rock. But again most of the rocks were better fits for nano tanks, which was great for me yesterday since I didn't really need any more big rocks.
> 
> ETA: lol, but he did try to sell me what effectively was a German companies version of ADA's power sand 😂


Ok, well at least the power sand is plant appropriate. Whether you really need it is up for debate. 

It's a rare to have a LFS knowledgeable in plants. Funny story, I went into a LFS that has great fish, but typical plants. A few tanks with 10 or so species of half dead weeds. So I decided to give some advise in the form of a question. Now doing this is always risky, because many can't accept advise. After all it's his business to know this stuff. 

So I asked "have you ever considered co2"? The response was classic and I know @LidijaPN is gonna love it! 

His response to me was "that's cheating" I wanted to laugh so badly, but out of respect I didn't. He's running a business and it's cheating to get your plants to look better and last longer?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Ok, well at least the power sand is plant appropriate. Whether you really need it is up for debate.
> 
> It's a rare to have a LFS knowledgeable in plants. Funny story, I went into a LFS that has great fish, but typical plants. A few tanks with 10 or so species of half dead weeds. So I decided to give some advise in the form of a question. Now doing this is always risky, because many can't accept advise. After all it's his business to know this stuff.
> 
> ...


Lol, I basically test LFS employees with questions designed to tell me if they know what they're talking about or just regurgitating, or just completely clueless. 

This guy definitely knows his stuff though. He's an authorized retailer of UNS and SR Aquaristik. When you walk into his store the first thing you see is a big stack of various nano sized UNS tanks. In the other aisle are the SR AIO's and basically all of the wood is from them. He has appropriate lighting on the tanks with plants in them. I think as far as soil he had UNS soils and Fluval, along with the standards for planted tanks. Overall though the plants all looked decent. 

I'll probably buy half of the plants I need from him. I'll give him a list and see what he can get. The challenge with tissue cultures is that they're hard to judge how many cups you'll need since there are so many plants in each cup. This happened to me with my nano and a TC of crypt undulatus. There had to be 7-8 individual plants in that cup. So if I do a carpet of HC, I honestly don't have a clue as to how many cups I'll need. I'll cross that bridge when I get there, but everyone following this thread should be forewarned....whatever I settle on for the scape, I'll be asking for opinions on plants, placements, etc. lol. I'm still relatively new so I'm far from an expert on how tall and wide plants get which will be important since I don't want to overpower any particular parts of this tank and cover up too much of the scape.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

ddiomede said:


> Lol, I basically test LFS employees with questions designed to tell me if they know what they're talking about or just regurgitating, or just completely clueless.
> 
> This guy definitely knows his stuff though. He's an authorized retailer of UNS and SR Aquaristik. When you walk into his store the first thing you see is a big stack of various nano sized UNS tanks. In the other aisle are the SR AIO's and basically all of the wood is from them. He has appropriate lighting on the tanks with plants in them. I think as far as soil he had UNS soils and Fluval, along with the standards for planted tanks. Overall though the plants all looked decent.
> 
> I'll probably buy half of the plants I need from him. I'll give him a list and see what he can get. The challenge with tissue cultures is that they're hard to judge how many cups you'll need since there are so many plants in each cup. This happened to me with my nano and a TC of crypt undulatus. There had to be 7-8 individual plants in that cup. So if I do a carpet of HC, I honestly don't have a clue as to how many cups I'll need. I'll cross that bridge when I get there, but everyone following this thread should be forewarned....whatever I settle on for the scape, I'll be asking for opinions on plants, placements, etc. lol. I'm still relatively new so I'm far from an expert on how tall and wide plants get which will be important since I don't want to overpower any particular parts of this tank and cover up too much of the scape.


TC HC Cuba is pretty great. I usually get 15-16 1/4" "plugs" from one cup. The smaller you break it apart, the more "plugs" you can get. There's even a video out there (I believe it's George Farmer, though I could be wrong) where he plants an entire HUGE carpet of HC with 1 cup. He painstakingly separated the cup into about a million individual plantlets and planted them 1 by 1.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> TC HC Cuba is pretty great. I usually get 15-16 1/4" "plugs" from one cup. The smaller you break it apart, the more "plugs" you can get. There's even a video out there (I believe it's George Farmer, though I could be wrong) where he plants an entire HUGE carpet of HC with 1 cup. He painstakingly separated the cup into about a million individual plantlets and planted them 1 by 1.


That must take a tremendous amount of patience lol. 

The only other experience I had with TC's is the H Pinatafida. I believe there were a total of 4 individual plants. The crypts were the crazy ones where there were 7-8. I had so many I didn't know where to plant them. 

Initially when I thought about going with all TC's I was concerned that the costs were going to be ridiculous but then remembered that you do get a pretty good bang for your buck.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> That must take a tremendous amount of patience lol.
> 
> The only other experience I had with TC's is the H Pinatafida. I believe there were a total of 4 individual plants. The crypts were the crazy ones where there were 7-8. I had so many I didn't know where to plant them.
> 
> Initially when I thought about going with all TC's I was concerned that the costs were going to be ridiculous but then remembered that you do get a pretty good bang for your buck.


How did you like the H Pinatafida? That's one I want to try when I get my CO2 setup.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> How did you like the H Pinatafida? That's one I want to try when I get my CO2 setup.


I found that it was like a weed. I bought a TC and it had about 4 plants. They quickly overgrew the tank so I had to trim them back. I want to trim them back even further because I either saw a YouTube video or read somewhere that if you aggressively trim them down, they tend to stay more compact. But yeah they reached the surface, bent over, and then reached the front of the tank. Had I lifted one of the leaves up, it would have protruded about 6-8" from the surface of the water lol. 

I'm going to use it in this tank too, but it's such a different shape that as long as I keep it trim, it'll fit in nicely. 

Take a look at my nano and you'll see how quickly it grew. The one that grew quickest was placed in the back right corner.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> I found that it was like a weed. I bought a TC and it had about 4 plants. They quickly overgrew the tank so I had to trim them back. I want to trim them back even further because I either saw a YouTube video or read somewhere that if you aggressively trim them down, they tend to stay more compact. But yeah they reached the surface, bent over, and then reached the front of the tank. Had I lifted one of the leaves up, it would have protruded about 6-8" from the surface of the water lol.
> 
> I'm going to use it in this tank too, but it's such a different shape that as long as I keep it trim, it'll fit in nicely.
> 
> Take a look at my nano and you'll see how quickly it grew. The one that grew quickest was placed in the back right corner.


I think the CO2 is going to be a bit of a shock. Right now I'm just used to the plants sort of existing.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> I think the CO2 is going to be a bit of a shock. Right now I'm just used to the plants sort of existing.


It really makes a startling difference in plant growth.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Alright did some more tweaking. I think it's starting to get really close. 

I moved the rocks on both sides of that "path", and moved the rocks behind the wood on the right a bit further to the left and I think it made a world of difference. That mount and the wood are higher, so the rocks being higher made sense and once I moved them it really did make a difference. I wound up having to add one of the pieces I removed yesterday to fill in a gap that didn't look right. 

I keep forgetting to mention but the rocks in the back on both the left and rights sides will eventually be more upright. I have them leaning forward a bit to trap the wood because it will no doubt float when I fill this thing. I have enough points of contact that I can glue wood to rock, but those back rocks won't be glued. What I'm thinking is I'm going to have some stem plants in the back, but between those back rocks and the wood, I'm going to plant something that doesn't grow very tall to add another layer of color. Not sure what that is yet but that's kind of what I envision. 

The one thing I haven't done yet that I may try is back left there are two rocks, the shorter of the two I may move to the right side and swap with the rock that's in the exact same position on the right. That rock on the right is shockingly similar in color to the wood whereas that rock on the left would provide some contrast, and you'd be able to see that rock on the right better in the left position.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

I'm liking that a lot!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Okay, this is much better I think.









ETA: the sand needs some love, so I'll play around with that. One of the good things about getting the rubble is plugging gaps in between rocks to keep the sand in. 

I'm already getting ideas for colors of stem plants in the back. Reds behind those rocks, into orange, then a couple shades of green finally stopping at the gap in the path. Maybe on the very tops of the rocks I'll glue some Montecarlo so that it starts hanging down and providing contrast to the reds behind them and the rocks themselves.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

You know one thing has been going through my mind while watching aquascaping videos from ADA and other channels where they're tying moss onto branches. 

They're basically taking the thread in hand, and winding it around the moss and branches. Why don't they just use a fly tying bobbin? Seems like it would make it much quicker and easier lol.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

jellopuddinpop said:


> TC HC Cuba is pretty great. I usually get 15-16 1/4" "plugs" from one cup. The smaller you break it apart, the more "plugs" you can get. There's even a video out there (I believe it's George Farmer, though I could be wrong) where he plants an entire HUGE carpet of HC with 1 cup. He painstakingly separated the cup into about a million individual plantlets and planted them 1 by 1.


I did that in my 3 footer (46 Bowfront) I planted it one stem at a time. HC is just a very tiny stem plant. The thinner you make the groupings the better and cleaner it grows in.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> You know one thing has been going through my mind while watching aquascaping videos from ADA and other channels where they're tying moss onto branches.
> 
> They're basically taking the thread in hand, and winding it around the moss and branches. Why don't they just use a fly tying bobbin? Seems like it would make it much quicker and easier lol.


No one uses thread anymore. You just glue it with an Cyanoacrylate based glue_._


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> No one uses thread anymore. You just glue it with an Cyanoacrylate based glue_._


I used glue in my nano.Works well, but it’s definitely not the “ADA way”. I just wondered why they never thought of using a bobbin. It would make it way easier.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I used glue in my nano.Works well, but it’s definitely not the “ADA way”. I just wondered why they never thought of using a bobbin. It would make it way easier.


OH, OK didn't realize you knew about the glue thing. Yeah not sure, but glue works on everything even a wide rock so why not? Many people admire the ADA stuff but they don't go full ADA in terms of product/practices.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Asteroid said:


> Ok, well at least the power sand is plant appropriate. Whether you really need it is up for debate.
> 
> It's a rare to have a LFS knowledgeable in plants. Funny story, I went into a LFS that has great fish, but typical plants. A few tanks with 10 or so species of half dead weeds. So I decided to give some advise in the form of a question. Now doing this is always risky, because many can't accept advise. After all it's his business to know this stuff.
> 
> ...


Well I don’t think CO2 is cheating lol. 

But I think I get what the guy means. If his store caters mostly to amateurs/low techers/casual aquarists who aren’t going to be running CO2, using CO2 to ‘inflate’ the plants just to later have them deflate and sag in customer tanks, or struggle converting, isn’t necessarily best business practice. 

My lfs has separate tanks for high tech and low tech plants tho. But you gotta know your clientele.

I don’t love glue because it leaves marks... so if things don’t work out and you have to reuse that piece of hard scape you have to wrestle with the old glue blobs. I still use it tho because thread is so unwieldy. But I hate it.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> OH, OK didn't realize you knew about the glue thing. Yeah not sure, but glue works on everything even a wide rock so why not? Many people admire the ADA stuff but they don't go full ADA in terms of product/practices.


There are a handful of people who believe that the ADA is the only right way. You find this a lot in hobbies....the "purists". They basically turn a method into a religion lol. While I do like ADA's approach to planted tanks, basically if you do what they do, you're more or less guaranteed to have good results, I also don't think they're the only way. 

I personally think a lot of their stuff is horribly overpriced. For example their pincers are ridiculously priced. I did have an opportunity to play with one since a friend of mine had some of their equipment and they are world's apart in terms of quality over some of the junk we can order on Amazon. I'd even go as far as saying that they're very close to surgical quality instruments. I'm just not sure they're worth the money when you can buy actual surgical quality tools for a lot less lol.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> There are a handful of people who believe that the ADA is the only right way. You find this a lot in hobbies....the "purists". They basically turn a method into a religion lol. While I do like ADA's approach to planted tanks, basically if you do what they do, you're more or less guaranteed to have good results, I also don't think they're the only way.
> 
> I personally think a lot of their stuff is horribly overpriced. For example their pincers are ridiculously priced. I did have an opportunity to play with one since a friend of mine had some of their equipment and they are world's apart in terms of quality over some of the junk we can order on Amazon. I'd even go as far as saying that they're very close to surgical quality instruments. I'm just not sure they're worth the money when you can buy actual surgical quality tools for a lot less lol.


Yep, definitely expensive, but image is everything LOL. The aquasoil is really what's purchased mostly from them. Most don't use the full product line or even close to it, although they do copy from other companies that are less. Funny thing is ADA only uses in-tank diffusers even on large tanks (4-6 feet). They don't use powerheads and their filters aren't over powering. Most here use reactors, in-line diffusion and powerheads on big tanks.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

LidijaPN said:


> Well I don’t think CO2 is cheating lol.
> 
> But I think I get what the guy means. If his store caters mostly to amateurs/low techers/casual aquarists who aren’t going to be running CO2, using CO2 to ‘inflate’ the plants just to later have them deflate and sag in customer tanks, or struggle converting, isn’t necessarily best business practice.
> 
> ...


Buying submersed plants grown with co2 from a LFS is a thousand times better than buying dead/dying ones or buying plants from a retailer online that are usually grown emersed. Much harder to convert those. 

Pretty much all the plant you buy online are grown emersed. The retailers don't grow them differently for low-techers, LOL. There getting far more co2 from the air than they are from the water regardless. With the store it's a matter of throwing out the plants basically or having them grow so he/she can sell them, eh. So are you saying you only buy submersed plants from people with low-tech tanks?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Regarding LFS using CO2, I'd think that you'd get a higher quality plant and if someone with a low tech setup bought it, it would just eventually start to slow down in growth, gain a different coloration, etc. But I think most people know what they'd be in for provided they weren't completely new to planted tanks. For instance I haven't had a planted tank in a long time and H Pinatafida was new to me. I'd seen it in pics or videos where it was red, purple, or green. I bought a TC where the leaves were very red. It has turned green in my little high tech nano. Could be that I have too much N in that tank, not enough, who knows lol. I just bought it knowing that it likely wouldn't stay red, but that the possibility was there. 

Now moving onto the scape, I think the funniest reaction I got from friends I've sent the most recent FTS to was "dude, don't even put plants in there, you'll ruin it" lol. I'll really need to be very careful with choosing plants and locations. 

This otherwise has been a stressful week and I'm burned out. I think I have too many projects going at one time, and more that need to be started. 

Tonight if it doesn't rain, I have one more area to pull weeds from in my front lawn. I did half yesterday after playing with the scape. They're calling for storms this evening so I'll need to play it by ear. If it does rain I'll either stain the remaining trim for the stand, or start working on the equipment inside the stand. I may even do both since staining won't take longer than an hour.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Now moving onto the scape, I think the funniest reaction I got from friends I've sent the most recent FTS to was "dude, don't even put plants in there, you'll ruin it" lol. I'll really need to be very careful with choosing plants and locations.


I always tell people that with hardscape heavy scapes. The hardest thing is to hold back. It's true with the Spiderwood in your scape if you put anything more on it than some nicely placed moss and keep it from growing wild you'll lose the wood. Same with the rocks. You would need to pick small buce, moss down low to not lose the rocks. You could also pick out some rocks that you won't cover at all and those will remain.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I always tell people that with hardscape heavy scapes. The hardest thing is to hold back. It's true with the Spiderwood in your scape if you put anything more on it than some nicely placed moss and keep it from growing wild you'll lose the wood. Same with the rocks. You would need to pick small buce, moss down low to not lose the rocks. You could also pick out some rocks that you won't cover at all and those will remain.


Yep, I think planting will be a lot more difficult than coming up with a scape. I did my best to not let the wood or the rocks overpower one another, so the plants will need to follow suit.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

Asteroid said:


> I always tell people that with hardscape heavy scapes. The hardest thing is to hold back. It's true with the Spiderwood in your scape if you put anything more on it than some nicely placed moss and keep it from growing wild you'll lose the wood. Same with the rocks. You would need to pick small buce, moss down low to not lose the rocks. You could also pick out some rocks that you won't cover at all and those will remain.


This is one of the challenges in my tank. Trying to find plants that will grow between the rocks but not overpower them is challenging. All of the Anubias I planted is far bigger than I planned, I have some Crypt Pink Flamingo that I planted too close together and now they’re out of control and crowding each other out, etc etc etc. I’ve been considering yanking all of the Anubias and gluing some interesting Buce there instead, and trying to pull and replant the crypt. I was worried about the crypt because I have no idea how to clean that up without killing the plant.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

jellopuddinpop said:


> This is one of the challenges in my tank. Trying to find plants that will grow between the rocks but not overpower them is challenging. All of the Anubias I planted is far bigger than I planned, I have some Crypt Pink Flamingo that I planted too close together and now they’re out of control and crowding each other out, etc etc etc. I’ve been considering yanking all of the Anubias and gluing some interesting Buce there instead, and trying to pull and replant the crypt. I was worried about the crypt because I have no idea how to clean that up without killing the plant.


Belindae dark is a really small buce with slender leaves. The leaves only get slightly bigger than parva. They'll good for tucking between rocks. They are on the dark side as the name implies. You could see in this pic with parva as well. Remember this tank is only 1.5 Gallons.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

So last night I started playing around with the stainless lily pipes. 

For the GLA canister filter, I'm using Dymax standard stainless pipes (no skimmer). My CO2 reactor will be hooked up inline with this filter. 

For the Oase, since there is an easily maintainable pre filter, I decided to try out the Aquarocks Colorado surface skimming stainless pipes. The reason I decided to try this design out is because it was so different. Rather than the standard surface skimming pipe design, this has the intake at the bottom, and at the top there is what reminds me of an overflow for a drilled tank...a pipe with a larger diameter than the actual drain pipe, and it has slits in it. The idea is you raise it to the water surface, and it'll skim through the slits, into the pipe and then into the filter. I figured that if I didn't like it, or had issues with it I could always just buy something else. 

After receiving it I took it out of the box and didn't really look closely at it. 

The very first thing I noticed is that the outer metal tube seemed loose. The very bottom of the pipe has a round steel circle piece with a screw. You unscrew it, remove that bottom cap and then you can slide off the outer sleeve. From there you can adjust the height by sliding the bottom portion up/down on the actual drain u tube. It's basically held in with 3 screws. The first thing I noticed is that it doesn't seem like a really clean build....it's very rough looking. The very bottom is welded on, and it's not welded on straight. When I began screwing that bottom cap off, at first it seemed like someone cross threaded it. It wasn't. The bottom that the cap screws into was welded crooked. 

I see the owner of that company post regularly in planted tank FB groups and he seems like a nice guy, but I'd never send out a product like this to a paying customer. If I DIY'd something like this I could understand it looking rough, but it doesn't look all that great. 

The other thing I didn't like is that the outer tube is held in place by weight and friction with two o rings, one at the bottom and one almost up at the top. It's held on the tube itself with the bottom cap I mentioned. It seems like o rings that aren't thick enough were used because they're basically doing nothing right now. You can easily slide the outer tube up and down. 

The very last thing I didn't like is the include method of mounting it to the tank. It relies on metal screws. Metal screws on glass. Anyone see a problem there? I mean they are flat where they tighten against the glass, but you don't use metal screws against glass. That's just stupid. All it'll take to scratch the glass is being a bit too rough when doing filter maintenance and the tubing pulls the mount and pipe to one side, and now you have a scratched tank. This problem is easily solvable by buying acrylic holders. The Dymax tubes came with acrylic or clear plastic holders with plastic screws....what you're supposed to use in this application. 

For the idea, I rate it 9 out of 10. Build quality, unfortunately it's a 2 out of 10. 

I'll probably still use them, at least initially, and only if I get acrylic or plastic holders for it. But yeah, I'd never send this to a paying customer. It's pretty rough looking, at least on the inside.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I played around under the stand a bit over the weekend trying to figure out the best way to position the equipment, as well as mount the reactor and power strip. 

My to do list this week is:


dragon stone rubble arrives today. I need to fill in gaps between the rocks to hold the sand in, then fill in sand and scatter rubble pieces around to complete the hard scape.
Pick up some brackets for mounting the reactor and some hose clamps.
install acrylic holders for the one set of lily pipes to do away with the ones that use metal screws to secure the brackets to the glass.
Mount reactor and power strip
begin positioning and connecting canister filters
drill holes in stand for tubing and power cord to go through
stain and mount trim
pickup and begin building doors

With the exception of the trim and doors, which I'm likely going to leave as last on the list, I very well may have this tank filled and starting cycling before this weekend is over. The most complicated setup is the GLA canister since it's connected to the reactor and requires a couple shutoff valves that I ordered from GLA a while back. The Oase should be pretty easy to set up. I just need to figure out how I'm going to stuff all the baskets. Right now I'm thinking the very bottom basket will be coarse foam, medium foam, and fine filter floss on top. Then lava rock in every other basket except for the top one which will get Purigen, but only when the tank cycles. I'll likely throw bagged carbon in there once the tank fills with water. 

After that stuff is installed, I'll set up the CO2 tank with regulator, but I'm not going to turn it on. I won't have plants in the tank while it's cycling, so there's no point in using CO2. I'll have a week to play with CO2 before fish get added so I won't have any risks of gassing everything to death. Then I'll need to play with the inkbird and figure out how that works lol. I may only run the lights for a few hours a day while it cycles. 

Goal would be for me to have the tank filled with water by Friday night. I might take Friday off so that'll give me a chance to pick up the materials for the doors and that refrigerated bacteria to start the cycle. 

Once the tank is filled I'm going to move onto figuring out plants and fish. 

That's where everything is at. I hoped to get more done over the weekend but spent a lot of time cleaning up outside. I literally filled an entire yard waste bag with weeds that came out of my lawn. For reference my lawn is at most 400 square feet lol. One of the things I wish I knew about was that lawn renovations should start in the fall. I thought it was spring so I didn't really do anything last fall. This year about 10% of my lawn is crabgrass which I haven't yet pulled, 10% weeds, 10% bald spots, and the rest is healthy grass. The lawn was really neglected over the years so it needs to be leveled, dethatched, core aerated, and overseeded. From what I understand you want to do all of those things when fall starts. The one thing I will do even though it's not the right time is seeding the bald spots. I almost want to buy some sod and just use that to make plugs to cover the bald spots. 

Anyway I'm getting away from the tank lol. I'll upload some pics when I get more done inside the stand, as well as when I finish up with the dragon stone rubble and topping off with more sand. The other thing I need to do is maintenance on my nano. I had some really weird slimy string algae growing in a few spots so I squirted excel in the areas with the filter off the last couple days. I turned the filter on shortly after each spot dosing of excel. Today I'm going to remove or heavily trim back the affected plants and do a water change. I may do another water change on Wednesday.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

You got the NilocG reactor correct? I'll be curious your thoughts on it once you get it setup - I'm getting a lot of micro bubbles from their in-line atomizer.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> You got the NilocG reactor correct? I'll be curious your thoughts on it once you get it setup - I'm getting a lot of micro bubbles from their in-line atomizer.


Yep, I bought theirs. It basically looked exactly ike what I'd build, but probably nicer looking than a DIY. 

My plan is to get the check valve on the included CO2 tubing, hook that up to the needle valve, and leave it until I get plants in the tank. I'll definitely post my thoughts on it once it's running. The one thing I like that they used is a cable gland for the tubing itself. The one thing I never liked about the DIY reactors is that you were relying on silicone or glue or something to seal up around the tubing you insert for CO2.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

I didn't see you mention it so I just wanted to chime in, don't forget to dose ammonia if you're doing a fishless cycle. The bottled bacteria doesn't do anything on its own =)

It's pretty obvious but I just wanted to point it out.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> I didn't see you mention it so I just wanted to chime in, don't forget to dose ammonia if you're doing a fishless cycle. The bottled bacteria doesn't do anything on its own =)
> 
> It's pretty obvious but I just wanted to point it out.


For sure. The guy at the LFS actually has ammonia for sale. I can probably get it cheaper, but it's more convenient to just buy it while I'm there.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Last night I didn't do a whole lot with this tank. The main reason is I was maintaining my nano since it was struggling a bit. It looks great now provided I keep up with maintenance, on actual maintenance day lol. 

The one thing I did manage to do is get the lily pipes installed where I think they'll be best. Both sets are on the right side of the tank so that you don't see them as you walk through the door. One set is towards the back glass with the outflow pointing across the tank, but pointed slightly towards the back glass. My thinking was that it would constantly push water through the back behind the scape and keep any crap suspended in the water column rather than settling in an area that will be filled with stem plants. The second set is closer to the front, but the outflow is pointed directly at the center of the hardscape. What I envision, and this will likely change once there's water in the tank, is that the water will be pushed across the parts of the tank that will be the most difficult to maintain once planted. The water flow will keep any detritus suspended, hit the opposite side of the tank and deflected towards the front and pushed back across the tank to be sucked up by the intakes. With the size of both canister filters I should get significant flow so I don't think I'll have issues from that regard. Obviously this will all likely change once the tank is filled with water, and probably a couple other times once the tank is planted and the plants start growing. The great thing is the power of the GLA filter combined with the outflow from the Oase should get CO2 laden water spread throughout the tank. 

Anyway I'll be playing around with the tank after work today. I'd like to complete the scape by using the rubble pieces and topping the sand off where it needs more. If I have some time I'll figure out what I need from the hardware store and take a ride to grab it. We're expecting storms the next couple days so I won't be able to get out and do much yard work so I'll focus instead of getting the tank to the point where I can begin filling it with water. 

I'll post some pics tonight of the progress. I'm curious to get thoughts on the positioning of the lily pipes.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Are you planning a carpet in the front of the tank?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Are you planning a carpet in the front of the tank?


I am, and am leaning towards a carpet of HC.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I am, and am leaning towards a carpet of HC.


Ok that could look very nice. Just telling you this from my 15 years experience growing carpets. If your doing HC on a tank that size you will have too push a significant amount of light down there. So with that much hardscape your uptake is limited so you have to make up for it in other ways. Like consistent big water changes, low stock, low feeding, carbon in filter at start, etc. I would also put as many stems in the back that you can. That will help with the higher light and algae. 

With inert sand, you can grow HC it probably won't come in as fast as it would with the active granular soils so it's important that the tank stays clean organically by multiple methods as discussed. 

You will also have to keep your light on a really short leash in the beginning. You want to prevent algae, because once you get it, it's gonna be all over that hardscape. If you heard otherwise that's fine, just sharing my experience.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Ok that could look very nice. Just telling you this from my 15 years experience growing carpets. If your doing HC on a tank that size you will have too push a significant amount of light down there. So with that much hardscape your uptake is limited so you have to make up for it in other ways. Like consistent big water changes, low stock, low feeding, carbon in filter at start, etc. I would also put as many stems in the back that you can. That will help with the higher light and algae.
> 
> With inert sand, you can grow HC it probably won't come in as fast as it would with the active granular soils so it's important that the tank stays clean organically by multiple methods as discussed.
> 
> You will also have to keep your light on a really short leash in the beginning. You want to prevent algae, because once you get it, it's gonna be all over that hardscape. If you heard otherwise that's fine, just sharing my experience.


I'm definitely not married to HC, and would be interested in seeing what everyone thinks. 

With regarding the PAR at substrate level, I suspect it will be high. Perhaps not crazy high, like over 100, but higher than 20 for sure. Hopefully my one reef keeping buddy still has his PAR meter because I'll either borrow it or ask him to come by so that I can get accurate readings. 

I'd love to buy one, but that seems like the type of equipment you use once and it gets put into a drawer somewhere until you set up a tank in the future lol.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

What light are you running again?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Virtus said:


> What light are you running again?


The Twinstar 1200 SP.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I pulled this off of a PAR data website. The 1200 is a bit more powerful, but the PAR this thing puts out is ridiculous.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Yeah, it's a strong light. Here's the thing. If the HC is in the front (off-center) you'll probably not be able to dim it much because once you go down what 2 ft, you'll probably at 50 Par or something, but the tank will be getting significantly more overall. Not saying you can't do it, just more difficult with a light demanding carpet. Most carpets, if you want that thick full look will require pretty good light.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Yeah, it's a strong light. Here's the thing. If the HC is in the front (off-center) you'll probably not be able to dim it much because once you go down what 2 ft, you'll probably at 50 Par or something, but the tank will be getting significantly more overall. Not saying you can't do it, just more difficult with a light demanding carpet. Most carpets, if you want that thick full look will require pretty good light.


Anything better suited for those conditions that is somewhat similar to HC? I think the thing I've always liked about HC is that it has tiny leaves, and tends to form a really nice low growing carpet.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Anything better suited for those conditions that is somewhat similar to HC? I think the thing I've always liked about HC is that it has tiny leaves, and tends to form a really nice low growing carpet.


Monte Carlo would be less light and still small ieaved to give good scale.




__





Micranthemum tweediei 'Monte Carlo' - Tropica Aquarium Plants


The right aquarium plants




tropica.com





HC




__





Hemianthus callitrichoides 'Cuba' - Tropica Aquarium Plants


The right aquarium plants




tropica.com





Either one would obviously require more light than simply placing moss on flat stones and have them around the base of the rock in the front. But you should go for the look you want.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Monte Carlo would be less light and still small ieaved to give good scale.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I was actually already planning on Monte Carlo. I was going to glue some on the tops of the dragon stone behind my spider wood so that it kind of cascades down. I've seen that on a few tanks and really liked the way it looks. 

One of the other ideas I had was to not carpet the path between the two mounds. Instead, using something low growing and pink/red/orange/etc. Not sure what options are available there, but I think it would be a nice change from the sand paths that are a bit overdone at this point. It's probably a tall order to find something that fits that idea plant-wise, but it's just something that I can picture in my head and if executed well I think it would look good.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I was actually already planning on Monte Carlo. I was going to glue some on the tops of the dragon stone behind my spider wood so that it kind of cascades down. I've seen that on a few tanks and really liked the way it looks.
> 
> One of the other ideas I had was to not carpet the path between the two mounds. Instead, using something low growing and pink/red/orange/etc. Not sure what options are available there, but I think it would be a nice change from the sand paths that are a bit overdone at this point. It's probably a tall order to find something that fits that idea plant-wise, but it's just something that I can picture in my head and if executed well I think it would look good.


That might be tough. AR mini could possibly work in a tank that size. Just pointing out the more light you need for certain plants the more challenging it will be for a tank with that much hardscape. Seems like you want to keep them, but the DS in the back if taking out would leave more room for plants. Again just making suggestions on how to better control algae due to strong light


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> That might be tough. AR mini could possibly work in a tank that size. Just pointing out the more light you need for certain plants the more challenging it will be for a tank with that much hardscape. Seems like you want to keep them, but the DS in the back if taking out would leave more room for plants. Again just making suggestions on how to better control algae due to strong light


Almost the entire back will be filled with fast growing stem plants. I think the biggest challenge is the other 2/3rds of the tank. The wood will be covered to a certain extent because I just don't think there are many options that stay fairly compact, but tall enough that you'll be able to see them. Building up the sand a bit more will definitely help from that regard. 

I'll need to find the pink plant I saw that first gave me the idea. I want to say it had Araguia or something along those lines in the name.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> Almost the entire back will be filled with fast growing stem plants. I think the biggest challenge is the other 2/3rds of the tank. The wood will be covered to a certain extent because I just don't think there are many options that stay fairly compact, but tall enough that you'll be able to see them. Building up the sand a bit more will definitely help from that regard.
> 
> I'll need to find the pink plant I saw that first gave me the idea. I want to say it had Araguia or something along those lines in the name.


Rotala Mexicana 'Araguaia'? Also called Rotala red cross

There's also Hygrophila lancea 'Araguaia' which is pink and from what I know very difficult?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> Rotala Mexicana 'Araguaia'? Also called Rotala red cross
> 
> There's also Hygrophila lancea 'Araguaia' which is pink and from what I know very difficult?


I think it's the second one. I wasn't sure if the one I found online was it, and it was but it seems like it isn't a low grower, especially to fit in a pathway

ETA: I'll need to go back to the drawing board. The one plant I also was thinking about was pogostemon helferi downoi. A path full of those would be pretty cool looking over a plain sand pathway.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> I think it's the second one. I wasn't sure if the one I found online was it, and it was but it seems like it isn't a low grower, especially to fit in a pathway
> 
> ETA: I'll need to go back to the drawing board. The one plant I also was thinking about was pogostemon helferi downoi. A path full of those would be pretty cool looking over a plain sand pathway.


I love helferi and it's not hard to grow I think. Hygro Araguaia is craaaazy pink and would be really pretty if you can pull it off!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> I love helferi and it's not hard to grow I think. Hygro Araguaia is craaaazy pink and would be really pretty if you can pull it off!


Do you know if that Hydro stays lower to the ground? The pics I saw kind of made me think it grows like a regular stem plant. But yes, the pink would look amazing if it stayed low to the ground.

ETA: based on the pics I've seen of it, the thing aside from the pink coloration that appealed to me is that it wasn't a really dense bush of a plant so you'd still see some of the sand.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> Do you know if that Hydro stays lower to the ground? The pics I saw kind of made me think it grows like a regular stem plant. But yes, the pink would look amazing if it stayed low to the ground.


It definitely stays lower than many, check:









How to grow Hygrophila sp. chai


Hygrophila sp. chai is a mutation of Hygrophila araguaia that occurred in South Island's farm (Singapore). It takes on a distinctively pink coloration, with occasional white streaks. This is a detailed guide on how to grow Hygrophila sp. chai, including how to overcome challenges in keeping this...




www.2hraquarist.com





It's also a slow grower so should not be overtaking anything.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> It definitely stays lower than many, check:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks! It looks like that's a plant I'd need to wait a while on because it's sensitive to unstable parameters. I can probably leave the sand path alone for a while and once the tank is more mature I can consider adding that. It's really a cool looking plant!


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> Thanks! It looks like that's a plant I'd need to wait a while on because it's sensitive to unstable parameters. I can probably leave the sand path alone for a while and once the tank is more mature I can consider adding that. It's really a cool looking plant!


yep it looks amazing but all the extra beautiful ones are like The Princess on the Pea hahah. Good idea to add it last.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> yep it looks amazing but all the extra beautiful ones are like The Princess on the Pea hahah. Good idea to add it last.


One of the other plants I've fallen in love with is Mermaid Weed. I just love the leaf shape.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> One of the other plants I've fallen in love with is Mermaid Weed. I just love the leaf shape.


oh yeah that's also stunning but picky. Apparently in nature it can grow MASSIVE, like ridiculously massive.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Thanks! It looks like that's a plant I'd need to wait a while on because it's sensitive to unstable parameters. I can probably leave the sand path alone for a while and once the tank is more mature I can consider adding that. It's really a cool looking plant!


That's probably best. See where you are with plant growth, algae, etc and then you would know if you have lead way to increase light, etc for some of those "designer" plants.


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## Katmanreef (Jul 6, 2017)

For your carpet plant, Marsilea Hirsuta is a nice foreground plant for areas that may not receive the best light. It grows slow, but is a pretty unforgiving plant and creates a nice carpet over time if you take the time to plant properly in the beginning.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

GLA quietly dropped a video on their YouTube page featuring two new stainless steel CO2 reactors. 

Based on the video, it looks like you can add a heater and something else....they specifically mention a UV sterilizer. 

They also have an integrated burp valve to get rid of excess CO2 if you're pushing too much through. 

I'm not sure what they're going to cost but I'm a little disappointed that I didn't wait because I'd probably have bought one. 

You can see a video of them here. 

It doesn't look like they're on the website yet so it'll be interesting to see how much they'll be. They look well made.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

Interesting!

Yes, they have two large cable glands in the lid - presumably for a heater and sterilizer sleeve. I kind of hate having opaque reactor housings, though... it makes it hard to dial in the reactor flow. In any case, I think it's cool that something like this is being offered, even if I wouldn't buy it myself.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> Interesting!
> 
> Yes, they have two large cable glands in the lid - presumably for a heater and sterilizer sleeve. I kind of hate having opaque reactor housings, though... it makes it hard to dial in the reactor flow. In any case, I think it's cool that something like this is being offered, even if I wouldn't buy it myself.


That definitely is the one major downside. How'd you know if the CO2 was dialed in appropriately? Too much would be easy to identify based on hearing the gurgling, but not enough would be tough outside of just regular testing.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Alright, so I'm going to take a half day off work today and take care of a few things. I'm going to take a run over to the hardwood store to pick up what I need for the doors for the stand and then ride over to the LFS to grab that refrigerated bacteria, ammonia, as well as some carbon. Once I have all that I'm going to work on getting the scape done (just need to break up some of the dragon stone rubble and add it to the tank, as well as topping off the sand), equipment installed, and fill the tank. I'm probably being optimistic that the tank will be filled with water today, but it will be by Sunday for sure unless something I forgot holds me back. I think I have everything though.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I managed to get as far as getting the wood for the stand doors and the bacteria, ammonia, and carbon. 

The refrigerated bacteria is Fritz Zyme. The owner of the LFS said that he's cycled client's tanks that he maintains as quickly as a week, but generally I should expect about 2 weeks. 

I'm not going to hold my hopes up for a one or two week cycle. We'll see what happens though. 

I tried taking a half day on Friday, but it was more like a 1/8th day off since I had a client take up my afternoon once I came back home from those two stores. 

I tweaked my back yesterday so when I arrived back home at 3pm I basically just rested up. The back is a little tight today but good enough to work inside the stand. 

Today the plan is to get as much done as I can so that I can get the tank filled. The bulk of the work is getting the reactor and power strip mounted, holes drilled for the power cord and tubing. The scape isn't going to take a whole lot of time to finish up. I've plugged up gaps in the rock already so the last two things are smashing some of the extra rubble so that I can scatter it around and then top off the sand. 

As long as I have the hole saws I need, I should be able to get this wrapped up today. I'd probably stretch it out a bit more, but I just want to get this going so that I can cross it off my list and focus on other projects.


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## Virtus (11 mo ago)

That's awesome! Can't wait to see pictures of everything.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Okay, I've made some progress. 

Took some pics along the way but I'm going to take a quick break to have lunch and will get back at it. 

Reactor mounted:










Power strip:










Inkbird:










Reactor plumbed in:










GLA canister plumbed in:










I definitely need one more of those valves so I ordered from GLA. While I can disconnect to clean the tubing, I'm not able to remove the top of the GLA canister filter without setting something into the stand that's similarly sized without bending the tubing. One more shut off valve would let me cut water off, disconnect the top from the system, and then maintain it a lot easier. It's not totally necessary, but will make life easier. It's not standing in the way of getting this tank filled though. 

After I have lunch I'll get the Oase plumbed in. 

I'm not going to organize any wires today. That will require a trip to the hardware store to pick up some cable organizers or something. Not a necessity at the moment. 

Once the equipment is connected I'll work on getting lava rock rinsed and added to both canister filters, and with the Oase adding some carbon as well. 

Then I'll work on the hardscape. I wanted to get this done since it's the most time consuming part. But one more hole needs to be drilled and I think that's it.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Got sidetracked a bit this afternoon with a guest who basically invited themselves over. Normally I don't mind when someone stops by out of the blue. Most of my friends aren't offended if they stop by and catch me in the middle of a project because they'll either help out, or entertain themselves. The person who stopped by is a bit of a drama queen and if you're not dropping everything you're doing she starts getting angry. She became annoyed when my puppy wouldn't leave her alone and left after an hour. I swear she's like a vampire because every time she's left I've felt drained having to listen to everything that has happened to her since the last time we saw one another. Needless to say I took a nap lol. 

I did manage to get the Oase connected to the lily pipes, as well as getting the regulator connected to the 10 lbs tank, and that all connected to the reactor. I'm not going to run CO2 until the tank is cycled and I have plants in the tank. 

I need to get the lava rock rinsed and added to the canister filters along with a bag of carbon to toss into the Oase. Sunlight is starting to dwindle here so I need to get on that asap. Chances are that I don't get this filled with water until tomorrow because I still need to work on the inside of the tank and haven't yet. I'll see how far along I get over the next hour while I still have sunlight. The lava rock isn't going to take very long because I removed quite a few bags from the tank before I added sand since I went overboard with bagged lava rock. It's still bagged so I just need to give it another rinse. 

Here's what it's looking like right now under the stand:










The only thing I don't really like is where the GLA canister is. But my options were limited and it's fine where it is. I really have to admit that it's way easier plumbing a reef ready tank. The biggest issue is that tubing bends so you can't make sharpish turns. That's really what limited my options. Before I began I actually started thinking about using 3/4" pvc but short pieces of PVC with barbed fittings all over the place with true unions really didn't make a lot of sense and would just have created more work for no reason. 

Believe it or not this was a lot more work than I expected. I did have half hours here and there walking the dog, but this took a long time.

ETA: figured I'd update this post rather than creating a new one. I have the GLA canister filled up with one massive filter bag of lava rock. The Oase has the very bottom tray with the red sponge that's typically in the top tray, with filter floss on top of it. Then the next I want to say 5 trays are all filled with lava rock. The smaller tray has two bags of carbon. After watching reviews of the Oase, I don't think I'll need to maintain this filter very much aside from pulling the pre filter out once a week or every other week to clean off the sponges. I'll probably do an experiment where I just let it go 6 months without pulling all the trays out and just replacing the media if the very top tray monthly. Initially I'll use carbon to suck up as much of the tannins as possible for the first month or two. After the second month I'll be running matrix in it. I assume if the wood starts leeching a lot of tannins I'll probably be replacing carbon weekly for the first few weeks. The plan for tomorrow is to focus on the scape and get that done, then start filling this bad boy up with water and get all the equipment except for the CO2 up and running. I'll basically just get the CO2 to the point where it just needs to be plugged in.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

ddiomede said:


> Got sidetracked a bit this afternoon with a guest who basically invited themselves over. Normally I don't mind when someone stops by out of the blue. Most of my friends aren't offended if they stop by and catch me in the middle of a project because they'll either help out, or entertain themselves. The person who stopped by is a bit of a drama queen and if you're not dropping everything you're doing she starts getting angry. She became annoyed when my puppy wouldn't leave her alone and left after an hour. I swear she's like a vampire because every time she's left I've felt drained having to listen to everything that has happened to her since the last time we saw one another. Needless to say I took a nap lol.


My mom does this to you too??


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> My mom does this to you too??


My puppy is basically like a toddler with ADHD without meds and if I don't force him to calm down when people come by, he's basically in their faces the entire time. I have to admit that I didn't even try to calm him when she came by knowing that he'd drive her crazy and she'd leave  

Anyhow, the agenda today is to grab the dragon stone rubble, take it outside and smash the larger pieces into smaller pieces and finish up the scape. I have one more bag of PFS and I figure I'll need somewhere between 1/4 - 1/2 bag to top off sand to build up the mounds. A lot of sand migrated away through the gaps in the rock. 

Once that's done, it's time to start filling up both filters with water, get them hooked back up and sealed, and then fill the tank and get everything running while checking for leaks. I'll probably dump some of the bacteria in the tank after letting everything run for a few hours and then also dose ammonia. 

I was talking to a friend of mine, a fellow fish nerd, and he brought up a good point that I hadn't considered. If I cycle the tank I'll need to continue dosing ammonia if I don't have fish in the tank. I told him that it was going to take me a while to figure out plants. He came up with a pretty good idea....choose my foreground plants, and the stem plants for the background first, get them, and then add fish after planting. Then when I figured out the mid ground I can drain about half the water and the fish will still have room to swim around since the front is so much lower. I think it makes sense, but I also want to get it mostly planted before adding fish. 

I'll start thinking about plants after I get the tank filled with water, so tonight I'll start thinking about plant positioning and species.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

If your midground is stems then yeah you can do that, but if your midground is going to be mostly epiphytes attached to rock/wood then probably easier to do at the beginning as you can simply attach with a dot of glue. I think stems in the midground area will quickly eat up the rocks.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> If your midground is stems then yeah you can do that, but if your midground is going to be mostly epiphytes attached to rock/wood then probably easily to do at the beginning as you can simply attach with a dot of glue. I think stems in the midground area will quickly eat up the rocks.


Yep, I'm going to have mostly epiphytes in the mid ground so I'll likely need to just get most of it planted, or at least the stuff that's easiest to plant with minimal water in the tank. 

The stems will all be in the background. I really like the look of the Brazilian style scapes that have stem heavy backgrounds, and there really aren't any other good spots in this scape for stems. 

The one thing I haven't really thought about, or really put much thought in is a clean up crew. 

How many snails, Amano's, and Oto's will I need for a tank this size, and when is the best time to add them? Usually with reef tanks you want to add a clean up crew about the same time you're adding corals. Is it best to add them right after the tank cycles and is fully planted, or a month after the cycle? I have to admit this is a topic I'm fairly ignorant on.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

You add your snails and Amanos as soon as there's enough Algae for them to feed on.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> The one thing I haven't really thought about, or really put much thought in is a clean up crew.


I'll let you in on a little secret about "clean up crews"



Spoiler



They make a mess!


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Asteroid said:


> I'll let you in on a little secret about "clean up crews"
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You say this but I’m not sure it’s entirely true? I mean yeah the shrimp and snails poop a lot. But you don’t feed them for the most part, and they do clean things that are really a pain to clean, like bits of algae that start to form on the leaves, or bits of food the fish missed... and since your input for them is zero, whatever caloric energy they use up on growing and multiplying has to make a net benefit for the tank, no? Poop notwithstanding.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Final FTS before it gets filled with water. Smashed up some dragon stone rubble and scattered it around randomly. Also topped off some sand on the mounds. 

I'll probably get it filled up over the next couple hours, but this will be running before I go to bed tonight. 










ETA: the next FTS will be the tank filled, but one thing that'll look weird are some random pieces of dragon stone on the wood. I was thinking about glueing some of the rock to the wood, but the rocks in the background will be canted backwards a bit once the wood become waterlogged and I don't want to use too much force to get the bond to break when that happens. For now I'll stack a couple extra pieces of dragon stone on top of the wood to hold it down and remove them once they're no longer needed.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

*It’s happening ⭐*


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> *It’s happening ⭐*


359 posts and the stand is still not even done, but the tank is getting filled


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> 359 posts and the stand is still not even done, but the tank is getting filled


hey - water in the tank - you have a tank!!! Stand cosmetics can come whenever


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

LidijaPN said:


> You say this but I’m not sure it’s entirely true? I mean yeah the shrimp and snails poop a lot. But you don’t feed them for the most part, and they do clean things that are really a pain to clean, like bits of algae that start to form on the leaves, or bits of food the fish missed... and since your input for them is zero, whatever caloric energy they use up on growing and multiplying has to make a net benefit for the tank, no? Poop notwithstanding.


Yes, question everything!

To me you should get shrimp/snails because you like them in the tank, they will not have any substantial affect on algae and waste. We need the filter and water changes for that. Ideally, especially in hi-tech with good light you don't want to have anything left in the tank for shrimp to eat. That's an indicator your feeding too much. You need to feed lightly and remove with surface gravel wash.

Shrimp eat things like bio-film and other things you wouldn't care about and create waste from it so you need to add them to the bio-load not subtract. When I had a shrimp only tank and tank with fish that had light sand, you could see the bottom was covered in waste and I only fed them an algae wafer once/twice a week. Good husbandry is probably the most important thing you could do and even more important in a hi-tech tank with lots of hardscape.


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## Katmanreef (Jul 6, 2017)

The tank looks real good so far! Now start saving up some money or dip into your retirement funds to get a bunch of bucephalandra


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Asteroid said:


> Yes, question everything!
> 
> To me you should get shrimp/snails because you like them in the tank, they will not have any substantial affect on algae and waste. We need the filter and water changes for that. Ideally, especially in hi-tech with good light you don't want to have anything left in the tank for shrimp to eat. That's an indicator your feeding too much. You need to feed lightly and remove with surface gravel wash.
> 
> Shrimp eat things like bio-film and other things you wouldn't care about and create waste from it so you need to add them to the bio-load not subtract. When I had a shrimp only tank and tank with fish that had light sand, you could see the bottom was covered in waste and I only fed them an algae wafer once/twice a week. Good husbandry is probably the most important thing you could do and even more important in a hi-tech tank with lots of hardscape.


Don’t they eat algae tho?

Although yes personally I just find them adorable. But they sorta complete the ecosystem. And their poop adds to the stuff in the substrate that feeds plants, probably? I get that it’s annoying on sand tho.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Ran into a problem. The GLA filter is leaking badly from the DC pump, right where the outlet of the canister connects to the DC pump with a rubber sleeve. There's a nut on the pump and it's leaking badly there. I took it apart to see if I could figure out what the issue is and I think that the nut was cross threaded, or overtightened during assembly. That whole lid came preassembled and I haven't touched that connection especially since it was put together by them. I've tried tightening it by hand and it just continues to leak worse. The weird thing is if you keep tightening it, it'll "pop" like it jumped the threads and it suddenly doesn't leak as bad. I have it running right now and it's a slow drip. I definitely can't leave it this way overnight so I'll let it run a bit longer and then take it offline. 

For now I'll work on getting the Oase powered up and primed. Tank is filled though! Let's hope there aren't any issues with the Oase lol.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Urgh on stuff not working the way it should! Still exciting the tank is filled tho


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

What a mess. The Oase filter works perfectly. Except for those Aqua Rocks Colorado pipes. I'm starting to wonder if I was sent the wrong size pipes. I'm using 16mm tubing, but these pipes slide right onto the tubing no problem. I checked my order confirmation and it says 16mm so I'm wondering if there was a screwup. These are significantly smaller. The reason I noticed that there was a problem is there was a puddle on the floor. Even with hose clamps they're still leaking. To describe the issue even more, I didn't even need to heat up the tubing to slide it on....it just slide on without any friction. I'm going to bust out my calipers and measure and come back and edit. If they're 12mm I'm going to be angry lol. So frustrating, but these are on the Oase which adds another layer of fun lol. So I have one set of lily pipes on a filter that is leaking, and another set where the filter works but the pipes are too small lol. 

I'm going to email GLA and Aqua Rocks right now to let them know about the issues. 

The GLA is running and I'm not seeing leaks. If I turn the power off, then it leaks. I'm just going to let it run for now and keep a close eye on it. I added a second set of clamps on the other pipes so even if there's a slow leak, at least it won't be terrible. 

Definitely a frustrating two days. I almost don't even want to start cycling the tank in the event I have to kick one or both filters off completely. 

Anyhow here's the tank. Still a bit cloudy but I'm sure by tomorrow it'll be nice and clear.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Oh man I’d be livid in your position. But the tank is a beauty. The scape transforms magically somehow when water is added.


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## Chucker (Apr 9, 2011)

ddiomede said:


> The GLA is running and I'm not seeing leaks. If I turn the power off, then it leaks.


Just thinking out loud, but if it only leaks when it is off, you're likely sucking air in when it is running.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Chucker said:


> Just thinking out loud, but if it only leaks when it is off, you're likely sucking air in when it is running.


I suspect that is what's happening. 

GLA got back to me this morning and they're going to send out a replacement nut. While I couldn't tell if the threads were damaged on the nut, I suspect that's what the issue is since the interface is a compression fitting with an o ring. 

Personally I'd have preferred they just send out a whole replacement lid and I'd ship the one I have back, but hopefully a replacement nut does the trick. 

I did also hear back from Aqua Rocks Colorado. Basically the solution is to push the tubing further up the pipe and clamp down harder. I think that works for the outflow tubing since it's not under pressure and hasn't been the source of a leak, but the outflow tube is under pressure so needing to crank down on a hose clamp is not a great solution. I may just find a replacement outflow tube that's correctly sized rather than worrying about this leaking. It's not currently leaking, but I really had to crank down on the hose clamp, far more than I should have to. 

Aside from that, no leaks this morning. The tank still looks a bit cloudy though. I'll check on it after work today and see if the cloudiness has gotten better. The next two things I need to do are getting the inkbird and heater working, and program the light. I preprogrammed the light interface I bought off amazon, but just need to set the current time. Once I get plants in the tank I'll start messing with the CO2. 

I'm also going to add the bacteria after work. I might as well get the cycle going while I'm at it.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Tank is looking good! Buy yourself some different lily pipes, save the frustration. Either that or get some hose crimpers/clamps and snug them up and see if that fixes your leak.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> Tank is looking good! Buy yourself some different lily pipes, save the frustration. Either that or get some hose crimpers/clamps and snug them up and see if that fixes your leak.


Thanks!

I think getting a different outflow pipe is the only option that makes any sense. I may buy a full set with intake surface skimmer and if I start seeing leaks on the intake, I might just replace that too. So far though at least that hasn't leaked. It's working exactly as I imagined it would which is disappointing given the sizing of the tubing. Basically what I think happened is Aqua Rocks had a really good idea for a different approach to surface skimming, and then placed orders for 12mm and 16mm pipes. Whoever manufactured them basically did exactly that, rather than sizing the pipes up 1mm and he wound up with a big order of incorrectly sized pipes and is stuck with them. 

I think I'll order the Jardli pipes you recommended.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

While I'm dealing with the equipment issues, I figured I'd start thinking about plants, starting with stem plants. 

For species, here's what I'm thinking so far: 


Rotala H'ra
R. Bonsai
Mermaid weed
Ludwiga super red
Rotala macandra
Rotala Wallichi

Ideally what I envision are plants that span the color spectrum - green, yellow/orange, red, with differing leaf shapes. I figure I can fit 3 bunches on each side of the tank in the back. 

The two I'm dead set on are the Wallichi and Mermaid weed, the rest I'm not in love with and would welcome feedback on, or being pointed in a different direction.

ETA: What I'd like to avoid is mirroring both sides. I'd really love for the sides to feature different species, as well as varying the colors.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Good luck with the plants. Looks like the hardscape came together nicely, especially once the sand was added. Some of those plants you're going to need some pretty strong light, so just keep that in mind.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Good luck with the plants. Looks like the hardscape came together nicely, especially once the sand was added. Some of those plants you're going to need some pretty strong light, so just keep that in mind.


I'm probably going to lower this light pretty significantly, but the one advantage I have is that almost all of the high light plants will be within 12-14" of the surface since the two mounds are built up so high. 

The one thing I'm going to do is see if I can track down someone who owns a PAR meter. That'll help with adjusting the light height and front/rear positioning. The weakest lighting will be the bottom front since that's so far from the surface, but without a PAR meter I won't know for sure. The PAR data on the same series of light I have, but a less powerful unit is pretty impressive. 

Right now the lighting is positioned slightly more towards the back of the tank than the front. I think the one challenge I'll have is if I do a carpeting plant, how much PAR will be hitting them. For that I'll definitely need a PAR meter. I really don't want to buy one so hopefully I'll find a friend that owns one.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

It's crazy how much air is still in the system. Just a few minutes ago I looked at the tank and saw air bubbles still shooting up from either the rock or sand. The filters are also still full of air bubbles. I can hear the Oase still shooting out air. I may mod the pre filter chamber as I've seen done on YouTube from a channel where the guy basically mods filters. Inside the pre filter is a tube with a very small number of holes. If you double, triple, or quadruple the number of holes it seems to cut down on the air bubble problems, and increases flow. I might order a second one and mod that just to be safe though lol.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

That's good that it's closer to the light. 

Sometimes you can rent PAR meters. I'm pretty sure Bulk Reef Supply does in the event you can't find a friend. Sometimes other hobbyists rent them as well.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> That's good that it's closer to the light.
> 
> Sometimes you can rent PAR meters. I'm pretty sure Bulk Reef Supply does in the event you can't find a friend. Sometimes other hobbyists rent them as well.


Just pinged my buddy and he said he has a Seneye that he's never used before but will stop by with it when he has time so that we can play around with it. I'm not sure how that compares to the Apogee, but if it's close enough, that'll be fine.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Just pinged my buddy and he said he has a Seneye that he's never used before but will stop by with it when he has time so that we can play around with it. I'm not sure how that compares to the Apogee, but if it's close enough, that'll be fine.


I have the Seneye, LOL, sorry no rentals. I just got mine not too long ago. Glad you got one through a friend.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I have the Seneye, LOL, sorry no rentals. I just got mine not too long ago. Glad you got one through a friend.


How do you like it? I looked them up and they're not prohibitively expensive like the Apogee is.


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## Katmanreef (Jul 6, 2017)

ddiomede said:


> While I'm dealing with the equipment issues, I figured I'd start thinking about plants, starting with stem plants.
> 
> For species, here's what I'm thinking so far:
> 
> ...


Nice plant list! Just a heads up, the Rotala H'ra and the Ludwigia Super Red tend to grow at angles instead of straight up. When I had mine, they would grow at 45 degree angles, great for a bush effect, but kinda got a bit messy looking


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> While I'm dealing with the equipment issues, I figured I'd start thinking about plants, starting with stem plants.
> 
> For species, here's what I'm thinking so far:
> 
> ...


Bacopa Salzmannii SG (must be specifically the SG variant tho, for full effect) is a great easy stunning purple:








Another fun one could be the eichhornia diversifolia, since I remember you liked some star-shaped ones?


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> How do you like it? I looked them up and they're not prohibitively expensive like the Apogee is.


No they're not, about 1/2 the price I think. It seems to work well. I was on the fence for a long time waiting for an newer version with blue tooth and a phone app or something, but it wasn't happening. So the only thing I don't like is attaching the meter to the computer via USB. I end up having to move my laptop near the tank or I guess you can get a long usb cord, but then I'd walk right thru it and break my laptop.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Katmanreef said:


> Nice plant list! Just a heads up, the Rotala H'ra and the Ludwigia Super Red tend to grow at angles instead of straight up. When I had mine, they would grow at 45 degree angles, great for a bush effect, but kinda got a bit messy looking


That might actually work, depending on the angle they decide to grow at. I will probably put one in one corner and the other in the opposite corner. They'll be behind rocks so my theory is that if they grow on angles, then they might grow upright enough to kind of cascade over the top of the rocks once they reach the height of them. I'll try it out and if they don't work out I can add something else in their place. But if they can grow 12-14" tall and form a bush, that would be perfect for the corners. 


LidijaPN said:


> Bacopa Salzmannii SG (must be specifically the SG variant tho, for full effect) is a great easy stunning purple:
> View attachment 1043253
> 
> Another fun one could be the eichhornia diversifolia, since I remember you liked some star-shaped ones?
> View attachment 1043254


Those are definitely nice. I may be coming into possession of Bacopa Salzmannii SG soon. They'll be going into my nano tank to start and once I have enough growth the cuttings will get replanted and the mother plants transplanted into this tank. 

I don't want to mention who because we almost got into trouble in my other thread lol. But thanks again, you know who you are lol. 

There are so many interesting stem plants to choose from!



Asteroid said:


> No they're not, about 1/2 the price I think. It seems to work well. I was on the fence for a long time waiting for an newer version with blue tooth and a phone app or something, but it wasn't happening. So the only thing I don't like is attaching the meter to the computer via USB. I end up having to move my laptop near the tank or I guess you can get a long usb cord, but then I'd walk right thru it and break my laptop.


I saw that Apogee also just sells the meter itself without the base unit. It's still almost 2X the Seneye and I can't see paying almost $400 for something I'll use once or twice. I'm a member of a local club as well that might have a loaner. I might reach out to them and see if I can use it, or just get someone to come by with it so that I can get the readings I need. I'll borrow my buddy's seneye as a last resort. A few years back I'd have just bought the Apogee but there was always someone around in the reefing community who had one that I could use. A lot of people got out of the hobby over the last several years though.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

So another leak popped up today. The pump on the GLA canister is held in place by a bracket. It has started leaking around the bracket.










I contacted GLA again to let them know and they basically said that this is the first time they've heard of the problems I'm having and then basically described how to take it apart. They also made sure to point out that I should never handle the canister by using the pump as a handle.

On the one hand, I appreciate their quick responses. On the other hand, and I'll preface this knowing how the vast majority of the public is, but do you really think I'm going to lift the dang canister up by using the pump as a handle? The pump and the inlet that's welded on at the bottom of the canister are the weak points of the design. Only an idiot would use either of those two things as handles to lift the entire weight of the canister lol. The lid and pump were sitting in the box since receiving it. I took it out once to take a pic of the filter, and then flipped the lid around exactly how it was shipped. When I installed the tubing, I was using near boiling water so the tubing slid right on with basically no force. Perhaps I'm just aggravated dealing with these leaks and am reading into what they wrote more than I should. I asked if they had a manual or schematic since this is the first DC pump I've owned.

Anyway, I'm not doing that until the shutoff valve I ordered arrives, along with the replacement nut. I really don't want to keep taking this filter offline, online, then offline, and then online again. If this leak doesn't stop today I'll just take the filter offline and leave it offline until the parts arrive.

ETA: I'm starting to regret buying this canister. Maybe I should have just went with two Oase 850's. Very frustrating and hopefully these issues will be resolved by the end of the week. I should be receiving the Jardli stainless pipes tomorrow so I'll replace the outflow tube that's leaking, and then decide if I want to also use the surface skimmer pipe that comes with it.

Update: GLA responded and said that they'll make a video taking one of these pumps apart and will send it to me. He also said that he believes that the o ring might have gotten misaligned at some point for it to have started leaking all of a sudden and that once I take it apart that should solve the problem. I'm glad they're doing everything they can to help.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

So the housing for the GLA pump is still leaking. It's leaking enough that leaving it overnight really isn't an option. I'm going to leave it until I'm getting ready for bed to decide on what action to take. If the leaking is contained to the top of the filter, I'll leave it, but if it's about to overflow into the stand I'll taking the filter offline. The one thing I can do is try to take the pump apart to see why it's leaking. I'll need to take it apart either way so why not just do it now.

The Oase continues shooting bubbles out. I'm honestly not surprised because there are a billion micro bubbles all over the tank.

The water is still pretty cloudy, which is one thing that did surprise me. I figured after 24 hours it would clear up, but it hasn't. I ordered a bottle of Seachem's clarifier and that should arrive tomorrow along with the stainless lily pipes. This actually brings up another observation.....I'll be replacing both of the Aqua Rocks pipes. There is far too much crap floating on the surface so I don't think the skimmer is working very well. It was worth a shot because it seemed like a good idea. It looks like water is entering the skimmer, but not very strongly.

One other thing I may do eventually is add an ATO. The tank evaporated about 3/8". I'm not even sure how many gallons that is but I'm sure it's at least a couple gallons and in winter it'll be much, much worse. It's not an immediate need but one piece of equipment I'll need to add on down the road.

Aside from all that, I'm kind of just stuck at this point. The GLA package probably won't get here until Friday at the earliest so I'll be fighting leaks until then unless I turn the filter off. I'm debating if I should add the bacteria, or just wait.

Two things I can do tonight is get the heater and inkbird working, and maybe even get the lighting controller set up and programmed with the current time. It's been hot here the last couple days so my AC has been running almost non stop and the basement is 65 degrees lol. I'm sure the tank water is a degree or two warmer just from the heat from the pumps.

I exaggerated a little bit. The tank isn't quite as cloudy as yesterday, but it's far from crystal clear. I'm probably going to lower the light several inches. It's currently close to 10" above the top of the tank.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Don't knock yourself out, I would just shut down the GLA until you have everything ready. What is the GPH on the Oasis anyway?[/QUOTE]


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Don't knock yourself out, I would just shut down the GLA until you have everything ready. What is the GPH on the Oasis anyway?


[/QUOTE]

It's advertised as "400 gph" so 200 gallons per hour? lol. Compared to the GLA, the flow rate is significantly lower. 

I'm probably going to wait until 9pm or so and see how much water has accumulated on the lid. If it's enough where it won't go 6 hours before spilling over, I'll just take it down, drain as much water as needed out of the line, and then just leave it alone.


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## Katmanreef (Jul 6, 2017)

ddiomede said:


> That might actually work, depending on the angle they decide to grow at. I will probably put one in one corner and the other in the opposite corner. They'll be behind rocks so my theory is that if they grow on angles, then they might grow upright enough to kind of cascade over the top of the rocks once they reach the height of them. I'll try it out and if they don't work out I can add something else in their place. But if they can grow 12-14" tall and form a bush, that would be perfect for the corners.


For that purpose, it should be a perfect fit! They will definetly grow tall, and once you learn how to trim the particular species to get the look you want, it'll have that nice cascading effect.

Another really nice plant that you may consider is Blyxa Japonica:
















It's technically a stem plant, but grows more like a rosette. It has a soft look and a great way to fill in spaces between the hardscape. When planted behind hardscape, it creates a nice green backdrop to make the hardscape pop. It adds a flowly look to the tank as well with the waving leaves, also making a nice transitional plant that blends in the foreground and background plants.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Katmanreef said:


> For that purpose, it should be a perfect fit! They will definetly grow tall, and once you learn how to trim the particular species to get the look you want, it'll have that nice cascading effect.
> 
> Another really nice plant that you may consider is Blyxa Japonica:
> View attachment 1043279
> ...


I'm definitely familiar with the plant. I actually had a bunch in the last planted tank I had set up over 10 years ago. It really grew well even though my lighting was technically "medium". 

Popping out from in between the hardscape is absolutely something I want to take advantage of since there are so many nooks and crannies. The other plant I really like, and hopefully I don't mess the name up but pogostemon helferi 'downoi'. There's something about the crinkly leaf shape that just amazes me. 

I definitely am getting cryptocoryn pink flamingo. I haven't quite decided where I'd put that, but it's one of the nicer crypts and adds a splash of pink to the tank. 

Microsorum trident is another I'll be adding, but again not sure where exactly. I just like the leaf shape and how it grows into a nice low lying bush. 

I think my choices will be limited to availability between what the LFS can get and what I can find online.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

No floods this morning. Last night before bed I soaked up all the water that leaked onto the lid of the canister and then folded up two paper towels and placed them right where the water was pooling. This morning the paper towels are soaked, but no flooding of my stand lol. 

I turned the light on briefly and was shocked at how cloudy the tank is today. It's really, really cloudy. Far cloudier than when I first filled it. I'm not sure why since I didn't do anything inside the tank. I actually didn't even kick the heater on yet. I did have the light on for a few hours but I don't think that could have caused the tank to get cloudy. 

Hopefully it'll clear up, but it's definitely weird. If it hasn't cleared up by the time I finish with work I'll snap a pic and post it. 

Tracking updated on the stuff from GLA so I should receive that package by Friday. If by then the tank hasn't cleared up, I might do a really large water change, rinse out the pre filter sponges on the Oase, and replace the carbon. I might even take one of the Oase trays at the top and remove the lava rock and fill up a couple filter bags with carbon just to have a little extra capacity to clean the water. 

Definitely not something I expected to see when I turned the lights on in the room this morning, but it's just one of those things that happens I guess.


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## jeffkrol (Jun 5, 2013)

ddiomede said:


> So another leak popped up today. The pump on the GLA canister is held in place by a bracket. It has started leaking around the bracket.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


By the time they pay someone to shoot and star in the vid they could have sent a new pump assembly w/ a return shipping label for the old one..even cross ship w/ a hold on a credit card (if they must).
No that is not really good service in my opinion.
you shouldn't be "rebuilding" the pump.
When you were talking about the first leak were you referring to the large plastic nut?
Even "fancy" pumps aren't that expensive..
https://www.amazon.com/Jebao-DCP-10000-Sine-Water-Return/dp/B01MTVJ0T6/ref=asc_df_B01MTVJ0T6/


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## lpsouth1978 (Jun 22, 2012)

ddiomede said:


> No floods this morning. Last night before bed I soaked up all the water that leaked onto the lid of the canister and then folded up two paper towels and placed them right where the water was pooling. This morning the paper towels are soaked, but no flooding of my stand lol.
> 
> I turned the light on briefly and was shocked at how cloudy the tank is today. It's really, really cloudy. Far cloudier than when I first filled it. I'm not sure why since I didn't do anything inside the tank. I actually didn't even kick the heater on yet. I did have the light on for a few hours but I don't think that could have caused the tank to get cloudy.
> 
> ...


If the tank is getting more cloudy, it may be a bacterial bloom. This is very common in new tanks and my new tank is actually going through one right now. Since there are no fish in the tank yet, I would just wait it out. It should clear up on its own in a few days to a week. I am going to let mine go for now and then turn on my UV sterilizer next week to clear any remaining cloudiness before getting plants in the tank.



jeffkrol said:


> By the time they pay someone to shoot and star in the vid they could have sent a new pump assembly w/ a return shipping label for the old one..even cross ship w/ a hold on a credit card (if they must).
> No that is not really good service in my opinion.
> you shouldn't be "rebuilding" the pump.
> When you were talking about the first leak were you referring to the large plastic nut?
> ...


I'm not sure I would call Jebao pumps "fancy".  Don't get me wrong, I use them and love them, but they are inexpensive Chinese knock offs and I see them as a disposable item. If one breaks or stops working, I just replace it, unlike the more expensive and fancier pumps. That said, you can't go wrong with a decent DC pump.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jeffkrol said:


> By the time they pay someone to shoot and star in the vid they could have sent a new pump assembly w/ a return shipping label for the old one..even cross ship w/ a hold on a credit card (if they must).
> No that is not really good service in my opinion.
> you shouldn't be "rebuilding" the pump.
> When you were talking about the first leak were you referring to the large plastic nut?
> ...


I don't disagree with anything you've written. I have another hobby where if you have a problem with a product, the manufacturers will just ship you a new one and sometimes ask for the old one back, sometimes not. I would have just shipped out an entire lid assembly with a return label and it would have cost either the same, or perhaps less. 

And yes, the first leak is coming from the nut. The method of attaching the pump to the canister seems like a point where a leak is most likely, especially if the stainless tube isn't perfectly aligned with the pump. The fitting as far as I can tell is kept water tight with an o ring and the nut compresses the barbed fitting onto the pump. What I did when I noticed the leak, which wasn't what I'd consider a leak because water poured out of it, onto the lid, and then over the side of my canister, I went ahead and loosened the fitting and it started pouring water out, and then slowly hand tightened it, checked to see if it was still leaking, then tightening a bit more, etc. It actually didn't stop the slow leak with the filter running until it felt like the nut jumped the threads. It'll be interesting once the replacement nut arrives and I take it apart. My concern when I first hooked it up was that I was relying on the someone else's tightening of the fittings, but I didn't want to do anything until seeing if anything leaked since I wasn't the one who installed the pump to begin with. But once I saw all the water coming out I started tightening it about 1/16th of a turn each time. 

I think a more solid design would uses taped and threaded barbed fittings but I'm assuming the pump doesn't have female threaded connection points.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

lpsouth1978 said:


> If the tank is getting more cloudy, it may be a bacterial bloom. This is very common in new tanks and my new tank is actually going through one right now. Since there are no fish in the tank yet, I would just wait it out. It should clear up on its own in a few days to a week. I am going to let mine go for now and then turn on my UV sterilizer next week to clear any remaining cloudiness before getting plants in the tank.
> 
> 
> I'm not sure I would call Jebao pumps "fancy".  Don't get me wrong, I use them and love them, but they are inexpensive Chinese knock offs and I see them as a disposable item. If one breaks or stops working, I just replace it, unlike the more expensive and fancier pumps. That said, you can't go wrong with a decent DC pump.


It's definitely a strong possibility. The lava rock I'm using as my biological filter media was bagged and the bag has small holes in it from the factory, I'm assuming to keep the rock from growing bacteria or mold while sitting outside at Home Depots and similar stores. I wouldn't at all be surprised if that rock grew bacteria in such a moist environment. 

I have a bottle of Seachem's clarifier coming today so I might shuck some in and see if it works. If I have some time I might even run some water tests just to see if whatever is happening is able to show up on tests. 

Definitely a situation I hadn't anticipated but I'm glad you brought it up because the only place it could have come from is the lava rock.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Can you still return the GLA filter or get a credit? I would just go with another Oasis. That should be more than enough for the tank.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Can you still return the GLA filter or get a credit? I would just go with another Oasis. That should be more than enough for the tank.


I might go in that direction if the problem doesn't get resolved within the next week. 

I think once I get the nut and shut off valve that I ordered in, I'll be able to get the lid off, cut into the line and install the shutoff valve, and then disassemble the pump to see what's going on with it. 

I'm pretty sure that the nut was either defective, or they went crazy when they assembled it prior to shipping. As far as the leak on the pump itself goes, I'm not sure what could have caused that because it didn't start until a day after getting everything running. It went from not leaking at all, to suddenly leaking pretty significantly. 

I'm hoping that I can fix it because I love the capacity and power of this filter. I guess it's possible that when I was trying to tighten the nut to get that to stop leaking that maybe I turned the body of the pump itself and caused the gasket or o ring to shift and cause a leak. I don't see how though because when you tighten the nut, I believe that's how the pump itself tightens onto the housing. 

I really should have taken this pump apart before setting the tank up just to see how it disassembles. Normally I do that will every piece of aquarium equipment because it helps me diagnose problems and replace parts or do maintenance on them down the road. I didn't this this, and actually didn't do that with the Oase either, apart from knowing how to take it down to maintain the filter baskets, replace the media, etc.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

Once upon a time, I got a new GLA regulator with a solenoid that wouldn't completely shut off the flow of gas. They pointed me to a youtube video on how to disassemble the solenoid and clean out debris. So, that seems to be their M.O. in these sorts of situations.

For what it's worth, I have found that a bit of o-ring lube works wonders on leaky unions. This stuff, especially, is amazing:


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

I agree it's pretty ridiculous that you're supposed to do work to fix their faulty product. You happen to be handy and know how to do this stuff, but plenty of users may want to run the filter but not be able to take it entirely apart and rummage around in its guts. I'd return the thing and get something else, frankly. And the 'we will shoot a video to show you' thing is just nuts. Like how about you just give me a working product, or is that too radical for you?

Bacterial bloom is a great thing! My tank was cloudy for around 3 days at the start. Some people have up to a week. I wouldn't do anything for that. Let the little guys do their thing ❤


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> Once upon a time, I got a new GLA regulator with a solenoid that wouldn't completely shut off the flow of gas. They pointed me to a youtube video on how to disassemble the solenoid and clean out debris. So, that seems to be their M.O. in these sorts of situations.
> 
> For what it's worth, I have found that a bit of o-ring lube works wonders on leaky unions. This stuff, especially, is amazing:
> 
> View attachment 1043303


I'm definitely going to lube the heck out of the o rings when I disassemble the pump to figure out what the problem is. I think I may have some of that stuff, or just regular old silicone grease. I have to look in my plumbing stuff to see what I have. 

I understand where they're coming from, and if they're able to walk customers through troubleshooting and fixing problems that's great, but I know that not everyone will know how to disassemble a pump. I think it would be less expensive to just send out a replacement with a return label. The value in that is while it might cost a bit more, in the long run you'll have customers singing your praises. There's a company in Wisconsin called Vortex Optics. They sell binoculars and whatnot. You can get a hold of their customer service and tell them your dog used your $1500 binoculars as a chew toy and after they finish laughing you'll get an RMA and if they can't fix it, they'll just send you a new set. Because of that kind of customer service, any time someone talks about wanting binoculars, or anything else they sell, I give them a high level of praise and basically turn into an unpaid salesperson for them lol. Whenever a company tries to troubleshoot through email I'm left with the feeling of "have you tried restarting the computer" lol.

ETA: I kind of just triggered myself with the IT help desk routine. Whenever I have an IT issue, it's because I have exhausted every possible solution and the problem is one that I can't fix. After explaining what I've done and what I think the problem might be, if I get asked "have you tried rebooting the computer", the amount of rage that builds up inside me is ridiculous lol. I understand that there's a script to follow, but if I've done my own diagnostics and have just told you that I've tried diagnosing using the command prompt, wouldn't that alert you to the fact that I'm not the person who didn't try rebooting the computer? Ugh, I hate help desks lol.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> I'm definitely going to lube the heck out of the o rings when I disassemble the pump to figure out what the problem is. I think I may have some of that stuff, or just regular old silicone grease. I have to look in my plumbing stuff to see what I have.
> 
> I understand where they're coming from, and if they're able to walk customers through troubleshooting and fixing problems that's great, but I know that not everyone will know how to disassemble a pump. I think it would be less expensive to just send out a replacement with a return label. The value in that is while it might cost a bit more, in the long run you'll have customers singing your praises. There's a company in Wisconsin called Vortex Optics. They sell binoculars and whatnot. You can get a hold of their customer service and tell them your dog used your $1500 binoculars as a chew toy and after they finish laughing you'll get an RMA and if they can't fix it, they'll just send you a new set. Because of that kind of customer service, any time someone talks about wanting binoculars, or anything else they sell, I give them a high level of praise and basically turn into an unpaid salesperson for them lol. Whenever a company tries to troubleshoot through email I'm left with the feeling of "have you tried restarting the computer" lol.
> 
> ETA: I kind of just triggered myself with the IT help desk routine. Whenever I have an IT issue, it's because I have exhausted every possible solution and the problem is one that I can't fix. After explaining what I've done and what I think the problem might be, if I get asked "have you tried rebooting the computer", the amount of rage that builds up inside me is ridiculous lol. I understand that there's a script to follow, but if I've done my own diagnostics and have just told you that I've tried diagnosing using the command prompt, wouldn't that alert you to the fact that I'm not the person who didn't try rebooting the computer? Ugh, I hate help desks lol.


yessss. I honestly feel that good customer service is, like, 70% of a company's success. Because there are other people that make the thing you make. So much choice now, we're all spoiled. But if I'm trying to resolve an issue and you're giving me the run-around, you're literally never getting my money again.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> I agree it's pretty ridiculous that you're supposed to do work to fix their faulty product. You happen to be handy and know how to do this stuff, but plenty of users may want to run the filter but not be able to take it entirely apart and rummage around in its guts. I'd return the thing and get something else, frankly. And the 'we will shoot a video to show you' thing is just nuts. Like how about you just give me a working product, or is that too radical for you?
> 
> Bacterial bloom is a great thing! My tank was cloudy for around 3 days at the start. Some people have up to a week. I wouldn't do anything for that. Let the little guys do their thing ❤


Excellent! Believe it or not this is the first bacterial bloom I've had in 38 years of fish keeping, at least to this extent. Normally whatever cloudiness I've had setting up new tanks clears up by the next day.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> yessss. I honestly feel that good customer service is, like, 70% of a company's success. Because there are other people that make the thing you make. So much choice now, we're all spoiled. But if I'm trying to resolve an issue and you're giving me the run-around, you're literally never getting my money again.


Exactly. But if anyone is ever in the market for binoculars, Vortex Optics is the only choice 

ETA: I've actually never even used their lifetime warranty, but I have friends who have. One friend accidentally left a $2000 spotting scope in his driveway and backed up and destroyed it. He said the customer service rep was like "oh no, anyway here's an RMA, give us a week after we receive it and if we can't fix it you'll get a new one. Since we no longer stock that model, are you okay with getting the newer version". It costs money, but how many customers do they get because someone tells other potential customers that story?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Took the dog out for a quick walk and decided to kick the lights on for a minute to snap a pic. It actually looks better in the pic than it does in person lol. 

I'm wondering if I should just toss in the bacteria and get that going since something biological is happening, or wait until tomorrow after I toss in that Seachem clarifier tonight? 

As you can see, that surface skimmer is doing a very poor job. That'll be getting pulled and replaced tonight. There is a good amount of surface agitation so there's no reason for that much crap to be floating on the surface. I also lowered the light last night. Visually the tank was a lot brighter. I think it's maybe an inch or half inch above the rim of the tank.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

just out of curiosity, why are you adding the water clarifier? I'd honestly just let it settle... I mean it will, for sure.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

A couple of thoughts. I have 2 of these pumps now. One for a canister filter and the other in my saltwater tank. They are essentially identical to the gla pumps but are made for fzone. The first came essentially perfect, but the second had a misaligned impeller that caused it to be noisy. I took it apart and put it back together and that solved the problem.

If you haven't already taken yours apart and put back together, definitely give that a go. It only takes a few minutes and might solve your issue.

Second thought, is that wood spider wood or dragon wood? I've heard of the latter causing serious stinky and disgusting water issues. To the point where fish can not survive in it.

It seems early for a bacterial bloom when other than the wood there should be no organic matter in the tank. If your water starts smelling bad, I would be worried.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

I agree with @LidijaPN. Just let it sort itself out, there's no rush. Adding chemicals 1 day into a new startup is setting a bad precedent.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

minorhero said:


> A couple of thoughts. I have 2 of these pumps now. One for a canister filter and the other in my saltwater tank. They are essentially identical to the gla pumps but are made for fzone. The first came essentially perfect, but the second had a misaligned impeller that caused it to be noisy. I took it apart and put it back together and that solved the problem.
> 
> If you haven't already taken yours apart and put back together, definitely give that a go. It only takes a few minutes and might solve your issue.
> 
> ...


What the heck is dragon wood and does it always wreck the tank or just sometimes?

I also had bacterial bloom from like day 1 or 2... I did also have wood. But wasn’t dragon or spider.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> just out of curiosity, why are you adding the water clarifier? I'd honestly just let it settle... I mean it will, for sure.


I initially bought it because it was cloudy the first day and everyone I know who has used it ranted and raved. The tank had mostly cleared up yesterday so I figured I'd leave it another day to see if it cleared up any more. Today with how ridiculously cloudy it has gotten, I thought I'd eliminate a variable by adding it and if the water clears, it was non bacterial and if not, then it's definitely something bacterial happening. I added it and it hasn't cleared up so it's definitely bacterial. 



minorhero said:


> A couple of thoughts. I have 2 of these pumps now. One for a canister filter and the other in my saltwater tank. They are essentially identical to the gla pumps but are made for fzone. The first came essentially perfect, but the second had a misaligned impeller that caused it to be noisy. I took it apart and put it back together and that solved the problem.
> 
> If you haven't already taken yours apart and put back together, definitely give that a go. It only takes a few minutes and might solve your issue.
> 
> ...


I'm definitely going to take it apart and see what's going on, but I'm planning to wait until that replacement nut arrives, along with the additional shutoff valve. Taking it down is going to be a mess so I thought I'd just deal with it one time. 

The wood is spider wood. I honestly don't get it because if a tank clouds, it's usually because the substrate wasn't rinsed and you stirred it up when filling. I know it can't be that because I was very careful to avoid disturbing the sand as I filled the tank. Day 1 there was some cloudiness. On day two the tank cleared a bit, but then this morning it's so cloudy you almost can't see the back of the tank, and you're definitely not seeing through it from one side to the other. The only other reason I know of for a tank clouding is a bacterial bloom, but usually that doesn't happen until you introduce bacteria and ammonia. 

I did add that Seachem Clarity and it hasn't cleared up at all. It's been about 4 hours now and is still just as cloudy.

I definitely don't notice any smells in the tank. I actually checked that earlier today. It's just very weird. 

I added the Jardli pipes and their surface skimmer is working a lot better than the other one I bought. 

The plan going forward I think is to just leave the tank be until I get the GLA stuff in, then address the leaks. If the tank is still cloudy, I think my only recourse is to do a massive water change, and rinse out the prefilter sponges and replace the carbon. I'm hesitant to dose the bacteria and ammonia until this cloudiness subsides a bit more.


jellopuddinpop said:


> I agree with @LidijaPN. Just let it sort itself out, there's no rush. Adding chemicals 1 day into a new startup is setting a bad precedent.


Normally I'd agree, but something about cloudiness happening this quickly just doesn't seem right. The one thing I know about Clarity is that it won't clear up a bacterial bloom. Basically if I add it and it doesn't clear up, then it's definitely bacterial. I'm just concerned that it's not the right bacteria since I haven't added any bacteria into the tank yet. I've been holding off mainly because of the GLA filter. Hopefully this subsides within the next couple days. In 38 years of keeping aquariums I've never seen anything like this.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

Not trying to derail the thread, but I have an awesome story about Amazon and the way they earned my company's business...

(Caution, long post)

I had an escape to my customer (a nonconforming part made it out of our building), and we had to put together a corrective action. A part of that corrective action was to pre-kit some small details that were going into a larger assembly, and send that kit through inspection for sign off. I was the lead on the CA, and I asked my buyer to buy 450 Plano boxes (small tackle boxes) to pre-kit up the details.

The buyer did his job and found the best price on Amazon. At this time, we didn't have Amazon prime, and contracted most of our MRO purchasing through a third party. We needed these tackle boxes ASAP, so we decided to buy them ourselves. The buyer got in contact with Amazon customer support to ask directly if they had enough stock to ship up 450 boxes, to which the CSR said that they did. He decided to sign us up for a business Prime account, and told me that the boxes would be in in 2 days. On day 3, we were scheduled for our CCA audit, so this worked out perfectly. 

2 days after the order was placed, our tackle boxes arrived. We only got 30 of them.

I got on the phone with Amazon support and was prepared to rip them a new one, but the CSR manager pulled up the transcript from the original order, saw that we were told that they were in stock, and told me "don't worry. I'll have them on your dock for an early AM delivery."

Low and behold, 2 UPS trucks rolled into our parking lot at 7am the next day, completely filled with plano boxes. Amazon coordinated shipments from warehouses across the globe and shipped us 420 boxes for early AM delivery. We were able to put together our presentation, showed the customer that we were prepared to react to a crisis, and potentially saved our vendor code with that customer. Keep in mind that I'm in Aerospace... there are only 3 OEM's worth mentioning, so losing a vendor code for one of them is devastating.

Two days later, the balance of our original order arrived. I called the same CSR who helped me three days prior, and was told that we could just keep them as an apology.

I have since expanded our Business Prime account to include our whole Company, with 22 buyers, 12 accounts payable, 4 finance people, and over 200 requisitioners across 10 sites. We buy a significant amount of our MRO product from them, and have continued to grow our business with them because they really are the best at what they do. You can love or hate their business model from an economics or ethical position, but there's no denying that Amazon is truly great at global distribution and logistics.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> Not trying to derail the thread, but I have an awesome story about Amazon and the way they earned my company's business...
> 
> (Caution, long post)
> 
> ...


While I personally loathe sending money to Amazon, I really can't complain about the service. Any time a package doesn't get delivered, I either get a refund within 24 hours or they ship out a replacement. Returns are super easy too. I've had a Chase Prime card since probably 2008 that has been well used on Amazon lol. A friend of mine works for them as a final mile manager or something along those lines. He explained their logistics to me once and it was extraordinarily complicated....far more than I thought it could be.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

I’m assuming your wood is adding the bacteria for you. Wood at that size doesn’t look cookable.... so you probably didn’t cook it? When I stuck an uncooked spiderwood twig into my jar, it immediately started producing impressive amounts of wood snot.

I’d just let things lie for a bit if it were me.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> I’m assuming your wood is adding the bacteria for you. Wood at that size doesn’t look cookable.... so you probably didn’t cook it? When I stuck an uncooked spiderwood twig into my jar, it immediately started producing impressive amounts of wood snot.
> 
> I’d just let things lie for a bit if it were me.


Out of curiosity I found my white balance cards I used for photography, and for photographing corals. I stuck the white one into the tank and this cloudiness seems to mostly be tannins. There’s a red hue to the water.
I think I mentioned this earlier but I’m going to remove one tray of lava rock from the Oase and stuff it full of bagged carbon when I replace the carbon I have in there now. But the tannins are definitely not the only thing making the water cloudy. There are several trillion micro bubbles, along with some general cloudiness. I will leave it alone and just fix the leaking and replace carbon and add more on Friday.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Third option for cloudiness. Your leaks are creating a venturi effect and that is making the water cloudy. Usually I wouldn't think this could long term present an issue, but if you solve your leak(s) and the cloudiness goes away then thar you are.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> UV: Decided against this but it can always be added on later. I'll account for adding one on in the way I plumb the return if I change my mind down the road.


Definitely add this. It's a win-win.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> Third option for cloudiness. Your leaks are creating a venturi effect and that is making the water cloudy. Usually I wouldn't think this could long term present an issue, but if you solve your leak(s) and the cloudiness goes away then thar you are.


I have a feeling that this is definitely making the problem significantly worse. There are several trillion micro bubbles in the tank, a fraction of the size you'd see from a CO2 diffuser. They're coming from somewhere and it must be the DC pump since that's really the only logical explanation. From what I understand, the DC pump should be near silent except for the hum from the motor. It definitely sounds exactly like a powerhead sucking in air bubbles....like a fizz sort of sound. There is some good news in that I checked the tracking of the GLA order and it just arrived at my post office so there's a good chance it gets delivered today and I can get this issue solved. 

This morning I checked the top of the GLA canister to replace the paper towel and it was bone dry. So the leak sealed itself. I'm going to take it apart, inspect, and lube it tonight, but just thought that was an interesting development. 



Asteroid said:


> Definitely add this. It's a win-win.


It's a strong possibility that gets added a bit down the line. Probably the biggest reason I wanted to add one is to control parasites like ich rather than green water.

ETA: the water is maybe 5% clearer today. So whatever is happening in the tank isn't caused by cloudiness from the substrate. I think it's a mix of three things....the Venturi effect that @minorhero mentioned that is causing trillions of micro bubbles, tannins because the water definitely took on a reddish hue, and to a lesser extent some kind of bacterial bloom. I may need to do a massive water change tomorrow or Saturday just because of the tannins. 

The Jardli surface skimmer definitely works. About 70% of the surface debris is gone. I kicked the light on this morning for a minute and there's a noticeable difference on the surface. 

The plan tonight is to shut down the GLA filter, cut into the outflow tubing between the lid of the canister and the reactor, install the shutoff valve I ordered from GLA, then dismantle the pump, replace the nut, inspect the pump and lubricate any gaskets and o rings, get it all back together, power it on and check for leaks.


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## Mbrman (May 6, 2018)

I used C*larity* to get rid of Flourite dust when I set up my tank. It didn't help much at first because the sponges in the Oase are too coarse. I ended up taking the top blue sponge out and filling that tray with filter floss. I ended up with crystal clear water in about 2 hours. HTH.

Dave


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Mbrman said:


> I used C*larity* to get rid of Flourite dust when I set up my tank. It didn't help much at first because the sponges in the Oase are too coarse. I ended up taking the top blue sponge out and filling that tray with filter floss. I ended up with crystal clear water in about 2 hours. HTH.
> 
> Dave


I actually did reconfigure how to trays initially arrived. 

The very bottom tray has the orange colored filter pad which is believe is a medium coarse pad, followed by filter floss on top of it. The next 5-6 trays are all lava rock. The very top skinny tray is filled with bagged carbon. 

What I might do is since I'm planning on changing out the carbon, I may remove the tray just below the top skinny tray, dump the lava rock out and fill it up with bagged carbon. Then that top skinny tray I'll just toss in filter floss. 

I definitely don't think the cloudiness is caused by the sand or rock because that seemed to clear up the next day, and clarity didn't even put a dent in the cloudiness. 

My prediction is that once I get the GLA canister issues resolved, it should clear up all the micro bubbles. Then I should just be left with tannins and some bacterial cloudiness, the latter of which I can't really do anything about, but the former I can with a massive water change and quadrupling the amount of carbon I have in there.

ETA: I knew there would be some tannins, hence why I added the carbon but the amount of tannins in the tank is ridiculous. I have a feeling I'll be replacing carbon every couple days for the next week or two.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Why are you fighting tannins tho? I thought they were natural and largely beneficial for the ecosystem? And they will leave naturally as you do your water changes.... or do they inhibit the cycling somehow?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> Why are you fighting tannins tho? I thought they were natural and largely beneficial for the ecosystem? And they will leave naturally as you do your water changes.... or do they inhibit the cycling somehow?


They don't inhibit cycling, but I just don't like brown water unless that is the type of tank I'm setting up. I did have a brown water tank at one time back in the day. It was cool for a couple weeks but the novelty wore off. 

My goal with most of my tanks is to have crystal clear water. The CO2 bubbles in my nano drive me crazy because the water doesn't look crystal clear because of them. 

I'm not sure if tannin-laden water effects PAR, but I'm sure it does to a certain extent, and with a tank this tall I need as much of the PAR reaching the bottom of the tank as possible.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I must be the king of weird cycles. I had a few minutes between the back to back to back calls that today seems to have turned into and kicked the lights on to check the clarity. 

As you can see in the pic, it has cleared up a bit since yesterday. 

There is a new development though....diatoms. Diatoms already? Can't be. But if you zoom in on the pic, you'll see what looks like diatoms on the sand. 

My curiosity has been piqued so I'm going to run tests on ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates for the heck of it. 

As soon as I'm done with work I'll run the tests, then start on fixing the GLA filter since the stuff arrived earlier today. 

But diatoms? This early? It must be something else. In any event I'm going to dose the bacteria and ammonia after work once I get the GLA issues sorted out. 










ETA: you can also see what a drastic improvement the Jardli intake with surface skimmer shows over the one I replaced. It's a night and day difference.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Quick update. 

I was about to start messing with my nano tank first but decided to knock out the canister issue on this tank. 

So the problem wasn't the nut, or at least the nut was just contributing to the problem. The barbed fitting that the nut holds onto the DC pump was split. That's why water was leaking out when it was off, but slowed and/or stopped when the pump was running. 

I took the DC pump apart and couldn't find any issues with the O ring. I'm going to take another close look at it right now and just rub a good amount of silicone grease onto the o ring and then close it back up. 

I emailed GLA about the update and let them know that I'll assume that this is somehow my fault and I need a barbed fitting along with a length of the tubing they use to connect that fitting to the lid of the canister. Because the fitting was split, as I tried to remove it from the tubing I cracked the collar of the fitting off so the nipple is stuck inside the tubing. 

For now the canister will obviously be out of commission until I can get replacement parts. It's a bummer, but I did get the shutoff valve installed so it'll just be a matter of getting the parts, filling the canister with water, and then getting it back online. 

Anyhow I'm going to get the stand cleaned up and drain the water out of this canister so that it can sit idle until GLA is able to ship the parts out. 

After I'm done cleaning up I'm going to pivot over to my nano tank because I have a new update for that and I'm going to do a quick water change on it while I'm at it since I'm removing some plants and planting some others. 

But the issue with this canister is not what I hoped, but at least I know what the problem is. I honestly don't know how that fitting could have split. That's one part of the canister filter I didn't touch at all so it doesn't make sense. Out of everything I put together, I was the most careful with the DC pump. Well hopefully they'll get back to me quickly and we can get the parts shipped out quickly.

ETA: on the bright side, now that the GLA filter is offline, if the micro bubbles disappear, at least that narrows it down to what the problem was. Based on how bad the split was, it was most definitely sucking air in. @minorhero you were right.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Tank is clearing nicely. There's still a haze in the water, but the microbubbles seem to have mostly disappeared. 

I went ahead and dumped the bacteria in, and added the ammonia last night. I'll test today to see if I'm at 2ppm.

I'll run the whole battery of tests later this evening.

ETA: 

Figured I'd update rather than create another new post. 

Fish. I haven't thought about fish very much. What I envision for this tank are fish that are generally top layer, middle layer, and bottom layer fish. 

With that being said, I'd like to have 1-2 really large schools of fish. I really like rummynose tetras, but they get a bit larger than I'd like. I had several in the past and while I really like them, I'd like something that gets a bit smaller than their adult size. What would be amazing is to get a huge school that inhabits the middle of the tank, and then another school that hangs up up near the surface. 

For the bottom, a big school of Corydoras. Not sure on which type, but I've seen tanks where a large enough group schools together and that's definitely something I'd like to do. 

Aside from that, maybe some dither fish. I am strongly considering adding an Apisto, either a pair, or a couple males provided it doesn't turn into celebrity cichlid death match lol. From what little I know about them, the trouble starts when the male and female begin breeding. The thing I like about them is how colorful and different they are...sort of a centerpiece fish. 

I'm open to suggestions since I've been out of the freshwater game for a while. Some of the species I really like:


tetras
cories
rasbora
rainbow fish
celestial pearl danios

I've always loved cardinal tetras but from what I understand they're not really tight schoolers. 

Angelfish wouldn't even be bad, and they are one fish that I really like. Could they serve as dither fish? They do tend to be somewhat aggressive, but pretty tame in my experience when there's a lot of commotion happening in the tank. 

I think the thing that's really difficult is I could go crazy and put in some large schools, and I still won't be anywhere near a reasonable stocking capacity for this tank. 

But definitely open to thoughts on fish. Also keep in mind that when I say "school of fish", I don't mean a dozen, I mean like two dozen or more lol.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Your surface sure cleared up!!

For fish thoughts, if I were getting a massive group I'd get either kubotai rasbora, or glowlight tetras. Glowlights are sturdier but kubotai a little more rare and to me personally, prettier. Diamond tetras and rosy tetras are also surprisingly beautiful and will school, from what I see in my lfs..... the rosy tetra has the white fin tips so they look really mesmerizing when they swim, similar to silvertip tetras, which honestly are also cute in their own right. 

For bottom I'd go for salt and pepper cories (habrosus), I find them so adorable and lots of people have said they're their personal favorite cory behaviorwise. 

Apisto would be a cool centerpiece, maybe you can even have a breeding pair? Alternatively as a very large but very peaceful fish I find pearl gourami absolutely amazing. They get bigger than you'd think, have those amazing long fins they feel things up with, have the most beautiful pattern, and are so sweet.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> Your surface sure cleared up!!
> 
> For fish thoughts, if I were getting a massive group I'd get either kubotai rasbora, or glowlight tetras. Glowlights are sturdier but kubotai a little more rare and to me personally, prettier. Diamond tetras and rosy tetras are also surprisingly beautiful and will school, from what I see in my lfs..... the rosy tetra has the white fin tips so they look really mesmerizing when they swim, similar to silvertip tetras, which honestly are also cute in their own right.
> 
> ...


One of my favorite fish species growing up was gouramis. Those long threaded pectoral fins just fascinated me because they were so different lol. But yeah the pearls are one of the prettiest of the gourami family. 

I may do the apistogrammas to start, and maybe one school. So I'll put some thought into the first school, but will see what my LFS has in stock. I'll probably swing by there tomorrow, or maybe even tonight after work if I can get there before they close. 

I'm still waiting on a response from GLA. I emailed them yesterday once I figured out what the issue is and still haven't heard back. If this was a part I could source at Home Depot I wouldn't have bothered contacting them, but it's not something I can easily get. Hopefully I hear back today otherwise I'm going to start getting angry lol.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

You've got alot of choices with that size tank. Angels are cichlids so personally I would stay away if you don't want to get into that bullying thing. 

Your right about cardinals, long-term not great schoolers. Rummy noses are very good schoolers, but not the most colorful other than the red so they could get lost in there and not stick out. Harleys (rasboras) and espei vey similar are good schoolers. Much better than many of the tetras. 

Rainbows of course, why not, colorful, Another tetra about the size of Rainbows are the Congos, extremely beautiful under good light.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> You've got alot of choices with that size tank. Angels are cichlids so personally I would stay away if you don't want to get into that bullying thing.
> 
> Your right about cardinals, long-term not great schoolers. Rummy noses are very good schoolers, but not the most colorful other than the red so they could get lost in there and not stick out. Harleys (rasboras) and espei vey similar are good schoolers. Much better than many of the tetras.
> 
> Rainbows of course, why not, colorful, Another tetra about the size of Rainbows are the Congos, extremely beautiful under good light.


My favorite rasboras are the harlequin. I've just always loved those fish. 

Whichever top water schooling fish I go with will definitely need to enjoy a high amount of flow because when both the GLA and Oase are running, there's a significant current that they'll need to contend with. 

I've always had good luck with angels in tanks that were significantly stocked because it seemed like they'd go to chase another fish and get distracted almost immediately by a few fish swimming by. But I've had friends who've had angels that were just prejudiced against certain fish and couldn't be distracted lol.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

I'm partial to only a couple of types of fish, so take this with a grain of salt. 

10 x Congo Tetra (Phenacogrammus interruptus)
12 x Panda Cory (Corydoras panda) 
20 x Harlequin Rasbora (Trigonostigma heteromorpha) 
6 x Siamese Algae Eater (Crossocheilus siamensis) 
20 x Oto Cats (Otocinclus vittatus)

The Congos will be in the upper third, the Rasporas will be in the middle third, and the Corys will be in the bottom third. The SAE's and Oto's are a must-have for hardscape heavy tanks IMO.If you end up with other algaes that the SAE's and Oto's can't handle, you can always add Nerites and Amanos.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> I'm partial to only a couple of types of fish, so take this with a grain of salt.
> 
> 10 x Congo Tetra (Phenacogrammus interruptus)
> 12 x Panda Cory (Corydoras panda)
> ...


This is a great list! I'm assuming I'll want to add the SAE's and Oto cats once there's enough for both to feed on. 

What are your thoughts on adding either a pair of Apistos, or perhaps a couple males?


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Definitely a school of Otos. You need a vertical schooler anyway.  My Otos in my old 4-footer


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Definitely a school of Otos. You need a vertical schooler anyway.  My Otos in my old 4-footer


Dang, got the whole gang up in that pic lol.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Dang, got the whole gang up in that pic lol.


There certainly peaceful, but I wonder if the one on top is the leader.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> There certainly peaceful, but I wonder if the one on top is the leader.


Just need a shepherd fish to keep them all in line lol


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

I don't know a thing about Apistos, so I can't contribute to that. I would wait until the tank is well established before adding either the SAE's or Otos.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Plant list so far, well a more limited plant list based on availability:

For the pathway in between the two mounds, pogostemon helferi 'downoi'. I thought a lot about what would look different rather than just an all sand path, or one filled with a carpeting plant and after seeing pics regularly I thought this might be a good idea, or something like blood vomit, if I could find it. 

Each mound will have a microsorum trident mini somewhere, perhaps just between the wood and the rocks in the background. I'll probably also add H Pinatafida in that area as well. 

On the wood and some of the rock work, various species of Bucephelandra, along with spots where AR mini gets added on groups. 

On the top of those rocks that are behind the spider wood I'll glue some Montecarlo to the very top so that it cascades over the front and hangs down like ivy. 

For a carpeting plant I'm still stuck between HC and MC. I almost want to try HC just to see if it'll grow, but thinking about all the work planting it if it doesn't grow makes me want to just use MC. 

I'm going to do willow moss and fissidens fontanus on some of the branches, but it'll be subtle rather than moss covered branches. I think on some of the more slender branches I'll use Fissidens since the leaf structure is so delicate, but on the bigger branches is where the willow moss will go. 

In between rocks a mix of anubias, buce, and perhaps something like crypt parva. 

The the spaces where there's clear sand around the bases of the spider wood, I'm still up in the air on those areas. I know I do want crypt pink flamingo, but I'll need to put some thought into those areas. What I'd like is for it to be really wild looking, with many different leaf shapes, colors, etc., but not grow tall enough to cover the views of the buce that will mostly be on the spider wood. I may leave some small space for a slower growing stem plant, perhaps maybe just a stalk or two at most though. 

Stem plants are still up in the air as well and will come down to what is available when I do the bulk of the planting, but there are some plants, like mermaid weed that are a must, along with Wallichi. where if they're not available, I'm leaving space for them. There is one stem plant I ran across last night that is getting added to the must have list - limnophila hippuridoides. What a pretty stem plant. 

The most expensive thing will be Bucephalandra by far lol. The thing I'm trying to not do with this tank is pack it so full of plants that they really don't have room to grow. I did that with my nano and there are plants that most definitely need to be removed soon, which will go into this tank. So initially this will look somewhat sparse, but I suspect in a few months it will fill in nicely. 

This is kind of where I'm at right now with plants. I'll more than likely take part of this list to the LFS and have him order some plants in once I'm nearing the end of the cycle, and then place an online order for plants he can't get, or that would be drastically more expensive through him.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

GLA got back to me and are shipping out replacement parts, even one that I didn't ask for - the shroud for the DC pump. It was leaking so I might as well replace it once these parts come in. 

As long as everything goes back together and there are no leaks, I'll be a happy camper. One of the things I need to do is pick up different clamps for my reactor....the type that you screw into the stand, the clamp goes around the pipe and it's held shut by a nut and bolt. It'll make it a lot easier when I need to purge air or a built up co2 bubble because right now it would be a very cumbersome process.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Well the cycle is certainly on its way. Just ran PH, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate and PH is 7.0, nitrite and nitrates were both at 0, and as best as I can tell, ammonia is at 1.5ppm. 










According to Dr Tim's directions, I'm to wait until tomorrow and then dose ammonia again? I've never done a fishless cycle, aside from my nano which I'm sure most will agree was an oddball cycle. But it looks like I'm supposed to test for two days following the ammonia dosing tomorrow, then test for two more days followed by a final dose and two days of testing....then I add fish. If all goes to plan I'll probably be ordering plants early next week, with trying to get the plants to arrive by Friday or Saturday and beginning to plant. Then that Sunday will be adding the first fish. Obviously this can all change if some weird stuff happens with the tank, but this is the plan that seems to make sense.


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## Le duke (Jun 29, 2021)

I think you will be very hard pressed to get a bacterial colony grown up fast enough to eat ~2ppm in less than a week.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Le duke said:


> I think you will be very hard pressed to get a bacterial colony grown up fast enough to eat ~2ppm in less than a week.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I'm actually surprised it's testing below 2ppm. I added enough ammonia to basically go slightly over 2ppm. I estimated that at least 15 gallons were displaced by sand, rocks, and wood, and added the appropriate dose for 100 gallons of water. I also dumped in the whole bottle of bacteria which was was enough to treat a 160 gallon tank lol.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

The best way to be sure the cycle is complete is by testing, not by following a rigid schedule. Test your water every day, and any time your ammonia is below 2ppm, dose it back up to 2ppm. Any time your nitrites go over 5 or your nitrates go over 40, do a 50% water change and dose ammonia to 2ppm. Your tank is cycled when you can fully convert 2ppm of ammonia into nitrate in less than 24 hours. If you have any ammonia or nitrite in the water 24 hours after dosing ammonia, the cycle is not ready for livestock.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> The best way to be sure the cycle is complete is by testing, not by following a rigid schedule. Test your water every day, and any time your ammonia is below 2ppm, dose it back up to 2ppm. Any time your nitrites go over 5 or your nitrates go over 40, do a 50% water change and dose ammonia to 2ppm. Your tank is cycled when you can fully convert 2ppm of ammonia into nitrate in less than 24 hours. If you have any ammonia or nitrite in the water 24 hours after dosing ammonia, the cycle is not ready for livestock.


Thanks, that makes way more sense than what's on Dr. Tims website. I'll test again this afternoon and see where I'm at and dose ammonia to get me to 2ppm. I was actually concerned with figuring out how to calculate what I'd need, but I used 20ml to get it from 0 to I'm guessing it was at 2ppm, but looked like 1.5ppm last night (after 24hrs). If it's at 1ppm, I'll dose 10ml, 1.5 I'll dose 15ml. 

Believe it or not I am already seeing what I believe is fungus starting to grow on the wood.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Believe it or not I am already seeing what I believe is fungus starting to grow on the wood.


Don't know if you've used Spider Wood before but very normal, usually goes away in a week or so.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Don't know if you've used Spider Wood before but very normal, usually goes away in a week or so.


I'm sure the spider wood in my nano was full of fungus, but I couldn't tell since I covered almost every square inch with plants  

I'm definitely not doing that with this tank lol.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I'm sure the spider wood in my nano was full of fungus, but I couldn't tell since I covered almost every square inch with plants
> 
> I'm definitely not doing that with this tank lol.


If it's still around, otos/shrimp will eat it right up.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I'm glad I bought two 10lbs CO2 tanks when I did. I just went to refill my paintball for my nano and they were basically out of all tanks except for a handful of 2.5's and 60lbs tanks. They still haven't received their orders from January and February. 

I'm going to test ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate again this afternoon and then dose ammonia to get it back up to 2ppm.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Ran tests a few minutes ago. 

Ammonia - .75ppm
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0

I don't know why I keep running nitrate tests because it'll be a while before I start seeing any readings, but force of habit I guess. 

I dosed 12.5ml of ammonia to get it back up to 2ppm. 

I'll be back tomorrow with new test results. I need to work on the nano now.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Ran another round of tests. 

Ammonia - 2ppm
Nitrite - it's not 0, but it's also not .25
Nitrate - same as nitrite, not zero, but also not 5ppm

Very weird, but it can obviously be attributed to a funky test result....maybe one drop wasn't exactly one drop, who knows. 

The tank is still a bit cloudy, but otherwise everything still looks about the same except for more diatoms on the sand and the glass now, as well as a little more fungus on the wood. 

I'll check back in tomorrow with updated results. So Thursday night this coming week will be one full week that I've started cycling. It'll be interesting to see if nitrites spike by then.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

Nitrites should be spiking by then. Just keep in mind that the first step, that is converting ammonia to nitrite is fast. The next step, converting nitrite to nitrate, is much, much slower. My tank took about 5 days to convert ammonia to nitrite and about 8 weeks to fully cycle.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> Nitrites should be spiking by then. Just keep in mind that the first step, that is converting ammonia to nitrite is fast. The next step, converting nitrite to nitrate, is much, much slower. My tank took about 5 days to convert ammonia to nitrite and about 8 weeks to fully cycle.


Holy crap, that's crazy! I think the longest cycle I've ever had is 3-4 weeks. Not counting my nano, which honestly was an oddball cycle, I've never done a fishless cycle before so it's crazy to hear it can take that long.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

With fish-less cycling you're preparing the tank to support a full stock of fish all at once, as opposed to adding the fish a little at a time. You need to grow enough bacteria to support that full fish load, and it takes some time. to be fair, I dosed my tank to 4ppm instead of two, so that's definitely a factor.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> With fish-less cycling you're preparing the tank to support a full stock of fish all at once, as opposed to adding the fish a little at a time. You need to grow enough bacteria to support that full fish load, and it takes some time. to be fair, I dosed my tank to 4ppm instead of two, so that's definitely a factor.


My plan is to just keep the Ammonia levels at 2ppm until I dose it and 24 hours later it's back to zero, and nitrites read zero at the same time. 

One of the things that I need to do is get the heater online. It's installed, but I haven't plugged it in and setup the inkbird yet, mainly because I don't have any fish yet. I'll probably work on this tonight since I don't have anything else urgent to do. 

I haven't yet seen any tracking info from GLA but I hope the parts arrive by the end of the week so that I can get the GLA filter back up and running. With the GLA filter off, I was actually surprised by the amount of flow the Oase 850 puts out. I assumed it was horribly underpowered because the GLA pump puts out way more flow so you weren't able to see the 850's flow. I'd estimate it's putting out like 300 gph with the loss of head and the media baskets being filled. 

I'm not in a hurry to start ordering plants or adding fish so if it takes a week to finish cycling, great, if it takes another 7 weeks, that's fine too. 

I think when the owner of the LFS told me the fastest he's cycled a client's tank with this Fritz Zyme turbo start stuff being 1 week, I think he used fish because he seemed surprised that I wanted to use ammonia. My goal is to have the tank cycled enough to add a school of fish, and maybe the apisto or two, and if there's algae beginning to grow, the Oto's and SAE's. Then I can take my time figuring out the second school, cories, and any other dither fish that I'd want to add.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

My personal view is don't be in a hurry to cycle. Everything from fish, shrimp to snails all do better in more mature tanks. With hi-tech aquascapes I susually take the first few months to get things how I want them to look. You'll be moving things around to "tweak" the scape and it's much easier to do without fish in the tank. Get the plants growing well with your light adjustments, ferts and co2 and by then the tank will be well cycled and more mature. 

When I take this approach I don't add fish, ammonia or any bacteria products to get the cycle going. Once you add plants your adding bacteria and ammonia. With water changes you could easily add a fish later on in small groups at a time without issue. Been doing it this way for over 10 years.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I just turned the light on for a second since I didn't yesterday and holy smokes is there a lot of fungus on the wood 

The water is still a bit cloudy and is still tinted red by the tannins. I intended on adding more carbon over the weekend but I don't want to disturb anything right now so I'm just going to leave it. 

Later on this week I may at least pull the pre filter out and clean out the sponges. I ordered the carbon impregnated sponges for the pre filter so I may add those in once I have it out. 

But hopefully the GLA order comes in soon. I'd like to get that filter online this week. Without the GLA filter running, there's no reactor, so no CO2. I don't intend on running CO2 until there are plants in the tank, but it would be nice to get this problem resolved so that all I really need to do is turn the valve on the CO2 tank, adjust the working pressure, and then the needle valve when the time comes and then tweak it to get the CO2 levels where they need to be.

ETA: just received the shipping confirmation from GLA. I'm assuming I'll get the package by Thursday, maybe even Wednesday.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> My personal view is don't be in a hurry to cycle. Everything from fish, shrimp to snails all do better in more mature tanks. With hi-tech aquascapes I susually take the first few months to get things how I want them to look. You'll be moving things around to "tweak" the scape and it's much easier to do without fish in the tank. Get the plants growing well with your light adjustments, ferts and co2 and by then the tank will be well cycled and more mature.
> 
> When I take this approach I don't add fish, ammonia or any bacteria products to get the cycle going. Once you add plants your adding bacteria and ammonia. With water changes you could easily add a fish later on in small groups at a time without issue. Been doing it this way for over 10 years.


I think the biggest challenge I'm going to have until the tank sort of balances itself out is getting enough plant mass in from the beginning, without getting ridiculous on planting. 

The biggest mass of plants with most certainly be in the background. But everywhere else in the tank will likely be sparse until it all grows in. I definitely don't want to do what Green Aqua does in heavily planting from the beginning just because everything will grow. I tried this approach with my nano and now I'm slowly changing things around, removing some stuff, etc., because the plants are beginning to outgrow their spots. 

I did finally decide on a carpet though....I'm going to do Montecarlo. It seems a little more robust than HC and with larger leaves will probably be a bit easier to clean up after trimming. I'll probably save the HC for my nano. 

I'll check back in this evening once I ran the tests. If the nitrite test was accurate yesterday, being slightly above zero in color, then tonight's tests should be interesting.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Just ran the tests. 

Ammonia: 2ppm
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: still above zero, but below 5ppm

It's weird that the ammonia level hasn't changed. I understand the day after when it showed 1.5ppm that it meant that some kind of disappeared into the tank (absorbed by substrate, rock, etc.) but the day after that is basically cut in half at .75ppm. 

I'm going to have some dinner and then get the heater and inkbird set up and running. 

The light hasn't really been running unless I manually turn it on, and then it might be for an hour or two, but usually just a few minutes. I was going to set up the light controller but there's no point in setting it up only to lose the time and/or programming since there's no reason to run it until I get plants. 

Honestly so far I'm not seeing much happening from that Fritz Zyme Turbo Start. I probably should have just used the bottle of Seachem Stability I still have from cycling my nano.

ETA: the inkbird was very easy to set up. I downloaded the app, created an account, connected to my wifi, power cycled the inkbird, set my warning parameters, then set the on temp and the off temp. Water is heating as we speak. It started off at 68.9 at 6:30pm central, and it's at 71.1 now at almost 8pm. I have it set to 75 degrees. I have the heater itself set to 78 degrees so if the inkbird fails, the heater's thermostat will turn it off, theoretically.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> I think the biggest challenge I'm going to have until the tank sort of balances itself out is getting enough plant mass in from the beginning, without getting ridiculous on planting.


One way to get plant mass without spending a bundle is to use some Pothos or Anthurium with its roots immersed to work as a "nitrate sponge". Works great as you get your scape figured out and your plants to grow in. Keeps algae at bay...


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> One way to get plant mass without spending a bundle is to use some Pothos or Anthurium with its roots immersed to work as a "nitrate sponge". Works great as you get your scape figured out and your plants to grow in. Keeps algae at bay...


I actually have a Pothos that could stand to have some clones taken from it. I'm not so much worried about spending a fortune on plants, my concern is more along the lines of packing it from day one and the plants start growing. I suspect that the way Green Aqua packs their tanks from day one works out for them because as the plants grow in, they just remove the overgrowth and sell it or reuse it in other tanks. I want to avoid the overgrowth by making sure the plants have room to grow. I considered cloning my pothos but hadn't seriously considered it until now. 

On another note, the heater and inkbird were working well. I think it took a total of 4 hours for the tank to reach 23C - 73.4 degrees from 68.9. It sort of maintained that temp overnight and only kicked the heater back on about an hour ago when the temp had fallen to 72.4. The temp dropped here overnight and this morning was 55 degrees outside but it's 71 degrees in my basement, and 68 upstairs which is basically the reverse of how it normally is in my house. 

I checked on the GLA tracking number and it updated overnight to arriving Friday. I'm going to guess it'll actually arrive by Thursday. I didn't realize this before but GLA has a decent selection of plants. I'll likely place an order from them as well when I'm ready for plants.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Yeah I think we can't really model ourselves on the youtubers because their operating parameters are so different...... juggling tons of tanks and plants, always rescaping, having piles of spare stuff and probably loads of random grow out tanks to hold plants that are not in use...... Doesn't really work at a hobby scale. Lots of people have a hard time with waiting for things to grow in but I think it's kind of nice to watch it fill out slowly with time. 

If you do end up having excesses you can always sell them off at the forum.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> Yeah I think we can't really model ourselves on the youtubers because their operating parameters are so different...... juggling tons of tanks and plants, always rescaping, having piles of spare stuff and probably loads of random grow out tanks to hold plants that are not in use...... Doesn't really work at a hobby scale. Lots of people have a hard time with waiting for things to grow in but I think it's kind of nice to watch it fill out slowly with time.
> 
> If you do end up having excesses you can always sell them off at the forum.


I don't mind waiting for stuff to grow in, and since I'm running CO2 it should grow in pretty quickly. I think where I made several mistakes with my nano is packing it from the beginning with plants so that it looked fully grown, and used inappropriate sized plants that quickly outgrew the tank because I didn't really do a whole lot of research on them aside from having a very surface level understanding. 

Another mistake I made was not thinking about how Green Aqua manages tanks they pack with plants from day one. It helps having full time employees doing tank maintenance every week. 

The other YouTubers I take with a grain of salt because they're constantly taking tanks down and setting them up again. But they earn their living off of YouTube so they need new material constantly. I like the YouTubers, mainly because they do a good job of introducing more people to the hobby, but the information on how to successfully keep a tank going over the long term is missing which isn't surprising when the tanks don't run for over a few months before they're torn down and scaped again lol. 

I placed an order for a poth o carry this morning. I think the biggest challenge I'll have is filling up all the spots. I can probably take 1-2 cuttings from my pothos. I ended up ordering a small monstera adansonii so that should be enough to suck up excess nutrients. I actually feel bad for my pothos because it's way smaller than it should be after having it for over a year. I have to admit that I do forget to water it. I usually realize it when the leaves start wilting. I recently moved it next to a window that actually gets light so it should take off now. Poor plant


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

After commenting on this thread earlier, I couldn’t get the thought of a nice school of Congo Tetras out of my mind. I pulled the trigger on 10 of them this morning, and they’ll be in my qt tank by this weekend. I’m only mentioning it because I found some interesting info that you might want to consider. I read that in a larger group, Congos aren’t very aggressive and can do well in a community tank. This is what led me to pull the trigger. I then read a few different sources that say that Congos can and will eat plants =(. Most sources say that will only happen if they’re not being fed enough, but apparently it can happen. If you have time before stocking the tank, and were considering Congo Tetras, I would let me be your guinea pig. If they start ripping my plants up then they’ll be an expensive lesson learned.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Congos are gorgeous fish. I think I had seven in my 72G. Not bad schoolers either and develop this fluorescent glow to them.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> After commenting on this thread earlier, I couldn’t get the thought of a nice school of Congo Tetras out of my mind. I pulled the trigger on 10 of them this morning, and they’ll be in my qt tank by this weekend. I’m only mentioning it because I found some interesting info that you might want to consider. I read that in a larger group, Congos aren’t very aggressive and can do well in a community tank. This is what led me to pull the trigger. I then read a few different sources that say that Congos can and will eat plants =(. Most sources say that will only happen if they’re not being fed enough, but apparently it can happen. If you have time before stocking the tank, and were considering Congo Tetras, I would let me be your guinea pig. If they start ripping my plants up then they’ll be an expensive lesson learned.


The Congo's were definitely on the list, but it'll definitely be a while before I'd add them since the rasboras would be the first school I add. 

A friend gave me one that I hadn't considered - blue eyed rainbow fish. He said that he had a dozen in a community tank and they schooled really well in the upper third of his tank. 

My plan for now is as soon as I see that the tank is nearing the completion of the cycle, I'm going to put in plant orders and let the LFS know that I'd like to get a couple dozen rasboras. 

Once the plants come in the tank will be drained, plants planted, then refilled and within a day go and get the rasboras, and the Apistos. This will obviously all depend on availability. 

But I'll definitely be keeping an eye out on how yours do. My one fear is that since I don't feed very heavily, that my plants start being eaten lol. At most I feed every other day, sometimes a day later, and just enough to keep them healthy.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

blue eyed rainbows, you mean pseudomugil species? They are insanely adorable. Very little tho! You could go for furcatas as they are solidly bigger than the others....


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> blue eyed rainbows, you mean pseudomugil species? They are insanely adorable. Very little tho! You could go for furcatas as they are solidly bigger than the others....


Yep that’s them. From what I remember they were a bit larger than Chili Rasbora. I remember his being well over an inch and a half when they were adult sized. I’ll have to check out the furcatas.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

The Congos almost look like Glo-fish under the right light. Some pics I took of mine:



















The second pic has been "stolen" by many commercial aquarium fish sellers. So if you happen to see it, you know who took it. Is there a copyright infringement lawyer in the house?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> The Congos almost look like Glo-fish under the right light. Some pics I took of mine:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I had a company steal one of my pics on Flickr to use on their website. They even went as far as removing the watermark. I kept getting in touch with various people there asking them to either offer me money, or take the pics down. They basically ignored me. My step mom is a partner of a law firm and while copyright isn't her area/specialty, she asked one of the other partners who did specialize in that and he recommended I send a cease and desist. I had it delivered certified mail to their legal team and sure enough the image was taken down and they emailed me to let me know. I asked how I would be reimbursed for the use of my IP and never heard back lol.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

I’m an illustrator and my stuff gets stolen all the time, along with the work of just about every creative out there.... it’s superbly frustrating but there is very little you can do, especially if they’re in another country. Most of us have decided to sort of shrug and ignore it but for people who are very successful with their work (unlike me lol) it’s really unbearable because you get large multinational companies stealing and mass producing your designs and when you chase them they blame it on some junior designer and never pay you anything. Because they know you’re not going to invest into a legal battle because you can’t. 

That’s a stunning photo though, I can see why they’d steal it.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Test results from a few moments ago:

Ammonia: 1.5ppm
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 3ppm (my estimation), it's higher than yesterday, but not 5ppm

I dosed enough ammonia to get me back up to 2ppm. 

Something is happening, albeit very slowly. The thing that is confusing to me is why nitrates are going up. 

The water is still a bit cloudy as well, perhaps a little better, but not much from yesterday. 

I have a feeling when something notable happens I'm going to cheer out loud further proving myself to be a nerd.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Just checked the tracking on the parts from GLA and it has hit one of the local USPS hubs so I suspect I'll receive the package in tomorrow's mail. 

I really, really hope they sent what I need lol. I'm sure they did but that would fit right in with the luck I've been having with this canister.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

We have a change! I'm reading nitrites for the first time. I believe they're at .25 right now. 

Ammonia is still at 2ppm roughly, and nitrates have risen but still aren't quite at the 5ppm color. 

I'll probably turn on the lights in a bit to see if the water has begun clearing at all. I haven't checked it at all today.

ETA: checked the tank and it has cleared up a lot more. The amount of fungus on the wood is pretty shocking lol. I'll take an FTS tomorrow. Hopefully the GLA stuff arrives.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Tonight's update is a decent one:

I received the package from GLA. They sent another barbed fitting, a length of tubing to connect that to the lid of the canister, and the plastic housing for the pump, and a replacement o ring for the plastic housing. Turns out I didn't need the housing because there wasn't any wrong with mine. The o ring was in perfect shape also. 

I got everything connected, closed up the lid and connected the quick disconnects, opened the valve for the intake and you could hear the water begin filling it up. About 15 second later, water came pouring out of the lid near one of the clips. When I say it poured, the entire inside of my stand had a good 1/4" of water by the time I could shut off the valve. The water began pouring over the stand onto the floor. 

What happened was that the o ring that seals the canister and lid kept slipping out as I secured the latches. I flooded the stand a second time, but nowhere near as bad as the first. So I drained the canister, dried the stand and the floor, and then took the lid off with the canister outside the stand. It appeared that as soon as you began applying force to the latches, the o ring would roll away from the latches, basically creating no seal whatsoever. 

I decided to dry the o ring, the ledge the o ring sits on, and the lid and tried again. This time it stayed in position and I put it back into the stand and reconnected the disconnects. 

Once everything was ready, I turned the intake valve and.....nothing happened. It was weird because there was water in the tube so hypothetically there should be a siphon. The only thing I could think of that would prevent the water from flowing into the canister is the air was creating pressure inside the canister and wasn't allowing the siphon to actually siphon. The canister still had a little water in it from the first attempts. 

I decided to try to unlatch one of the latches and let the air purge. Sure enough I started to hear hissing and waited a few seconds and then latched it back up, while checking to make sure the o ring didn't move and it hadn't. 

I opened up the other valves and kicked the pump on and it turned on without drama. It's amazing how quiet it is! Like dead silent except for a slight hum. 

I've been continually checking for leaks and so far so good. 

Ran tests right afterwards and ammonia dropped down a bit so I dosed it to get it back up, and nitrites are a little bit darker but still within the .25ppm range. Nitrates finally made it up to 5ppm.

Here's an FTS I just took so that everyone can get a laugh out of the amount of fungus on the wood. The tank has cleared up a bit. It's still not crystal clear, but it will be once I'm able to add more carbon and clean out the pre filter on the Oase. 

So a little drama, but almost everything is working now.


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## Mbrman (May 6, 2018)

Glad you got that whole mess with the filter sorted out! I would have sent it back by now with a not so nice email and letter to go with it! Tank looks great! That isn't much fungus at all...my current tank was way worse than that! Keep chuggin along and you'll be adding plants in no time!

Dave


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Mbrman said:


> Glad you got that whole mess with the filter sorted out! I would have sent it back by now with a not so nice email and letter to go with it! Tank looks great! That isn't much fungus at all...my current tank was way worse than that! Keep chuggin along and you'll be adding plants in no time!
> 
> Dave


Thanks! I was getting close to losing my patience with this canister, but I had a feeling that once I had the parts that it would work. It couldn't have gone easy though...it jus thad to flood the inside of my stand twice  

I'm hoping that the nitrites peak this weekend and by early next week they fall. It would be great to get plants ordered so that I'd have them in hand by next weekend. I've waited this long so I'm not in a huge hurry. 

My buddy wanted me to take my macro lens and take some closeups of the fungus, but one of the rooms in my basement is still the catchall from when I moved so finding my DSLR would be a pretty good challenge lol. There's definitely more than can be seen in the pic, but the funny thing that happened was once I got the GLA back online, the flow from it blew off a bunch of fungus in the path of the outflow. 

When the tank is finally done my goal is to drain almost all the water out, get as much planted as I can, fill it back up and then a day or two later go and grab some fish.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Your exciting tale of adventure has turned me off from canisters for good lol 😂


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Glad you got it sorted out! 

On the one hand you have been through the ringer on this one. But on the other, your canister could literally last long enough to be in regular use by your great grandchildren. Just replace the pump when needed etc. That kind of modular platform really entices me. Plus the pumps make these filters the quietest on the market.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> Your exciting tale of adventure has turned me off from canisters for good lol 😂


I basically have had no problems with any other canister I've owned. It figures when I try something new I run into all kinds of problems lol. 



minorhero said:


> Glad you got it sorted out!
> 
> On the one hand you have been through the ringer on this one. But on the other, your canister could literally last long enough to be in regular use by your great grandchildren. Just replace the pump when needed etc. That kind of modular platform really entices me. Plus the pumps make these filters the quietest on the market.


The modularity is really what I like about it. You can stuff the inside however you like, and you're not limited by pump selection. I especially like the idea of being able to replace the pump if it goes down. I can totally see using a more powerful DC pump and not even using the bracket to mount it. It's definitely nice to have that flexibility. 

I definitely got the crash course in literally everything that could go wrong though haha. I know for the future....do not lube that o ring and make sure to completely dry it, the channel it sits in, and the underside of the lid otherwise it'll roll out of position as you attach the clamps. 

As I was typing this I realized that I haven't checked it this morning so I went and checked for leaks. Absolutely nothing, and the one thing that surprised me is that the reactor purged itself at some point over night of all the air bubbles. 

I'm glad I don't have any plans of maintaining the canister very often because it's definitely not as simple as the Oase, but I'm glad I thought of this beforehand when I set it up with only lava rock. I wouldn't doubt that I could go at the very least 6 months between maintenance sessions, possibly a lot longer. I may even just leave it alone and if I can't track the source of higher nitrates, I'll know that it needs to be taken offline and maintained. 

I'm definitely happy that it's working though. What a relief! Now I can at least focus on building the doors for the stand, staining the trim and doors, and mounting everything.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

I can't account for every canister, but the three Eheims I have which are between 5 and 15 years old have never ever leaked and they are so quiet that sometimes I put my hand on them to make sure they're running.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I can't account for every canister, but the three Eheims I have which are between 5 and 15 years old have never ever leaked and they are so quiet that sometimes I put my hand on them to make sure they're running.


I definitely wouldn't recommend one of these stainless canisters to someone who hasn't owned a canister filter before. If everything went perfectly, I have no doubts that someone without experience could be successful, but at the same time introduce a single problem I've had and someone new to canisters would have been lost. 

I've had, and just going off of memory, 5 different canisters filters not counting the two I have on this tank over the years. I never had a problem with any of them. The one I actually miss is an old Marineland canister that came with a diatom filter that you'd use after first setting a tank up to get the water crystal clear. Even though you'd more or less only use it one time, it was nice to have. I did use it regularly, but usually before I had people coming by I'd toss it in to really polish the water and then remove it after a few hours. 

I think I may try to DIY something to improve on the weak points of this canister's design. In my opinion the biggest weak points are the pump fittings. I really don't like how the outlet of the pump isn't able to be adjusted for direction, and you're more or less stuck attaching tubing facing upwards. What I can see myself doing at some point when I get bored is attaching a short piece of tubing to that outlet fitting, and taking another threaded barbed fitting and basically connecting the two together without any gaps between the two barbed fittings. Connecting that second threaded barbed fitting to PVC, and then plumbing that back to the reactor. I'd likely install a valved union shortly after the barbed fitting so that I could just turn off the flow, unscrew the bottom of the union, and then remove the canister, while the lid is still on it. That would prevent excessive pressure on the weak point of the design, at least one of the weak points. 

The challenge with maintaining this canister is that it's HEAVY when it's filled with water. The only way I can really wrangle it without causing issues with either the canister or my back is draining at least half the water out of it before I remove it from the stand. I think it would make a lot of sense for them to start welding handles or something onto the sides of the canister. Maybe some kind of handles that are flippable so that they lay flat when not being used.


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## sm1ke (Jun 30, 2016)

Seems crazy that the o-ring needs to be dry for the canister to seal properly. On what seems like every other filter, it is advised that the o-ring be lubricated in some way to provide a better seal. I would think that if the o-ring was dry, it would be more prone to drying out and cracking down the line vs. a properly lubricated o-ring on an Eheim or Fluval.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

sm1ke said:


> Seems crazy that the o-ring needs to be dry for the canister to seal properly. On what seems like every other filter, it is advised that the o-ring be lubricated in some way to provide a better seal. I would think that if the o-ring was dry, it would be more prone to drying out and cracking down the line vs. a properly lubricated o-ring on an Eheim or Fluval.


Most other canisters have a channel that holds the o ring in place. The o ring on these stainless canisters just sort of sits on a ledge. The act of latching down the latches puts enough pressure on the o ring that if it's wet, it slips right off that ledge. I personally think it's a design flaw because there should be a wall that prevents the o ring from sliding out. 

As I was trying to figure out how to get it to stop slipping out, I tried closing the latches that were opposite one another at the same time, then other variations and it kept popping out until I did what I normally do when I start getting angry and frustrated: I stood up and walked away for a few minutes. That's when I start thinking back when I first set it up, why this problem didn't happen and it was because the o ring, ledge, and lid were all dry. 

Next time I do maintenance on this thing I'll probably try just applying silicone grease and making sure that everything else is dry and seeing what happens. I suspect that the silicone grease will result in the o ring slipping again. It's a pretty robust and thick o ring so it'll likely be years before it starts to degrade. In any event I'm planning to buy some extras to preventatively replace as I do maintenance. I'll likely order them once I order a backup pump for this canister.


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## pseudomugil (Aug 12, 2013)

ddiomede said:


> Here's an FTS I just took so that everyone can get a laugh out of the amount of fungus on the wood. The tank has cleared up a bit. It's still not crystal clear, but it will be once I'm able to add more carbon and clean out the pre filter on the Oase.
> 
> So a little drama, but almost everything is working now.
> 
> View attachment 1043663


Congrats on getting that canister sorted, it's been a long way to get there. 

For some reason in this photo your hardscape reminds me of two siblings having a slap fight and I can't really put my finger on why. Just very dynamic poses from the wood that look somewhat combative I guess.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

pseudomugil said:


> Congrats on getting that canister sorted, it's been a long way to get there.
> 
> For some reason in this photo your hardscape reminds me of two siblings having a slap fight and I can't really put my finger on why. Just very dynamic poses from the wood that look somewhat combative I guess.


Haha, that's definitely something I wouldn't have thought of. Kind of what I was going for was to have two mounds that were somewhat similar, with wood that more or less stretches out to join the two. In the middle I planned on making it look like a small pathway where water flowed and cut its way through. I'm hoping I can continue that theme as I plant. 

It's a major relief to finally have the problem sorted out. All that's really left to do equipment wise is getting the light program going, and getting the CO2 turned on and dialed in. I'm not planning to mess with either one until plants get in the tank. This weekend I'm going to focus on getting the stand finished up, or at least getting it closer to being finished.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

It's funny how people see things in hardscape. When I setup one of my last scapes someone thought it reminded them of Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam LOL

Anyway once your tank is growing with plants I'm sure it will go from slapfight to Zen.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Ran the evening tests. 

Ammonia: 2ppm
Nitrite: solidly at .25, perhaps a shade more purple
Nitrate: 5ppm

No leaks on anything. 

New season of Peaky Blinders is on Netflix so I'll probably toss that on in the background and start figuring out a cut list for the doors for the stand.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Not much new to report. Ammonia dropped down to 1.5ppm so I dosed enough to get it back up to 2ppm. Nitrites are about the same as they were yesterday except slightly more purple hue. Nitrates were the same. 

The one noticeable change was the tank appears to be a bit more cloudy. I suspect this had to do with putting the GLA back online and the flow blowing fungus off the wood. 

Just more waiting for something big to happen. Until then I'll keep testing and keeping ammonia at 2ppm. It seems like it's processing .5ppm of ammonia every other day.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

This is more like a normal cycle. The claim of fully cycling a tank in 2 weeks sounded bogus, but rest assured, this is what it's supposed to look like =)


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> This is more like a normal cycle. The claim of fully cycling a tank in 2 weeks sounded bogus, but rest assured, this is what it's supposed to look like =)


I agree, this Fritz Zyme Turbo Start is useless. A friend of mine started cycling a tank of his but he used Dr. Tim's and he's basically exactly where I am right now. 

I should have just saved the money and used Stability since I have a near full bottle. 

Aside from my nano tank and using Stability, the fastest I've ever cycled a tank was 3 weeks, but typically 4 weeks. My nano took somewhere between 1 and 2 weeks. 

I may maintain the Oase tomorrow. I ordered the carbon pre filter sponges so I may as well chuck them in, but also remove the lava rock from one of the trays and replace it with carbon, and also replace the carbon in the very top tray since that was probably exhausted by the second day.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Tonight's test results:

Ammonia: 1.5ppm
Nitrite: .50ppm 
Nitrate: 5ppm

Very interesting results tonight. I dosed enough last night to get ammonia back to 2ppm and it dropped down to 1.5ppm again. Nitrites are slightly over .50ppm. 

The biggest change, which if they're able to be replicated tomorrow, is that the tank is processing .5ppm of ammonia every 24 hours and the nitrites rising to .50ppm makes a lot of sense. 

I'm going to dose ammonia again in a few minutes. Everything else seems to be in great shape. The only maintenance I did was the surface skimmer seemed like it wasn't doing that great a job and it just needed some cleaning and is working well again. 

I'll check back in tomorrow night. I can't wait until the cycle is complete because this daily testing is tedious.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

ddiomede said:


> I can't wait until the cycle is complete because this daily testing is tedious.


I would only be testing ammonia for right now. Maybe check nitrites once a week or so, and don't bother with nitrates for a while.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> I would only be testing ammonia for right now. Maybe check nitrites once a week or so, and don't bother with nitrates for a while.


I think it's just a force of habit. I think checking nitrites makes sense though because once you get some kind of reading above zero, it typically progresses pretty quickly from there. 

Last night I totally forgot to dose ammonia, but it actually works out because I'll see how much is being processed in the same time frame as before - 48 hours. I was seeing .5ppm being processed, so when I test tonight, hypothetically I should be at 1ppm. If that's actually the case, then nitrites should have risen as well. 

The good thing about all this testing is since I'm uniformly using the reagents, they'll need replacing around the same time.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Tonight's results:

Ammonia: 1ppm
Nitrite: .50ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm

So the tank is processing 1ppm in 48 hours whereas it was only processing .5ppm a few days ago.

Nitrite was a bit more purple than .50ppm, but nowhere near as purple for the next step up.

I just dosed 10ml of ammonia to bring me back up to 2ppm.

One interesting development is that some of the fungus is turning black. At first I was shocked because it looked like BBA, but looking back at previous pics, they were in the location where fungus was. Weird for sure, but it's one of the shoulder shrug things.

Anyway, that's it for today. This is kind of like watching paint dry.

Once this tank cycles, I'm going to scrub all fungus off the wood and siphon it out with the filters off. I'll do this the day I'm getting ready to plant since I'm planning on a near 100% water change.

ETA: I think I forgot to mention this but I have the red oak frame pieces for the doors all cut. I'm waiting on a doweling jig but once that arrives the next step will be to drill dowel holes, do the glue up, rout what needs to be routed, sand, stain & poly, and then install the hinges. I actually bought a hinge jig for this, but I can see myself building cabinets at some point because my laundry room needs some sort of countertop and storage aside from the wire shelving units. When I get to staining, I'm going to do the trim pieces at the same time. The only thing left would be the panel for the inside of the doors. I have some 1/4" material I can use, but I might buy some birch, or some other kind of plywood and paint it white.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

The only notable update I have is nitrites have gone up. They're not quite at 1ppm, but somewhere between .50 and 1ppm. I'll call it .75ppm. 

Nitrates also went up slightly. Ammonia is at 2ppm which is probably the strangest result. It's possible I went a little crazy dosing 10ml yesterday, since I realistically only needed like 7ml. 

Aside from that, it has been 7 days since I first saw nitrites so I'll assume that it'll take at least until the weekend before they peak.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

No changes this evening. It's actually pretty strange because everything is exactly the same as yesterday, and perhaps nitrites are a hair lower. 

We'll see what tomorrow's results bring.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

While it has only been about two weeks, it feels longer waiting for this tank to cycle. I keep thinking about plants and fish, but I'm feeling like this:


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> While it has only been about two weeks, it feels longer waiting for this tank to cycle. I keep thinking about plants and fish, but I'm feeling like this:
> 
> View attachment 1043933


If it helps you can put plants in at any time, including right now. They won't be hurt by the cycling process and will in fact make the cycle go a little quicker.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> If it helps you can put plants in at any time, including right now. They won't be hurt by the cycling process and will in fact make the cycle go a little quicker.


Honestly the only reason I was waiting is because of reading people's experiences with tissue cultures melting during the cycling. I didn't seem to have that same problem, but my nano was pretty heavily packed with plants on day one.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> Honestly the only reason I was waiting is because of reading people's experiences with tissue cultures melting during the cycling. I didn't seem to have that same problem, but my nano was pretty heavily packed with plants on day one.


Tissue cultures are prone to melting period, especially if its a low tech tank (dependent on the plant of course, buce is much less likely to melt then say monte carlo, etc). These are all emersed plants and they are going into submersed setups. Its a stressful thing for any plant, but tissue cultures are small so they are automatically pretty fragile. You have co2, so you just turn it on, and plant away. You are not more or less prone to them melting during the cycle then any other time.

I also don't do the whole 2ppm of ammonia must be absorbed in 24 hour thing anyway. That would be super important if you were going to fully stock this tank with adult fish all at once. Personally I prefer to stock a tank slowly over a few weeks. I put in my ammonia source, and let it go to zero ammonia, zero nitrite. Then do big water change and lightly stock. Keep an eye on parameters and do more water changes if needed. Works for me but everyone is different here. /shrug


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

I was kinda wondering why you where waiting. I thought maybe you didn't want to run lights with the ammonia going thinking algae. As mentioned by minorhero I've always planted from day one even with TC. I don't even formally cycle a planted tank, because between the plants and the water changes it could easily handle some fish when the time comes. I like to take a month or even two get the plants right and then when everything is dailed in I slowly add fish.


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## lpsouth1978 (Jun 22, 2012)

My tank has been cycling for about the same time as yours, but seems to have completed the cycle already. It seems odd how slowly thing are progressing for you. IME, the ammonia drops very quickly. Mine went from 2ppm to 0 in less than 1 week. I then added more ammonia to 2ppm and it was gone in 12 hours. Nitrites tend to take much longer, but should be quite high after processing all of the ammonia. I did not add any bacteria, just the Flourite, rocks, and wood. 

I will be planting tonight and then adding fish in a couple weeks. Looking forward to seeing yours with green in it too.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> Tissue cultures are prone to melting period, especially if its a low tech tank (dependent on the plant of course, buce is much less likely to melt then say monte carlo, etc). These are all emersed plants and they are going into submersed setups. Its a stressful thing for any plant, but tissue cultures are small so they are automatically pretty fragile. You have co2, so you just turn it on, and plant away. You are not more or less prone to them melting during the cycle then any other time.
> 
> I also don't do the whole 2ppm of ammonia must be absorbed in 24 hour thing anyway. That would be super important if you were going to fully stock this tank with adult fish all at once. Personally I prefer to stock a tank slowly over a few weeks. I put in my ammonia source, and let it go to zero ammonia, zero nitrite. Then do big water change and lightly stock. Keep an eye on parameters and do more water changes if needed. Works for me but everyone is different here. /shrug





Asteroid said:


> I was kinda wondering why you where waiting. I thought maybe you didn't want to run lights with the ammonia going thinking algae. As mentioned by minorhero I've always planted from day one even with TC. I don't even formally cycle a planted tank, because between the plants and the water changes it could easily handle some fish when the time comes. I like to take a month or even two get the plants right and then when everything is dailed in I slowly add fish.


I think if I make it through this weekend and don't see any significant changes with the test results, I'll get my order in for plants. While I am busy next Saturday, if the plants can arrive either Friday or Saturday, I'd have time Saturday evening to drain water out of the tank and get the plants planted. 


lpsouth1978 said:


> My tank has been cycling for about the same time as yours, but seems to have completed the cycle already. It seems odd how slowly thing are progressing for you. IME, the ammonia drops very quickly. Mine went from 2ppm to 0 in less than 1 week. I then added more ammonia to 2ppm and it was gone in 12 hours. Nitrites tend to take much longer, but should be quite high after processing all of the ammonia. I did not add any bacteria, just the Flourite, rocks, and wood.
> 
> I will be planting tonight and then adding fish in a couple weeks. Looking forward to seeing yours with green in it too.


Yeah I just don't understand why it's taking so long. I've been pretty good at just leaving it alone, but based on what a lot of these bacteria manufacturers claim, they basically don't work all that well. The one that did seem to work for me was Seachem's, but I packed the tank with plants on day 1 so I can't say for certain if the Seachem cycled the tank quick, or if the plants played a more significant role. 

Back when we cycled tanks using fish, by the start of week 2 your ammonia levels started climbing and would fall by the end of the week, and nitrites would start rising at week 3 and by week 4 you were done cycling. The biggest mistake I made was not pre cycling some media in my nano tank. The reason I didn't is because I have pest snails so I didn't want to infest a new tank with them, but I'll get them regardless since some of the plants I want don't come in tissue culture cups.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Another strange result tonight. 

Ammonia dropped to 1ppm while nitrites also dropped to roughly .25ppm. Nitrates have remained the same. 

There's also a gross skin on the water surface. I'm going to net it all out and plan on doing maintenance on the Oase tomorrow. The pre filter is probably full of scum and the carbon needs to be replaced along with adding more. 

The tank however, is crystal clear. Very strange results but I'm going to dose 10ml of ammonia again, as well as top off the evaporated water.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

The skin on the surface of the water was very strange last night. I used a net to remove as much of it as possible, but it very much seemed to be made of a protein. 

After skimming as much as I could, I took my python and drained a few gallons out while focusing on sucking the remainder of what was on the surface and then replacing with clean water. 

I dosed another 10 ml of ammonia afterwards. The other thing I noticed is that the flow from the Oase is significantly lower so doing maintenance on it either today or tomorrow is a must. 

I'm planning on testing again this evening to see if there have been any changes. 

I'm probably going to spend some time this evening figuring out the plants I want to order and putting an order in. I'll set one night aside next week for when the plants come in to get everything planted and then start playing around with the light programming and getting the CO2 tuned in prior to adding the first fish. 

I think the first fish will probably be a bunch of Otocinclus and a few siamese algae eaters. There seems to be a good amount of biofilm for them to graze on, and I'm sure there will be more by the time I buy them. I'll also add a massive school of harlequin rasboras....probably a couple dozen.


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## ben_in_oz (9 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> The other thing I noticed is that the flow from the Oase is significantly lower so doing maintenance on it either today or tomorrow is a must.


I have noticed that my two Oase 600s put out considerably less flow than I expected. Initially I was worried I would have too much flow in my 75g tank by running two 600s, but having seen them in action over the past 3 weeks I am now concerned there actually may not be enough flow in the tank. Maybe filling them with Matrix isn't a great idea?

Am now considering drilling extra holes in the pre-filter intake tube as demonstrated here:


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

ben_in_oz said:


> I have noticed that my two Oase 600s put out considerably less flow than I expected. Initially I was worried I would have too much flow in my 75g tank by running two 600s, but having seen them in action over the past 3 weeks I am now concerned there actually may not be enough flow in the tank. Maybe filling them with Matrix isn't a great idea?
> 
> Am now considering drilling extra holes in the pre-filter intake tube as demonstrated here:


For the price, I am pretty disappointed in the performance and how quickly it seems to degrade. Granted I haven't maintained the pre filter yet, but because of the skin on the water's surface, I raised the outflow of both the Oase and the GLA canister. The Oase is noticeably less powerful than it was a week or so ago. 

I intend on doing that mod at some point. The one thing holding me back is that the tube doesn't seem to be available to purchase for the 850. As soon as it becomes available I'll be buying one in the event I mess up when drilling the additional holes. 

The two reasons I went with the Oase are the pre filter so that I could extend canister maintenance with a surface skimmer, and the heater. Even with all the problems I had with the GLA canister initially, if this Oase ever breaks and is outside of warranty, I'll be ordering another GLA canister and likely their new CO2 reactor so that I can take advantage of adding a heater to it.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> For the price, I am pretty disappointed in the performance and how quickly it seems to degrade. Granted I haven't maintained the pre filter yet, but because of the skin on the water's surface, I raised the outflow of both the Oase and the GLA canister. The Oase is noticeably less powerful than it was a week or so ago.
> 
> I intend on doing that mod at some point. The one thing holding me back is that the tube doesn't seem to be available to purchase for the 850. As soon as it becomes available I'll be buying one in the event I mess up when drilling the additional holes.
> 
> The two reasons I went with the Oase are the pre filter so that I could extend canister maintenance with a surface skimmer, and the heater. Even with all the problems I had with the GLA canister initially, if this Oase ever breaks and is outside of warranty, I'll be ordering another GLA canister and likely their new CO2 reactor so that I can take advantage of adding a heater to it.


Drilling the prefilter tube will help. I did that with a 250 and my present 600. The prefilter needs to be cleaned roughly weekly. You probably have an accumulation of biofilm and other products of early tank life. I have a BM 600 with an external DC pump and it is plenty for my 120cm/75g tank. 

I cannot remember. Do you have a surface skimmer? I never used the original tubing or pipes with my 600. I used lily pipes with a surface skimmer from the beginning.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> Drilling the prefilter tube will help. I did that with a 250 and my present 600. The prefilter needs to be cleaned roughly weekly. You probably have an accumulation of biofilm and other products of early tank life. I have a BM 600 with an external DC pump and it is plenty for my 120cm/75g tank. I cannot remember. Do you have a surface skimmer? I never used the original tubing or pipes with my 600. I used lily pipes with a surface skimmer from the beginning.


Thanks, I'm definitely going to drill that pipe. I may reach out to Oase and see if I can order one direct just to have as a spare. On the YouTube channel above, one of the two Oase videos he has he uses a piece of PVC and drills that. It enlarges the internal diameter of the pipe itself by a couple mm, but also drills countless holes in it. I'm curious to see if that improved flow more than just drilling the stock pipe. 

I'm actually using a surface skimmer on just the Oase. It doesn't seem to be working very well and I suspect the pre filter desperately needs cleaning because it worked great at first. 

I'm going to tackle it first thing in the morning. Ran the tests and everything is roughly the same.


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## ben_in_oz (9 mo ago)

mourip said:


> The prefilter needs to be cleaned roughly weekly. You probably have an accumulation of biofilm and other products of early tank life.


This is good advice. I cleaned the pre filter on one of my 600s today and it has made a huge difference to the flow rate. I also removed my lily pipe outlet and re-attached the Oase standard spray bar - huge increase in flow rate in my tank.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I emailed the guy at my LFS and asked him to give me a call when he has time. He surprisingly called me back about 10 minutes later. He checked availability through his distributers and here is what I've ordered, along with stuff ordered online:


Rotala Narrow Leaf Sp. 2 bunches
Alternathera Lilacina 2 bunches
Rotala H'ra 2 bunches
Rotala Rotundifolia Orange Juice 2 bunches
Rotala Macandra Mini 2 bunches
Microsorum Trident Mini 2 pots
Buce Godzila 1 pot
Velvet tri color buce 1 pot
Red blade buce 1 pot
Red cherry buce 1 pot
Melawi blue buce 1 pot
Kayu lapis buce 1 pot
Crypt pink flamingo 1 pot
UNS Montecarlo tissue culture 2 cups
Alternathera Rosaefolia tissue cuture 1 cup
Prosperpinaca Palustris 1 cup
AR Mini UNS tissue culture 2 cups
Pogostemon Helferi 'Downoi' UNS tissue culture 2 cups
I'm still missing weeping moss and he said he should be able to track that down before the order comes in. He's also going to look for crypt parva and Blyxa Japonica. 

It seems like weeping moss is only available in tissue cultures. I figure I'll need 2-3 cups. 

That should get me started lol. I don't even want to say what these orders cost total because I'll start crying lol. The good thing though is that a dime won't come out of my account because I'm just using points I've accumulated on credit cards. 2% and 5% cash back really helps. 

I have a few things to do outdoors today, but I'm planning to squeeze in filter maintenance on the Oase. The other thing I failed to mention with the Oase is as the skin on the surface began accumulating and the flow rate slowed down, the Oase started accumulating air and regularly burping it out. It seems like the pump on the filter is working harder to draw water in and that's causing air to escape around the o rings. I'm also going to really lube up the gaskets while I'm at it. 

Once I have all these plants in hand, I'll need to scrub the wood down and suck all of the fungus out, drain the tank down enough to get everything planted, and then see how it goes. I suspect I should have the stuff from the LFS and the two orders I've put in online by mid week. Ideally everything is in hand by Friday so that when I get back home Saturday afternoon I can start on this.

ETA: forgot to list that the LFS will be getting me a couple tissue cultures of buce kedagang and any other buce he can get in tissue culture form.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Weird test results again. Ammonia dropped down to a hair over 1ppm, nitrites are up to .50ppm, and nitrates are slightly higher than 10ppm. 

I'm going to do the maintenance on the Oase in a few minutes. I cut the heater off so I'm letting it cool down before removing the top of the Oase.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Just cleaned the filter and the pre filter sponges were horrendously filthy. Cleaned them as well as the one tray of sponges. I also replaced the carbon and added more. Hooked everything back up and the difference in flow was significant.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Reminds me I gotta clean mine out tomorrow.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

You should definitely not be seeing any surface scum if using a skimmer. Off hand I would say you need to close the lower intake on your skimmer intake by a lot. As in almost all the way. Just keep closing it till the skimmer starts pulling in significantly more surface gunk.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> You should definitely not be seeing any surface scum if using a skimmer. Off hand I would say you need to close the lower intake on your skimmer intake by a lot. As in almost all the way. Just keep closing it till the skimmer starts pulling in significantly more surface gunk.


It turns out the problem was the pre filter sponges were so filthy that it just wasn't powerful enough to draw in surface scum. As soon as I cleaned the sponges and got the filter back online, the flow rate and the surface skimmer were working almost too well. When I say filthy, I mean I considered throwing the sponges away because they were so filthy. I obviously didn't but to say I was shocked is an understatement. 

Weekly pre filter maintenance is definitely mandatory on the Oase if you're using a surface skimmer.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

My pre filter sponge occasionally stuns me with its levels of dirt... though it used to be a lot more shocking in the first months.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Yesterday I decided to do nothing with the tank so I didn't test anything. 

Ran tests today and these results are just really strange.  

The only change from the previous result is ammonia is down to 1ppm. 

With a normal cycle, my nitrites should be spiking this week. The issue is it seems like the ammonia cycle hasn't really picked up steam and to me seems like it stalled. 

I'm considering dosing Seachem Stability to add some additional nitrifying bacteria and see if that does anything. Worst case it does nothing. 

My plant orders shockingly may all arrive on Thursday. My LFS may even get what I ordered through him by Wednesday. 

The only plants I absolutely need are ones that require me to drain the tank down nearly completely....like weeping moss, Montecarlo, and any other really tiny plants that would be tedious to plant, or to be glued. Everything else can just be planted with the tank full of water. 

But I'm definitely dosing Stability. 

The plan when I get most of the plants in is to cut my filtration off, scrub down the spider wood to get rid of the fungus and anything else growing on it off, drain the tank almost completely, plant, then refill the tank and get the CO2 running. I'll wait a week before I add any fish. The first fish will be about a dozen otocinclus, a few siamese algae eaters, and two dozen harlequin rasbora. 

That's it for now. I'll test again tomorrow just to see if the Stability had any effect.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

My only comment is if there is one more cycling post I'm unsubscribing. Hold the ammonia and plant the tank


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

I'll disagree with @Asteroid here. Keep dosing ammonia, but plant the tank!

My reasoning is that I like to add all my fish at once. If you add them in slowly, you're constantly quarantining new fish and that gets tedious.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> My only comment is if there is one more cycling post I'm unsubscribing. Hold the ammonia and plant the tank


Trust me, I hate posting about the cycle lol.

In hindsight I should have planted on day 1.

I am planting pretty heavily though so I’m not too concerned with the cycle because there really shouldn’t be one 



jellopuddinpop said:


> I'll disagree with @Asteroid here. Keep dosing ammonia, but plant the tank!
> 
> My reasoning is that I like to add all my fish at once. If you add them in slowly, you're constantly quarantining new fish and that gets tedious.


The good thing is the LFS I go to quarantines all new fish. He charges a bit more but it’s worth it. I swung by there yesterday after work and explained what I’m seeing so far and he thinks I should stop dosing ammonia in the same quantities I’ve been dosing. The reason he gave was even if I add the fish I’m considering adding, he said that I for sure have enough bacteria built up. He was surprised by the Fritz Zyme Turbo Start not working very well but believes that I should have given the tank a day or two before dosing ammonia. Anyhow, hoping the plants arrive at the same time, or at least the plants that I need the whole tank to be drained to plant.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

jellopuddinpop said:


> I'll disagree with @Asteroid here. Keep dosing ammonia, but plant the tank!
> 
> My reasoning is that I like to add all my fish at once. If you add them in slowly, you're constantly quarantining new fish and that gets tedious.


Jello, your so old school. 

OK, so here's the way I see it. If you add fish slowly, the tank will eventually cycle anyway with or without adding extra ammonia. Doing water changes is an absolute must which will remove anything harmful to the fish. Your already going to be challenged with all that hardscape to force good light down to the MC and stems so by dosing ammonia your going to make it that much more difficult.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

Asteroid said:


> Jello, your so old school.
> 
> OK, so here's the way I see it. If you add fish slowly, the tank will eventually cycle anyway with or without adding extra ammonia. Doing water changes is an absolute must which will remove anything harmful to the fish. Your already going to be challenged with all that hardscape to force good light down to the MC and stems so by dosing ammonia your going to make it that much more difficult.


Counterpoint...

Let's say @ddiomede adds Oto's right out of the gate to control algae. No ammonia problems because it's only a small bioload.

Then a month later, you want to add the SAE. You can't just dump them in the main tank and risk getting all of your happy Oto's sick, so you need to quarantine. Now, you need to wait 6 weeks for your QT to be done so you can move them to the main tank. You also need to wait those 6 weeks until you can start qt on your Harleys. Another 6 weeks to qt the harleys before you can get the apistos and start qt on them. It goes on and on...

This is opposed to dosing ammonia to 4ppm until the cycle is complete, then fully stocking your tank all at once. No qt needed because you're going to do the qt all at once in the main tank. 

Everyone has their own methods, and none of them are wrong. It's just the way I do it is all =)


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> Counterpoint...
> 
> Let's say @ddiomede adds Oto's right out of the gate to control algae. No ammonia problems because it's only a small bioload.
> 
> ...


That's initially how I did it when I first started reef keeping. If you noticed ich on your fish, there's basically nothing you can do except attempt to net them out and treat all fish outside of your display tank, while leaving them in QT for at least a couple months to allow the parasite to go through its lifecycle and make sure that the tank is clear. It's a massive hassle and is not at all fun, which is why most reef keepers QT their fish first. Trying to catch fish in a tank where you can cause a lot of damage to corals is not at all fun. 

I made this mistake once. I started QTing fish but then found 2 LFS that QT'd fish as part of their process. You paid a bit more, but it meant that you didn't need to keep a QT tank up, or keep a sponge sitting in your sump getting colonized with bacteria so that you could quickly set up the QT if you decided to add a fish. 

This is one of the reasons I'm going to the LFS near me where I bought the tank. He QT's everything before it even makes it onto the floor so fish in his display tanks are all clear of parasites, bacterial infections, are eating, etc. 

I believe that the tank is processing waste at this point, at least enough to house the two dozen rasboras, dozen otos, and few SAE's right off the bat. Having not dosed anything, I really shouldn't be reading any nitrates, but I've been reading them for at least two weeks and the results continue to climb. 

I agree though, you want to QT all your fish regardless of whether the tank is cycled or not otherwise if you're adding your entire stock at once and one fish has an issue, you're forced to treat the whole tank and honestly every treatment is a bad one for plants and any inverts. I'm getting the benefits of QT without needing to actually QT anything. I also misunderstood what the owner of the LFS told me when I asked how long it would take him to get fish in that he doesn't currently have in stock. He said about a week to week and a half, but that was just for him to get them into the store. He said add some time onto that so that I can QT them because I won't sell fish that I haven't quarantined. He said the reason he does this is it actually saves him money in the long run because the fish are more likely to survive and he doesn't need to replace fish he sells and die because they weren't healthy. Definitely makes sense but the store I worked at back in the 90's, we only treated for disease if we noticed the symptoms of disease. If we just got a fish order in and after releasing the fish into the tank we noticed fish began rubbing themselves against decorations in the tank, we'd begin treating for ich and put a hold on the tank. Each tank ran on its own so we didn't need to worry about treating a whole system, just that specific tank.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

It sounds like you have a great LFS. I’ve tried to do what you’re talking about once before on a tank many years ago, but the owner didn’t really get the concept of a qt tank. I had purchased 8 Torpedo barbs and didn’t want to set up my qt tank, so I asked if he would do it for me. He called me the day they came in, and I went to pick them up about 4 weeks later. I then watched him catch my Torpedo Barbs with the same net he used to grab feeder fish for the guy before me. Some places are great, but some just don’t get it.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

jellopuddinpop said:


> Counterpoint...
> 
> Let's say @ddiomede adds Oto's right out of the gate to control algae. No ammonia problems because it's only a small bioload.
> 
> ...


Of course there are many ways to do things, but I'm just saying that the cycle doesn't have to be complete before you add fish. Two thoughts here, one if you want to do the traditional QTing than with a planted tank I'm never in a hurry to add fish. There is so much going on with the plants. Getting them healthy, trimmed, placement etc, I really wouldn't care how long it took me to fully stock the tank. Maybe that me, but it's not a FO setup, so it's different to me. 

The other point is as OP mentioned, he's getting healthy fish that have been QT. If you want to be on the safe side use a UV. I think this was a possibility for @ddiomede

The UV in some ways is better than a QT. I've used them on bigger setups and I swear by them in terms of water clarity and acclimation. You will never have ICH take over your tank with a UV attached. I also think fish acclimate better as it kills pathogens that can kill stressed fish during acclimation.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> It sounds like you have a great LFS. I’ve tried to do what you’re talking about once before on a tank many years ago, but the owner didn’t really get the concept of a qt tank. I had purchased 8 Torpedo barbs and didn’t want to set up my qt tank, so I asked if he would do it for me. He called me the day they came in, and I went to pick them up about 4 weeks later. I then watched him catch my Torpedo Barbs with the same net he used to grab feeder fish for the guy before me. Some places are great, but some just don’t get it.


This guy didn't always do that. He's probably been in business well over 40 years. He's been in 3 different locations, the one he's at now is very small. He narrowed down his focus onto just fish and corals...no more small animals, reptiles, etc. His last location was massive, but he had everything except cats and dogs. His new location is probably 10% the size of the last. 

He described his QT process to me and even walked me into the back to show me. It's not much different than I'd do myself. 

One good way to know if a store knows what they're doing is seeing how they store their nets. Even back in the 90's we kept a 2.5 gallon on our bagging station with medicated water. I can't recall if the water was green or blue, but we'd leave a net we just used in there and grab a disinfected net off the pegboard hanger. Once we finished netting a fish out of one tank, we'd dump that net into the treated water, bag the fish, then grab another clean net. It was a hassle but it kept us from needing to treat a whole system of tanks like you'd see at Petsmart in the event of disease. 

For feeders we actually had separate nets for them that stayed at the section where feeders were kept. 

There's one LFS that I used to go to for saltwater fish because the owner told me he QT'd all fish, but I went there another time and asked one of his employees what process they used and he laughed and said "oh, we keep our salinity at 1.019 instead of 1.025 because the ich can't survive. I never bought another fish from there unless I intended on setting up a QT. I bought a blue jaw trigger from there and it wiped my tank out because within a week it was covered in ich, in my display tank. It was nerve wracking trying to catch fish, not being able to catch them, buying a fish trap and sitting there for hours with a beer in one hand and a piece of fishing line in the other ready to pull on it to shut the door on the trap. By the time I caught all the fish, some didn't make it through QT.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Of course there are many ways to do things, but I'm just saying that the cycle doesn't have to be complete before you add fish. Two thoughts here, one if you want to do the traditional QTing than with a planted tank I'm never in a hurry to add fish. There is so much going on with the plants. Getting them healthy, trimmed, placement etc, I really wouldn't care how long it took me to fully stock the tank. Maybe that me, but it's not a FO setup, so it's different to me.
> 
> The other point is as OP mentioned, he's getting healthy fish that have been QT. If you want to be on the safe side use a UV. I think this was a possibility for @ddiomede
> 
> The UV in some ways is better than a QT. I've used them on bigger setups and I swear by them in terms of water clarity and acclimation. You will never have ICH take over your tank with a UV attached. I also think fish acclimate better as it kills pathogens that can kill stressed fish during acclimation.


I think I will end up adding a UV at some point. I may wind up doing a closed loop with a DC pump, a small one so that I can dial in the amount of flow the UV requires versus doing another bypass and cutting into the flow rate of one of my canisters. 

I need to have the tank running for a while to figure out the most efficient way to plumb everything. This is where sumps are soooooo much easier. You get the sump inside the stand, position all the equipment and then start plumbing everything together. I actually had a lot more trouble with the tubing I used for the canisters versus cutting and gluing up PVC.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I think I will end up adding a UV at some point. I may wind up doing a closed loop with a DC pump, a small one so that I can dial in the amount of flow the UV requires versus doing another bypass and cutting into the flow rate of one of my canisters.
> 
> I need to have the tank running for a while to figure out the most efficient way to plumb everything. This is where sumps are soooooo much easier. You get the sump inside the stand, position all the equipment and then start plumbing everything together. I actually had a lot more trouble with the tubing I used for the canisters versus cutting and gluing up PVC.


A UV to me is just a win-win, so if you can easily incorporate in (and sounds like you can) it's beneficial to fish and algae control as anything can trigger green water.


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## byunative (11 mo ago)

I use a UV powered by the appropriately sized Sicce Syncra pump. Just figured out the flow rate I needed and bought the pump that would provide it. Connected with leftover Oase tubing and used an Oase intake strainer for the input.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

So tomorrow will be a busy day. I have 2 big plant deliveries arriving. 

My LFS guy may also be getting my plants in tomorrow as well. He said they either come on Wednesday, or Thursday but he's closed so Friday is when I'd get them if they come later than normal. 

The challenge is if the stuff I ordered from him doesn't come in, and I need to wait until Friday to pick them up, then I may either need to leave plants in the boxes, or go ahead and plant them, drain the tank as much as I need to, and then plant his stuff. 

The fungus on the wood is pretty crazy because there's a LOT. I'll probably be scrubbing for at least an hour when the time comes to drain the tank. I'm debating whether I should scrub everything, or just scrub well around the areas I'm going to glue to the wood and then let the clean up crew eat the rest. It probably won't make a difference either way.


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## Mbrman (May 6, 2018)

When I get any plants I always unpack them and put em in a bucket of treated water (Prime plus a bit of fertilizer). You can leave em like that for days. Plus if there's any pests or pesticides, it'll help get rid of that crap.

Dave


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## Matt at Poth-O-Carry (Jan 9, 2022)

mourip said:


> One way to get plant mass without spending a bundle is to use some Pothos or Anthurium with its roots immersed to work as a "nitrate sponge". Works great as you get your scape figured out and your plants to grow in. Keeps algae at bay...


Totes agree! I'm way lazier with my water changes then i should be, but the fish don't complain with all the pothos slurping up my nitrate.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I received all plants today except for the order from the LFS. 

As soon as I wrap up in the office I'm going to cut the filters off, scrub as much of the fungus off the wood as a need to, attempt to net as much out as I can, and then begin draining the tank. 

I'm basically going to do this in stages. First I'll do the foreground planting since the carpet is Montecarlo and it'll be a pain to plant. I'll then plant the pathway with P Helferi 'Downoi". I actually bought two tissue cultures and it may have been a bit too much because there are a ton of plants in each one. I'm going to fill the tank up so that those areas are submerged, and then move onto the mid ground and plant crypts, microsorum trident mini, AR mini tissue cultures, and any other odds and ends I bought for the mid ground, then fill the tank up a bit more. Glue the weeping moss and fissidens onto the spider wood, get the various buce glued in place, fill the tank up a bit more and then work on the stem plants in the back. 

The biggest concern I have is that I don't have enough Montecarlo. I have two tissue cultures so I'm hoping that'll be enough. I had a couple more TC's of Montecarlo on my LFS order which I intended on gluing onto the four large rocks I have behind the wood so that the MC sort of hangs down like ivy. Everything else from my LFS order is easily planted even if the tank is full of water. 

Once the planting is done, tank filled, and filters kicked back on, I'm going to get the CO2 running, and maybe even program the lights. Lot's of work to do this evening and I'm assuming I won't get everything done. I don't really need to get the CO2 and lighting going, but I'd like to at least get the CO2 going so that I can get it dialed in. The good thing is I'm not planning on getting fish into the tank until next week at some point so I have time to get CO2 dialed in perfectly without worrying about gassing my fish. 

I'll get an FTS up tonight as long as the water is clear, if not it'll be tomorrow after work.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I received all plants today except for the order from the LFS.
> 
> As soon as I wrap up in the office I'm going to cut the filters off, scrub as much of the fungus off the wood as a need to, attempt to net as much out as I can, and then begin draining the tank.
> 
> ...


On the limited MC, it's actually not a bad thing. The more you separate the MC into individual or a few stems the better it will grow in. The smaller the groupings the better light they get and it will grow in faster and more even. I have literally planted HC stem by stem in tanks and watched it fill in pretty quickly.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> On the limited MC, it's actually not a bad thing. The more you separate the MC into individual or a few stems the better it will grow in. The smaller the groupings the better light they get and it will grow in faster and more even. I have literally planted HC stem by stem in tanks and watched it fill in pretty quickly.


Definitely seems like it would be tedious but I noticed a similar thing with my dwarf hair grass. The bunches I planted took forever to spread, but the individual pieces that I planted have been spreading like crazy. I'm about finished with work so it's about time to get cracking on this.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Definitely seems like it would be tedious but I noticed a similar thing with my dwarf hair grass. The bunches I planted took forever to spread, but the individual pieces that I planted have been spreading like crazy. I'm about finished with work so it's about time to get cracking on this.


It can be, but it's really not that bad and if your using sand they should stay put pretty easily.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

OMG that was a lot of work.

I had enough montecarlo to plantin the sand, but need one more cup for the rocks. Honestly…. I overdid it again lol.

Tank looks great though. I started planting at 5:30 and just finished cleaning up a few minutes ago. Tank is running but it’s too late to start playing around with CO2. That’s a job for tomorrow along with mixing up some ferts.

I’m thinking 6 hours of light per day for a week or two to let everything acclimate. I’ll get an FTS up tomorrow. The water isn’t perfectly clear but it should be by tomorrow. My back is killing me so I’m headed to bed lol.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Pics or it didn’t happen!! 🤩


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

LidijaPN said:


> Pics or it didn’t happen!! 🤩


I did take a pic last night before shutting the light off. There was a bit of debris floating around but this is what it looked like. I'll try to get some nicer pics this evening with closeups. 










I'm sure I'll be moving plants around. I only glued a few things down so that I could move stuff as needed. The wishbone looking branch on the right half of the tank could use something. I may take one of the AR mini's and glue it right in the center of the V. 

I'm looking forward to the stems plants growing in though. I have two TC's of buce kedagang coming so I'll need to figure out where to glue them.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Looks like a good start. With TC everything starts so small so the hardscape is even more dominant looking. Did you ever figure what your approx. PAR is? Is there a dimmer on the light or just straight six hours?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Looks like a good start. With TC everything starts so small so the hardscape is even more dominant looking. Did you ever figure what your approx. PAR is? Is there a dimmer on the light or just straight six hours?


Thanks! I bought one of those dimmer controllers off Amazon for the Twinstar. The only issue is I've read that people were frying the dimmer with the new version of the 1200 SA because it puts out a bit more wattage than the dimmer is rated for. 

One of the reasons I wanted to only do 6 hours is because programming the dimmer is a pain and I'd prefer to only do it once, so I'd control the lighting manually for now. 

I haven't yet had a chance to get the PAR meter from the local club. I'll likely do that at some point over the next month. 

The one type of plant I'll never buy in TC are stem plants. The mermaid weed was so tiny, contorted, and tangled that it was difficult to manage. I'm not sure if other stem plant TC's are different, but it definitely wasn't fun lol. Actually I did have another stem TC, the Alternathera Rosaefolia and that was much easier, but the plant itself is pretty robust with a thick stem. The LFS said he ordered a TC of Rotala Wallichi for me so I'll see if those are any different. Hopefully the mermaid weed grows well though. 

I didn't order a ton from the LFS since he wasn't able to get as much as I would have liked, so I only have minimal planting to do once I get the order from him. 

Tonight the goal is to get the ferts mixed up and get a dose in there, and get the CO2 running. I'll probably start off with a couple BPS and then ramp it up a little bit at a time until I hit the drop that I need, which reminds me I'll need to set aside a water sample to test as a baseline.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

The one thing I'm not looking forward to is cutting and replanting the submersed growth on the stem plants. The most difficult thing to do was planting the back of the tank so that will be a massive pain since the stem plants were mostly all grown emersed.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Reason I'm asking os much about the light, is that if it's very strong, it can really make things difficult with limited plant mass and right now it's tiny. So if strong, then 6 hrs is long for me. I would definitely get co2 going asap, since that will accelerate growth, do big water changes (like 60+ %). 

I bought mermaid weed emersed grown (not TC) 10 days ago and the emersed growth look fine and the new growth is looking like you'd want it to submersed. So I haven't had to cut/replant yet. I'll probably only do it when it gets really tall. 
If you don't have one, I'd recommend a substrate spatula to even out the sand. It will make the carpet look even against the front glass when it fills in.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Reason I'm asking os much about the light, is that if it's very strong, it can really make things difficult with limited plant mass and right now it's tiny. So if strong, then 6 hrs is long for me. I would definitely get co2 going asap, since that will accelerate growth, do big water changes (like 60+ %).
> 
> I bought mermaid weed emersed grown (not TC) 10 days ago and the emersed growth look fine and the new growth is looking like you'd want it to submersed. So I haven't had to cut/replant yet. I'll probably only do it when it gets really tall.
> If you don't have one, I'd recommend a substrate spatula to even out the sand. It will make the carpet look even against the front glass when it fills in.


Yep, I have the substrate spatula. Towards the end of the night my back was killing me from being hunched over planting so I didn't spend very much time on refining everything. 

The thing that surprised me the most is how long it took to actually drain the tank. In hindsight I probably shouldn't have drained it as much as I did because planting in wet sand that was outside of the water wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. The sand that was under water was very easy to plant in. I realized this after planting the Montecarlo so I quickly began filling the tank. 

The thing that took me way longer than I thought it would was scrubbing down the spider wood. I probably should have just removed them, put them into garbage bags and taken them outside to hose off. 

I may start off with 4-5 hours and see what happens. I did get one of the poth-o-carry things so I can add that in to suck up some additional nutrients. 

I realized that there is one more item on my to do list for this evening. When looking at the NilocG site and their fert recipes, the recipe I'm using for my nano tank has WAY too much K2SO4. I got the recipe off of a blog whose name escapes me, but it's a planted tank blog. The recipe I'm looking at for this tank is the 20ml per 90 gallons. The tank holds 115 gallons, but with all the sand, lava rock, dragon stone, and wood, I'm probably holding closer to 100 gallons. I'm not sure how accurate the lines are on those 500ml dosing containers are, so I'm sure I'll put in more than 20ml each time I dose.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Yep, I have the substrate spatula. Towards the end of the night my back was killing me from being hunched over planting so I didn't spend very much time on refining everything.
> 
> The thing that surprised me the most is how long it took to actually drain the tank. In hindsight I probably shouldn't have drained it as much as I did because planting in wet sand that was outside of the water wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. The sand that was under water was very easy to plant in. I realized this after planting the Montecarlo so I quickly began filling the tank.
> 
> ...


Yeah, i should have know you didn't fine-tune things yet, but figured I'd mention the spatula just in case. 

Yep, deep tanks can give you quite the workout and I'll be interested to see how the carpet does both from a physical standpoint and lighting one.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Yeah, i should have know you didn't fine-tune things yet, but figured I'd mention the spatula just in case.
> 
> Yep, deep tanks can give you quite the workout and I'll be interested to see how the carpet does both from a physical standpoint and lighting one.


I'm definitely interested in seeing how the Montecarlo does. Worst case it doesn't do well and I fall back onto dwarf hair grass. 

The one plant I'm really hoping takes off is the pink flamingo. It looked very delicate so I'm hoping it acclimates well.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I realized that there is one more item on my to do list for this evening. When looking at the NilocG site and their fert recipes, the recipe I'm using for my nano tank has WAY too much K2SO4. I got the recipe off of a blog whose name escapes me, but it's a planted tank blog. The recipe I'm looking at for this tank is the 20ml per 90 gallons. The tank holds 115 gallons, but with all the sand, lava rock, dragon stone, and wood, I'm probably holding closer to 100 gallons. I'm not sure how accurate the lines are on those 500ml dosing containers are, so I'm sure I'll put in more than 20ml each time I dose.


Your dosing KNO3 and KH2P04 right? You probably don't need to add that much KSO4 if any as your getting close to guidelines with the N and the P.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Your dosing KNO3 and KH2P04 right? You probably don't need to add that much KSO4 if any as your getting close to guidelines with the N and the P.


Yep, KNO3 and KH2PO4 are both in the macro ferts. The NilocG recipe has far less K2SO4 than the recipe I originally used. That original recipe had an obscene amount of K2SO4 in comparison. Since I'll be making up ferts for this tank, I might as well dump and start over with the dosing bottles for my nano. 

Are there any negatives to dosing too much K2SO4? I'm wondering if that's contributing to my hair algae problem in the nano since that's the only thing I can see that may be an issue.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Yep, KNO3 and KH2PO4 are both in the macro ferts. The NilocG recipe has far less K2SO4 than the recipe I originally used. That original recipe had an obscene amount of K2SO4 in comparison. Since I'll be making up ferts for this tank, I might as well dump and start over with the dosing bottles for my nano.
> 
> Are there any negatives to dosing too much K2SO4? I'm wondering if that's contributing to my hair algae problem in the nano since that's the only thing I can see that may be an issue.


I doubt it, unless your went really crazy who knows, but from the KNO3 AND KH2PO4 your getting pretty much all you need in most cases. If your using a GH booster that will give you more as well.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I doubt it, unless your went really crazy who knows, but from the KNO3 AND KH2PO4 your getting pretty much all you need in most cases. If your using a GH booster that will give you more as well.


I think I did go really crazy. KNO3 in that recipe calls for 4 tsp while the K2SO4 calls for 6 tsp lol. The recipe from NilocG calls for 4.5 and 1.5 tsp.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I think I did go really crazy. KNO3 in that recipe calls for 4 tsp while the K2SO4 calls for 6 tsp lol. The recipe from NilocG calls for 4.5 and 1.5 tsp.


Most recipes call for what the NilocG amount states. Some call for none since your getting around 5-6ppm from the KNO3 AND KH2PO4. Plus probably some in fish food, tap, etc.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Most recipes call for what the NilocG amount states. Some call for none since your getting around 5-6ppm from the KNO3 AND KH2PO4. Plus probably some in fish food, tap, etc.


Yep I'm going to dump it and mix up a new batch. I don't feed all that much food, probably too little so there wouldn't be much from there, but I do believe I do have a readable amount in my tap water. I think eventually I'll be doing RODI but haven't gotten around to that project yet.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Yep I'm going to dump it and mix up a new batch. I don't feed all that much food, probably too little so there wouldn't be much from there, but I do believe I do have a readable amount in my tap water. I think eventually I'll be doing RODI but haven't gotten around to that project yet.


I haven't gone the RODI route either yet. I might one day, but my water is pretty good in New York for plants.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I haven't gone the RODI route either yet. I might one day, but my water is pretty good in New York for plants.


The three things I need prior to getting mine hooked up are a separate supply line for the RODI, 55 gallon food safe drum, and a method of mounting it to the wall. They're all easy but the first requires shutting off my water main so that I can cut into one of the 3/4" lines, sweat a tee into the line and then run a 1/2" pipe with a shutoff valve. I can probably tap into my laundry sink, but I would rather have it fed with it's own water line. I'm pretty sure my two membranes are still good but I'll need to test the TDS pre DI stage to see if they're shot or still have some life in them. When I took the whole unit down, I shut the valves so that there was water trapped inside so I'm assuming after flushing them they should still be good. 

Unfortunately this creates another project and I don't want to put any more on my list until I clear the other projects. 

My water here in Chicago isn't too bad either. GH is 9, KH is 6, and TDS is 110 with a 7.4 PH.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I have the ferts mixed up and the CO2 is running at 1-2 bps. Having never used a CO2 reactor, I'm assuming the goal is for bubbles to not get blown out of the reactor chamber? If that's the case, then the exact opposite is happening lol. The bubbles are disappearing up past the clear PVC. I have the DC pump on full blast with the bypass completely shut. I'm actually watching the bubbles come out of the CO2 tubing and rising straight up. I'm assuming this is probably a really good thing since the water must pass through what I imagine to be a big CO2 bubble beginning to build up inside the 90 degree fitting at the top. 

I'm currently soaking the 500ml ferts bottles in hot water to dissolve the crystals a bit better. The bottles for the nano tank seem to be mostly dissolved but the amount of ferts in the bottles for this tank aren't anywhere near dissolved yet. I went ahead and dosed anyway just to get some ferts in there for the plants. Drop checker has been added and I have a sample of tank water sitting out so that I can test it tomorrow and compare it to whatever it is tomorrow after the lights come on, and what the PH is right before I kick the lights off. 

I'll get some pics up before bed. I noticed that out of everything I planted yesterday, only one tiny mermaid weed stem uprooted itself and is stuck in the spider wood. I'll leave it there for now and probably get it replanted on Saturday. The only plant that seems to be wilting a bit is one of the buce. Everything else looks like it did yesterday.


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## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Omg tiny planties ⭐ This will be so fun to watch grow in!!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I ran some tests last night and ammonia and nitrite were at 0, while nitrates were slightly over 10ppm. This morning I tested the water sample I've had sitting out since yesterday morning and my PH is 7.6 which means I need to shoot for 6.6 an hour or so after the CO2 kicks on. 

I definitely need to turn up the bps because the drop I saw about an hour after the lights were turned off wasn't very much. I think I went from the standard blue from the drop checker indicator fluid and it was still blue with a green tint when the lights went off. I imagine that doubling the bps might get me into green territory, but that might only put me halfway to the 1 point drop. As soon as it kicks on for the day I'll adjust the needle valve and then test an hour after it kicks on to see what kind of drop I see by testing the PH rather than relying on the drop checker. I'll test it once more when it's about to kick off for the day. 

I'll need to run over to the LFS after work to pick up the plants. I'm also going to see how many harlequin rasbora he has in stock so that I can maybe have him hold them until next week. I'll probably dose some ammonia after work to see if the tank can process it within 24 hours. I'm not really surprised by 0 readings on ammonia and nitrites because I did drain like 85% of the water when I planted, so combined with dosing Stability I suspect that the bacteria culture is growing so it'll be interesting to see how quickly it'll process the ammonia. 

I forgot to take pics last night but will try to get some tonight with closer shots of sections of the tank so that you can see where I planted stuff. I 100% will need to move plants, and I'm sure I'll be moving them around fairly regularly until everything seems just right. I looked at the tank this morning and everything looks the same as it did last night. I'll be dosing micros today followed by a water change tomorrow. When I do that water change I'll plant everything that I pick up today.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I ran some tests last night and ammonia and nitrite were at 0, while nitrates were slightly over 10ppm. This morning I tested the water sample I've had sitting out since yesterday morning and my PH is 7.6 which means I need to shoot for 6.6 an hour or so after the CO2 kicks on.
> 
> I definitely need to turn up the bps because the drop I saw about an hour after the lights were turned off wasn't very much. I think I went from the standard blue from the drop checker indicator fluid and it was still blue with a green tint when the lights went off. I imagine that doubling the bps might get me into green territory, but that might only put me halfway to the 1 point drop. As soon as it kicks on for the day I'll adjust the needle valve and then test an hour after it kicks on to see what kind of drop I see by testing the PH rather than relying on the drop checker. I'll test it once more when it's about to kick off for the day.
> 
> ...


With a tank that size, you'll have to end up with a stream of bubbles you won't be able to count. That's why many go to a flow meter at that point. The reactor is somewhat more efficient, but just for a comparison I'm running 2 BPS on my 60P which is around 17 Gallons and it's fully loaded with shrimp. 

Harleys are a good first fish. I've always found them to be very Hardy, So yeah Hardy Harleys, LOL, but I'll just say it anyway. I would wait to get the plants growing and all dialed in with co2, before adding fish.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> With a tank that size, you'll have to end up with a stream of bubbles you won't be able to count. That's why many go to a flow meter at that point. The reactor is somewhat more efficient, but just for a comparison I'm running 2 BPS on my 60P which is around 17 Gallons and it's fully loaded with shrimp.
> 
> Harleys are a good first fish. I've always found them to be very Hardy, So yeah Hardy Harleys, LOL, but I'll just say it anyway. I would wait to get the plants growing and all dialed in with co2, before adding fish.


I agree to an extent. I won't be stocking the tank until I'm done adding plants, which likely won't happen until next week at some point. Even then if the tank isn't able to process ammonia fully within 24 hours, I'll be waiting longer. The one thing I won't be doing is dosing more than I need to in order to reach 1ppm. I know most say 2ppm, but even if I stock the tank with everything I want, I'd still be under 50% of what that calculator recommends, and I won't be stocking it that quickly. 

I have noticed that the stem plants are starting to perk up a bit, except for the tissue culture Alternathera Rosaefolia...that basically just looks like it did when I planted it. Everything else basically looks the same. I'm hoping that as the CO2 gets tuned in, I get ferts dosed, and the lighting on for a few hours that the plants will start putting on growth. I just keep picturing how the back of the tank will look once the stem plants are high enough to be seen.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

To @Asteroid ‘s point, I would make sure the CO2 is dialed in before getting fish. Here’s a likely scenario that you could encounter:

CO2 is too low, so you bump it up to get a 1 point drop by lights on. (<---- You are here)
Increase CO2 slightly, result = still low at start of photo period
Increase CO2 a little more, result = still low at the start of the photoperiod
Increase 1 more time, result = perfect at the start of the photo period
Measure at the end of the photo period, get a pH of 6 and CO2 ppm of 200ppm
Start tweaking reactor, timers, injection rate, etc etc etc. Result = low days and high days, inadequate CO2 at the start, Inadequate CO2 at the end, too much at the end, blah blah blah
Finally get settled into the perfect setup
Clean the filter, change filter output, and start over again
I mention this because you really want to have this nailed down before adding fish. An accidental 200ppm of CO2 won’t kill your plants, but it will kill your fish.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> To @Asteroid ‘s point, I would make sure the CO2 is dialed in before getting fish. Here’s a likely scenario that you could encounter:
> 
> CO2 is too low, so you bump it up to get a 1 point drop by lights on. (<---- You are here)
> Increase CO2 slightly, result = still low at start of photo period
> ...


Absolutely. I think the only thing I've ever been guilty of with a planted tank is not overdoing CO2. My nano for sure doesn't get a full 1 point drop. I try to get it to a 1 point drop, but if I notice an effect on fish behavior, I always cut it back a bit. The one thing I definitely want to do is make sure that this is stable before adding fish. 

Depending on how difficult it is to stabilize it over the next week, I may need to get a PH controller. I'd prefer to avoid adding one but if I need one I really have no other choice.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I ordered a 3 lbs bag of bulk 3/8" pumice to test out. I'm planning to bag it and add it to my nano first. 

Once I can say that this tank is fully cycled, if the pumice seems to be doing a good job, I'll likely begin slowly replacing the lava rock. 

The one thing I don't like about the lava rock is that at least in the Oase, it's hard to get enough in each of the trays and avoid having the trays not sit flat. 

The other issue is that it will for sure cause issues during maintenance on the GLA canister. I'm using one massive filter bag that fits the entire inside of the canister, but imagine trying to pull a filter bag stuffed full of lava rock out of the canister. Without physically removing the lava rock from the bag, I won't be able to easily maintain the filter. Even though I don't intend on maintaining the GLA very often, it'll still need some maintenance from time to time since debris will accumulate inside the canister. 

If I do eventually start converting both canisters over to pumice, it'll be a very slow process. For example one tray at a time for the Oase, and maybe 25% at a time in the GLA. I'll probably add pumice into filter bags in the GLA until I phase out the lava rock and just dump it all into one big filter bag. 

This is all hypothetical though. I mainly just bought it to test and see how it performs and how its ability is to not crumple.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Just got back from the LFS. About half of the order didn't ship because they were out of stock, so they doubled up on stuff that he ordered for the store. 

I came back with Tropica TC's of H. Pinatifida, Buce Kedagang, Blyxa Japonica, and then a TC of Buce Sp. Biblis. from that company out of Italy Anubias.

The one thing that didn't come that I was disappointed by was Crypt Parva. 

I'm curious to see how much Blyxa Japonica there is in one TC. It looks like there are maybe 3 plants, but with TC's there very well might be 15 in the cup lol. If one isn't enough I can always go back and get another because they sent several. 

Turned the CO2 up quite a bit so we'll see what happens over the next few hours. 

In hindsight I'm glad that they didn't ship out the rest of what I ordered because it would have been too much. 

The Montecarlo is another that didn't come in, but I'm actually happy it didn't because I changed my mind on the idea I have for it. He did get in some Tropica potted Montecarlo so worst case I can always go back for one of those. 

Even though I just did a WC on Wednesday, basically draining all the water out of the tank, I'm debating whether I should do another tomorrow, or wait until next Saturday. The tank has only gotten one dosing of macros and micros, so maybe I should wait a bit before overwhelming a tank that's still cycling with multiple big water changes in such a short period of time. 

I did pick up 3 small Amano shrimp for my nano tank to help with my hair algae issues.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Wow, so I just checked the PH in the tank and it’s at 6.8. The thing that’s weird is the drop checker is pretty blue. I’ll need to see what it’s at roughly an hour after coming on tomorrow. I did crank the bps up, significantly. You can’t even begin to count them.

I have an early morning tomorrow and should be back prior to the CO2 kicking on so I’ll be able to check PH levels.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Once a month on this Saturday (4th) of the month I always have a commitment I can't get out of from April through October, unless it rains. Well when I woke up absurdly early this morning and checked the forecast, it's indeed going to rain and by the looks of it pretty heavily. 

I went to check the drop checker and it finally turned green. It's that dark candy apple green rather than the lime green we typically shoot for. I'll test the PH a bit later this morning, right before the CO2 kicks on, and then an hour after it kicks on. I'd love to get it dialed in today, verify that it's holding tomorrow, and then see if it remains stable during the week. 

I did dose 10ml of ammonia last night before bed so we'll see if the tank is able to process it by this evening. My guess is that it will. 

I should probably start getting stuff done now that I have a free half day, but it's rare to have nothing on my calendar so I might just go ahead and take a nap


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

With a tank that size, I think you'll end up with either a pH controller or a flow meter. Even if you get it in the zone with a drop checker, the needle valves that come with off the shelf regulators won't hold steady over time. And since you can't count the bubbles, you can't just reset it to a specific rate when it _does_ drift. Then you're back to square one, having to dial it in from scratch. Very frustrating...

Of the two options, I prefer a flow meter with a precision valve, but it can be hard to get your hands on one.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> With a tank that size, I think you'll end up with either a pH controller or a flow meter. Even if you get it in the zone with a drop checker, the needle valves that come with off the shelf regulators won't hold steady over time. And since you can't count the bubbles, you can't just reset it to a specific rate when it _does_ drift. Then you're back to square one, having to dial it in from scratch. Very frustrating...
> 
> Of the two options, I prefer a flow meter with a precision valve, but it can be hard to get your hands on one.


I more than likely will go with the PH controller since it's easier to find. 

I noticed that Milwaukee sells two different controllers....one is white and the other one is black and named "pro". I can't see any discernible differences between the two aside from the color.

ETA: looks like the white one is an older version that they don't even have on the website any longer. I went ahead and ordered the pro controller and it should arrive tomorrow. 

What I might do is since I'm planning to eventually add a UV driven by an appropriately sized external pump on it's own closed loop, I'll get a section of PVC and use a cable gland to get the probe out of the tank itself. For now though it'll sit in the tank.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

With the CO2 controller arriving today, I have been reading the manual that I found online. I don't know why it's confusing me, maybe because I'm thinking it should be more complicated than it seems to be to set the controller up. I'm used to programming an Apex, but it seems the way you set up the Milwaukee is:

Plug controller plug into timer and set timer for the time period you want CO2 to be injected. Plug solenoid into the controller plug. Plug the DC plug into a plug that always remains on. Set the dial to my ideal PH and turn other knob to "above". And that's it? That seems way too easy which is making me second guess how it works lol. Based on this understanding, say I set the PH to 6.6 and the other dial to "above", then when there's a reading anywhere above 6.6 the solenoid kicks on, injects CO2, and the moment it hits 6.6 it cuts power to the solenoid, assuming that it's operating within the window I've set the timer to. 

Aside from that, the spider wood has begun regrowing the fungus that took me a couple hours to scrub away. I think the first fish I'll be getting is the pack of Otocinclus and SAE's to keep the fungus at bay. It's kind of shocking how much has grown back. 

Believe it or not, there has already been growth I've noticed, but mainly only on the H'ra and Orange Juice. I can't tell if the macandra or the narrow leaf sp red have because they're both in locations where it's hard to get a super close look. The Alternathera Lilacina and Rosaefolia haven't growth at all and neither has the mermaid weed. Everything else remains the same. 

The plan for today is once the PH controller arrives I'll turn the CO2 up even more, get the controller hooked up, and then let it control the PH. I was finally able to get the drop I was shooting for, but it took almost all day to reach it. Around 8pm last night I decided to turn the needle valve a bit more where it looks like there are double the bps. Ideally while the CO2 injection will be controlled by the Milwaukee, I really don't want to go overboard with the amount I'm injecting in the event that the Milwaukee fails at some point. I think going a bit past my ideal drop would be fine in the event of failure, but I don't want it to be so much that it kills the fish. I do have a significant amount of surface agitation so I'm not too concerned because there is definitely a good amount of gaseous exchange with both the footprint of the tank and the surface movement happening. 

The tank nearly processed all the ammonia I dosed. There were negligible readings of both ammonia and nitrites so I think the tank is close to cycled. It'll be cycled enough to add fish this coming week. 

My first fish purchase will be the gang of Otocinclus, a few SAE's, and a male Apistogramma Super Red Cacatuoides. The LFS had a juvenile so I'll pick him up. He also has at least two dozen harlequin rasbora but if I get those it'll be next Saturday. Honestly though, I suspect that I can add all of these fish and the waste they produce still won't be enough to get any reading of ammonia or nitrites. 

I intend on getting the TC's I bought planted today and after I do that I'll get some good pics of everything rather than just the normal FTS.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

After loading up a lawn bag full of weeds yesterday I only got the CO2 controller hooked up. I plan on getting the tissue cultures planted after work today. 

The controller works great though. I basically adjusted the bubble counter to a ridiculous number of bps, set the dial on the controller to 6.6, calibrated the probe, set it into the tank, and then hooked everything up and it worked great. 

I monitored it closely and one of my concerns was injecting so much CO2 that even though the controller cut the CO2 off, the PH would continue to fall. Surprisingly it didn’t and held at 6.6 until it would drift upwards and kick back on. 

Checked the controller this morning and the PH is currently 6.9. I’ll check again just before it kicks back on to see where it winds up, and then see where it’s at an hour after kicking on to see if I need to adjust the time it starts injecting co2. 

The controller is way better than playing around with a needle valve. 

I’ve continued dosing Stability and will continue until probably Wednesday or Thursday. 

With the CO2 concerns addressed, and ammonia and nitrites being unreadable and processing ammonia quick enough I think it’s time to add at least the otos, SAE’s, and the Apisto. I’ll probably wait until Saturday for the two dozen harlequin rasbora. The reason I’m adding the cleaners first is the spider wood is growing the fungus back extremely quickly. They’ll have plenty to munch on including biofilm. 

I’ll get pics up tonight as long as something else doesn’t come up that steals my attention.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

In predictable fashion, something came up last night that required my attention so I wasn't able to get much done, but I do have an update.

Yesterday around lunchtime I tested my water. Zero's for ammonia and nitrites and my nitrates were somewhere between 10-20ppm.

I decided to head over to the LFS right after work to talk about the fish I wanted and I decided to stock a little more slowly since I know for sure this tank isn't cycled to the point where I can fully stock it immediately.

Rather than 20 Otocinclus, I got 10 to start. Rather than two dozen harlequin rasbora I picked up a dozen. I also picked up the super red apistogramma cacatuoides.

I initially was going to buy 6 SAE's but the LFS owner told me to hold off until Saturday when he has something I'd like better coming out of QT. He took me into the QT area and showed me a tank full of reticulated siamese algae eaters. He said that he's been getting them for a while and customers love them. Apparently they only grow to a max of 5", but they're fairly slow growers.

Once I picked those up on Saturday that will be it for a bit. I'll let the biological filter settle in and continually test every day to every other day and see how things go. I know that I would like to add about a dozen Panda Cory cats, but he didn't have them in stock and told me to let him know 2-3 weeks before I want to add them so that he can get them in and put them through QT. I won't be ordering them for a while.

Aside from that I'm just going to let things progress with the tank.

The last two crypts will be coming Thursday, or Wednesday if they get here early. I still haven't planted the tissue cultures I bought because I'll just wait until the crypts arrive and take care of everything at once.

I'm seeing growth on the H'ra most of all, but all of the Rotala are starting to put on new growth. For the plants that haven't been growing, I am seeing more roots developing. The only plants that don't seem to be doing really well are the pink flamingo which is melting, and the Alternathera Lilacina which is just kind of sitting there, although I did see some evidence of roots growing. The mermaid weed is rooting, but not growing.

I sat and watched the tank last night before bed and watching the fish going to town enjoying their new home was very relaxing. The rasbora were shoaling which was really cool and I'm sure it'll look even cooler once another dozen get added. The thing I didn't anticipate is that they weren't staying in the midwater, but shoaling in the upper third of the tank too. I may need to rethink adding a top water schooler because these guys cover the two thirds of the tank. While I was at the LFS the owner recommended adding a dozen cardinal tetras and said that while they're not tight schoolers, they would add some color around the bottom third of the tank. He recommended I wait until I have all the fish I want and see how the tank looks first and then decide which I definitely agree with.

The CO2 controller is working well. It hits 6.6 and shuts off. I've been dosing EI as well as Stability. I'll likely stop dosing Stability after tomorrow's dose.

I'm planning on testing the parameters tonight to see if there are any changes after adding the fish. I doubt there will be any readable ammonia or nitrites. If there are any changes or if I decide to not wait for the rest of the plants to arrive I'll post an update. I need to get some pics up, but here are at least two that I took last night. One is of the Apisto, and the second is my dog being mesmerized by the fish swimming around.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Must be nice to have plants/fish in there. 

Love that pic. Your dogs like grow damn it, grow!!!


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

Be VERY careful with a "Reticulated Siamese Algae Eater"

This sounds suspiciously like a Chinese Algae Eater, which are super aggressive as adults. I'm open to being wrong here, but afaik, there is only 1 true SAE. The others may eat some algae when they are little, but will not be algae eaters when they are adults. A CAE will grow into an aggressive menace in your tank.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Must be nice to have plants/fish in there.
> 
> Love that pic. Your dogs like grow damn it, grow!!!


It's finally at the point where all the work I've put into the tank feels like it's paying off!

I was watching the dog and it was funny seeing him notice movement, then move towards the tank really carefully almost like he was stalking. Then he just sat down and watched for a while lol. 


jellopuddinpop said:


> Be VERY careful with a "Reticulated Siamese Algae Eater"
> 
> This sounds suspiciously like a Chinese Algae Eater, which are super aggressive as adults. I'm open to being wrong here, but afaik, there is only 1 true SAE. The others may eat some algae when they are little, but will not be algae eaters when they are adults. A CAE will grow into an aggressive menace in your tank.
> 
> View attachment 1044466


The Chinese Algae Eaters are the worst. This is exactly what he had though:









Reticulated Siamese Algae Eater (Crossocheilus reticulatus)


A less common and strikingly patterned relative of the popular Siamese Algae Eater, C. reticulatus originates from the streams and rivers of Southeast Asia but is now bred commercially for the aquarium trade. Like their close relatives, the Reticulated Siamese Algae Eater is an active...




www.aqua-imports.com


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Otocinclus sure do poop a lot 

My sand is covered in a comically obsurd amount of poop lol. Everyone is doing well though. The fish seem to have settled in. The rasbora are pretty interesting. They don’t school often, but when they do it’s pretty awesome. What I see more frequently is 5-6 hanging out with another 5-6 hanging out elsewhere. There always seems to be one or two that do their own thing. 

The biggest challenge I'm having is getting the surface skimmer to not get sucked down below the water line. I have the lower strainer fully open but it doesn't seem to help. I have raised it so that it's not relying on buoyancy to keep it afloat but then it just constantly sucks air bubbles down into the filter. I've tried reducing the amount of surface agitation but that doesn't seem to help. What I might try is finding something thin enough to wedge in between the skimmer tube and the lily pipe opening so that it kind of just stays in place. The other option would be to take a material that is really buoyant and cram it under the rim of the skimmer. The down side with that approach is that it'll act like a fishing bobber and gulp air each time it bobs lower than the surface. This is exactly what's happening now, but it bobs down so far that it just gets sucked underwater. If anyone has experienced these issues and solved it I'd be interested in learning how. These are about the only two things I can come up with since trying the above solutions. I think cramming something in between the pipes to hold it in place might be the best solution. 

I checked tracking on the crypts I ordered and they're more than likely not coming early today. 

I am beginning to see either growth, or rooting happening. Last night I was staring at the tank and noticed a couple of the buce were releasing bubbles here and there. I've noticed no pearling yet otherwise. 

One interesting development is that yesterday before the CO2 kicked on, PH had risen to 7.0. Today it's already at 7.2. It comes down pretty quickly once the CO2 kicks on...roughly hitting 6.6 about an hour and a half later. I may adjust the needle valve to inject more CO2 and see if that speeds it up a bit. If that doesn't do it I'll try kicking CO2 on an hour and a half before the lights come on. 

Everything is great otherwise. I'll be running tests at lunch today to see how everything looks.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Your flow in your filter is outpacing your skimmer ability, this is why its getting sucked down. You can slow down the flow with a ball valve, use finer foam in the filter, or you can modify the skimmer intake tube. This latter is what I did. I used a drill press and drilled a few small holes in the bottom of the steel intake tube cap. Due to the fact its the bottom of the intake tube (the part that unscrews), you can't see it at all when observing the tank. But it solved my initial problem of the tube getting sucked down. After a few months of running my filter got broken in and it was no longer issue regardless. Since if I remember right, your skimmer is on an oase filter with a prefilter, that may or may not happen for you.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> Your flow in your filter is outpacing your skimmer ability, this is why its getting sucked down. You can slow down the flow with a ball valve, use finer foam in the filter, or you can modify the skimmer intake tube. This latter is what I did. I used a drill press and drilled a few small holes in the bottom of the steel intake tube cap. Due to the fact its the bottom of the intake tube (the part that unscrews), you can't see it at all when observing the tank. But it solved my initial problem of the tube getting sucked down. After a few months of running my filter got broken in and it was no longer issue regardless. Since if I remember right, your skimmer is on an oase filter with a prefilter, that may or may not happen for you.


Yep, it's the Oase. Drilling more holes doesn't sound like a bad idea. I may give that a try first, and then if that doesn't work really well I can always add on a ball valve. It does seem like it's just a wee bit too powerful. The biggest concern I have is if I use finer pre filter foam, it'll clog up much quicker and I'll need to do maintenance on it more frequently than once a week, but then again I'm well over a week since I cleaned it and the flow rate hasn't degraded very much. I'm not sure which PPI foam I have in there currently since it's what came with the Oase....from what I understand it's their medium foam. Since I'll be doing maintenance this Saturday, I'll remove the lily pipe and drill some more holes. Thanks, I hadn't even thought of drilling more holes but it makes perfect sense. Hopefully I can drill enough to make a difference.


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## ben_in_oz (9 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> The biggest challenge I'm having is getting the surface skimmer to not get sucked down below the water line.


I had the same issue with my two Dymax surface skimmers feeding into my two Oase Biomaster 600s. I was initially managing the height of the skimmers by using a pipette to either remove air bubbles from under the skimmer to lower it, or inject some bubbles under the skimmer to have it sit a little higher.

Sounds like the draw on your filter is overcoming the air bubbles beneath the skimmer, though. You could try placing a rubber o-ring on the skimmer pipe to set a kind of 'minimum height' for it.

I ended up removing one of my skimmers and surrounding the other with red root floaters - that remaining skimmer doesn't skim much at all now and I am noticing the surface of the water is not as pristine as it used to be BUT the Oase is no longer purging air every couple of minutes. Maybe it's a surface skimmer thing?

Also: how good are rasboras!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

ben_in_oz said:


> I had the same issue with my two Dymax surface skimmers feeding into my two Oase Biomaster 600s. I was initially managing the height of the skimmers by using a pipette to either remove air bubbles from under the skimmer to lower it, or inject some bubbles under the skimmer to have it sit a little higher.
> 
> Sounds like the draw on your filter is overcoming the air bubbles beneath the skimmer, though. You could try placing a rubber o-ring on the skimmer pipe to set a kind of 'minimum height' for it.
> 
> ...


The o ring is a really good idea, I hadn't considered that! I'll probably do that if drilling more holes and enlarging the existing ones on the strainer fails to help. I'll have the filter offline on Saturday so that'll be a perfect opportunity to try this. I'll need to look on Amazon if they have an o ring kit of sorts that I can order and have on hand because every now and then I always need an o ring and run to the hardware store to get one. 

I believe you are correct though. The one common factor with the Oase burping air bubbles is the surface skimmer. When people go back to the Oase included intake pipe their issues seem to disappear. What that tells me is that too much air is being sucked in. I was playing around with the height last night and the further the strainer sticks out of the lily pipe, the more it seems to alleviate the air bubble issue. When I raised the lily pipe up, basically shortening the length of the surface skimmer, the problem began to amplify. I really want to get the surface skimmer to work so hopefully the drill press and a larger drill bit will solve the problem. 

The rasbora are great! Each day they seem to really feel more and more at home. I can't wait to see how their behavior or schooling ability changes once I get another dozen in there. I'm glad I decided on them as the main school of fish. The Otocinclus have been fun to watch as well.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I just ran some water tests and was fairly surprised at how high nitrates are. 

Ammonia and nitrites are almost perfect, although there definitely are some nitrites...just enough to have a purple tinge to the blue. It's definitely far below .25ppm. Ammonia couldn't be more perfect than it is. Nitrates however are very high. I may need to get a different test kit because it was really difficult to figure out which shade of red I had. I'm either at 30ppm, or 50ppm lol. There must be a better nitrate test kit out there. 

I did test the water prior to refilling evaporation. 

There is a whole lot of Oto poop on the sand. They do seem to be putting a good dent in the fungus on the wood. Since adding them they've mostly focused their attention on the back glass which I haven't cleaned at all. Today they're nowhere to be found until you look closer and see them all over the spider wood feasting on the fungus. 

With nitrates being so high, it's clear that the plants haven't begun using nitrogen in any sort of measurable amount. I'm wondering if I should skip the macro dose tomorrow since that's the final one before the water change. 

Most of the plants have started perking up. The pink flamingo also seems to be doing better and has shed the leaves that melted, while the rest seem to have colored up a bit. 

The crypt tissue cultures I ordered should arrive tomorrow since they've hit the local hub. I'll probably just wait until the water change on Saturday before I plant all the tissue cultures. I am planning to move a few plants around after thinking about how they'll grow. 

The only plant that looks rough is the Rotala Macandra Mini. There is some new growth at the very top, but the bottom leaves are looking very ragged. By ragged I mean they're brown and melting. As soon as it begins putting on a few inches of growth I'll be cutting and replanting them and tossing the bottoms. 

I had a feeling that the Macandra was going to be iffy because the bunches didn't look very good when I got them. Hopefully they pull through and begin putting on some growth so that I can salvage them. 

I promise to get pics up after I plant the rest and do the water change on Saturday lol.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

minorhero said:


> Your flow in your filter is outpacing your skimmer ability, this is why its getting sucked down. You can slow down the flow with a ball valve, use finer foam in the filter, or you can modify the skimmer intake tube. This latter is what I did. I used a drill press and drilled a few small holes in the bottom of the steel intake tube cap. Due to the fact its the bottom of the intake tube (the part that unscrews), you can't see it at all when observing the tank. But it solved my initial problem of the tube getting sucked down. After a few months of running my filter got broken in and it was no longer issue regardless. Since if I remember right, your skimmer is on an oase filter with a prefilter, that may or may not happen for you.


This is a good point. I never used the original tubes that came with my Oase 600. I went straight to glass Lily Pipes with an integrated surface skimmer. I also drilled the prefilter tube almost immediately.

I have seen two air issues and believe that are both due to a mismatch between the flow of the pump and the capabilities of the lily pipe with surface skimmer. Lily pipes are pretty much "one size fits all". The same pipe that gets used for a 20 gallon tank with a modest filter can also get used for 75+ gallon tanks with a powerful filter.

The two issues I have seen are air being drawn into the filter from the skimmer or the skimmer top oscillating(bobbing) to the same effect. Up to a point you can try to adjust the bottom of the skimmer to pull in more water so the top part pulls in less. Just watch the water level inside the lily pipe for air getting pulled into the filter. This worked for me until I added a stronger external pump. I then drilled a couple of holes into the end of the plastic adjustable bottom piece so that more water came in through the bottom of the lily pipe.

For the bobbing I had to play with the distance between the intake and the output pipes as well as the amount of water coming into the surface skimmer. Once I got the balance right I had a very quiet filter that pulls in no air. I would say for a tank above 75g(120cm) with a surface skimmer you would need either two inputs to one filter or else two separate filters. After that I would just punt and go to a sump and overflow.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> This is a good point. I never used the original tubes that came with my Oase 600. I went straight to glass Lily Pipes with an integrated surface skimmer. I also drilled the prefilter tube almost immediately.
> 
> I have seen two air issues and believe that are both due to a mismatch between the flow of the pump and the capabilities of the lily pipe with surface skimmer. Lily pipes are pretty much "one size fits all". The same pipe that gets used for a 20 gallon tank with a modest filter can also get used for 75+ gallon tanks with a powerful filter.
> 
> ...


I think one solution would be to add a tee into the line and add a second lily pipe intake, with a ball valve on the side with the skimmer. That would allow me to dial in how quickly water is being drawn into the skimmer without cutting into the flow rate of the canister itself. 

The other issue that popped up tonight is that my reactor is extremely difficult to tune to prevent bubbles from escaping. If the valve is fully closed, as the CO2 bubbles get smaller and smaller, the force blows them through the bottom and into the tank. As I turn the valve to let more water through the bypass, it's also blowing bubbles out. There doesn't seem to be a sweet spot that I've found. I can turn down the DC pump on the GLA canister, but one of the reasons I went in the direction of the GLA was because of the flow rate. I can probably do something similar here as well....add another lily pipe for the outflow. I'd tee off the return before the reactor, add a shutoff valve and then tune it to get the right amount of flow through the reactor. As it stands now, I'm basically wasting CO2 because the bypass valve is pointless if I have the full force of the DC pump going. 

Both of these solutions will require me to break out the PVC and start plumbing everything. I'm not opposed to hard piping this, but it seems like I'm forced to at this point to solve these problems. It's possible that I'm needle valve is injecting way too much CO2. The first thing I'm going to try is cutting back on the CO2, but increasing the length of time prior to the lights coming on that CO2 injection begins. I think the whole point of the reactor is to get a 100% dissolve rate, and that's just not happening. The fact that bubbles are blowing out of the bypass when I open the valve up bit by bit confirms that I really need to lower the amount of CO2 I'm adding. 

I'll do the following this week:


turn down the needle valve a bit
start injecting CO2 an hour earlier and monitor how long it takes to reach the target PH and then adjust further from there
drill out the holes on the intake strainer of the lily pipe to see if that helps

The one thing I want to avoid at all costs is cutting into the amount of flow I have in the tank. 

Aside from these issues everything else seems to be doing great lol. 

A sump will likely never happen on this tank. I'd like for this tank to remain a planted tank for the foreseeable future. Adding a sump just opens a door that I don't want opened (turning this into a reef tank). 

I'm no longer limited by lack of space so I can set up another tank as a reef. But I've gone down this road before where tanks begin turning into reef tanks. Without a drilled tank, I won't even bother converting it to salt. I know how I am so I've thought a lot of this through already hahaha.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> I think one solution would be to add a tee into the line and add a second lily pipe intake, with a ball valve on the side with the skimmer. That would allow me to dial in how quickly water is being drawn into the skimmer without cutting into the flow rate of the canister itself.
> 
> The other issue that popped up tonight is that my reactor is extremely difficult to tune to prevent bubbles from escaping. If the valve is fully closed, as the CO2 bubbles get smaller and smaller, the force blows them through the bottom and into the tank. As I turn the valve to let more water through the bypass, it's also blowing bubbles out. There doesn't seem to be a sweet spot that I've found. I can turn down the DC pump on the GLA canister, but one of the reasons I went in the direction of the GLA was because of the flow rate. I can probably do something similar here as well....add another lily pipe for the outflow. I'd tee off the return before the reactor, add a shutoff valve and then tune it to get the right amount of flow through the reactor. As it stands now, I'm basically wasting CO2 because the bypass valve is pointless if I have the full force of the DC pump going.
> 
> ...


Is your problem that you are getting an accumulation of air in the cannister requiring frequent burping to avoid noise and/or also releasing bubbles into the reactor? Or do you think that the GLA reactor is not tuned(designed) correctly for your system and is accumulating CO2 and releasing big bubbles? Or possibly both?

I would try to narrow down the issues. If the cannister is gurgling then you probably are pulling in air. If not then your cannister and intake/skimmer are probably OK. Check your surface skimmer. In the top intake you should see the air/water interface. If that interface is too low you will see bubbles forming and being pulled into the filter. If that is the case then you either have too much overall flow into the intake or need to adjust it so more of the flow comes into the lower tube.

If you are getting CO2 build up in your GLA reactor then personally I would suspect the reactor design. I recently purchased one of their new stainless units which looks to have the same design as their clear plastic ones. I was shocked when I saw the design. I had assumed it was a Cerges but it is not. The CO2 is injected into the top of the vessel, not into the inflow like a Cerges. The internal in/out pipes are close to each other and way down toward the bottom. This is a pretty good setup for CO2 trapping at the top with large bubbles and noise.

I tried to return mine but had missed the deadline. When I asked about the design I got back a very long and cheerily defensive email trying to explain that their design was great. I am going to install it since I now own it but am pretty skeptical that it will be both quiet and efficient. If I had thought about it, I almost never see folks here using one. I have been using an inline diffusor for a couple of years. They actually work great, giving me a 1.0 pH drop with minimal CO2 flow. Their only downside is that they do produce fine bubbles, nothing like an in-tank device but more than a well tuned Cerges or Griggs.

Let us know how it goes.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

I've been a diehard in-tank co2 diffuser use for a long time even on my 4-foot setups, but I am currently using this in-line one. Seems very efficient, I does not fill the tank with bubbles (I barely see some) and it comes apart for easy cleaning. 

So just an option if the reactor thing doesn't work out.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> Is your problem that you are getting an accumulation of air in the cannister requiring frequent burping to avoid noise and/or also releasing bubbles into the reactor? Or do you think that the GLA reactor is not tuned(designed) correctly for your system and is accumulating CO2 and releasing big bubbles? Or possibly both?
> 
> I would try to narrow down the issues. If the cannister is gurgling then you probably are pulling in air. If not then your cannister and intake/skimmer are probably OK. Check your surface skimmer. In the top intake you should see the air/water interface. If that interface is too low you will see bubbles forming and being pulled into the filter. If that is the case then you either have too much overall flow into the intake or need to adjust it so more of the flow comes into the lower tube.
> 
> ...


The CO2 reactor is a Griggs style from NilocG. It's connected inline with the GLA canister that doesn't have a surface skimmer. It's basically: intake - GLA canister - return line - CO2 reactor - outflow pipe in tank. 

The only thing the Oase is connected to is the lily pipe so it's a more traditional setup. The air cavitation is definitely from the surface skimmer. The flow is way too strong so there's no build up or water level to speak of inside the surface skimmer tube. It's just pulling too much water through. I think the reactor releasing fine bubbles is exacerbating the issue because it's also drawing those bubbles in because many don't dissipate inside the tank quick enough to avoid being sucked into either the strainer part of the lily pipe, or the surface skimmer. 

I believe with my reactor I'm just injecting far too many bps. Hypothetically, if I'm getting a 100% dissolve rate with a reactor, shouldn't that reduce the amount of CO2 I'm needing to inject? I may have gotten a bit too cavalier with how much CO2 I was injecting because the bubbles were getting drawn through the bypass when I'd open it up to tune the reactor. I've lowered the number of bubbles per second, which is pretty comical because you can't count them lol. It's mainly seeing that the stream of bubbles is slower than it was. One of the reasons I turned it up so high is because I figured that since I'm controlling this with a PH controller, I might as well hit my 1 point drop quicker. After the controller shut off the CO2, I continued to monitor it to make sure that the excess gas wasn't causing a further drop in PH, which it wasn't so I thought all was well, until I began seeing CO2 bubbles being shot out of the outflow pipe. I didn't have this issue before going crazy with the amount of CO2 I was injecting. 

I'm going to try to tune the BPS to something reasonable and then adjust the time it turns on for the day in order to hit the 1 point drop before the lights come on. Currently it takes one hour to hit that drop, so if I need to add another half hour I will. What's nuts is I bought the biggest reactor they had which wouldn't have fit inside the stand had I made the stand even an inch lower. 

For the Oase, I'm just going to drill the existing strainer holes larger in diameter, and drill more in areas where there aren't any. Hopefully that increases the amount of water being pulled in through there and reduces the pressure from the surface skimmer.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I've been a diehard in-tank co2 diffuser use for a long time even on my 4-foot setups, but I am currently using this in-line one. Seems very efficient, I does not fill the tank with bubbles (I barely see some) and it comes apart for easy cleaning.
> 
> So just an option if the reactor thing doesn't work out.


I like the reactor, but the issues are definitely frustrating. I'm likely injecting far too much CO2 when it's on. The problem seemed to have started when I gave the needle valve another turn to try and get the CO2 to hit the 1 point drop within an hour of coming on. 

One of the reasons I think the CO2 escaping issue is causing more purging in my Oase which isn't even connected to the reactor is because right now with the CO2 off, I'm hearing air purging maybe once every hour or so. Last night is was every 5 minutes. I'll likely focus on the CO2 issue today and tomorrow, and then Saturday I can switch my focus over to the Oase since that will be water change day and it'll be offline.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

I know your using a controller, but maybe you simply have too much off-gasing from surface tension or air and you can reduce the tension and reduce co2 to hit your mark.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I know your using a controller, but maybe you simply have too much off-gasing from surface tension or air and you can reduce the tension and reduce co2 to hit your mark.


I think that is what is happening. Prior to turning the CO2 up even more, when I tweaked the shutoff valve for the bypass, I was able to reduce the number of smaller bubbles escaping the reactor into the tank. After cranking the CO2 up further, the CO2 bubbles were traveling further than the top of the reactor chamber and being blown into the bypass and directly into the tank. What that tells me is that too much CO2 was being built up and with nowhere to go, it forced its way into the bypass. I turned it down last night but it was unfortunately off at the time. When the CO2 kicks on later today I'll go check it to see how it's doing and just continue turning the bubble rate down until it retains most of the bubbles inside the reactor. To hit the one point drop I'll just start the CO2 a bit earlier. Today will probably be tweaking it to stop the bubbles from escaping and then tomorrow I'll be able to see how long it takes to reach the ph drop in a given amount of time and then set the timer appropriately. 

What I also might do is after getting it tuned today, I'll see how long it takes to hit a .1 drop when the controller kicks it back on. If it takes a while, I may set the controller to .1 lower than my ideal drop so that even if the PH rises, it'll always hover at my ideal PH drop.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> The CO2 reactor is a Griggs style from NilocG. It's connected inline with the GLA canister that doesn't have a surface skimmer. It's basically: intake - GLA canister - return line - CO2 reactor - outflow pipe in tank.
> 
> The only thing the Oase is connected to is the lily pipe so it's a more traditional setup. The air cavitation is definitely from the surface skimmer. The flow is way too strong so there's no build up or water level to speak of inside the surface skimmer tube. It's just pulling too much water through. I think the reactor releasing fine bubbles is exacerbating the issue because it's also drawing those bubbles in because many don't dissipate inside the tank quick enough to avoid being sucked into either the strainer part of the lily pipe, or the surface skimmer.
> 
> ...


Oops. Sorry. I misunderstood your setup. I tried the Nilcog Griggs for a short time. I used it with my Oase. Once I had the bypass dialed in it was OK but every time I opened the prefilter(weekly) to clean it the air purging from the filter being opened would get caught in the Griggs and it would take a day to get it to dissipate and be quiet.

Regarding the Oase. Drilling holes in the prefilter will increase the flow through the filter a bit and most likely increase issues with air entrainment from your skimmer.

BTW. My tank is a 120cm also(~72g). I am running one Oase 600 with an 800gph (probably gives me 400) and I have pretty of flow with good growth in my tank. I think that if you used an inline diffusor on your GLA and just played with adjusting the flow through your Oase you will be in great shape. You have plenty of flow for a 75g.

By the way. I do have mostly easy plants but I probably am not using more than 3bpm to get a 1.0 pH drop each day using my inline diffusor similar to the one that @Asteroid mentioned above.

Best,
Paul


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> Oops. Sorry. I misunderstood your setup. I tried the Nilcog Griggs for a short time. I used it with my Oase. Once I had the bypass dialed in it was OK but every time I opened the prefilter(weekly) to clean it the air purging from the filter being opened would get caught in the Griggs and it would take a day to get it to dissipate and be quiet.
> 
> Regarding the Oase. Drilling holes in the prefilter will increase the flow through the filter a bit and most likely increase issues with air entrainment from your skimmer.
> 
> ...


The one issue I have with the Oase is that if you turn down flow by using a shutoff valve, you increase the pressure inside the pump head of the Oase, accelerating wear from additional heat. The one idea I really like is basically unplugging the Oase and adding a DC pump and using that to drive the water movement through the Oase. Since I'm not really relying on the Oase for much more than leveraging the pre filter for surface skimming and a place to house some additional biological media and carbon (purigen in a few weeks), flow rate isn't as important. With the controllability of a DC pump, I'd be able to tune the flow rate to match the requirements of the surface skimmer. 

I definitely have far more flow than I need, so this is definitely an option. 

I'm just going to exhaust every other possibility before spending more money because this last couple weeks have been extraordinarily expensive between plants and fish lol.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

+1 for the DC pump. I am using an Fzone with my 600 and love it. It was very inexpensive and comes with all of the hose barbs you would need. Unfortunately they seem to be in short supply.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

The two ADA tissue cultures arrived and they look pretty good. One of the large bunches of pink panther looks iffy being that it has lost a lot of color and is mostly white. I'll still get it planted but that was the one thing I noticed as soon as I opened the box. 

One of the other tissue cultures I've had since Friday of last week, the Buce Biblis from Anubias out of Italy began growing what appeared to be a white mold. I noticed it yesterday evening and this morning it went from 10% of the cup to 25% so I spent about 20 minutes washing the gel away and floating them in a Tupperware of clean water in preparation for planting tonight. 

I assumed the Montecarlo hasn't really grown but upon closer inspection there are some really, really really tiny leaves that have appeared....far smaller than were in the TC cups. If when they grow they spread instead of climbing, then the questions becomes exactly how much PAR is getting blasted down there because raising the fixture becomes a necessity. 

The Otocinclus are still pooping a lot, but after looking at the fungus on the spider wood, you can see bite sized chunks all over the place. While there was a fair amount of algae and biofilm on the back glass, there was nowhere near enough to create that much poop. They must be tirelessly working overnight. 

I have two stems (Rotala Narrow Leaf Sp. Red, and Mermaid Weed) that are floating on the surface. The Macandra Mini still looks like crap, literally, but when I took a closer look I see that maybe 40%-ish of the stems are total losses, but the rest are showing some nice growth, albeit a very small amount of growth. Hopefully that plant really starts putting on some growth soon because it'll be the first stem plant to get the new growth cut and replanted while tossing the original stems. 

I have 6 TC's to get planted tonight - Buce Biblis and Kedagang, H Pinatifida, Blyxa Japonica, Crypt Pink Panther and Spiralis Red Tiger. The latter two are ADA TC's, while the Biblis is from Anubias and the rest are Tropica.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Tested the water again tonight. 

Ammonia is still at 0 and nitrites are still between 0 and .25ppm. Nitrates are up to 40ppm and phosphates were at 10ppm. 

Tomorrow is water change day so we'll see if that nudges nitrites to finally reach zero during the week. 

All of the fish are doing great. The fungus is slowly being eaten by the Otocinclus. I'll likely help them out by sucking out as much as I can during the WC. I also need to focus on getting as much Otocinclus poop sucked off the substrate because it's a shocking amount. 

I have the timer for the Twistar programmed and running. 

The CO2 seems to be tuned finally. I'm actually kicking it on two hours before the lights come on and it hits 6.7 by then and kicks off shortly after once it hits 6.6. 

The Oase hasn't been purging as many air bubbles. It still does, but tonight it hasn't done it as much. The overflow weir hasn't gotten sucked down but I suspect that the flow rate has diminished since tomorrow will be prefilter maintenance day. 

Every plant except for the ones I added yesterday are showing some level of new growth. Even the mermaid weed is growing. The one plant that still looks like it'll mostly be a complete loss is the macandra mini. About 3-4 stems from the bunch have a small amount of new growth, under a half inch and the bottom stems aren't looking so hot. If they end up rotting away I'll try to take cuttings of the new growth and replant, but I'll leave them be until I'm forced to do that. 

The one plant I was almost certain would melt is the pink flamingo, but it recovered nicely after melting off a couple leaves. 

I should be able to get to the WC around 5pm tomorrow so once that happens I'll take some pics in the evening and get them posted up. 

All in all everything seems to be settling in for the most part. I'm just patiently (actually impatiently) waiting for growth to go into overdrive. 

I may also do some maintenance on more than just the prefilter of the Oase tomorrow. I'm debating whether I should just replace the carbon, or dump the carbon and use purigen instead. 

One thing I'll need to do eventually is scale back the amount of K2SO4. I used the amount that NilocG recommends in their recipe, and with a reading of 10ppm tonight, along with this tank eventually being stocked to near capacity, I won't need the excess phosphates since they'll be coming from the fish.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Finally had a few minutes to snap some pics.

I completed the water change yesterday after I got back. I think it was probably a 60% or greater water change. I didn't maintain the Oase and was planning to today but was busy most of the day getting my water main cut into so that I can feed my RODI unit. There really wasn't a great way to connect it to my laundry sink so I decided to just cut the water for my house off and run something specifically for that. It was nice running copper pipe and sweating it again, but I don't miss it. 

Tomorrow I'll be doing maintenance on the Oase for sure along with a WC on my nano. That was something else I was supposed to do today. 

Here are some long overdue shots of the tank:

Mermaid Weed is definitely growing. You also get a nice little glimpse of the pink flamingo. 










Shot from the left side. Lot's of new growth on the H'ra, some on the blood red, and the Alternathera Roseafolia TC is starting to root and put on some new growth. 










Right side shot. You can really see the Otocinclus poop. Even though I vacuumed out as much as possible, it's right back where it was. I'll need to find a way to suck it out without doing a water change. I may keep my eyes open for a used canister filter that I'll stuff with filter floss and use it as a vacuum of sorts. 










Left side with a lot of buce. The Hydro Pinatifida is looking pretty bad on the rock. This was a Tropica cup and hopefully it comes back to life because the whole cup looks like this. 









Similar shot but a little closer to all the buce. 










And finally, the FTS. 










I did pick up 4 of the reticulated siamese algae eaters. You might see one or more in one of the shots. I'm not sure if they're in any of them but I didn't really look really closely. 

They along with the Otocinclus have done a great job on the wood fungus. One of the issues is that as they eat fungus off the wood, remnants float around the tank getting caught up in plants. You can see it clearly in some of the pics with the moss. 

Anyhow I'm just going to let the tank grow in without changing much. As long as my water tests are good, I'll probably pick up 8-12 more rasboras next weekend.

Aside from the rasboras, I'll likely add another several Otocinclus, a dozen panda Corydoras, and maybe a dozen cardinal tetras. I'm not for sure on the cardinals but I'd like one more small shoal of something. All of these fish will have at least a week to two weeks between adding them. 

Happy Independence Day everyone! My poor dog thinks WW3 is happening right now. It's supposed to storm most of the day and evening tomorrow so everyone is blowing everything off tonight.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

The tank is finally full cycled! I know @Asteroid will be happy that there won't be any more cycling posts  

Tested a few minutes ago and ammonia and nitrites are at 0, while nitrates are at 30ppm. 

I may cut the EI dose in half until I start seeing significant growth, or nitrates begin falling below 10ppm. 

All is well with the tank though.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> The tank is finally full cycled! I know @Asteroid will be happy that there won't be any more cycling posts


Yes!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I did maintenance on the Oase yesterday. To my surprise the pre filter sponges weren't extraordinarily dirty. It had been about two weeks since I cleaned them last so I was pretty surprised. I ordered another set of the pre filter sponges so that I could just swap them out and add clean ones, get the filter running, and then clean the dirty ones. I did the same with the orange Oase filter foam. 

I added the 3/8" pumice to one of the trays. The one concern I had that I didn't address while I was adding the pumice was that the holes in the trays are almost too large. I added it anyway to see if any would fall through the holes over time. 

My plan is to slowly transition the lava rock over to pumice. There's definitely a lot more surface area given the number of pumice balls that it takes to fill up the Oase trays. With this tank having just cycled, this is a process that will be super slow....one tray at a time, maybe once a month. 

I dumped the old carbon and added fresh carbon. 

From the bottom up, the Oase is configured like this: orange filter pad & filter floss in bottom tray, 4 trays of lava rock, 1 tray of 3/8" pumice, and top tray is filled with carbon in a filter bag. 

I intend on swapping the GLA canister media over to pumice as well, but that one will be done last and will probably take a really long time to do. The way that's currently set up is there is one filter bag the size of the canister filled with lava rock. I'll probably order another filter bag similarly sized and then remove 25-50% of the lava rock and bag up the pumice and put it on top of the lava rock bag. I'll keep doing that each time I do maintenance on the GLA until it's all pumice. I think the next time I do maintenance on the GLA canister is when I start hard piping everything, but that won't happen for a while. 

One of the things that's driving me crazy are micro bubbles. There are so many that it's making the water look cloudy. I think it comes down to one or two possibilities - either the reactor is blowing fine bubbles through, which it definitely is, and the Oase is sucking them in and then blowing them out regularly, and/or the Oase is doing what Oase's do....constantly purge air. 

Interestingly, the surface skimmer is no longer being sucked down, or gulping air. I didn't do anything to it except reduce surface agitation a bit more last week. I won't look a gift horse in the mouth so I'll be leaving it alone. 

I have put some thought into how I'd configure the plumbing if I did PVC. It would be something along these lines:

Valved unions would be placed so that I could remove every piece of equipment if needed. The GLA canister's DC pump would feed a tee, one end of the tee feeding the reactor, flowing through a UV, and then back to the tank. The other end of the tee would just go directly back to the tank. 

While I won't be easy, it'll give me the ability to clean up the inside of the stand. I won't be hard piping the Oase since there's no reason to. This is likely when I'll do maintenance on the GLA canister for the first time and will swap out some of the lava rock. 

Aside from that, plants are definitely growing. The weeping moss and fissidens are both showing some nice bright green growth. The TC's I added last week haven't really done much. The H Pinatifida is basically a goner though. It looked rough when I put it into the tank, and it basically hasn't changed at all. Since my nano has a ridiculous amount I'll likely take some cuttings and use them instead. I'll just need to pick over the leaves to make sure there aren't any snails or snail eggs. 

The reticulated siamese algae eaters made quick work of the fungus. There's almost none to be seen on any of the spider wood. It took them maybe a day or two at most. 

I've halved the dose of macros and will likely do the same with micros. I'll test today to see where nitrates are at. The target is 30ppm of nitrates by the end of the week and I already hit that by Monday having done a single dose of macros. The fish are either producing so much waste that it's causing nitrates to spike, which would make sense given the amount of Otocinclus poop there is. But I think the amount of poop will likely start to diminish now that all the wood fungus is gone. I've actually noticed that the amount of poop I've seen has stayed about the same from the day before. 

My next project is getting the RODI mounted to the wall, replacing the filters, and getting it connected. I did some plumbing on Sunday that involved cutting into a 3/4" supply line and soldering on a supply for the RODI. The next step is heading to Home Depot to pick up a commercial rubbermaid 55 gallon trash can with dolly so that I can begin doing 50/50 tap and RODI. The dolly will be used to wheel the trash can out of my laundry room to where the tank is currently at. I'll see how 50/50 does and then decide if I want to go the full remineralization route. My water quality is pretty good so this may not be necessary. But cutting the tap with 50% RODI would put me at a KH of 3, and GH of 4.5 which seems like it would be good. 

I'll probably pick up another dozen harlequins this Saturday and maybe an assassin snail or two for my nano tank. 

That's all for now.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

Regarding the Oase and air purges... I was able to treat this on an 850 by lubing the gasket and o-ring in the siphon plunger assembly. Maybe worth a shot, but, if you're not hearing the Oase chopping air pockets, it may just be your reactor.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> Regarding the Oase and air purges... I was able to treat this on an 850 by lubing the gasket and o-ring in the siphon plunger assembly. Maybe worth a shot, but, if you're not hearing the Oase chopping air pockets, it may just be your reactor.


So far I've lubed the main gasket for the pump head assembly, the o rings around the inflow/outflow tubing connector, and the gasket under the pre filter tube. 

I did see a video on YouTube where someone dismantled the pre filter plunger and lubed the gasket/o rings in there. I may need to track that video down so that I can try doing that during the next pre filter cleaning. 

The one reason I'm thinking it might now be CO2, or at least the bulk of the problem coming from there is that the bubbles are extremely small....so small that it seems like some sort of Venturi action is happening. When I'm sitting near the tank every so often you hear a weird air noise like air is getting sucked in somewhere, like through a very tight opening. The only two things I haven't yet tried with the Oase is lubing that pre filter plunger by taking it apart, and the cable gland around the heater. Both will likely be the next step. 

If the problem is the CO2, then I should have the problem resolved once I get everything hard piped. The biggest problem I have with the way it's currently configured is that I'd need to cut down on the flow rate of the DC pump significantly to prevent bubbles from escaping. If I tee off the outflow and feed the reactor separately, I'll be able to control the flow rate with a valve without the need to cut down on the flow rate through the filter itself. It will be impacted to a certain extent due to the PVC fittings, but not as much as cutting down the DC pump's output. 

Right now if I have the reactor's bypass mostly open, CO2 bubbles escape. I have the reactor oriented fairly level right now and considered mounting it so that the right side of the reactor is slightly higher to keep CO2 from progressing further than the upper elbow. What I think is happening is because of how much CO2 I'm needing to inject, the bubble is growing so large that it's getting pulled through the bypass rather than being suspended within the reactor, or at least being contained in the elbow just above the reactor chamber. This would be an easy fix by mounting the lower bracket a bit further to the right.

I'll try lubing the Oase first and see if that's the bulk of the problem and if not I'll need to accelerate my plumbing project.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> When I'm sitting near the tank every so often you hear a weird air noise like air is getting sucked in somewhere, like through a very tight opening.


Do you have a heater in the Oase? I had a very similar experience with the 850... had air purging, lubed everything up but still heard a periodic sucking sound. It turned out that sucking noise is actually... wait for it... the heater. It took running the Oase heater on a tank running an FX4 to have this lightbulb moment. It's also easier to see what's going on when the heater is in the water (rather than in the Oase housing) because you can see when the element is on and when it shuts off.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> Do you have a heater in the Oase? I had a very similar experience with the 850... had air purging, lubed everything up but still heard a periodic sucking sound. It turned out that sucking noise is actually... wait for it... the heater. It took running the Oase heater on a tank running an FX4 to have this lightbulb moment. It's also easier to see what's going on when the heater is in the water (rather than in the Oase housing) because you can see when the element is on and when it shuts off.


I definitely hear the "click", but admittedly my only experience with their heaters has been on this filter. It's currently being controlled by an Inkbird rather than being controlled by itself. 

It would be crazy if it's the heater making that periodic sucking sound lol. What surprises me the most about their heaters is I've never owned a submersible heater that was this loud when it turned on. Is it possible that the click I'm hearing is the Inkbird? I haven't tested if the Inkbird audibly makes a sound when it kicks the power on to the heater.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

The click is probably the inkbird. When you get a chance, open up the cabinet and watch what the inkbird is doing. I'm guessing you'll see alignment with the click and the hiss.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> The click is probably the inkbird. When you get a chance, open up the cabinet and watch what the inkbird is doing. I'm guessing you'll see alignment with the click and the hiss.


You know what, I just heard the click followed by the hiss/sucking sound lol. 

I checked the app and it literally just kicked on. That's crazy hahaha. 

Out of the few decades of using submersible heaters of all brands, I've never heard them make a noise like this lol.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> You know what, I just heard the click followed by the hiss/sucking sound lol.
> 
> I checked the app and it literally just kicked on. That's crazy hahaha.
> 
> Out of the few decades of using submersible heaters of all brands, I've never heard them make a noise like this lol.


Yep, I was shocked when I realized it was the heater of all things. It _really _sounds like something caused by gas. That suspicion is reinforced with the Oase because it often comes alongside a legitimate air sucking issue.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

After turning the CO2 on an additional hour earlier, and cutting the bubble rate down, the problem is getting somewhat better. The issue is that it's finally hitting the PH drop about an hour after the lights come on, even with kicking the CO2 on an hour earlier. I could add another hour. 

Most of these adjustments will likely get reset once I've had a chance to reconfigure the way the GLA canister is plumbed. The pump is on max so 660 gallons per hour are flowing through the reactor. I bought this canister because of the flow rate so teeing off a 3/4" line and adjusting flow through the reactor with a valve seems like it would make the most sense because the outflow can then flow through a UV which I initially intended to add, but when I abandoned the idea of hard piping everything, there wasn't a clean way to add one. 

I won't be tackling this project for a while though. There are too many other projects on my list that need to be cleared off, one of which is finishing up this stand with trim and doors. 

Tested the water this morning since today is macro dosing day. I'm at roughly 40ppm of nitrates. I'm wondering if I should even bother dosing macros, even if it's a half dose. The plants, even though I have a lot in the tank just don't seem to be at that overdrive stage yet where they're absorbing nitrogen super fast. I'll probably just add a half dose since the tank won't be getting another until Sunday and water change day is Saturday. 

One of the projects I need to get done is buying a 55 gallon rubbermaid commercial garbage can so that I can start making water for water changes. The way I've been thinking of doing this is buying the dolly that goes along with the rubbermaid and keeping it right where the RODI will go. When water change day comes I'll wheel it over to the tank and then pump water out of it into the tank. I completely forgot about my return pump I used for the last reef tank I tore down and it's been sitting outside over the winter. I'm hoping it still works but intend on testing it. From what I recall I had a valved union on top of it but the valved union got tossed. I have no way of knowing what brand it was so I'll cut off the fitting and install a coupling with a barbed fitting with some tubing. I'm just hoping that it works because it was an expensive return pump. I also have an old heater that would be perfectly sized but that has sat outside in the same bucket the return pump is in, and it's probably a good 10 years old. The only thing going for it is that it rarely if ever turned on when it was on the reef tank. I can test that as well. 

The plants for the most part seem to be putting on some growth, even though it's fairly slow going. It just seems like they haven't yet settled in. Hopefully these next two weeks we see some amped up growth. When I did maintenance on my nano, I heavily cut back and even removed a couple of the H Pinatatifida and added them into the spots I picked out in this tank. I made sure to go through the leaves and stems to remove any snails. I also removed the biggest crypt undulatus red that was in the tank, went through it with a fine toothed comb and added that to this tank. Both of those things really opened up some room in the nano because I was shocked at how big they were when added to this tank. I'll try to get some pics up tonight.


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## Frshwtr (7 mo ago)

Following. I'm starting a very similar tank and this thread has great info. Very nice so far!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Frshwtr said:


> Following. I'm starting a very similar tank and this thread has great info. Very nice so far!


Thanks! I love threads that are very detailed because it gives you the ability to see where mistakes were made, how problems were solved, etc. Glad you're able to get something out of this one! 

I'll look forward to following along with yours as well!


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## Frshwtr (7 mo ago)

Is this the CO2 controller you installed?

HERE


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Frshwtr said:


> Is this the CO2 controller you installed?
> 
> HERE


Yep, that's the one. So far it has been working great. 

You'll likely see a recommendation for Atlas Scientific calibration solution. If you don't already have some, I'd add that to the cart as well because you only get a packet of 4 and 7 PH calibration solution. 

Plan on calibrating about once a month. When you begin seeing that it's significantly off from the previous month, you'll know it's time to replace the probe. From what I remember, I replaced the PH probe on my reef tank about once a year because it would drift pretty badly from month to month. I usually track how far off the calibrate was on a spreadsheet so that I could monitor how much it degraded over time. After replacing about 7 of the probes, I noticed that they go downhill really quickly. Somewhere between the 10th and 12th months is when you'd see them really starting to degrade. 

You may already know all this but I figured it would be helpful if you didn't.


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## Frshwtr (7 mo ago)

No that's really helpful. Thanks for the info.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I just sat down at my computer and saw that I forgot to post this last night. 

Water change is done. 

Nothing new to report on other than everything finally seems to be growing. I'm noticing more and more tiny leaves peaking out from the substrate so the Montecarlo should begin filling in over the next month or so. 

Fish are all doing great. I'll take some pics tomorrow (today) once the water clears up a bit from the water change. 

Tomorrow just before I dose macros I'll plan on testing nitrates to see where I'm at after a water change. The Otocinclus poop seems to not be as prevalent, so I'm assuming baseline nitrates should drop a bit. If they're still high tomorrow then I may need to do maintenance on the GLA because that would be the only source of nitrates at this point since I've siphoned out as much detritus as I could find and the Oase was just totally maintained on Tuesday. 

One of the ADA Pink Panthers doesn't seem to be doing much. It was white inside the tissue culture cup, and it's still white. My guess is that it'll be a goner unless a pink leaf emerges from the rhizome. I'll leave it in the tank and see what happens. 

I'm really tempted to go and get more fish but I might wait until during the week to take a ride to the LFS. I'm debating whether I should get more of the rasboras, or another 10 Otocinclus. I'll probably wait a while longer before getting the Cory cats because they'll stir around the substrate and I'd prefer that the Montecarlo roots and starts filling in before I add them. 

One of the things I may do when it comes time to trim away the new growth and replant is swapping spots where the H'ra and Alternathera Roseaefolia are. It seems like the secret to getting H'ra to turn red is limit nitrates and with doing EI that's not really possible at EI levels. That means that I'll have either green or orange leaves. The A. Roseafolia is red and to the right of it the other Rotala is red so it makes sense to put H'ra between the two to alternate colors. 

The spot where the macandra is, or at least what's left of it would be an excellent place for a different stem. The one I really would like to try is Limnophila Hippuroides. The leaf shape is totally different than anything I currently have and I think it would look great. 

I'm going to test nitrates in a few minutes since realizing that I didn't post this last night and once the lights come on I'll snap a pic or two.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Tested and nitrates are at 10ppm. It seems like the high nitrates were due to the extraordinary amount of Otocinclus poops. 

I probably did a 60% ish water change yesterday and siphoned out as much poop as possible. I dosed macros a few minutes ago and did 15ml instead of 10ml. The actual dose for this tank should be 22ml but I cut it way back since nitrates were so high. I'll test them again tomorrow and see where 15ml puts me. If I test tomorrow and they're at 20ppm, then I'll just keep dosing about 10 until I start seeing the plants using up more and more nitrogen. I'd like to target 20ppm by water change day. The plants just don't seem to be putting on ridiculous amounts of growth yet so it may be a while before they're really using up the ferts as quick as I can dose them. 

The lights don't fully come on for another 5-6 hours so I'll get some pics once they do. I might take a ride to the LFS today and grab some more rasboras. I might as well complete the school and then wait until next weekend or the following week to get the other 10 Otocinclus. There's enough algae growing now so I'm not worried about them not getting enough to eat.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I went and picked up another dozen rasbora. What was kind of funny is that the tank of rasboras at the LFS were still there. He basically had two dozen when I bought my first dozen, and I cleaned out the second dozen today so they've been reunited. 

Anyway, I promised some pics so here they go:

FTS up first:










Side shot up next. The Alternathera Roseafolia will trade places with the H'ra once it comes time to trim. I think they're slower growers so the red coloration will look better against the backdrop of green, possibly orange of the H'ra. I won't make this move until it's time to trim the H'ra. I'm probably a week or two away from that. 










Here you can see that the moss is putting on some new growth. I was curious to see how long it would take given that they were from tissue cultures. The Fissidens Fontanus is also putting on new growth. 










This dude was trying to photobomb so I figured I'd get a good pic:










Another photobomber but this time it's the reticulated SAE:










Finally, the mermaid weed. It's growing very strongly. While it's not getting taller, or at least hasn't over the last week, the leaves are getting bigger. I'll probably trim when they get about halfway towards the surface. You're also able to see the new leaf the Pink Flamingo put on since getting added to the tank. I was surprised at how hot pink it was when it came in. 










That's about it for today. Tomorrow I'm planning to check nitrates to see where today's dose got me and how much is being used by the plants. I'll plan on doing the same on Tuesday just before I dose macros again. Once I have those data points I'll be able to adjust dosing accordingly. This will probably be a moving target, at least until everything really takes off.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Just tested nitrates and they're at 30ppm. The one thing I hate about the API test kit for nitrates is that they jump from 20-40ppm. My test result is a darker orange than 20ppm, but with only a hint of red putting it below 40ppm. My best guess is 30ppm. 

I'll test again tomorrow around this same time since tomorrow will be macro dosing day for this tank. 

I may need to dose under 10ml tomorrow but we'll see where they're at tomorrow. 

The recipe I'm using is for a 125 gallon tank, but I'm not dosing the full dose which is 25ml. Yesterday my nitrates were at 10ppm and today 30ppm. That means that the 15ml I dosed is the equivalent of 20ppm, while it should be less than 7.5ppm. 

The 3 doses of macros during the week should amount to 30ppm by water change day and I hit it in one dose. Something is going on here. I may even just dose 5ml and see what happens tomorrow, but only after seeing what the results of the nitrates test is. 

Ideally I'd like to maintain a level of 20-30ppm throughout the week. 

When I mix up the next bottle I'll use the 90 gallon tank recipe instead. 

Once this tank is fully stocked with fish I plan on not dosing anything for a full week just to see how much nitrogen the fish are adding through waste. I'm still a ways out from having a fully stocked tank so I'll have to play this game with ferts until then. Once I understand how much waste the fish are producing I can mix up a batch of ferts to get me to 20-30ppm by the end of the week. 

I'll be so happy once this period is over. While I don't mind tinkering, I really enjoy the period when the tank just sort of does it's own thing as long as you're dosing ferts and doing WC's.


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## Katmanreef (Jul 6, 2017)

ddiomede said:


> Just tested nitrates and they're at 30ppm. The one thing I hate about the API test kit for nitrates is that they jump from 20-40ppm. My test result is a darker orange than 20ppm, but with only a hint of red putting it below 40ppm. My best guess is 30ppm.
> 
> I'll test again tomorrow around this same time since tomorrow will be macro dosing day for this tank.
> 
> ...


A lot of times, the liquid api nitrate test kits can be wildly inaccurate unless calibrated with a known concentration of nitrates. Here's a post to help you in the process if you have not done it before, I hope it helps! 

I honestly haven't tested for nitrates in a very long time. I assume that if all the plants are getting nutrients in excess and there's no algae/weird fauna behaviors, I'm doing something right


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Katmanreef said:


> A lot of times, the liquid api nitrate test kits can be wildly inaccurate unless calibrated with a known concentration of nitrates. Here's a post to help you in the process if you have not done it before, I hope it helps!
> 
> I honestly haven't tested for nitrates in a very long time. I assume that if all the plants are getting nutrients in excess and there's no algae/weird fauna behaviors, I'm doing something right


Thanks, I'll read up on that. I can say one thing for certain....once this test kit is empty, I'll be buying a different one. I just really wish Hanna made a FW nitrate checker. I'm not sure why they don't but I know they'd sell like hotcakes.


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## Katmanreef (Jul 6, 2017)

ddiomede said:


> Thanks, I'll read up on that. I can say one thing for certain....once this test kit is empty, I'll be buying a different one. I just really wish Hanna made a FW nitrate checker. I'm not sure why they don't but I know they'd sell like hotcakes.


Yeah, I've only heard good things about the Hanna test kits. In sure somebody here on the forum knows a good brand for a FW nitrate test kit!


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

Katmanreef said:


> Yeah, I've only heard good things about the Hanna test kits. In sure somebody here on the forum knows a good brand for a FW nitrate test kit!


Salifert nitrate test is great.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Just ran the nitrate test again and it's no longer as red as it was yesterday, so if you put a gun to my head I'd call it 25ppm. 

What I'm considering doing is dosing the Seachem ferts and skipping nitrogen while continuing to monitor how much is actually being used. 25ppm is more than enough for the plant's needs and if the test kit is accurate then they're using up about 5ppm daily apart from what the fish are adding. If I were to skip the dose today and just use P & K from the Seachem line, then hypothetically tomorrow nitrates should be at 20ppm. Alternatively, if I do a 5ml dose from my EI macro bottle, then tomorrow's test should be the same as today's given I'm adding approximately what is being used up by the plants. 

I'll think I'll try the 5ml dose and see what happens. I'm not sure how many tests I have left in the API kit since I've probably done about 3/4's worth of indicator solution in tests so far. I'll probably order the Salifert test kit to have on hand for when the API finally runs out. When I get it I'll likely test both against one another for the heck of it. 

I spent some time last night really looking closely at all the plants. The Montecarlo is definitely starting to spread. There are little tiny leaves peaking their way out of the sand. My biggest concern is the Alternathera Rosaefolia since it's really being shaded by the H'ra. I may need to accelerate my plan to swap their positions. If I do this early, it'll probably be on Saturday when I do the WC. 

The one stem plant I was considering is Limnophila Hippuridoides to put in the spot that the macrandra were in. The macandra, at least what's left of the two bunches (3 stems) are putting on new growth so I'll probably figure out a spot for them if I wind up finding the Limnophila. What I considered doing is whatever I wind up with once the macandra grows, I'll probably randomly plant them in empty spots. 

Aside from all that, the fish are all doing great. Tonight I may test everything for the heck of it just as a double check. Tonight is Oase maintenance day so it'll give me an opportunity to see if the biological filter is keeping up with the dozen rasbora I added. 

One of the things I've been doing regularly is replacing the carbon. Two days after a water change the tank always seems to cloud a bit. I stuck a white balance white card in the tank and it had a slight orange/red hue so the culprit are tannins. I'll continue replacing carbon weekly until the end of the month and then change over to purigen. I can't see the tannins lasting longer than that.

ETA: forgot to mention that I ordered plastic mesh with a smaller hole size than the Oase baskets. My plan is to add more pumice next week so as I remove lava rock from one tray I'll cut the plastic mesh to fit and dump the existing pumice into that tray and then do the same with the tray the pumice has been in and add new pumice to that. 

I've also been reconsidering how I pack the GLA canister with media. If I do the same thing I did with lava rock, it's almost impossible to remove the whole big media bag without removing the media first. I may make use of filter bags and just load them up with pumice so that when it comes time to maintain the GLA, I'm not spending most of the time manually removing media and can just grab media bags one by one instead so that I can dunk them in tank water for a quick rinse. If I had to guess it'll be well over 10 smaller media bags similar to the ones I used for the lava rock under my sand in the tank.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I'm back up to 30ppm again. I'll test again tomorrow but it's really tough to narrow down exactly what's going on here. I should have been at the same color on the test today as the one from yesterday but today's was definitely more red, but below 40ppm. My guesstimate would put it at 30ppm. I'll test again tomorrow since tomorrow is macro day for this tank. 

I could just skip macros tomorrow and test again Friday and again on Saturday to see if nitrates have fallen. If they haven't, then nitrates are leaching from somewhere. I currently done have enough fish to have this high of nitrates, so if they're not coming from the ferts, and not due to overstocking the tank, then the only place they can be coming from is the GLA filter since that hasn't been maintained, or the spider wood since that's the only organic thing in the tank. It's possible that some dead plant material was sucked into the GLA and is just sitting in there rotting away, but that would require a whole lot of decaying plant matter and I just don't see how that would even be possible. 

Yesterday I did a 5ml dose of macros which is well under what I should be dosing. 

While these higher than expected nitrates don't seem to be causing any issues, I really don't like them even getting close to 40ppm. 

If you were to make me guess, I'd say it's the wood. After cleaning the wood of fungus when I planted the tank, it grew back within a week. Something biological is happening with the wood so I'm guessing whatever it is will eventually break down into nitrates and this will be under control. 

For the time being, when I mix up ferts should I just not add nitrogen to the mix, or perhaps only use 1/4th of the recommended weight? I just want to avoid feeding algae, and adversely effecting the fish with higher than optimal nitrates. 

I wound up skipping Oase maintenance last night because the plastic mesh sheets arrive today at some point. Based on how the Oase looked when I maintained it last week, it had gone about two weeks and wasn't really that dirty (pre filter) so a day or two later I don't think will affect anything. 

If anyone has any theories or suggestions for what I'm seeing please feel free to let me know. This is driving me crazy lol. 

This could all just be me driving myself crazy when it's just that the tank needs to establish itself more. 

Last little update....I have the frame for the stand doors glued up. I just need to figure out what size round over to use and whether to use a different router bit for the inner part of the door frame. I'll do a rabbit on the backside so that I can fit a 1/4" panel in, sand it, stain it, then cut a panel for each door, paint it and then glue it in. 

The full overlay concealed hinges I bought didn't come with installation instructions so rather than hoping and praying that I get the measurement right, I'm going to drill the cup holes on a scrap piece of wood and see where they get me. I'm trying to get the door to overlay the opening on the hinge side by 1/2" roughly. From what I understand a 5mm offset from the edge of the door will overlay 3/4", so I'm thinking of trying 2.5 or 3mm. The good thing I I'll be able to use the jig to mount the hinges into the stand and then transfer them to the door once they're ready for installation.

ETA: if I ever build cabinet doors again, I'll never use dowels or a doweling jig. If I do use dowels, they'll be through dowels rather than trying to drill matching pairs of holes with a "self centering" doweling jig that doesn't do a perfect job. I have a lot of sanding to do because of this lol. It's close, but not close enough for my liking.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I'm back up to 30ppm again. I'll test again tomorrow but it's really tough to narrow down exactly what's going on here. I should have been at the same color on the test today as the one from yesterday but today's was definitely more red, but below 40ppm. My guesstimate would put it at 30ppm. I'll test again tomorrow since tomorrow is macro day for this tank.


Maybe it's the oto poop. I think I mentioned that the clean up crew concept was a farce. 
Kinda tongue-in-cheek. If the source of the nitrates is from dosing than no worries, if it's from something organic in the tank then you should probably watch it. Even in my minimalist setups I've had no3 up to 80ppm without any issue since I was dosing normal EI without much uptake.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Maybe it's the oto poop. I think I mentioned that the clean up crew concept was a farce.
> Kinda tongue-in-cheek. If the source of the nitrates is from dosing than no worries, if it's from something organic in the tank then you should probably watch it. Even in my minimalist setups I've had no3 up to 80ppm without any issue since I was dosing normal EI without much uptake.


The oto poop quantity has almost all vanished. I think when the fungus was on the wood, they were feasting 24X7 but now that it's mostly gone the poop amount is probably like 1% of what it was. During the last water change I went through any areas that may not get higher rates of flow with the turkey baster and surprisingly not a whole lot was blown out into the water column. 

The one thing I'll do tomorrow is avoid dosing macros and test, then test again Friday, and then Saturday to see if there's a change. As you mentioned, it could be something organic so if nitrates don't drop down significantly then something is going on. I suspect the plants aren't using up a whole lot of N yet, so if the levels stay relatively unchanged then something is going on in there that I need to figure out. 

The one thing I will do though is for the next batch of ferts, I'm going to go from the 125 gallon tank recipe down to the 90 gallon one. It's been two weeks and the ferts still haven't totally dissolved yet. I'm also going to cut the K2SO4 in half since it's not really necessary. I suspect that the K2SO4 is what isn't dissolving. 

I have a feeling that I've miscalculated how much actual water volume I have after the displacement of all the lava rock, sand, dragon stone, and two massive pieces of wood. The tank is officially 115 gallon, but with the water level an inch from the top, 225 lbs of sand, probably 30 lbs of lava rock, 80 lbs of dragon stone, and two pieces of wood I wouldn't be surprised if I only have 95ish gallons of actual water in the tank.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> I have a feeling that I've miscalculated how much actual water volume I have after the displacement of all the lava rock, sand, dragon stone, and two massive pieces of wood. The tank is officially 115 gallon, but with the water level an inch from the top, 225 lbs of sand, probably 30 lbs of lava rock, 80 lbs of dragon stone, and two pieces of wood I wouldn't be surprised if I only have 95ish gallons of actual water in the tank.


I have a 120P/75g tank and I use ~65gal to estimate the water volume. I consider my filter volume.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> I have a 120P/75g tank and I use ~65gal to estimate the water volume. I consider my filter volume.


I tried one of those substrate calculators but it was difficult to get an accurate amount since the slope I'm using would be difficult to average. 

But I suspect that with 120 gallons filled to the top, minus the inch lower puts me at 115 gallons. Add in the volume of the canisters and I'm probably close to being back at 120 gallons. Then the displacement of all the stuff must drop me back down to 95-100 gallons. 

I think the 90 gallon EI recipe might be a good compromise.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I tried one of those substrate calculators but it was difficult to get an accurate amount since the slope I'm using would be difficult to average.
> 
> But I suspect that with 120 gallons filled to the top, minus the inch lower puts me at 115 gallons. Add in the volume of the canisters and I'm probably close to being back at 120 gallons. Then the displacement of all the stuff must drop me back down to 95-100 gallons.
> 
> I think the 90 gallon EI recipe might be a good compromise.


Probably won't matter too much, I mean it is an "estimative index" You have so many variables at play besides water displacement. Stem usage, uptake speed, co2, lighting, etc. So even within the same size tank, uptake will vary quite alot.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Probably won't matter too much, I mean it is an "estimative index" You have so many variables at play besides water displacement. Stem usage, uptake speed, co2, lighting, etc. So even within the same size tank, uptake will vary quite alot.


I took your advice and just dosed macros at the actual dosage today (22ml). I did test nitrates beforehand and they were maybe a little lighter in color than yesterday. 

The crazy thing is I am seeing growth start to pick up speed although they don't seem to be using up nitrates as readily. The H'ra aren't too far from the top of the tank already, but the other Rotala (narrow leaf red & orange juice) don't seem to be growing quite as quickly. 

I'll get some updated pics up tomorrow after work. I'll need to search back a bit but I think the plants are roughly around 3 weeks old (since planting in the tank). 

I feel somewhat impatient and I'm not sure why given the fact that corals grow far more slowly than plants lol. It probably won't be very long until I'm complaining about how they're all growing too fast


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

An update on plant growth:

Rotala:

H'ra is about 4" from the top of the tank. What's really different about it is that the leaves are much wider and longer than they are in my nano. It's very strange, but the plant otherwise looks to be doing very, very well. 

The Rotala Narrow leaf red and orange juice are about the same and both are growing pretty well. I'd say they're growing 40% slower than the H'ra. 

The Rotala macandra, at least what is left of the two bunches are putting on some new growth, but it's very slow going. I plan on cutting the growth once it gets to a stage where roots start shooting out of the sides of the stems on the new growth. 

Alternathera:

The Alternathera Roseafolia and Lilacina are both growing, but the former which was a tissue culture seems to be growing a bit faster surprisingly. 

AR Mini all seem to be growing except for the ones that I added to slightly shaded areas. While even those are growing, the growth just doesn't look as good. They are staying pretty compact. I'm actually quite pleased since these were tissue cultures. 

Random stems:

The mermaid weed is growing but very slowly. I'm kind of just waiting for it to take off. I haven't noticed many roots emerging from the sides of the stem yet. 

Mosses:

Weeping moss is putting on new growth and the fissidens is growing also, but also doing something really weird. There are long string-like "roots" trailing in the water movement. I'm tempted to trim them this weekend because it looks messy. Otherwise these seems to both be doing pretty well. 

Buce:

Aside from the tissue cultures, all of the buce are working on growing a new leaf each. Some have already grown at least one new leaf. The TC's aren't fairing as well. Many rotted away, but there are a few from each type that are still alive. Hopefully they come around soon. 

Crypts:

Pink flamingo is already growing a second new hot pink leaf. The first is starting to get bigger. The Pink Panther from ADA seems to also be growing. The one that was white is totally gone and I'm assuming won't be coming back. 

The Spiralis red tiger hasn't really done much. I'm unable to tell if any new growth has sprung up since it more or less looks exactly the same as when I pulled them from the ADA tissue culture. 

The crypt undulatus red that I pulled from my nano is doing really well. It seems like it put on a little growth but that could just be my imagination. 

Foreground plants:

The Pogostemon Helferi Downoi is definitely growing. It's crazy how many little plants came in each tissue culture. There wasn't a good way to separate them so I kind of planted them in clumps, but now they're starting to grow so I imagine it'll be time to cut them away from one another and plant individually. 

The TC of Blyxa Japonica is just kind of sitting there. I'm not able to tell if there's any new growth yet. A few leaves from each melted. 

Montecarlo is definitely growing. I'm seeing small green leaves peaking out of the sand. I bet a month from now they'll be spreading pretty readily. 

Lastly...Hygrophila

The Pinatifida that I took cuttings from my nano and planted in this tank are already growing new leaves. I may start trimming some of the longer leaves away once the smaller leaves grow a bit. 

The Lancea tissue culture kind of seems like it's growing, but also kind of doesn't lol. I can't really tell but I'm sure if I look back at pics from after planting I'll see some growth. 

I think that covers all the plants. If I'm feeling motivated tonight I might take pics of all the plants and come back to edit this post. 

Dosed micros a little while ago. I didn't bother testing nitrates. At this point I'm not testing anything else unless there's a need to. Once I finish up the macros and micros I have mixed I'll switch over to the other recipe that is more appropriately sized for the actual water volume. 

I did find one pest snail that was larger than any snail in my nano. I caught it and tossed it. Might as well get rid of it even though find one means there are more. I'm pretty sure I didn't introduce it when I added plants from my nano because it was too big to have been missed. 

The one thing I haven't noticed is pearling. Since the fish all seem to be doing great, I lowered the PH on my controller to 6.6. I'll see how the fish do and if I begin seeing any pearling. Should I try to get the plants to pearl, or is it pointless to shoot for that? My nano definitely showing a lot of pearling but the drop checker is regularly yellow. I think I'll just leave the controller at 6.6 for a couple weeks and see how everything does. If everything is good, I'll lower it to 6.5. 

I'm hoping I can get at least a month out of a 10lbs CO2 tank before needing a refill. The needle has yet to move on the gauge, but I know that once it does it's basically empty at that point. I'll need to look back in the thread but I'm assuming it's been running about 3 weeks now. 

The plan for tomorrow is to trim the H'ra and toss the bottoms, remove the rosaefolia, plant the H'ra in the spot the rosaefolia were in, then plant the roseafolia in the spot the H'ra were in. 

I'll get an FTS up tonight. 

The LFS will be closed tonight, tomorrow, and Sunday due to some sort of family emergency. Hopefully it's nothing serious. I did intend on adding another 10 otos, but this forces me to wait when I probably should wait.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

That's quite the update. Glad to hear things are coming along look forward to seeing some pics. 

I don't usually test unless there's a problem or if I'm trying something in particular (like low nitrates for certain plants). I did test the other day and I was at around 5 ppm P and 50 ppm N. I haven't been adding extra K. It's whatever the tank gets from the KNO3 and KH2P04. 

Pearling isn't necessary for healthy plant growth. I find some plants pearl rather easily and others not so much even when they're growing well.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> That's quite the update. Glad to hear things are coming along look forward to seeing some pics.
> 
> I don't usually test unless there's a problem or if I'm trying something in particular (like low nitrates for certain plants). I did test the other day and I was at around 5 ppm P and 50 ppm N. I haven't been adding extra K. It's whatever the tank gets from the KNO3 and KH2P04.
> 
> Pearling isn't necessary for healthy plant growth. I find some plants pearl rather easily and others not so much even when they're growing well.


When I ran a phosphate test a week or two ago I was well over 10pm. I might test tomorrow before the WC just to see. 

It might just be my reef brain, but 10ppm gives me anxiety lol.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> When I ran a phosphate test a week or two ago I was well over 10pm. I might test tomorrow before the WC just to see.
> 
> It might just be my reef brain, but 10ppm gives me anxiety lol.


That's definitely on the high end, but I don't know if it's necessarily a problem, unless you believe P and N cause algae. 

Are you doing 50% weekly WCs? Also the plants aren't in full gear in terms of mass/uptake yet so you have that too.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> That's definitely on the high end, but I don't know if it's necessarily a problem, unless you believe P and N cause algae.
> 
> Are you doing 50% weekly WCs? Also the plants aren't in full gear in terms of mass/uptake yet so you have that too.


I believe I'm doing a bit over 50% weekly. If you take a look at one of the last FTS, I'm taking water down below the thickest branch of the spider wood on the left. 

I may add the pothocarry with the Swiss cheese monstera I picked up off Etsy and finally take a cutting from the pothos I have. I also ordered another monstera from Etsy but they haven't shipped yet. Would you happen to know if there's anything special I need to do with these plants before adding them to the pothocarry? For the Swiss cheese I'm assuming just rinse the roots off and stick them right in, and the same for a cutting of my pothos?


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I believe I'm doing a bit over 50% weekly. If you take a look at one of the last FTS, I'm taking water down below the thickest branch of the spider wood on the left.
> 
> I may add the pothocarry with the Swiss cheese monstera I picked up off Etsy and finally take a cutting from the pothos I have. I also ordered another monstera from Etsy but they haven't shipped yet. Would you happen to know if there's anything special I need to do with these plants before adding them to the pothocarry? For the Swiss cheese I'm assuming just rinse the roots off and stick them right in, and the same for a cutting of my pothos?


I haven't grown the monstera, but most of these plants will get everything they need from the water, so the only variable left is light. They aren't very demanding. That's how it was with anything I dipped into the water. Just make sure it's attached/anchored well and doesn't move around.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Aside from a water change, I didn't get a whole lot done this weekend with the tank. My dad lives next door to me and they're cleaning and packing for their move down the Florida since they've sold their house. As he's cleaning all of the stuff out of his garage I'm starting to inherit tools from 40 years of owning his own construction business. 

I did manage to get a water change in last night. Tomorrow is technically Oase maintenance day but if I have a chance tonight I'll maintain it so that I can get another tray full of pumice in place of lava rock. I bought some plastic mesh material where the hole size is roughly 40% smaller than the baskets on the Oase. When I added 3/8" pumice, some of the pieces were just small enough to poke through the bottom. I cut a couple pieces of the plastic mesh so that I could add it into the bottom of the media baskets and add the pumice on top. I'll take some pics when I put them into the baskets. 

Everything is still growing nicely. The H'ra, at least one stem is basically an inch from the surface. If I don't wind up maintaining the filter tonight I will move a couple of the stem plants around. I may go ahead and cut the new growth on the H'ra when I do this before planting. 

I have a roughly 300 square foot area in the back of my house that's basically dirt and neck high weeds. I'm planning to sod the area so that my dog has a place to relieve himself and cut down on the number of walks I have to take him on every day. When I look at the area, it seems small, but from my experience pulling weeds out of my small lawn, it's not going to be quick or easy lol. It needs to be done though so that when late August/early September rolls around I'm not scrambling to get it done. 

My nano tank hasn't gotten much love so I'll be focused on that tank on Wednesday, or tomorrow if I have time to get the plants in this tank trimmed, moved, and the Oase maintained. 

I still haven't done much with finishing this stand. I intended on at least getting the doors routed and sanded this weekend but too much other stuff came up. I should have a nice day after work this week to play around with the doors. 

I couldn't find 55 gallon drums for a reasonable price. I have Uline about 45 minutes north of me but they stopped allowing customer pickup and force you to ship. The cost of shipping is about the cost of the drum itself so I decided to just get a commercial rubbermaid 55 gallon garbage can from Home Depot along with the wheeled dolly for it. My plan for this is to mount the RODI to the wall, make about half RODI, then use tap water to fill up the other half to remineralize. That should get me at about 4.5 GH and 2 KH. I have my old Eheim return pump from my reef tank so I'm going to test that and see if it still works and then use that to pump water into the tank after a water change. I also need to test out the old heater to make sure it'll work. The plan is to wheel the garbage can to my tank, attach some 3/4" tubing to the return pump and just pump it right into the tank. I'll likely fill the garbage can on Friday nights so that it's ready for the Saturday water changes. 

That's it for now. I'll get some pics up a day after I do the Oase maintenance since the tank gets filled with micro bubbles whenever I do it.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

ddiomede said:


> I have a roughly 300 square foot area in the back of my house that's basically dirt and neck high weeds. I'm planning to sod the area so that my dog has a place to relieve himself and cut down on the number of walks I have to take him on every day. When I look at the area, it seems small, but from my experience pulling weeds out of my small lawn, it's not going to be quick or easy lol. It needs to be done though so that when late August/early September rolls around I'm not scrambling to get it done.


I just so happen to be experienced with stuff like this =)

My method of weed control ( and land reclamation) is probably completely different than you’re used to hearing. Instead of pulling the weeds, bake them out instead. This helps preserve the natural balance of the soil, and helps keep all the micro-critters doing their jobs. I use this method every year to exterminate cover crops that were planted in the fall the year before. If you pull the weeds, you’re removing a substantial amount of soil bacteria and fungus necessary for healthy soil.

Drill a hole in each end of a 4 foot long 2x4 and attach a length of rope in between, long enough that when you hold the rope in the center with your back strait, the 2x4 is just off the ground. Now, holding the rope in both hands, walk through the area to weed, stepping on the 2x4 every 6” or so, crimping / breaking the weeds off at the ground. The idea is to get the whole area laid as flat as you can, breaking as many plant stems as you can in the process. (If you were doing a larger space, it would be much easier to rent a crimper to do the same thing. For a small space, the 2x4 works just fine).

Once it’s all laid flat, cover the area with a black tarp or other piece of dark plastic. Leave it alone for 2-3 weeks (no peeking!!)

After a couple of weeks, everything underneath should be good and dead. All of the roots will be starting to decompose, adding that amazing, nutritious compost back into the soil without having to do it yourself. You can now mow really short every 2 or three days with a mulching blade to ensure nothing new pops up. Finally, just overseed with your grass seed of choice and cover with hay.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> I just so happen to be experienced with stuff like this =)
> 
> My method of weed control ( and land reclamation) is probably completely different than you’re used to hearing. Instead of pulling the weeds, bake them out instead. This helps preserve the natural balance of the soil, and helps keep all the micro-critters doing their jobs. I use this method every year to exterminate cover crops that were planted in the fall the year before. If you pull the weeds, you’re removing a substantial amount of soil bacteria and fungus necessary for healthy soil.
> 
> ...


That sounds like a great way to do it with less effort than I was planning! Rather than growing from seed, I'm planning to lay sod in that spot.  The lawn out in front will be getting leveled with some top dressing maybe late next month as well as overseeding it. I really should have done this in spring but ATT was out over the winter and dug up the lawn/easement to run fiber underground and really screwed up that part of the lawn. They said that they'd be out to "fix it" but all they did was probably pay way too much money to a landscaping company who came out, left all these massive rocks in the dirt, threw some seed down and covered it with that netting with hay mixed in. They even buried my water shutoff, which I found yesterday using my dad's meter for finding water shutoffs. After complaining to public works, they insisted that they called to get them back out here to fix everything but unsurprisingly nothing was done. Makes me feel great about the ridiculous property taxes I pay. 

But waiting on that is what made me miss the spring lawn renovation season so I'm stuck waiting until late next month to start getting the front lawn fixed up. My neighbor was a greenskeeper at a local golf course, but he's getting older and I think getting offended that I'm not following his advice lol. He told me to seed two weeks ago but it's been so hot and dry that I'd need to water 3-5 times a day to keep the seeds moist. There's no way I'd remember to water that many times. 

The patch with all the weeds in my backyard has never had grass, at least that I can recall so the only two options are seeding or sod. Sod is slightly more expensive but I get an instant lawn and far less watering. 

But thanks, I'm going to try your method rather than nuking the area. Seems like less work with a similar outcome.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Just a couple quick pics. 

I removed the H'ra and Alternathera Roseafolia and swapped spots. I cut all old growth off of the H'ra before replanting the growth that happened inside my tank. 

The first shot is a cloudy FTS from moving and replanting and the second shot is the final positioning (for now) of those two plants. 



















Tomorrow will be maintenance day for the Oase.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Looks like you have some nice, healthy growth going.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Looks like you have some nice, healthy growth going.


Thanks, I'll need to take some closeups of the Montecarlo because it's really starting to pop up from beneath the sand. It's hard to see in the FTS but up close you're able to see how much it's beginning to spread. 

I'm honestly just really amazed at how quickly the H'ra grew. All the stems are really starting to grow now, even the mermaid weed. I imagine it won't be long before the entire background is filled to the top with stem plants. 

One thing that I need to do is clean up the center a bit and plant the Pogostemon Helferi a bit neater and separate them a bit better. There are probably a good 30 plants in that section but most are all sort of connected to one another which is how they came in the TC cups. Now that they're all rooting and growing it's time to separate them a bit. 

The next things I'll need to do with the stem plants is once some of them get closer to the surface I'll need to do the same thing I did with the H'ra....remove original parts of stems and cut them away and replant the parts that grew inside the tank. I also still need to get the Limnophila Hippurdoides, and figure out where to put some of the Bacopa Salzmannii SG. I was thinking of adding a stem here, another stem there, etc. Just sort of randomly placing them rather than bunching them up. I just need to figure out where the best spots would be. 

Tonight I'll get the Oase maintained and plan on taking pics of the plastic mesh I bought for the bottom of the media baskets.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

So I was able to get the Oase maintenance done last night. 

I took out the smaller media tray, followed by the tray I filled with pumice about 2 weeks ago, then grabbed the next tray of lava rock and dumped it out. 

Here are two pics of the media basket and the plastic mesh I cut to size, two comparison images included (top/bottom):

Bottom of basket:










Top of basket:










While it's not a perfect cut since I just used one of the sponges as a template, it worked out great. 

I dumped the seasoned pumice into the basket, then added another mesh to the basket that the older pumice was in and added new pumice into that one. 

I decided to dump another tray of lava rock out and use that as the second to last tray from the top for chemical filtration media (carbon). I'll likely phase out carbon within the next month or so...probably once I have all the media trays filled with pumice, except for the very bottom tray which has filter sponge, and the top two trays. 

I did make a pretty boneheaded mistake last night and added a filter bag full of purigen. The issue was that the filter bag's hole size wound up being too large. What's really weird is that when I rinsed the bag with purigen, nothing really came out but once I got the filter back on it began snowing in the tank. Since the media is inert, I left it until the next maintenance session in a couple weeks....the very next one will be just swapping pre filter sponges. 

I got the doors for the stand sanded nice and smooth last night. After work I'm going to throw a round over bit into the router and soften the edges of the doors a bit, and then maybe work on getting the rabbit cut. I'll do a bit of hand sanding at that point, clean the dust off and hopefully get to staining the doors and trim, and poly over the weekend. I have some material I can use to finish the doors (inside panels) so I'll give that stuff a try and get it cut to the right dimensions, prime, and then paint them white. 

Once I get the doors mounted and trim installed I can start to plan out how to PVC pipe the GLA canister. I've avoided thinking about how I'd plumb it to do away with the soft tubing because I have so many other projects that I need to get done. 

That's where everything is at as of last night. The fish are doing great and the plants continue to grow. One thing I anticipated is after uprooting, trimming, and replanting, plants would get knocked out of the sand. Fortunately it was only one small stem so I'll get that planted again this evening. Tonight is maintenance night on the nano so aside from getting that one trimmed and a water change done, I'll be transferring a couple stems over to this tank.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I was doing so well with the router, and on the very last edge of where I was cutting in a rabbit I was trying to hurry and ran the router the wrong way and had massive chip out that isn't repairable. I'll need to build one more door. 

But I did get one door close to finished. It just needs some final sanding. I'm going to try to run to the hardwood store tomorrow around lunch if I can sneak away. I'll probably get the miter saw outside, cut my pieces, drill the dowel holes, glue it up and clamp it and then if I have time Friday after work I'll get the router out and finish it up. 

The hidden hinge holes were drilled and will work perfectly. I did the hinge holes first, and in hindsight had I waited, I probably wouldn't need to build a new door since the massive chip out would be inside the door smh. Lesson learned and I'll wait to finish routing before doing that again. 

The tank is crystal clear today despite my mistake with the purigen. It seems that the purigen does a far better job of really polishing the water than carbon does even with how often I'm replacing the carbon. I'll definitely be using purigen going forward, although it'll be in filter bags that I know for certain have 180 microns or smaller holes.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Haven't really done much aside from maintenance. Plants all seem to be doing great, and are really putting on growth. 

At some point this week I'll take pics of the tank. 

I did make some progress on the stand. Doors have been built, routed, and sanded and are ready for stain and poly. The only thing I haven't tackled yet are the panels for the doors. I put a rabbit into the backside of the doors so the corners are rounded and rather than risking screwing them up, I'm going to use the jigsaw to round off the corners. The plan though is to get the panels cut and dry fit, then prime and paint, then glue them in. 

The last part of the doors that I don't have are knobs.  I'll need to head over to a buildings supply place near me to pick up knobs that match the cabinet knobs in my house. Hopefully they have them in stock because I scooped up the remaining ones they had last year. 

I did get the screw holes for the hidden hinges drilled so once the doors are finished, I just mount the hinges to the door and then mount the opposite side to the predrilled holes. 

The trim pieces still need to be sanded so that will be done this week as well. I'm hoping that the extra 1/4" material I have from the back panel of the stand will work, and that I have enough to do the door panels. I haven't checked yet because I wanted to get the stain and poly on the doors first. 

Once I'm done with this, I plan on redoing how I hang my lights. The UNS brackets block me from getting into the back of the tank where all the stem plants are, or at least they make it far more difficult than it needs to be. So I'm thinking of getting another piece of red oak....maybe something in the 8/10X1" size and mount that to the wall, then go from there. I should have done this before getting the tank in place, but it was extra work that I didn't want to do at the time. 

Anyhow that's where everything is at. I'm hopeful that I can get this all done by the end of the weekend, but as usual there are a bunch of other projects lingering that I also need show some progress soon.

ETA: 

So things I've learned from building a stand.

1. Don't use rough lumber from Home Depot or one of the other big boxes. Chances are you'll bring it home, cut it, and then it twists and warps. This happened to me. It took an inordinate amount of time to fix. Spend a little more on milled lumber from a hardwood store. The lumber would have cost me roughly twice as much, but you'd have a hardwood stronger than pine, properly dried, and dimensioned. Pine is fine for building an aquarium stand, but the stuff from the big boxes is garbage unless you can mill it yourself and can leave it to dry inside your home for a long period of time. 

2. When building cabinet doors, if you're not experienced with making half laps and whatnot, just buy a pocket hole jig and use pocket holes. I used a doweling jig and trying to line dowel holes up on two pieces of wood you're going to join isn't fun, and self centering jigs aren't very precise. This means you'll do a lot of sanding. You can find pocket hole plugs for most of the common hardwoods. Insert the plugs, cut them flush, sand them, and if you're painting you won't see them, but if you're staining, you'll see them but they'll be inside the doors. If you can afford a domino joiner, and have a use for it other than just building these doors, get one, they're amazing. I don't have a use for one so it wouldn't have been a good investment, at least right now it wouldn't be. 

3. Don't overbuild the stand. It's just a waste of money. I know this is weird to read because I just said use hardwood, but what I mean is don't over engineer your design. I did, and it was pointless and took more time to build. Look at how stands are manufactured....build it a little more solid than that and save money for equipment. 

4. If you plan on staining the outside of the stand, don't use birch, or at least test your stain on birch plywood first lol. The stain I used made the birch look like I rubbed it in dirt regardless of how many coats I applied, and conditioning the birch beforehand. I'm sure a darker stain would have looked better, or a different species of plywood. 

Carpentry was never a strong suit for me coming from being a licensed plumber at one time. In hindsight I probably should have tried finding work with a carpenter because I actually enjoy building stuff out of wood. Once I have a garage built I don't doubt that at least part of it will turn into a workshop.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Just mixed up another batch of ferts. The thing that always gets me is that they either take forever to fully dissolve, or in my case with NilocG recipe for a 125 gallon tank, the powders never seem to fully dissolve. 

The batch I just made is the 90 gallon, 20ml recipe. My process is to take and weigh out each of the ferts and add them into the 500ml bottle. I then add distilled water, shake for a while, then fill up my sink with super hot water and let the bottle sit in the hot water, coming back to shake the bottles occasionally and drain and refill the water in the sink to keep it hot. With even doing this, the ferts still don't completely dissolve. When I dose the tank, you see the solid ferts sinking to the bottom of the tank. 

This made me start to wonder, should I just dump dry ferts in each day rather than making up these bottles? One of the things I noticed is that the micro bottle begins growing something inside of it...almost looks like a biofilm. 

I may switch to dry dosing after I finish off this new batch. Nutrient solution dosing would make a lot of sense if I was using dosing pumps, but it seems like I'm putting in extra work where it's not needed if there isn't either a time savings or some benefit that I'm not seeing. 

No progress on finishing up the stand was made yesterday after work. I started doing some yard work and by the time I was done it was dark out already and finish sanding in the house really isn't something I'd want to do considering all the dust I'd create. Hopefully I'll have some time tonight. Hopefully I'll have some time after work today. 

Tank is looking really good though. Everything seems to be growing, some stuff more quickly than others but it's a good sign. All fish seem to be doing great also. While I can't say for sure that every single fish is still alive, each time I count I get approximately the number I added. The most difficult, seemingly impossible ones to count are the Otocinclus. The next addition to the tank will be another 10 of them though. Maybe in a couple weeks or something I'll add some cory cats...pandas more than likely unless some other ones jump out at me. 

I just remembered that tonight is maintenance night for the Oase. Since I had the mishap with purigen, I'll likely open up the whole filter and maintain it. I have 180 micron filter bags so I'll save whatever is left in the existing filter bag and add more to top off. It should be interesting to see how dirty it is after one week. I've been letting it go two weeks between cleanings and it's surprisingly clean-ish. The pre filter definitely needs weekly maintenance. I suspect I'll need to crack the main filter open once a month though. My plan is once I have the lava rock swapped out for pumice, I'll experiment just how long it'll go before needing to be fully maintained if I'm cleaning out the pre filter once a week. What I'm thinking is clean the pre filter only for 4 weeks, then on that 5th cleaning, open the whole filter and see how dirty the filter pads inside the main filter are. If they're relatively clean, then I'll let it go two months, and so on until I see that it needs maintenance. 

I still haven't opened the GLA filter since getting it back online. I suspect that my higher than expected nitrate readings are coming from it. It's basically catching debris (dead plant matter), sucking it in, and probably just rotting away at the bottom of the filter. When I get the point where I'm ready to start converting that over to pumice only, I'll probably take the opportunity to add some filter pads to the bottom, along with bagging the pumice into smaller bags so that removing everything when maintenance time comes is much easier. I currently have a massive filter bag in there, which isn't removable unless you manually remove media. The plan is to remove 25% of the lava rock, then replace with 3/8" pumice in it's own bag. I'll keep doing that until it's all replaced, with each 25% I'm replacing being kept in individual media bags. I think removing 4 media bags would be significantly easier. The biggest concern I have is if I put filter foam in there, it's going to get smashed down with the weight of all the media on top of it. The flow goes from the bottom up so putting the foam on top defeats the purpose of it. I may just add enough foam at the bottom to catch debris and plan on maintaining it a bit more frequently than I intended, which was maybe once every 6 months or so.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

As far as the ferts, everyone does them differently. I premix my macros dry and store in a little tupperware not with water and on macro day I just take a teaspoon or whatever it is for the tank dump it in an empty 1 gallon Poland Spring water jug add some tap or tank water shake and dump in, I do the same for my premixed dry macro mix and that's it.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> As far as the ferts, everyone does them differently. I premix my macros dry and store in a little tupperware not with water and on macro day I just take a teaspoon or whatever it is for the tank dump it in an empty 1 gallon Poland Spring water jug add some tap or tank water shake and dump in, I do the same for my premixed dry macro mix and that's it.


That definitely sounds less time consuming than making a solution every 3-4 weeks with the ferts never fully dissolving. 

What I might do is pick up a bunch of small jars or tubberware containers, enough for a week or two, then weigh out each day's dose and when the day comes just add water, shake, and dump into the tank.


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## Frshwtr (7 mo ago)

Can the ferts be supersaturated? I.e. add them to hot, not quite boiling water and dissolve them all that way? You may just be reaching the edge of the ability to dissolve completely and adding them to hot water will get you over that hump.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Frshwtr said:


> Can the ferts be supersaturated? I.e. add them to hot, not quite boiling water and dissolve them all that way? You may just be reaching the edge of the ability to dissolve completely and adding them to hot water will get you over that hump.


I think what's honestly happening is that the water is so saturated that it either won't completely dissolve, or precipitates after a while and collects at the bottom. What I find problematic about it is that it's no longer precise. Are the chunks of ferts all potassium, phosphates, something else? Hypothetically, I could be dosing 3 weeks of potassium in one dose when some of the solidified parts wind up getting added to the tank. 

In the grand scheme of things, it likely doesn't matter a whole lot, but I want to make sure to only add a bit more than the plants need and keep that consistent. Seems like the only way to do it would be as @Asteroid recommended. 

The directions on most of the sites that sell dry ferts seem to stay away from advising you how to mix them, aside from providing the recipe and mentioning RO or distilled. I did find a post somewhere on this forum that you should boil RO or distilled, let it cool, and then use that to mix the ferts. I tried that once and there wasn't a noticeable change. Eventually the ferts precipitated out of solution. 

Today I tried adding them to hot water....my hot water out of the tap is almost scalding....and you can still see a good amount of ferts sitting at the bottom of the container. I didn't have this problem using the 1ml per gallon recipe, but it's not surprising since the ratios of ferts to water are almost the opposite. I considered using that recipe, but I'd be remaking ferts after every 5th dose. 

I'll likely try the daily dry dosing where I buy 6 smaller jars or Tupperware containers, measure out each day's dose in dry ferts, then add water when I'm going to add them, shake it up, and dump it in the tank. I'd likely spend less time overall. I'll just keeping making a solution for my nano tank though since it takes a long time to go through 500ml.


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## Frshwtr (7 mo ago)

Another thought that just popped up - can you somehow get a finer powder by pulverizing it more? Turn it into a powder so that you no longer have any large particles that will take awhile to dissolve, or not dissolve at all due to probable passivation on the outside surface of the particle? All those chemistry classes in college are giving me both ideas and bad memories... 😅


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Frshwtr said:


> Another thought that just popped up - can you somehow get a finer powder by pulverizing it more? Turn it into a powder so that you no longer have any large particles that will take awhile to dissolve, or not dissolve at all due to probable passivation on the outside surface of the particle? All those chemistry classes in college are giving me both ideas and bad memories... 😅


I forget which one, but one of them has a much larger particle size. KN03 is about as fine a powder as you can get. I'm just not sure if it's K2SO4 or KH2PO4 that has the larger particle size, but the other is also a very fine powder. 

The micros are also a problem though and the grain size is fairly small, although perhaps not as fine as the KNO3.


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## Frshwtr (7 mo ago)

ddiomede said:


> I think what's honestly happening is that the water is so saturated that it either won't completely dissolve, or precipitates after a while and collects at the bottom. What I find problematic about it is that it's no longer precise. Are the chunks of ferts all potassium, phosphates, something else? Hypothetically, I could be dosing 3 weeks of potassium in one dose when some of the solidified parts wind up getting added to the tank.
> 
> In the grand scheme of things, it likely doesn't matter a whole lot, but I want to make sure to only add a bit more than the plants need and keep that consistent. Seems like the only way to do it would be as @Asteroid recommended.
> 
> ...


I don't think the water out of your tap is quite hot enough to get it over that saturation point. The water needs to be near boiling to supersaturate it. I don't see any reason why this would hurt the fertilizer in any way.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

The small tupperware containters a good idea. I never really noticed a problem with the KNO3 and KH2P04 You might not even need the K2SO4 as your probably getting enough from the other two. I haven't dosed K2SO4 in years. Just the other two and a micro mix.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Many EI dosing guideline site don't even include it anymore.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Frshwtr said:


> I don't think the water out of your tap is quite hot enough to get it over that saturation point. The water needs to be near boiling to supersaturate it. I don't see any reason why this would hurt the fertilizer in any way.


I actually boiled distilled water the first time. It almost completely dissolved the ferts, but they precipitated after a week or so. 

My main concern is what exactly is precipitating out of solution. Because I'm sure that when several big chunks of it get dosed, it could very well be 3 weeks worth of whatever it is. 

One of the things I brought over to planted tanks is my reef mindset, which in many examples hasn't really helped me lol, but the one thing I'll likely never shake is wanting to know exactly what I'm adding. 

I remember needing to dose kalkwasser because my hard corals were using up calcium faster than I could replace it with weekly water changes. I had the same issues with it because it just wouldn't mix well and my reef tank was getting super saturated every time my top off kicked on to top off evaporation. I spent a bunch of money on a calcium reactor, which definitely made it easier, but a lot more expensive from an equipment perspective when kalkwasser was like $30 for a jug that would last me over a year.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> One of the things I brought over to planted tanks is my reef mindset, which in many examples hasn't really helped me lol, but the one thing I'll likely never shake is wanting to know exactly what I'm adding.


Then don't pick up my habits LOL. I don't use scales just spoons and measure very roughly. I take the "Estimative" Part of EI literally. Funny thing is I once ran out of KNO3 and wanted it that day and found out this product was pure KNO3. With my smaller size tanks over the last few years I've been using the one container I bought for years.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

I just double the amount of water and double the dose size.


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## ak7v (Jan 9, 2022)

I bought one of these to mix my ferts:


Amazon.com



I also have a 1000 mL beaker to mix in. The combo works well for me.

I also add some Seachem Flourish to hopefully prevent scum/mold/etc. from growing

(Don't heat your remineralizing CaSO4.2H2O -- I made that mistake, and it becomes less soluble as temperature increases.)


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## Katmanreef (Jul 6, 2017)

ddiomede said:


> I actually boiled distilled water the first time. It almost completely dissolved the ferts, but they precipitated after a week or so.
> 
> My main concern is what exactly is precipitating out of solution. Because I'm sure that when several big chunks of it get dosed, it could very well be 3 weeks worth of whatever it is.
> 
> ...


You can use one of these and keep your daily doses dry in the individual container. They even come out for ease of use. You can dissolve in tank water, or dump it right in. Hope this helps!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

ak7v said:


> I bought one of these to mix my ferts:
> 
> 
> Amazon.com
> ...


Wow, that is something that I’d have never even considered!


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

ak7v said:


> I also add some Seachem Flourish to hopefully prevent scum/mold/etc. from growing


I thought that Flourish was just fertilizer. How will it prevent mold etc?

I am interested because my autodoser container gets mold and biofilm before it is even half empty.


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## Katmanreef (Jul 6, 2017)

mourip said:


> I thought that Flourish was just fertilizer. How will it prevent mold etc?
> 
> I am interested because my autodoser container gets mold and biofilm before it is even half empty.


I think he means to say Flourish Excel


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Some interesting methods, but I'm going to stick with scoop, shake, dump. You can also front-load macros in high tech so you would only dose once a week. How many of you are doing that or tried it.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

Katmanreef said:


> I think he means to say Flourish Excel


Flourish Seachem Excel 

Pretty sure you are right. Yesterday I refilled my reservoir and added some Excel. Hopefully it will help. 
The growth in the reservoir is ugly but my guess is that it is probably not harmful...


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## ak7v (Jan 9, 2022)

Katmanreef said:


> I think he means to say Flourish Excel


Yep, my mistake - I meant Excel


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

After asking my friends if I could borrow an 18 gauge nailer and being unable to coordinate schedules, I went onto amazon and found a Metabo 18 gauge nailer for $50, which is like half off so I ordered it. I basically have everything I need to finish off the stand, and possibly the doors as well (not sure if I have enough 1/4" material for the panels). 

The last couple days I've been focused on the ever increasing amount of yard work I need to get done. I'm hoping that tomorrow after work I'll have some time to start finish sanding and staining. 

I received a pack of 10 Tupperware cups with screw on lids and used six for Sunday - Friday's dry ferts. I printed up labels on my label maker with the each day and once I run out of the new bottles of solution I made I'll start using dry ferts. Since I had 4 jars leftover I printed out labels for each fert and dumped the remainder into each of the cups. The NilocG packaging is kind of a pain to use so the cups will be much easier to grab 1 tsp, 1/2 tsp, etc. out of without trying to stick my hand into the bag and needing multiple attempts to get a level scoopful out. 

I like the idea of dosing this way because I can easily tweak the recipe from week to week. For example if nitrates are too high, I can reduce the amount of KNO3. If they drop too low, I can increase it. With the 500ml bottles, I'm stuck with whatever I've already mixed up for 8 weeks unless I want to dump it out and start over. 

I did notice a difference in the amount of ferts sitting at the bottom of the bottles I just mixed up a couple days ago. If you're using the recipe for 125 gallons at 25ml, you're going to see a lot of sediment at the bottom of the bottles. Using the 20ml for 90 gallon recipe, while there is some sediment, it's far less so I'm assuming that the water just can't hold that many ferts in solution before it precipitates out, or just won't dissolve it at all. 

I likely won't have the stand finished this weekend because of the doors. But I should be able to get the trim stained, poly applied, and installed by Sunday evening. The doors will likely get worked on next week separately. I'll definitely get pics up once that part is all done, but I do plan on getting tank pics up by tomorrow night. 

Aside from that, everything is good with the tank. I have noticed that the sand has taken on a more brownish tinge so I'm assuming that they're diatoms since the tank is still kind of new. 

I'd like to run over to the LFS Sunday to scoop up another 10 Otocinclus. I'll probably wait a couple more weeks before I start thinking about adding the cory cats. With the tank just sort of humming along, I don't want to change too much too quickly. I do need the oto cats though since I am seeing a bit more biofilm on the glass than normal. 

I didn't do any maintenance on the Oase this week. I'm planning on waiting until Saturday when water change day comes, or maybe Sunday since I'm planning on adding more pumice to one more tray. I'm really tempted to just swap it all over since the GLA canister has been running non stop for well over a month so the lava rock in that should be full of beneficial bacteria. I think it will depend heavily on just how many trays would need to be swapped over to pumice. If it's two trays then it shouldn't be an issue but if it's 3, I might hold off and just do one tray and then do the other two in a couple weeks. 

I'm hoping that I can get a lot of these projects I've been working on in my house done since most are in varying degrees of completion and just need a solid few hours each to knock them out. I'm thinking by September I'll have fewer projects to do and will be able to start focusing on plumbing the GLA in PVC.

ETA: The one mod I'd love to make is mounting some sliders with 1/2" ply on top so that when I need to remove a canister for maintenance, I just need to slide the ply out and just lift the canister straight up. I really wish I'd have seen the Oase stands prior to starting the build on mine because I could have accounted for this in the design. It's too late to do it now unfortunately. The 850 and the GLA canister are ridiculously heavy and I can totally see rolling the tray out and the weight of the filled canisters ripping the screws out of the plywood base underneath. I have cross braces underneath but they're really not in the right position to provide support for the sliders. If I were to have redone this, rather than using plywood as a base I'd have used some 1X6's or something as the base, mounted above the cross braces. If I set up another tank, I'll probably take this into account with my stand design so that it can be incorporated. Too late now unfortunately but it would have been a nice addition.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

Just curious, did you get around to crimping and covering the weed garden outside? I'm curious to see if it worked for you like it does for me =)


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

jellopuddinpop said:


> Just curious, did you get around to crimping and covering the weed garden outside? I'm curious to see if it worked for you like it does for me =)


I was planning on doing that but my dad who lives next door is selling his home and hired landscapers to take care of a few areas he wanted improved on his property and paid them a few extra bucks to clear that area for me. I didn't know he intended on doing that because I walked outside and what looked like a wildly overgrown area with weeds over 7 foot tall was basically a plot of dirt lol. 

I initially was going to wait another two weeks to try out your suggesting since the best temps for sod won't be hitting my region until maybe the first or second week of September. But my next project for that area is raking out all of the rocks and taking some soil samples to get tested to see if I need any amendments. Based on what the soil looks like, I honestly don't think it'll need anything because it's really black and loamy. But just to set my mind at ease I'll get it tested. I don't want to spend money on sod and put in effort laying it only for it to die. If I didn't test I'd probably buy 1" worth of top dressing and till it in, add some ferts, and then lay the sod down.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I'll try to get some pics up tomorrow after the lights come on. This weekend has been filled with knocking items off my todo list. 

Around 6:30pm yesterday I had some time so I brought all the trim pieces and doors outside and finish sanded them and then used a tack cloth to remove the dust. Starting with the trim I began applying stain, waiting about 10 minutes, then wiping off and continuing on. I did one side of the doors as well. This morning after taking the dog for a walk I brought the doors outside and stained the other sides. Last night the sun was already set when I finished up and this morning the stain is still tacky. I'm planning to leave the trim alone and seeing how much they dry. The poly I'm planning to use only requires about two coats, three at most from my experience with the butcher block top for the stand. Unfortunately with 2 hours between coats, there's no way I'll get to the poly today on anything. 

The plan is to get a coat of poly on all the trim and one side of the doors, let it dry, sand it, then do a second coat. Once that dries I'll take a look and see if everything needs a third coat and sand again if they do. If not, then I'll apply poly to the other side of the doors and the edges and apply the same treatment. Once the poly fully cures on the trim I'll install it. One thing the doors needs are the panels to be cut, primed, and painted white. Once that's done I'll glue them in. 

I didn't get around to doing the water change last night so I'll need to get that done this evening. 

Tank is doing great though. Only negative thing that happened is at some point one of the rasbora decided to take the leap of faith because I found one behind the tank when I was vacuuming. Always a crappy thing to find but without a hood it's not a matter of if, but when a fish is going to go kamikaze.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Since I haven't updated with pics in a while, I'm going to make an attempt to this evening. 

A buddy asked me to take pics of the doors I'm building for the stand since I have stain applied to them and he's working on a project for a client out of the same material and will be using the same stain. Poly hasn't yet been applied yet but will be at some point during this week, but here are the doors with the stain curing. The panel will be all white. 










I have dowels underneath just to keep the doors off the floor. I actually like the way they look more so than when I first applied the stain. This should match what little you can see of the butcher block top of the stand since I used the same stain, but a different wood species.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

It's been a bit since the last post and FTS but here goes:










I've been working on other projects so I've just kind of let this tank grow. I wanted to get an FTS up before I trim the stem plants but you can see they're all growing pretty well. 

The one issue that cropped up is GSA. I noticed it on a couple buce leaves, then on the glass. From what I've read it's low potassium or phosphates (I forget at the moment which) but that's not possible with EI. My light cycle is lights kick on at 4pm and ramp up to full sun at 4:30pm, then at 10:30pm there's a half hour ramp down until lights off. So 7 hours but 6.5 at full sun. Maybe I need to cut the light cycle back another hour? 

Anyhow, I'm considering moving all Rotala over to the left, and then moving the mermaid weed to the right of where it is and then figuring out another stem plant to add. I may move the H'ra to the right and the red Rotala left, and then moving the orange juice Rotala I have on the right side of the tank, to the right side of that left mound right next to the H'ra. 

The MC is starting to carpet, and the pogo is growing really well. 

The one branch that's pointing straight up just left of center bothers me. I may glue some H Pin onto the top and then add more moss onto that branch. 

I'll try to get more of my thoughts down sometime this week when I'm not rushing a post like I am now.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I did a trimming and water change yesterday. 

This morning I tested PO4 and I was in between colors and I'd guess about 3ppm or so. 

I'll test again tomorrow morning after the plants have had a full day to use up as much phosphates before the next macro dosing. 

I suspect the GSA is due to lighting. My photoperiod isn't crazy, but I do have the light like 3" or so off the surface so maybe raising it an inch or two makes sense. 

CO2 has been consistent. I calibrated last night after the water change and it was .6 off on the "4" solution and only .1 off on the "7" solution. I'll need to make it a point to calibrate it exactly every 4 weeks going forward. But even at that, it wasn't off all that much. 

My thoughts are that this isn't phosphate related and it has to do with light. I can increase the amount of phosphates I'm adding but I'm thinking that raising the light an inch or two and seeing if the GSA stops, then I'll have my answer. If it just slows down, then I'll raise the light up another inch or so. 

I really need to borrow the PAR meter from my local club soon to really understand how much light I'm getting.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Tank looks good! I see nice healthy plant growth. Looks like it could be time to trim background stems and get thicken up the groups.

GSA, yeah I doubt it's a P issue from what your saying. I would reduce peak light period and increase WCs. Could also go away with additional plant mass/growth. Remember you have alot of hardscape. It's much harder to rely on overwhelming plant mass to solve algae issues.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Tank looks good! I see nice healthy plant growth. Looks like it could be time to trim background stems and get thicken up the groups.
> 
> GSA, yeah I doubt it's a P issue from what your saying. I would reduce peak light period and increase WCs. Could also go away with additional plant mass/growth. Remember you have alot of hardscape. It's much harder to rely on overwhelming plant mass to solve algae issues.


Thanks! I've been really pleased with how everything is growing in. I suspect you're right though...the lighting schedule needs to be reduced a bit more. Ever since using the NilocG recipe one tank size down, nitrates have held steady throughout the week at about 30ppm. There's absolutely no hint of color changing in the H'ra which I've learned to sort of use as a canary in the coal mine for nitrate levels. 

I tossed in the pothocarry with three plants so hopefully that will help suck some nutrients up. I'll probably reduce the photoperiod by an hour tonight. 

The one way I know that the lighting is a bit too strong is that the surviving Macandra stems are growing sideways and sending up shoots lol. I may move the fixture forward a bit more and also raise it an inch. 

Aside from the GSA everything is doing great. My water changes are roughly 70% per week. 

I'm hoping to have my RODI mounted to the wall and the 55 gallon rubbermaid in place at some point in September. 

I have the cabinet doors stained, poly'd, and just need to prime and paint the panels and then glue them in. The weather hasn't been cooperative over the weekend. I'm planning to spray the panels to avoid roller texture or brush marks and the humidity was just too high over the weekend and way too hot out and today it's storming lol. I picked up some good quality rattle cans so it should turn out pretty nice. I'm hoping to have doors on the stand by the weekend. It'll be a relief to finally be done with the stand.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Thanks! I've been really pleased with how everything is growing in. I suspect you're right though...the lighting schedule needs to be reduced a bit more. Ever since using the NilocG recipe one tank size down, nitrates have held steady throughout the week at about 30ppm. There's absolutely no hint of color changing in the H'ra which I've learned to sort of use as a canary in the coal mine for nitrate levels.
> 
> I tossed in the pothocarry with three plants so hopefully that will help suck some nutrients up. I'll probably reduce the photoperiod by an hour tonight.
> 
> ...


Sounds like you maxed out the WCs so you have light, carbon/purgien, lower temp a bit? Everything helps especially when you can't fill the whole footprint with plants. Lighting yes, you can reduce overall length or reduce peak.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Sounds like you maxed out the WCs so you have light, carbon/purgien, lower temp a bit? Everything helps especially when you can't feel the whole footprint with plants. Lighting yes, you can reduce overall length or reduce peak.


I'm still running both carbon and purigen and temp is at 23C and never exceeds it. I think tonight I'll go ahead and cut an hour out of the light cycle and see what that does. 

I kind of got lazy last night and rather than replanting my cuttings, I tossed them all lol. Once they reach the surface again which should only be a week from now I'll cut and replant the tops and really cram them in together. I'm really looking forward to how the background will look once there's nice, dense growth back there. 

I'm glad I tested phosphates this morning and plan to test again tomorrow morning just to completely rule that out as being the cause.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

It's definitely not PO4. I tested this morning and the test was a bit bluer than yesterday's so it actually increased between days of macro dosing. Honestly it's so subtle of a difference that it could have been the exact same result. 

Anyway, I raised the lights about 1.5". Tonight I'll move them towards the front of the tank perhaps an inch or two. The lighting was also reduced by an hour....so one hour less at peak. 

Tonight the plan is to move the light forward, clean out the pre filter on the Oase, and maybe if I have time I'll trim the nano. I haven't updated that thread in a while and probably won't for a bit since there really aren't many updates. I'm just sort of maintaining it until I have time to drain it and rescape it. I'm just avoiding adding another to do onto my list while I'm working the current ones off. I created a storage space under my stairs so that I could go and clear out my storage unit, and all that needs to be done prior to moving stuff is giving it a good cleaning first and spraying ortho home defense as a preventative measure. As we get nearer to fall, my house seems to be the target of every spider in the neighborhood so this year I'm going to get ahead of them and make them look elsewhere by applying ortho home defense around my whole house and in certain areas that my dog can't get into.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> It's definitely not PO4. I tested this morning and the test was a bit bluer than yesterday's so it actually increased between days of macro dosing. Honestly it's so subtle of a difference that it could have been the exact same result.
> 
> Anyway, I raised the lights about 1.5". Tonight I'll move them towards the front of the tank perhaps an inch or two. The lighting was also reduced by an hour....so one hour less at peak.
> 
> Tonight the plan is to move the light forward, clean out the pre filter on the Oase, and maybe if I have time I'll trim the nano. I haven't updated that thread in a while and probably won't for a bit since there really aren't many updates. I'm just sort of maintaining it until I have time to drain it and rescape it. I'm just avoiding adding another to do onto my list while I'm working the current ones off. I created a storage space under my stairs so that I could go and clear out my storage unit, and all that needs to be done prior to moving stuff is giving it a good cleaning first and spraying ortho home defense as a preventative measure. As we get nearer to fall, my house seems to be the target of every spider in the neighborhood so this year I'm going to get ahead of them and make them look elsewhere by applying ortho home defense around my whole house and in certain areas that my dog can't get into.


Makes sense, with all that hardscape there isn't alot of wiggle room with lighting and excess organics so those are the two factors to me that are most important. Of course getting as many stems in there as possible will also increase the likelihood of staying algae free within a reasonable maintenance routine.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Makes sense, with all that hardscape there isn't alot of wiggle room with lighting and excess organics so those are the two factors to me that are most important. Of course getting as many stems in there as possible will also increase the likelihood of staying algae free within a reasonable maintenance routine.


I'm reconsidering a couple of the stem plants since they're growing so slowly: Alternathera Lilacina and Roseafolia. They're both growing ridiculously slow, although the former is getting closer to the surface while the latter is just kind of growing like a larger leaf AR mini. I'd like to add a couple more stems to the back to kind of cram them in a bit better and was thinking maybe something like a Limnophila Hippuridoides and see how that grows. I was also considering taking the Bacopa Salzmannii SG cuttings from my nano and adding them as well. 

With the amount of flow in the tank, I really need the stem plants to turn into bushes to avoid being tossed around. 

I'm curious to see how well the monstera plants I added will do. They arrived in somewhat rough shape so it'll be interesting to see if or how long it'll take for them to start perking up and growing, along with how many nutrients they'll soak up.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

Not sure which type of monstera you added, but as it grows out, be on the lookout for it starving out your submerged plants. I've got 2 Adansonii and 1 Deliciosa plus 2 Pothos growing out of my 5' tank, and I'm having to add absurd amounts of fertilizers per week. So much so that I've moved to mixing macros by the gallon


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> Not sure which type of monstera you added, but as it grows out, be on the lookout for it starving out your submerged plants. I've got 2 Adansonii and 1 Deliciosa plus 2 Pothos growing out of my 5' tank, and I'm having to add absurd amounts of fertilizers per week. So much so that I've moved to mixing macros by the gallon


I ordered 1 Adansonii and 2 Deliciosa. That's crazy that they're sucking up that much! My plan is once the stem plants really fill in and everything grows out even more, I'll probably pull them out one by one. I'm considering building a tall hutch/cabinet to sit next to the tank and will likely pot them and sit them on top of whatever I build. Thanks for the heads up though...I'd have been trying to figure out why my dose isn't cutting it once the monstera start growing lol.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I ordered 1 Adansonii and 2 Deliciosa. That's crazy that they're sucking up that much! My plan is once the stem plants really fill in and everything grows out even more, I'll probably pull them out one by one. I'm considering building a tall hutch/cabinet to sit next to the tank and will likely pot them and sit them on top of whatever I build. Thanks for the heads up though...I'd have been trying to figure out why my dose isn't cutting it once the monstera start growing lol.


A while back, people starting putting bamboo branches in their tanks to suck up ferts. The bamboo would grow large root systems and would eventually be removed. I think the emersed plants your talking about look better.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> A while back, people starting putting bamboo branches in their tanks to suck up ferts. The bamboo would grow large root systems and would eventually be removed. I think the emersed plants your talking about look better.


I think I may need to reevaluate what I'm dosing because I've noticed small pinholes on the buce leaves. I suspect that I might not be dosing enough K. I think in my zeal to get nitrates to be near 30ppm by the end of the weed I inadvertently caused a K deficiency. 

I think the action that makes the most sense is to use the recipe I was using previously since I wasn't dealing with the issues I'm currently dealing with. 

Would this be the right move to make?


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

What were and what are you currently dosing for K?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> What were and what are you currently dosing for K?


I was using the 25ml for 125 gallon recipe off the NilocG website, and began dosing it at 15ml once I noticed that nitrates were skyrocketing. About 2 weeks ago I mixed up the 20ml per 90 gallons recipe and began dosing that. Once I run out I have dry ferts measured out into small rubbermaid cups and I believe using the 100-125 gallon dry fert recipe with half a dose of K2SO4 rather than their recommendation. 

I'm thinking I may just finish off the week with what I already have mixed up in a solution and just use the seachem potassium to supplement those levels until Sunday when I switch over to dry ferts. 

This is one of the reasons I decided that I'll move to dry fert dosing....if there's a deficiency I can quickly add more of whatever is deficient rather than dumping out the solution and starting over. That and for the levels it seems I need, I can't get the ferts to fully dissolve or remain in solution.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I was using the 25ml for 125 gallon recipe off the NilocG website, and began dosing it at 15ml once I noticed that nitrates were skyrocketing. About 2 weeks ago I mixed up the 20ml per 90 gallons recipe and began dosing that. Once I run out I have dry ferts measured out into small rubbermaid cups and I believe using the 100-125 gallon dry fert recipe with half a dose of K2SO4 rather than their recommendation.
> 
> I'm thinking I may just finish off the week with what I already have mixed up in a solution and just use the seachem potassium to supplement those levels until Sunday when I switch over to dry ferts.
> 
> This is one of the reasons I decided that I'll move to dry fert dosing....if there's a deficiency I can quickly add more of whatever is deficient rather than dumping out the solution and starting over. That and for the levels it seems I need, I can't get the ferts to fully dissolve or remain in solution.


Don't be mislead by pinhole info related to low K. Many deficiences look similar for a variety of reasons. If your dosing those levels with KNO3 and KH2P04 I doubt you have a K deficiency. Granted every tank is different, but I don't even dose K separately and have a ton of BUCE with no deficiency. Are the leaves on the Buce normal looking other than the pinholes?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Don't be mislead by pinhole info related to low K. Many deficiences look similar for a variety of reasons. If your dosing those levels with KNO3 and KH2P04 I doubt you have a K deficiency. Granted every tank is different, but I don't even dose K separately and have a ton of BUCE with no deficiency. Are the leaves on the Buce normal looking other than the pinholes?


The leaves aside from the pinholes look fine. Everything else looks fine also which is what makes me question what exactly is happening. No leaves are yellowing or showing any other sorts of deficiencies. You'd think the fastest growing plants would be the first to show but they all seem to look fine. Between this issue and the GSA, I'm kind of at a loss. The only logical thing to do is make sure I don't do anything drastic, and don't expect results very quickly. I'll switch over to dry ferts on Sunday which is the start of the dosing week and see how any new leaves look as they grow in. Temp and CO2 have both been stable so I can rule them out right away. I raised the light fixture and cut the peak cycle back one hour so it'll probably be a couple weeks before I notice anything from just doing that. I really wish they made a freshwater potassium test kit. They did at one time years ago, but I haven't been able to track one down recently.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> The leaves aside from the pinholes look fine. Everything else looks fine also which is what makes me question what exactly is happening. No leaves are yellowing or showing any other sorts of deficiencies. You'd think the fastest growing plants would be the first to show but they all seem to look fine. Between this issue and the GSA, I'm kind of at a loss. The only logical thing to do is make sure I don't do anything drastic, and don't expect results very quickly. I'll switch over to dry ferts on Sunday which is the start of the dosing week and see how any new leaves look as they grow in. Temp and CO2 have both been stable so I can rule them out right away. I raised the light fixture and cut the peak cycle back one hour so it'll probably be a couple weeks before I notice anything from just doing that. I really wish they made a freshwater potassium test kit. They did at one time years ago, but I haven't been able to track one down recently.


I understand the need to test, especially when a tank is new, but one reason I do EI is I feel as long as change water on a regular basis and dose in the guidelines things should be good. Your using tap? What is your GH?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I understand the need to test, especially when a tank is new, but one reason I do EI is I feel as long as change water on a regular basis and dose in the guidelines things should be good. Your using tap? What is your GH?


Yep I'm using tap. My GH is 8 or 9 and KH is 6. Eventually I'll be moving to 50% tap and 50% RODI, but I'm at least a month away from doing that. 

I loathe testing as well but whenever an issue pops up like this, I always want to get down to the root cause to solve the problem. If the problem is a nutrient deficiency, then I think when I move towards dry dosing, that may help solve the problem. 

One of my concerns with making up a solution of ferts is that with some precipitating out of solution or just not dissolving, I imagine that each dose contains differing levels of nutrients. 

I'll probably just go ahead and run every test I have this evening and see where everything is at rather than just nitrate and phosphates.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Yep I'm using tap. My GH is 8 or 9 and KH is 6. Eventually I'll be moving to 50% tap and 50% RODI, but I'm at least a month away from doing that.
> 
> I loathe testing as well but whenever an issue pops up like this, I always want to get down to the root cause to solve the problem. If the problem is a nutrient deficiency, then I think when I move towards dry dosing, that may help solve the problem.
> 
> ...


GH/KH sounds good, Your numbers are close to mine. Which micromix did you buy? Your currently using Nilcog AIO right?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> GH/KH sounds good, Your numbers are close to mine. Which micromix did you buy? Your currently using Nilcog AIO right?


I bought this kit.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I bought this kit.


Yep, that's the classic without the booster? Since your using tap. Does it show a breakdown by % of what's in the CSM+B. I'm assuming they're all similar just curious.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Yep, that's the classic without the booster? Since your using tap. Does it show a breakdown by % of what's in the CSM+B. I'm assuming they're all similar just curious.


Yep, without the booster. 

This is what they have listed on the product page for the CSM+B:



> Total magnesium(water soluble chelated mg) 1.5%
> Copper(chelated) 0.1%
> Iron (chelated) 7.0%
> Manganese(chelated) 2.0%
> ...


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Yep, without the booster.
> 
> This is what they have listed on the product page for the CSM+B:


When EI was somewhat newer and there weren't that many vendors selling dry ferts I used to buy here:



Nutritrace CSM + Boron – Aquarium Fertilizer



Same exact specifications as what you purchased. 

Just for the hell of it, when I ran out of my last batch of micro mix. I bought this one from GLA, I mainly got it because of the EDTA/DTPA chelation that prevents precipitation out of the solution at low or higher PH. Funny thing is I didn't even realize it didn't contain any magnesium, but so far so good.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> When EI was somewhat newer and there weren't that many vendors selling dry ferts I used to buy here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I took a really close look at everything in the tank and the pinholes seem to be only a problem with the buce. It's not just one type of buce either, it's all of them. 

My suspicion on what's happening is that now that the plants are in full growth mode, they're sucking some nutrients out of the water column faster than I can dose it. 

I'll keep dosing out of my bottles and after doing the water change on Saturday, Sunday will be the first dosing day so I'll start using dry ferts. I may try to prune the affected leaves so that each plant can focus on growing new leaves. The crazy thing is that the new growth all looks great. I just want to make sure that I'm not doing anything drastic since that never seems to turn out well, especially in a newer tank. 

While it's too early to tell, I haven't seen the GSA continue to progress. The glass is completely free from GSA. The change in lighting seems to have helped.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Quick update...

Between the water change this weekend, and the previous one I didn't bother cleaning the glass to see if any GSA would appear. It did, but hasn't seemed to progress very much elsewhere in the tank. 

On Sunday I did my first dry dosing so hopefully the added nutrients will help. 

I have noticed some ill effects from reducing my dosing levels over the last 4-6 weeks. The AR Mini leaves, the new ones are growing in sort of contorted. 

Many of the older leaves on the AR mini are full of holes, along with many of the buce. I think it's too early yet to tell if the reduced lighting and raising the fixture about an inch and a half has had any effect but after another full week I should notice some sort of change. 

The stems I trimmed back are all beginning to put on new growth. I suspect by next week they'll probably all be near the top of the tank again. Once that happens I'll do another trimming and replant the tops to thicken up the plant mass. 

Aside from that I've been pretty busy trying to knock some projects out. I've had a storage unit for a number of years that kept a lot of my hobby stuff. I think it was Thursday last week that I made my first trip there and I've gone nearly every day loading up what I can and bringing it back to my house and throwing stuff out that is either no longer good, I'll never use and can't be sold, etc. I did pull my custom acrylic tank that I've never used out and will likely use it as a reef tank. It's roughly 30-35 gallons (a cube). That'll be a build for the winter, if I have extra funds laying around again. I probably have 4-5 more trips left to do. Once I have everything here and the unit cleaned out, I'll organize everything and get it into the storage I created under my stairs earlier this year. That'll check off 3 different things from my list. Once I finish this I'll pivot to the outdoor projects I need to tackle. I'm just tired of paying $100 per month for storing stuff I rarely use and want to get this done. 

Doing this project has set me back from completing my cabinet doors for the stand. Hopefully I'll be able to get back on that soon because they're so close to being done. 

I'd love to try to head over to the LFS to pick up another 10 otocinclus but unless I can head over at some point during lunch this week, it'll likely need to wait until next week. I'll probably wait another 3-4 weeks after that and then go pick up a dozen panda corydoras.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Thanks for the update. Unless you have very hard water, I've rarely seen benefits to reduced dosing. I forget did you ever measure PAR?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Thanks for the update. Unless you have very hard water, I've rarely seen benefits to reduced dosing. I forget did you ever measure PAR?


Unfortunately I haven't. I just haven't been able to make time to reserve the PAR meter and then go pick it up, and drop it off from wherever the person who has it lives. 

Once we hit the first frost here in the midwest, a lot of time will open up for me since I won't need to split my time between outdoor projects and indoor ones. I don't have a great deal of indoor projects to do, and am finishing some of them as we speak so I'll finally have free time. I never thought I'd ever say this, but I'm glad that winter is getting close. Between work and all of the projects I have going, there are some Saturdays were I'm so burned out that I basically clear my schedule and do absolutely nothing. This past Saturday was one of those days. This coming weekend they're calling for rain so that should help me focus on knocking out this storage project. Once that's done I can mount my RODI to the wall, set up my 55 gallon rubbermaid, and then start doing 50/50 tap/RODI for water changes. One of the great things about working on this storage clean out project is I found my old Eheim return pump I used on a tank I took down about 8-9 years ago, and then promptly found the exact same pump, brand new in the box. With two working pumps, it should make water changes a whole lot easier, at least from the perspective of filling the tank back up.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Small update:

The one thing that has been pretty strange is that my tank has been slightly cloudy. Initially I thought that maybe the glass had a film on it, but when looking down into the tank, it's definitely cloudy. 

I started looking back through this journal and my problems seemed to have all started when I added Purigen. Prior to that, the tank was perfectly clear, for the most part. 

When I do the water change this weekend, I'm going to continue to leave the Purigen in the tank, and if the cloudiness doesn't subside next week, I'll remove it the following water change and see if there are any changes to any of the issues that have popped up. I'm wondering if the Purigen is sucking some needed minerals out of the water column that the plants need. 

I plan on running a full battery of tests tonight just to make sure everything I can test for is within acceptable ranges. 

Fish are doing great though and aside from the previously mentioned issues, everything else seems to be doing well.


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## RLee (Sep 21, 2008)

ddiomede said:


> Small update:
> 
> The one thing that has been pretty strange is that my tank has been slightly cloudy. Initially I thought that maybe the glass had a film on it, but when looking down into the tank, it's definitely cloudy.
> 
> ...


Cloudy/ milky water is usually a bacterial bloom. Should go away on its own has nothing to do with the purigen. If you have a UV sterilizer that will clean it up fast.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I've been slacking on this thread but wanted to at least give an update. 

Last weekend I had a tooth begin being extremely sensitive to cold. It rained on Saturday so I wasn't able to get much done aside from going and canceling my storage unit since it was already all cleaned out and entertaining guests. 

On Sunday I spent about 10 hours on one section of my front lawn. Between pulling weeds, mowing, dethatching, leveling, fertilizing, seeding, adding top dressing, and watering it in, I was so burned out that after a shower I spent the next hour on the couch before heading to bed. Needless to say I didn't get a water change in. 

On Monday morning the cold sensitive tooth began hurting but it would go in waves. Tuesday it was full on "I need a root canal" pain. Called my dentist but the office is closed on Tuesdays so I called him directly. He called in a script for some antibiotics and met me at the office to take an xray. He doesn't do root canals so he referred me to someone else. I had to travel to meet with a client yesterday and just returned about an hour ago and will hopefully do the water change tonight after work. I'll do another on Saturday as well for the heck of it. 

The tank seems fine though. Everything looks to be growing as expected and the glass needs to be cleaned, but aside from that everything is roughly the same. I'll do an update tomorrow once the water clears after the water change. I'll be moving a few things around before the water change so I'll have some pics to share with some new plants. 

Traveling to meet a client with a bad toothache is not a great experience lol. Even worse is they can't get me in until September 1st so I'll be popping antibiotics, Advil, and Tylenol for the next week. 

I have one more section of lawn in front of my house to do all the work on again and it needs to be done no later than this weekend since I'm seeding bare areas and overseeding the entire lawn. If I wait any longer, there might not be enough time before the first frost of the year. Next weekend or the weekend after I'll be laying sod in the backyard. I probably need a good 10 bags of soil to amend into what's already there. Quite a bit of work left to do outside, but I'm getting closer to being done. The bigger projects will be done next year, and I'll be hiring people to do them rather than beating myself up.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Thanks for the update, I've had my share of root canals so I feel your pain. Funny you mentioned your lawn, because mine has taken a beating from the 90+ weather in NY for a while so I need to reseed some areas, but it's still I think too hot here. 

Glad the tank is humming along. I wouldn't put off water changes too long or they'll be another lawn to redo.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Thanks for the update, I've had my share of root canals so I feel your pain. Funny you mentioned your lawn, because mine has taken a beating from the 90+ weather in NY for a while so I need to reseed some areas, but it's still I think too hot here.
> 
> Glad the tank is humming along. I wouldn't put off water changes too long or they'll be another lawn to redo.


For sure lol. I'm going to do one today, and then another on Saturday. 

Last year when I bought my house, it was clear that the lawn was neglected for a long time because of how unlevel it was. Hopefully going through the lawn and adding top dressing into all the holes, with top dressing the entire lawn afterwards will help. In spring I'll probably use sand to finish leveling it because I'm sure I missed some areas. I probably spent about two hours carefully digging up weeds, roots included. I have clover in one area and I didn't get it all because it sends runners out and it was impossible to get them all. Hopefully a nice thick lawn will choke them out. 

Even though after I finished the lawn look terrible with patches of black dirt all over, it's already starting to look better as the existing grass is peaking through the top dressing, and some blades sort of look like new seed that sprouted, which doesn't make sense since it's supposed to take Kentucky blue grass 7-10 days to germinate, and it's only been 3-ish days so far. 

The summer here was pretty rough too. Lots of yellow lawns around me. My next door neighbor is a retired greenskeeper so I usually get some decent advice from him.


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## Bootsy (Jul 4, 2021)

Well, you could do what our neighbors in San Diego did — cover your yard in pebbly concrete and paint it green. We were totally fooled!!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Bootsy said:


> Well, you could do what our neighbors in San Diego did — cover your yard in pebbly concrete and paint it green. We were totally fooled!!


Unfortunately my town won't allow anything but grass on the easement between the street and sidewalk. I actually went over earlier this year and asked about turning it into a wildflower garden, or rock garden or something. They basically don't want to have to replace anything that gets torn up in the event another ATT event happens. 

It's a crappy situation all around because while I don't technically own it, I'm responsible for maintaining it and since it's in front of my house, I don't want it to look like crap so I'm forced to work on it. 

Wait until my building department learns about the garage I want to build next year that technically meets their code requirements, but doesn't really honor the spirit of their codes for garages lol. I want a second level in the garage for a workshop, but there are height restrictions which are set by the height of the roof. If you build a flat roof, you get a second floor lol. The funny thing is that they'll have no choice but to approve it since it technically meets the code


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Bootsy said:


> Well, you could do what our neighbors in San Diego did — cover your yard in pebbly concrete and paint it green. We were totally fooled!!


Is that happening more and more do to a water restriction requirement. San Diego seems to have the perfect weather for growing grass. Spent two weeks there a few years ago and couldn't believe the weather.



ddiomede said:


> Wait until my building department learns about the garage I want to build next year that technically meets their code requirements, but doesn't really honor the spirit of their codes for garages lol. I want a second level in the garage for a workshop, but there are height restrictions which are set by the height of the roof. If you build a flat roof, you get a second floor lol. The funny thing is that they'll have no choice but to approve it since it technically meets the code


Stick it to the man!


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## Bootsy (Jul 4, 2021)

Asteroid said:


> Is that happening more and more do to a water restriction requirement. San Diego seems to have the perfect weather for growing grass. Spent two weeks there a few years ago and couldn't believe the weather.
> 
> 
> 
> Stick it to the man!


This was over 20 years ago. There has been a drought in southern California for, like, ever. But that neighbor was just kind of an old crank. 
The weather there is truly amazing, but the dry season (April - November) is actually pretty tough on grass. That’s why you see a lot of ice plant and other succulent ground cover. Still miss it,


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I was hoping to get some pics up over the weekend, but Saturday I worked on my last section of lawn, didn't get a chance to finish because of how many weeds there are, and was wiped out by evening. Yesterday morning I decided since today is garbage day, I'd break apart the two aquarium stands I had in storage and get them into the trash. One of the stands was made of pine so they had 16 gauge nails holding in board. Like a moron, I began bending over and forcing the boards downwards to break the nails and the boards free. Every board took the same amount of effort, except the second to last board that gave way easier than the rest. Being bent over, and unexpectedly pushing a board free with less effort than I exerted, I hyperextended my lower back. 

On the bright side, I'm not thinking about my tooth, but my lower back exploded with pain to the point where it radiated into my hips and made it painful to walk. Needless to say I was laid up on the couch the rest of the day and evening. It sucked because I intended on working on the lawn right afterwards. Pain was pretty bad this morning, but I think the ibuprofen and Tylenol I was taking for the tooth seems to be working. I've injured my back in the same spot on my spine before, but I can tell that this was a more minor sprain since I was actually able to walk. The last time I was bed ridden for 2-3 days. 

Tank is doing fine though. Some of the stem plants that were shorter and didn't get trimmed have already reached the surface so they'll need to get trimmed soon. 

I was looking at the tank for hours yesterday, since that's where I was stuck after hurting my back and I think at some point in the near future I'll need to thin out some plants, replant, and remove some plants that just don't seem to be working out. 

The Pogostemon Helferi is growing like a weed. Basically wherever I put it, it fills the spot in within a couple weeks. The one problem I have is that it's crowding itself so I'll need to thin it out a little bit and plant so that each plant has room to grow. For whatever reason every Alternathera species I have just doesn't seem to be growing as readily as the rest of the plants. They are on the list of plants that will be removed. 

The Montecarlo is growing, but slowly. I'm honestly surprised at how slowly its spreading given how most of the other plants seem to be doing. The growth all looks very healthy, and it's all laying flat, but it's really taking time to spread out. 

The newest addition to the algae wars is hair algae. I'm basically combatting it by trimming off affected plants. I suspect I'm probably ready for some amano shrimp soon. Not sure if they eat hair algae, but they'll make a nice addition regardless. 

Livestock is all doing well. I've only had one death as far as I can tell....one of the Rasbora went airborne and was dried up behind the tank. I don't think I've lost any others but it's pretty tough to count them given how many there are. I have the same problem trying to count the Otocinclus. Next step is to buy another 10 Otocinclus. Once I have time to do the removal and replanting of some of the plants, after a week or so I'll find a dozen panda Cory cats and add them. 

This year has been pretty frustrating trying to complete so many different projects but I need a good 4 days of no health issues, and no surprise issues that pop up and I think I can knock them all out. I'd just love to get to that point where I can finish work, and then randomly decide how I want to spend my evening versus stressing about which project I have time to focus on. It feels like I've been working two full time jobs since May of last year. 

My aquarium doors are so close to being done and installed it's not even funny, but I'm held up by another project that's taking up space and not letting me paint the panels before they're ready to be glued up. 

I'll try to get some pics this week though.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

The one crazy thing I haven't mentioned is that I'm still running that same 10lbs tank of CO2 from June 23rd. I never would have thought that I'd get two months out of a tank. 

What's frustrating me about it is that I have an empty paintball tank needing to be filled but I'm waiting on this 10lbs tank to empty so that I can make the trip worth it. The needle literally hasn't moved since getting CO2 online. I check it every day because as soon as it moves, you get maybe a week out of it before it's completely empty. I might be forced to go this Saturday if the needle doesn't move this week. With my luck, it won't move, I'll go get the paintball tank refilled, and then a day later the needle will move and I'll have to go again that next Saturday lol.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Quick update:

That back sprain took about 6 days to get completely better. Last Thursday I went in for the root canal and was pleasantly surprised at how much faster they are, and far less painful than my last one in the early 90's. After getting home that was another story...the pain was almost unbearable so I spent a few hours laying down until the meds kicked in. I spent the rest of the long weekend just getting more progress completely on a few different projects. 

The tank is doing well though. I'll definitely get a few pics up tonight. Everything seems to be growing well and I trimmed during the last water change. 

The one thing I did was really thin out the weeping/willow moss. While I like super glue for the ease of use, the thing I don't like about it is that once the bottoms of the moss held in glue begins to rot away from not getting any light, the moss easily dislodges and winds up elsewhere in the tank. I tied up some moss on one branch I recently super glued just to give it some extra support and plan on doing the same to a couple other branches that I have moss on. 

I wound up pulling all the Alternathera Lilacina because it just wasn't growing very well. It must be something with my water because none of the Alternatheras are growing very well. The AR mini just doesn't seem like it likes my water because if it's close to the light, it just gets redder, but the leaves don't look great....very undulated. My plan is to start getting rid of them. 

I ordered the ADA moss tying thread and since I was ordering I threw in a TC of Ludwigia Arcuata in place of the Lilacina that I tossed. Eventually I'm going to redo all my stem plants, but I want to wait until I find Limnophila Hippuridoides and trim it once or twice. 

It seems like the GSA has begun slowing down. The only way I can tell is if I don't scrap the glass for two weeks, I was seeing GSA pop up on the glass, but it's been a couple weeks since the last cleaning and I'm no longer seeing it. 

The three changes I made were reducing the light cycle by an hour, raising the fixture about an inch, and using the full dose of K2SO4. 

Anyway, I'll get some pics up this evening for sure.

ETA: Almost forgot! I added another 10 Otocinclus. My LFS will be taking vacation starting on 9/15 and he won't be ordering until he gets back, but the next purchase will be either be a dozen Panda Cory cats, or I mentioned wanting another smaller school and he brought up Cardinal Tetras to add another color so I might do those. He's had the cardinals for a while so I might grab some. If anyone has any recommendations of how many I can add, while keeping in mind that I already have 20 oto cats, 4 SAE's, an Apisto, two dozen Harlequin Rasbora, and will eventual also have a dozen Panda Cory cats, I'd appreciate it.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Glad your back and tooth are OK, now lets see the pics:


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Here are a few pics from last night:

Left side first:










Center: 










Right: 










Right side looking down: 










And finally the FTS: 










You'll see how the AR Mini doesn't really look all that great. The one thing I neglected to provide an update on was the Mermaid Weed. It grows to a certain height and then the stem breaks off. Once I begin moving stem plants in the back, I'll likely give them one more shot by moving them to another spot and seeing how they do. 

I think the next thing that will be done is buying a bunch or two of that one stem plant I want and redoing the stem plants. More than likely the left side will just be all rotala and the right side Bacopa Salzmanii SG, Ludwigia Arcuata, Mermaid Weed, and Limnophila Hippuridoides. I also need to thin out the center path because the Pogo Helferi is growing like crazy.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

For the most part it looks like everything is doing pretty well. The Pogo and Blyxa look great. I can't really see the mermaid weed, When you say the stem breaks do you mean a healthy stem or one that is starting to rot on the bottom from lack of light?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> For the most part it looks like everything is doing pretty well. The Pogo and Blyxa look great. I can't really see the mermaid weed, When you say the stem breaks do you mean a healthy stem or one that is starting to rot on the bottom from lack of light?


It'll actually break about an inch and a half from the very top. 

The thing that is very strange is that these were from a TC, with extremely thin stems. I've seen them in person at the LFS from bunch plants and the stems are probably twice as thick. 

I think worst case is when I order the Limnophila, I add on a bunch of Mermaid Weed to see if maybe the TC's just don't do as well. They're still alive, but I haven't seen any thickening of the stems.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> It'll actually break about an inch and a half from the very top.
> 
> The thing that is very strange is that these were from a TC, with extremely thin stems. I've seen them in person at the LFS from bunch plants and the stems are probably twice as thick.
> 
> I think worst case is when I order the Limnophila, I add on a bunch of Mermaid Weed to see if maybe the TC's just don't do as well. They're still alive, but I haven't seen any thickening of the stems.


Not sure, mine where purchased as emersed stems, but I don't have the height your going for. I did notice that when I replant the tops and I trim off the lower leaves sometimes the stem snaps in half. That doesn't usually happen with most stems, so it could be just their makeup. I would think once they have matured in your tank it wouldn't matter if they were TC, but who knows. 

Are you still going for a MC carpet? Is the light getting there? One thing with carpets is that active soils definitely give it the initial growth spurt to fil in, with inert it seems to be a longer process.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Not sure, mine where purchased as emersed stems, but I don't have the height your going for. I did notice that when I replant the tops and I trim off the lower leaves sometimes the stem snaps in half. That doesn't usually happen with most stems, so it could be just their makeup. I would think once they have matured in your tank it wouldn't matter if they were TC, but who knows.
> 
> Are you still going for a MC carpet? Is the light getting there? One thing with carpets is that active soils definitely give it the initial growth spurt to fil in, with inert it seems to be a longer process.


I'm definitely going for a carpet. It seems like it's growing in spurts. It'll look the same for about a week, and then it spreads a little bit. It's probably not getting blasted by light, but it should be getting enough since it's hugging the sand. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes months before it fills in.


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## Matt at Poth-O-Carry (Jan 9, 2022)

ddiomede said:


> I tossed in the pothocarry with three plants so hopefully that will help suck some nutrients up. I'll probably reduce the photope


_nods in approval_ I hope your levels are coming down, how have they been this last month?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Matt at Poth-O-Carry said:


> _nods in approval_ I hope your levels are coming down, how have they been this last month?


I haven't tested anything in a while, but from an appearance perspective, the GSA issues seemed to stop progressing. I took a few different actions so I can't really tell which action helped, or if a combination of all of them helped. Since tonight is WC night, I'll probably run nitrate and phosphate tests to see where those are after a full week of EI dosing.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

It has been a while since my last update. 

A couple weeks ago I came down with Covid so I was out of commission for a while. After waiting about two weeks for a root canal, then throwing out my lower back, as soon as I felt like I was returning to normal I get hit with Covid. 

I missed a water change and noticed that my plants were starting to look angry. The Pogo Helferi really looked the worst, but many of the plants were exhibiting some sort of deficiency, or probably in this case toxicity from continuing to dose without doing the weekly water change. After doing the water change, the plants weren't getting worse, but they haven't yet recovered. 

This morning the GLA canister began making really strange noises....at least the DC pump was. I was planning on doing the water change today when the lights come on, which is in a few minutes, but I couldn't leave the pump to continue running without taking it apart. As soon as I unscrewed the intake side, I could see why it was making noise...it was filthy. There was a coating of reddish slime all over the impeller and the whole housing. I took it all apart and cleaned it, then opened the canister up and it too was filthy. 

Since the pumice has been running in the Oase for well over a month or so, I tossed all the lava rock, cleaned the inside of the GLA really well, and then bagged up pumice into about 8 bags and added them into the canister. I got it hooked back up, filled it with water, and then plugged it in and it went back into action as quiet as it has ever been. I think what it needs is maintenance about every 2 months going forward. So the next time I maintain this will be around Black Friday. 

I'm going to knock out the water change today, and get on maintaining the Oase as well. 

There is quite a bit of algae on the glass so that will need to be cleaned before I do the water change. 

I wouldn't at all be surprised if the GSA popped up a month or so ago due to the amount of detritus in the GLA filter. It was pretty bad. 

The one thing that being sick and skipping a water change proved is that if you're doing full EI, don't skip your water change lol. It would have sucked doing a water change in the condition I was in, but at least the plants wouldn't have suffered as much as it seems they did. 

Anyhow, I'm gonna go do another massive water change and get the rest of the maintenance done. I'll get some pics up this week. 

I'm finally starting to feel better though. Covid is definitely a strange virus. I only had a fever for about 3 days and once the fever broke, about 24 hours later I went to the doctor to get tested and tested negative already. But then the cough and congestion started, and then I lost my sense of taste and smell. The fatigue was also bad to the point where I'd take my dog for a 15 minute walk and come back feeling like I was in my 80's. Each day it got a little better, but I'm probably only at about 85% from my normal level of fitness.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

So after totally cleaning out and replacing the lava rock with 8 or so bags of pumice in the GLA filter, along with cleaning the Oase filter, my water for the first time has been crystal clear for a whole week! 

Since I set this tank up Memorial Day weekend, I've always dealt with a bit of cloudiness. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from and it would change from week to week to where it would never get crystal clear, always a slight haze in the water, to a bit more hazy. Water parameters always seemed to be fine, but nitrates always were higher than I expected them to be. 

With EI, you should be adding a known amount of nitrates per week, which in my case should have been less than 30ppm per week. The variables would be how much of that 30ppm is being used up by the plants and how much nitrate is being added due to fish waste. What was throwing me was the fact that nitrates were always over 50-60ppm and that didn't make sense. But after seeing the inside of the GLA filter is suddenly made perfect sense. 

Tomorrow I'll get another water change in and do a bit of trimming. The Rotala was one of the plants that seemed to suffer from missing a weekly water change where the new growth is very small and scraggly. The plan is to cut them down short, and then let them regrow. The Pogostemon Helferi Downoi is very, very slowly starting to recover. By slowly I mean just a casual look at the tank seems like nothing is happening, until you get close. I'll try to remember to take a pic tonight but what happened was each leaf basically turned into a needle. The thickness of the leaves are starting to return. 

I'm going to run some tests tonight and see where everything is at. I expect nitrates to be at or around 30ppm. 

The one other thing I'll be doing is pulling the terrestrial plants out of the tank. I think they've done their job and want to pull them before they cause an issue with stealing too many nutrients from the tank.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

I think it's a good example of how having heavy filtration doesn't keep a tank in good health. Whatever is in the filter is still going through the tank. Best defense are dense stems taking up nitrates. If you don't have the plant mass then you need the large regular water changes even more. Your tank has lots of hardscape, you need the water changes.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Been a while since the last update, but not really a whole lot to update. Everything is about the same. I trimmed back the rotala and they're only now starting to regrow. I really affected many of the plants with not being able to get a water change in when I had the rona. The pogo helferi still haven't recovered, however, I did notice new growth towards the bottom of the stems. What I think I'm going to do is once the new growth gets a bit bigger, I'm going to cut the original stems down to the base since they're not really covering. 

Most other plants are doing great though, especially all of the buce. 

My plan long term is to redo the stem section by moving all rotala to the left side and then focus on the right by adding some newer plants to the species that will be moved from the left side. 

I'll be doing full maintenance on the Oase on the 29th, and then about a month later on the GLA canister. The running plan is to maintain both canisters every two months. Depending on how bad they look on the inside I may need to alter that schedule. 

The one thing I really need to do is clean out my tubing. Since setting the tank up the tubing hasn't been cleaned so it's incredibly filthy. Each time I turn off a canister filter and then restart it, I get a cloud of reddish brown crap that shoots out from the tubing. 

Believe it or not I'm still on the same 10lbs CO2 tank. The reactor is definitely more efficient than the diffusers I'm used to. One bummer is the place that refilled my paintball canisters and the CO2 tanks sold the business to another company who then closed the doors to the public so I need to find another place. My paintball canisters are completely empty so I'll need to find a place to refill them soon. That nano tank will be getting taken down probably next month during the Thanksgiving four day weekend. I'll set it up again but I'm switching to PFS and basically doing a total reboot with new plants. 

I'll get some pics up this week. I'm hoping to get out in a week or two to see if the LFS has the Cory cats in stock yet. If not I may get a dozen cardinal tetras. 

I'm still blown away by the CO2 usage. I'm getting a full point drop and the tank has been running strong since Memorial Day. I can't tell how much is left in it because the gauge has yet to move.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

ddiomede said:


> Been a while since the last update, but not really a whole lot to update. Everything is about the same. I trimmed back the rotala and they're only now starting to regrow. I really affected many of the plants with not being able to get a water change in when I had the rona. The pogo helferi still haven't recovered, however, I did notice new growth towards the bottom of the stems. What I think I'm going to do is once the new growth gets a bit bigger, I'm going to cut the original stems down to the base since they're not really covering.
> 
> Most other plants are doing great though, especially all of the buce.
> 
> ...


I switched to black opaque tubing so I don't have to clean it ever. I get some floaty chunks occasionally but these days whatever is inside those tubes is strong enough to hold on . I don't mind because it's not visible on the outside.

Reactors are soooo much better then diffusers, it is 1) amazing more companies don't sell reactors, and 2) that more people don't use them regardless. Glad things are generally going well.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

minorhero said:


> I switched to black opaque tubing so I don't have to clean it ever. I get some floaty chunks occasionally but these days whatever is inside those tubes is strong enough to hold on . I don't mind because it's not visible on the outside.
> 
> Reactors are soooo much better then diffusers, it is 1) amazing more companies don't sell reactors, and 2) that more people don't use them regardless. Glad things are generally going well.


It's crazy how much more efficient reactors are than any other form of CO2 diffusion. It blows my mind that I'm still on the same 10lbs tank. The reactor combined with the Milwaukee controller really seems to be keeping my CO2 levels where they need to be, and also saving on CO2. 

I may forgo much of the tubing soon. At least with the GLA -> reactor, most of that tubing will be going away over the winter, provided I have some spare time. I'm going to PVC that whole system, minus the Oase since I can't really figure out a good way to hard pipe that with how the intake/outflow tubing gets disconnected. You basically turn a lever and the whole housing for the intake/outflow spins. If I hard pipe it, there's really no good way to allow for that 90 degree turn of the tubing. 

There will still be some tubing since I won't be able to hard pipe it all the way to the stainless intake/outflow pipes, but incorporating a union will make things so much easier when it comes time to clean things up. This is where sumps are superior and I regret not having one, but at the same time there'd be that time where I begin getting bored and want to turn it into a reef tank. Surprisingly I haven't experienced that and this would be the timeframe where that urge would start setting in lol. I've actually been enjoying the tank a lot. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that whenever I wanted a planted tank, I always wanted a big planted tank so now that I have one, I really love it.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

My 10lbs CO2 tank is still reading where it read when I first connected it. 

Tonight out of curiosity I'm going to run a full battery of tests since tomorrow is water change day. I haven't tested anything in months so it'll be interesting to see what if any effect cleaning the GLA canister out had on nitrate levels. 

I'll get some pics up tonight since I've owed a pic update in a while lol. 

The one notable change is that the Pogostemon Helferi haven't recovered very much or at all, but at the base of each you see new little crowns appearing. I'm likely going to cut off the old growth once the new growth gets a big bigger. The stem plants are looking better, but a few are still looking pretty ragged. I'm hoping that I get enough new, good looking growth that when it comes time to trim I can just discard the scraggly looking stems and replant the nicer trimmings. That'll give me the opportunity to redo the back and move stems around a bit better based on the high flow rate. 

As my outdoor projects begin to wind down, I'll be able to focus more on the inside of my home. I have a few things that need to get done. My basement still needs to be organized so that's at the top of the list because it'll give me room to install my RODI and 55 gallon drum for holding water. Currently the spot I'd put this has a bunch of stuff in the way. I'll probably start off doing 1/4 RODI and 3/4 tap. After a few weeks I'll bump up that mix a bit until I'm at 1/2 tap and 1/2 RODI. If my calculations are correct, the 1/2 & 1/2 mix will put my GH and KH right where I'd like it to be without using any sort of remineralizers.

A couple other things on the winter to do list is to hard pipe my GLA canister with the CO2 reactor. One of the reasons I want to do this is I've always had issues with tiny bubbles escaping the reactor just due to the fact that even at a low setting the GLA DC pump is too strong. The plan is to Tee it off and have one end returning directly to the tank with the other feeding the reactor and then returning to the tank. I might even incorporate some fittings in the event I want to buy and install a UV filter.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I completely forgot the pics. This past Saturday I was running a match at the sportsman club where I'm a member and it usually involves me getting up way too early on those Saturdays so I spent Friday trying to get stuff done that I'd normally do Saturday mornings. 

Over the weekend I began disliking my moss. I love the way moss looks, don't get me wrong, but I get this weird string-hair algae that grows only on the moss. What ends up happening is I just rip a the chunks of moss that have the algae and toss it, but then within a couple weeks it appears on other moss. Occasionally I'll see it grab onto a bigger H. Pin leaf but only because the algae grew long enough to tangle itself up with the leaf. I think if it doesn't go away within the next few weeks then the moss will be removed. The other issue with moss is that you wind up finding it everywhere. I'm very careful when I trim it, where there aren't any pieces floating around the tank, but I still find pieces that just break off on their own growing in spots I don't want them growing. 

I guess I'm trying to convince myself to get rid of the moss  

It's disappointing because I really love the look of it, but the long strands of algae are driving me crazy. 

I ran all my tests on Friday and they came out better than I expected. The most notable was nitrates and they were around 30ppm which is perfect for what I'm dosing throughout the week. It appears that the GLA being filthy was a substantial part of the problem. 

I'll get some pics up today after work for sure lol. 

Many of the Rotala stems don't seem to be recovering from the scraggly state they were in when I had to miss a water change but continued dosing. The Pogo Helferi haven't recovered but have put out new little crowns at the bases so I'll be cutting away the old stems at some point soon. 

I've been religiously cleaning the pre filter on the Oase. Without fail every week I toss the dirty sponges into a bucket and just replace with clean ones and then clean the dirty ones after I'm done doing a water change. I'm hoping that when it comes time to do maintenance on the full canister, it'll show me that I can push maintenance out to 3 months. The GLA is my biggest concern. I'm letting it go to two months to see how dirty it gets and then I'll make a decision on increasing maintenance. I really don't want to increase maintenance on it because it's a massive pain to maintain, but if it needs to be done I'll do it. I wish it had a pre filter like the Oase.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I've been promising pics so here they are. If you look closely, in particular at the Pogo Helferi and Rotala, you can see the effects of skipping a water change for a full week while continuing to dose ferts. 


































The green streak you see in this pic is the algae I'm talking about. I missed it during the water change but will be cutting off the leaves it's tangled in.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

You would do yourself a big favor by removing some of the hardscape (maybe rocks behind the wood) and make room for more plants (notably stems.) It's far more difficult to manage high light in a big/deep tank with so much hardscape. You want more immediate uptake of waste products and only plants will provide that. There is an issue in the uptake / light equation. 



ddiomede said:


> If you look closely, in particular at the Pogo Helferi and Rotala, you can see the effects of skipping a water change for a full week while continuing to dose ferts.


Not sure I follow you here


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> You would do yourself a big favor by removing some of the hardscape (maybe rocks behind the wood) and make room for more plants (notably stems.) It's far more difficult to manage high light in a big/deep tank with so much hardscape. You want more immediate uptake of waste products and only plants will provide that. There is an issue in the uptake / light equation.
> 
> 
> 
> Not sure I follow you here


If you look closely at the second to last picture, the very center are the Pogostemon Helferi Downoi. They began looking like that when I missed the water change and haven't recovered. If you go back a bit to previous pics you'll see the shocking difference in that center part of the tank. I thought for sure they were goners but about a week and a half ago I noticed new growth appearing at the bases. This weekend I'll probably cut away the long stems since they haven't even remotely recovered to make room for the new growth. That was honestly one of my favorite parts of the tank filled with bright green ruffled plants and watching them shrivel up was depressing. With the Rotala if you look closely, some of the stems look shriveled up, with leaves to match. This also happened during that missed water change week. My plan with them is to let the healthy growth hit the surface of the tank, trim it, then pull and toss the old rooted stems and replant the healthy growth. 

I agree that I need more stem plants. I'll probably start by removing to two rocks behind the wood on the right and that should give me a lot of room on that side, and then I'll probably wait a week and do the other side. The right side is the worst as far as a lack of space for stem plants. The left side has more room between the back glass and the rocks behind the wood. But if it opens a significant amount of space for more stem plants, I'm all for it.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

I see the pics, but I'm missing how the lack of a water change cause this. Are you saying the fert level was too high? It would take incredibly high numbers for that to happen and your fish would probably be goners before the plants. 

What are your co2, PAR Levels. Does your Rotala pearl? Rotala is a prolific pearlers and should be pearling all the time after lights on if things are dialed in. Looking at the carpeting plant. I think that's MC right? it's tiny and lacking something.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I see the pics, but I'm missing how the lack of a water change cause this. Are you saying the fert level was too high? It would take incredibly high numbers for that to happen and your fish would probably be goners before the plants.
> 
> What are your co2, PAR Levels. Does your Rotala pearl? Rotala is a prolific pearlers and should be pearling all the time after lights on if things are dialed in. Looking at the carpeting plant. I think that's MC right? it's tiny and lacking something.


My theory is that missing the water change while continuing to dose the full EI dose caused something to happen to the Rotala and Pogo. 

What's funny about pearling is that for a long time I thought my reactor wasn't fully dissolving CO2 but it turned out it was all of the plants pearling that was causing so many fine bubbles in the tank lol. One night I sat really close to the tank and watched as tiny bubbles were getting expelled by almost every plant. 

Interesting enough, with the MC, it really only started taking off within the last couple weeks. Since adding it to the tank, it just sort of slowly spread, but recently runners started appearing with much larger leaves. 

My CO2 levels have been consistently at 6.4, which is a drop of about 1.2. The drop checker is yellow, but with a hint of lime green...so not full on yellow. When I notice that the drop checker starts going to more lime green than yellow it's a sign to calibrate the PH probe. 

As far as EI, I'm definitely dosing more than my tank volume since the closest recipe was for a slightly larger tank. 

Some of the issues definitely have me stumped. 

The good thing is that the GSA stopped a while back. You can still see it on some of the plants, but it hasn't spread anywhere and is slowly starting to disappear from the leaves it has been on. So at least that problem was solved. I think it was solved by reducing the photoperiod by an hour and raising the fixture by about an inch because as soon as that happened, I noticed it stopped appearing on the glass. The only remaining algae problem is the long thread/string algae infesting the moss and occasional tangling itself in whatever it grabs onto, but most frequently it winds up on H Pin leaves. 

I might be at the point where it makes sense to add in some amanos since from what I've been reading seem to love hair algae and other more filamentous algae. Unfortunately recently I've had some expenses that wiped out my hobby fund. Some of the expenses were a root canal because my dental insurance isn't very good, some home upgrades/repairs, and I bought a pellet grill about a month ago. The money that would have gone to more fish, plants, etc. went towards prime briskets lol.

ETA: regarding the MC, if you zoom in the darker greens are the original tissue cultures. The brighter green is the new growth from those TC's.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Well, the missed water change shouldn't cause that much of an issue. Did you ever measure the PAR in different parts of the tank? Something to consider, some algae is obvious but other algae is not. Once leaves have any hint of algae it will interfere with their growth, plant tissue will die and in turn will continue to feed the algae. It doesn't matter if you have for example no3 at 10,20 or 50ppm (assuming no3 is from dosing and not naturally occurring waste) What causes algae is decomposing waste, light accelerates it's growth. Decomposing waste includes dying plant tissue under algae (that you might not even notice)

I would figure out the PAR, increase water changes if you have too and add more plants. Adding more easy stem plants is the best way to purify the water and keep algae away.
*OR*
Lower light and go with mostly ferns, buces, mosses, etc.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Well, the missed water change shouldn't cause that much of an issue. Did you ever measure the PAR in different parts of the tank? Something to consider, some algae is obvious but other algae is not. Once leaves have any hint of algae it will interfere with their growth, plant tissue will die and in turn will continue to feed the algae. It doesn't matter if you have for example no3 at 10,20 or 50ppm (assuming no3 is from dosing and not naturally occurring waste) What causes algae is decomposing waste, light accelerates it's growth. Decomposing waste includes dying plant tissue under algae (that you might not even notice)
> 
> I would figure out the PAR, increase water changes if you have too and add more plants. Adding more easy stem plants is the best way to purify the water and keep algae away.
> *OR*
> Lower light and go with mostly ferns, buces, mosses, etc.


Unfortunately I still haven't had a chance to get a PAR meter. I intend on borrowing the local club's this winter since I'll also be rebooting my nano tank and would like to make sure I'm not blasting everything with too much PAR. 

I'm definitely going to add more stem plants. There are a few that I think would do well in the tank and with removing the four large rocks in the back, it'll open up enough space to really thicken that area up nicely. 

But going back to the issues I had the week I didn't do the water change...

Prior to that happening, if I trimmed the Rotala, by the following week you could already see new growth and one week after that I'd be wondering if I should trim because they're approaching the surface. I trimmed just before I caught covid and missed that weekly water change. So with a week of time to put on new growth, almost nothing happened and by the end of that week the Pogo and Rotala all looked contorted, and the growth all but stopped. It took about a week after doing the water change until I started seeing new growth appearing on the Rotala. The Pogo never recovered but look like they're putting out new growth at the bases of the stems. 

I'm kind of at a loss as far as what caused that because the only change was skipping a water change but continuing to dose. There are no other variables since the tank was humming along pretty steady. Could one of the nutrients have reached a stage where it became toxic to those particular plant species but not the fish? I honestly don't know but can only go with Occam's Razor on this one. 

Hopefully on Friday after I drive back from Indianapolis I'll get back early enough to hit the LFS and ask him to order a couple specific stem plants, provided he can get them. The one I have in mind as a "for sure" is Limnophila Hippuridoides. I currently have 3 species of Rotala, Bacopa Salzmannii SG, Ludwigia Arcuata, and some others that just haven't faired well so I'll be removing them to make room for one or two new stem plants. If anyone has a recommendation for one more fast growing stem plant with a nice thick, sturdy stem that would be awesome.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

@Asteroid I'm not sure why I forgot this until now, but I have had bladder snails for a while, but always in low numbers. 

The week after the skipped water change I noticed a significant number of empty snail shells as I was lightly vacuuming the mulm/poop off the surface of the sand. They weren't there the previous week when I did the water change. 

Could the continued dosing have led to some nutrients building up to so toxic a level that if effected the plants and killed some snails, while not at all affecting the fish? The fish the entire time seemed to be acting perfectly normal.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> @Asteroid I'm not sure why I forgot this until now, but I have had bladder snails for a while, but always in low numbers.
> 
> The week after the skipped water change I noticed a significant number of empty snail shells as I was lightly vacuuming the mulm/poop off the surface of the sand. They weren't there the previous week when I did the water change.
> 
> Could the continued dosing have led to some nutrients building up to so toxic a level that if effected the plants and killed some snails, while not at all affecting the fish? The fish the entire time seemed to be acting perfectly normal.


Well, your certainly taking the value of water changes to a whole new level.  

Of course no one knows for sure, but EI is pretty forgiving. I mean the dosing is estimative and you could see the dosing guidelines are usually tank size ranges, not exact size. Also the amount of ferts between used between WCs will vary depending on growth and mass. Many in hi-tech front load all their macros for the week in one dose, essentially tripling it without issue. There as been discussion about micros being overdosed that can cause issues. 

Plants generally need four things. Light, ferts, co2 and clean leaf surfaces. You have the first three, but not the fourth. Algae even a little bit, will cause deficient looking leaves. You shouldn't be getting algae on moss or other leaf surfaces. Some on hardscape is OK, but when you have it on the leaves something is off. 

Removing hardscape and adding easy stems is the way to go. You can always remove some of the them after things balance out better. Get easy fast growers. Water wisteria, Rotala rotundifolia Cabomba caroliniana. The cabomba is good because it's easy to tell by the spacing of the nodes how much light you have. Also regular rotala r will get some color if the light is strong. 

As far as the snails, the only thing I've seen kill them is high co2 levels, not ferts,but it would be interesting to see what your levels of NPK are.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Well, your certainly taking the value of water changes to a whole new level.
> 
> Of course no one knows for sure, but EI is pretty forgiving. I mean the dosing is estimative and you could see the dosing guidelines are usually tank size ranges, not exact size. Also the amount of ferts between used between WCs will vary depending on growth and mass. Many in hi-tech front load all their macros for the week in one dose, essentially tripling it without issue. There as been discussion about micros being overdosed that can cause issues.
> 
> ...


Back in the day one of my favorite plants was a Cabomba that was an orange color. If I can find that again I'll probably get it.

Regarding NPK levels, I can only go by readings for nitrates and phosphates, but I just ran all tests for the heck of it.

PH: 6.6 (.2 higher than it should be, but it's likely to only be .1 higher since I took the sample after the CO2 controller kicked CO2 on)
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: either well over 100ppm according to the API test kit, or 50ppm according to the Salifert test kit. The attached images are the same water sample tested with API and Salifert. Honestly I'm going to Salifert because if you were a reef keeper and told anyone you used API test kits, they'd laugh at you because of how unreliable they are, which is why I'm going to switch to Salifert across the board going forward.
Phosphate: crazy high, well over the 10ppm max. It was a far darker blue than the max on the chart.
GH: 9
KH: 7
TDS: 250

Aside from the high phosphates, I'm not quite sure what the problem could be. Are they the cause of the issues? The TDS of my tap water is about 110 so the tank's is a little over twice as high, but based on some of the TDS readings other members have shared on here, my tank water is lower.

I know that Salifert used to have a FW potassium test kit but haven't been able to track it down on Amazon, except for the reef version which I'm not sure is usable for FW.

The phosphate of my tap water is .5ppm so somewhere in between the tap and the tank I'm getting crazy high phosphates. So this seems to be the only thing that stands out as a potential problem.


















ETA: when I measure out the ferts for next week, rather than 1.5 teaspoons of KNO3 on the macro days, I'm going to go down to 1 teaspoon and then test again a week from today and see what that does to the phosphates. It should hypothetically also reduce nitrates, which would be perfectly fine since they're a hair over what I'd want them to be at after only two macro doses.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

That's one of the reasons I went with an EI dosing system, I don't like testing and rarely do, unless there's a big problem. I agree the API test kits are not the greatest and difficult to read and hard to trust. The salifert is better. 

I would agree that the 10ppm of phosphate is obviously high. Is it the source of the problem, i don't know. If you only missed the one water change and are dosing EI why is it so high? Is it or is the test just wrong. Your nitrate numbers are fine, I've had much higher numbers without any issue. 










I mean think of EI dosing. If someone has a dutch-like setup or a thinly planted iwagumi, technically the dosing is the same, although one might just go on the heavy or light side based on this. There is a lot of slack in it and it's not about coming close to a bullseye.

I think the big issue with your setup is again the amount of hardscape. It is far more difficult to manage light, co2, everything. The best thing you can do is get some nice thickets of stems going. See how they grow that will also help determine your light intensity if you can't get an accurate measure.

BTW: if you take your ph of 6.6 and your KH of 7 you should have over 50ppm of co2. So don't trust the ph/kh co2 chart either.

One other thing, if your temp is like 76-78, lower it to like 72-73. Everything is easier at lower temps, including algae control. Algae will ruin everything and you need to get it to stop. You need clean leaves.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> That's one of the reasons I went with an EI dosing system, I don't like testing and rarely do, unless there's a big problem. I agree the API test kits are not the greatest and difficult to read and hard to trust. The salifert is better.
> 
> I would agree that the 10ppm of phosphate is obviously high. Is it the source of the problem, i don't know. If you only missed the one water change and are dosing EI why is it so high? Is it or is the test just wrong. Your nitrate numbers are fine, I've had much higher numbers without any issue.
> 
> ...


I mainly used the CO2 chart as a guide and then just continued increasing the CO2 levels until the drop checker was between lime green and yellow. 

My temp holds within 1 degree of 72.4, although now that the heat is on, it's at 74.2 degrees this morning. That will fall as the day goes by because I tend to open windows up when the temp is above 70 down where the tank and my office are. The thermostat is upstairs in my house so the temp gets controlled by that. If it's cold upstairs it'll continue to heat until the thermostat senses it hits 70, but in the meantime my basement becomes extra warm. In the summer the exact opposite happens....it's probably 5 degrees colder in my basement than upstairs so the air runs longer to cool it, but the basement gets even colder. 

I'm kind of at a loss as to why phosphates are so high. 3 times a week I'm dosing 1.5 teaspoons of KNO3 and from what I understand phosphates are in proportion to nitrates, so higher phosphates is puzzling. I feed the fish every other day and not a whole lot so it can't be from that. It's definitely perplexing. 

The only thing I can think of is that the GLA filter is filthy already. The last time I cleaned it out completely was a month ago, can it really be that dirty already? This Saturday was supposed to be the full Oase maintenance, perhaps I should flip it and clean the GLA out instead and see how dirty it is. Originally my plan was to have about a two month period between fully maintaining each of the canisters, but if the GLA gets to where it needs it done every month then I'll need to do that. 

I think what I'm going to do is reduce KNO3 to 1 tsp and then clean out the GLA filter on Saturday. Then on Wednesday next week I'll test nitrates and phosphates again and see where everything is at. I may just order the Salifert phosphate test kit if only to rule out the API test kit accuracy. Or maybe rather than doing two things at the same time I can maintain the Oase as planned, and reduce KNO3 and see where I'm at on Wednesday, and if there's little to no change in phosphates I'll maintain the GLA next Saturday and then test again the following Wednesday. At least that'll tell me if the problem was too high a dose of KNO3, or the GLA. 

I'll also swing by the LFS and either pick up some stem plants, or put an order in for some. I'll also remove the four large rocks behind the wood this weekend.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I mainly used the CO2 chart as a guide and then just continued increasing the CO2 levels until the drop checker was between lime green and yellow.
> 
> My temp holds within 1 degree of 72.4, although now that the heat is on, it's at 74.2 degrees this morning. That will fall as the day goes by because I tend to open windows up when the temp is above 70 down where the tank and my office are. The thermostat is upstairs in my house so the temp gets controlled by that. If it's cold upstairs it'll continue to heat until the thermostat senses it hits 70, but in the meantime my basement becomes extra warm. In the summer the exact opposite happens....it's probably 5 degrees colder in my basement than upstairs so the air runs longer to cool it, but the basement gets even colder.
> 
> ...


I would go with the 60-80G dosing range for your tank. Considering the hardscape, displacement and lack of heavy plant mass or use the rotalabutterfly calculator. What have you been dosing for po4.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I would go with the 60-80G dosing range for your tank. Considering the hardscape, displacement and lack of heavy plant mass or use the rotalabutterfly calculator. What have you been dosing for po4.


Whatever phosphate gets added to the tank comes in the form of KH2PO4. I'm dosing 1/2 tsp of that currently, 3 times per week.

The one thing I'm a little wary of is when I tried using the 60-80 gallon recipe, that's when I started seeing GSA a few weeks after.

I wonder if I should half the dose of KH2PO4 and see where that puts me next week?

ETA: from all that I've been reading since yesterday, the target I want to shoot for is 1ppm of phosphates to 10ppm of nitrates. So right now at most I should be at 5ppm of phosphates. There must be a phosphate reservoir somewhere in my tank because with the amount I'm dosing, I shouldn't be anywhere near what I am. Looking at Rotala Butterfly it looks like I'm dosing way more than I should be. They're recommending 1/8 tsp + 1/64th tsp and I'm dosing half a tsp. With their dose 3X a week I should be at 3.9 PO4 by the end of the week. It would be amazing if it was as simple a fix as reducing my current dose to 1/4 tsp lol.

I just dumped out what I was going to dose today since it's macro day and filled my little container of dry ferts up with this:

KNO3 - 1 tablespoon
KH2PO4 - 1/4 tsp
K2SO4 - 1/2 tsp

So I'm effectively reducing KNO3 by 1/3rd, and KH2PO4 by half. 

I'll maintain the Oase as planned on Saturday, then I'll test again next Wednesday. If PO4 comes down to 4-5ppm then I'll know this was a problem created by me and NilocG's recipe I'd been using. If it's still sky high, then next Saturday the GLA filter will get full maintenance done a month ahead of schedule and I'll retest the following Wednesday. This is why I'm glad I went to dry dosing. Making a change is as easy as dumping the ferts I've added to the little container and adding new amounts to it.


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## rzn7z7 (Aug 17, 2013)

ddiomede said:


> I know that Salifert used to have a FW potassium test kit but haven't been able to track it down on Amazon, except for the reef version which I'm not sure is usable for FW.


I got mine here

Salifert Freshwater K test kit


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Well, definitely no need for po4 to be that high, yeah so I would definitely reduce it. There is also an accumulation calculator on that site you should check out. it will show you how things build up even with water changes. Now if you have good uptake this will be minimized but there will be excess so things will go up. If your tank isn't full of plants and/or algae is interfering with uptake then the accumulation will be much greater. You are also getting some P from food/waste, etc.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

rzn7z7 said:


> I got mine here
> 
> Salifert Freshwater K test kit


Awesome, thank you!!! I'm going to place an order. 

The one thing that has frustrated me a bit since leaving reef tanks behind and coming back to planted tanks is that with reefs, I was able to test for everything that mattered.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Well, definitely no need for po4 to be that high, yeah so I would definitely reduce it. There is also an accumulation calculator on that site you should check out. it will show you how things build up even with water changes. Now if you have good uptake this will be minimized but there will be excess so things will go up. If your tank isn't full of plants and/or algae is interfering with uptake then the accumulation will be much greater. You are also getting some P from food/waste, etc.


I have a feeling that eventually I'll be doing PPS-pro lol. The way I dosed in a reef tank was knowing how much the corals were using, and then dosing enough to make sure that every nutrient was available in enough quantity that there was never a shortage, but never too much which is what it seems like I've been doing with EI. I think the biggest mistake I've been making, and this only occurred to me today is that ever since coming back to planted tanks I've more or less abandoned my reef mindset, when it likely would have helped a great deal when it came to figuring out dosing.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Well you have to do what your comfortable with, PPS you'll be testing more, EI usually no need to. Heavy plant mass makes everything easier in terms of wiggle room with lights/ferts.

For your setup you don't need to dose K separately, your getting plenty from the Kno3 AND K2hpo4. I don't even dose K separately even in my very high light setup. Many have removed it from EI dosing. And you don't need to dose FE separately either if your dosing the typical micro mix.

Pogo Erectus is another good stem (don't know if you had this) Grows wide and thick under good light/ferts, thinner under less light so again a good indicator.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Well you have to do what your comfortable with, PPS you'll be testing more, EI usually no need to. Heavy plant mass makes everything easier in terms of wiggle room with lights/ferts.
> 
> For your setup you don't need to dose K separately, your getting plenty from the Kno3 AND K2hpo4. I don't even dose K separately even in my very high light setup. Many have removed it from EI dosing. And you don't need to dose FE separately either if your dosing the typical micro mix.
> 
> Pogo Erectus is another good stem (don't know if you had this) Grows wide and thick under good light/ferts, thinner under less light so again a good indicator.


Perfect. I think between the stems I already have, plus adding the Limnophila that I want, a Cabomba, and the Pogo Erectus I should have a sufficient plant mass to take up the extra nutrients. 

I ordered the potassium test kit so I'll at least understand where I'm at with regard to that. 

One thing I haven't yet mentioned because I really didn't notice it until today was that one of the terrestrial plants (monstera), a few of the leaves have yellow spots where the very center is a bit brown. I've been planning on removing the pothocarry and planting all of those plants in planters but haven't had a chance to run by HD for potting soil. I'm not sure if it's another data point for the problems I'm having, but figured I'd mention it. When I googled the spots the only thing I could find that described the problem was leaf fungus. I'm not sure it's that as it seems more like a deficiency rather than the images of fungal infections, but the only deficiencies I saw were magnesium and iron that were somewhat related to what I'm seeing there. The thing is that the issues with the aquatic plants don't seem like mag or iron deficiencies. 

I'll start with redoing the ferts, moving onto maintain of the GLA next week if I don't see a change in phosphate levels. Then once the K kit arrives I'll test that. I'll remove the 4 large rocks and add more stem plants, and hopefully my LFS will be putting an order in soon so that I can add a couple bunches of what I want onto his order. If he doesn't have an order going soon I'll just order what I want online. 

I think this plan makes sense and if things change it's easy to pivot.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

@Asteroid 

I've been thinking about what you mentioned regarding the amount of CO2 that is being injected. Should I increase the PH on the controller to target 6.8 rather than 6.4 as it's currently set? 

It's just one more thing that isn't exactly right so I figured it might make sense to adjust that while I'm at it.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> @Asteroid
> 
> I've been thinking about what you mentioned regarding the amount of CO2 that is being injected. Should I increase the PH on the controller to target 6.8 rather than 6.4 as it's currently set?
> 
> It's just one more thing that isn't exactly right so I figured it might make sense to adjust that while I'm at it.


Oh, are you referring to what I said about the co2 chart showing too much. I wouldn't put much faith in the number from the chart as many factors can interfere with kh/ph and alter the number. If the fish are fine I don't think there's any advantage to lowering co2. 

I doubt the monstera is adding to the problem, unless the waste from the leaves decaying is making it into the water through the roots and/or if the roots are decaying. A botanist I am not.

One thing I thought about since you mentioned your PH is that certain cheating agents are more effective at higher PHs, so if the cheating agent breaks free from less say FE then the FE might combine with another compound. I think 6.5 is kinda borderline for the EDTA agent and anything higher would be worse. So if your PH is higher than you should probably be using a micromix with DTPA. Again this might not have anything to do with your situation, but I actually use the micromix that has both agents. This *one*, because my PH can go anywhere between 6.0 and 7.5. 

When the cheating agent separates from the element, that element can attach to a different element and supposely make them both unusable by the plants.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Oh, are you referring to what I said about the co2 chart showing too much. I wouldn't put much faith in the number from the chart as many factors can interfere with kh/ph and alter the number. If the fish are fine I don't think there's any advantage to lowering co2.
> 
> I doubt the monstera is adding to the problem, unless the waste from the leaves decaying is making it into the water through the roots and/or if the roots are decaying. A botanist I am not.
> 
> ...


If I didn't buy 5lbs of each of the ferts from NilocG, I'd try the GLA stuff you linked. I currently have 5lbs of their Plantex CSM+B. 

Typically when my CO2 kicks off for the night, the highest it gets is 6.9-7.0.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

ddiomede said:


> If I didn't buy 5lbs of each of the ferts from NilocG, I'd try the GLA stuff you linked. I currently have 5lbs of their Plantex CSM+B.
> 
> Typically when my CO2 kicks off for the night, the highest it gets is 6.9-7.0.


@Asteroid, regarding the swings in PH, should I just remove the timer from my CO2 and let the controller keep it at the PH I'm targeting, even with the lights out? I did bump the CO2 up a hair to 6.6 last night, but kept thinking about higher PH and figured it might make sense to keep PH at night the same as where it's at during the day.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> @Asteroid, regarding the swings in PH, should I just remove the timer from my CO2 and let the controller keep it at the PH I'm targeting, even with the lights out? I did bump the CO2 up a hair to 6.6 last night, but kept thinking about higher PH and figured it might make sense to keep PH at night the same as where it's at during the day.


As long as your PH is dropping sufficiently at lights on you don't have to worry about what happens at night. I always shut my co2 off at night, I don't use a controller. You could keep it on at night, but I would run airstones to make sure the fish are OK.

I think you have a good plan, just thinking of other things you could check in regards to the micros and cheating agents. So I'd go with lots of new stems and see how they do. Easier stems are good indicator plants of light, ferts, etc.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I didn't have a chance on Saturday to go to the LFS, or remove the four large rocks in the back of the tank because I had company over. I more or less just did a standard water change and pre filter cleaning on the Oase while entertaining guests. 

The potassium test kit arrived Saturday and I was very tempted to run a test but figured I'd wait until Wednesday night when I'll run nitrate, phosphate, and potassium at the same time. 

This coming Saturday I'll be pulling the four rocks and doing some trimming and replanting. The one plant I'm not sure where to move is the microsorum trident which is in between the spider wood on the left, and the large rocks I'm going to remove. I'll need to figure out a spot for it. 

Aside from that, the same CO2 tank is still running lol. That's probably the one thing about this tank that is blowing my mind. I would have thought that I'd have had at least two tank swaps by now, but the gauge still hasn't moved. I might pop into the LFS tomorrow and get an order in for a few bunches of stem plants, or at least see if he can get them. Alternatively I might just get an order in online so that I don't need to wait.


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## Joeyvan172 (Nov 26, 2021)

ddiomede said:


> I didn't have a chance on Saturday to go to the LFS, or remove the four large rocks in the back of the tank because I had company over. I more or less just did a standard water change and pre filter cleaning on the Oase while entertaining guests.
> 
> The potassium test kit arrived Saturday and I was very tempted to run a test but figured I'd wait until Wednesday night when I'll run nitrate, phosphate, and potassium at the same time.
> 
> ...


do PH as much as your fish need air lol


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

After speaking to my LFS, I wouldn't be able to get on their order for a couple weeks so I just went ahead and ordered online. I should have Limnophila Hippuridoides and Pogostemon Erectus coming by the end of the week, hopefully. 

Hopefully they arrive on Friday so that I can get them in the tank when I remove the 4 rocks behind the spider wood and do a water change on Saturday. 

Last night I removed and potted the two monstera and the Swiss cheese plant. I really want to understand how much my plants are using so that I'm not overdosing various ferts. I'll test the water tomorrow after work to see how the changes have effected things.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Just finished running nitrate, phosphate, and potassium tests. 

Nitrates have come down a bit...they were roughly 40 ppm. 

Phosphates are still sky high, well over 10ppm.

Potassium was 45ppm. 

I'm going to reduce KNO3 to 3/4 tsp from 1tsp. KH2PO4 will be reduced from 1/4 tsp to 1/8 tsp. I'm also cutting out the K2SO4 because it seems like there's a bit too much K in there. 

The only two things that seem like may be the cause of this long hair algae I'm dealing with is the sky high PO4, which is the most likely culprit, and to a lesser extent more K than I really need. 

I was going to clean the GLA, but I'm just going to let it go until the last Saturday of the month when it was due for a full cleaning anyway and see if ferts dosage changes have any effect. It definitely seems like nitrates came down a little with the change, but phosphates didn't change at all. 

Out of curiosity I'll test my tap water just to make sure that I'm still getting .25ppm of PO4. 

This is a very strange issue in that I haven't been dosing PO4 in crazy amounts, at least to get them to well over 10ppm. I don't overfeed the fish...they only get a bit of food every other day. 

I'll test again next Wednesday and see if cutting PO4 in half brings those levels down a bit. If not, I might just cut KH2PO4 out completely until I see the levels come down to a more reasonable level.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I tested my tap water and it's roughly between .25 and .50ppm of PO4

After thinking about this all night and this morning, I decided to eliminate KH2PO4 completely.

I also noticed that my dose of micros was double what Rotala Butterfly recommends. I was dosing 1/2 tsp and the calculator recommends a hair under 1/4 tsp.

Today is macro day so the tank will get the 3/4 tsp dose of KNO3 and tomorrow is micro day so it'll get the new dose of that.

Now over the next couple weeks if PO4 doesn't fall, it's not the ferts, or at least the ferts aren't the whole cause of this issue. The good thing is if that's the case, at least I've eliminated that from being the problem and can start exploring other potential causes. Next would be full maintenance of the GLA canister, and then the Oase. But one step at a time.

There definitely is more hair algae and it's affecting more than just the moss. This is one of the reasons I decided on a more drastic change like eliminating PO4 dosing completely. I'll test everything again next Wednesday and see if there's any change.

The stem plants I ordered should be here by either tomorrow or Saturday, which will be perfectly timed. I'm planning on redoing the whole back of the tank and moving stem plants around to different areas. I'll likely need to add more sand since the removal of the four large rocks will leave hollows back there.

ETA: 

One question I have is I still don't really understand the ideal parameters for phosphates and potassium. What is considered the best practice for this. With nitrates it's generally keep them somewhere between 10-30ppm, but PO4 and K I've been reading wildly varying accounts from people. If I can understand this, it would help a great deal so that I can adjust dosing to hover around the ideal mark.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

Your levels are what you'd expect from typical EI dosing levels, 50% weekly water changes, and no uptake. So, it seems like your tank isn't utilizing most of the fertilizers you're putting in every week. That could be a plant load that is too low, or something out of balance with your lighting and/or CO2, or both.

If plants aren't taking up your fertilizers, they're also probably not effectively taking up free ammonia, which I suspect is probably a bigger driver of your algae woes than are unused ferts.

So, I think reducing your fertilizers alone probably won't get you where you want to be. Increasing uptake would be my #1 goal. If your hardscape won't accommodate the plant mass in the tank you'd need to achieve that, you could consider transitioning to a low-ish light setup.

I haven't been following all the twists and turns here, but it seems like you're working on increasing the plant mass, so that's good. But you could end up chasing your tail with testing and fertilizer changes.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> Your levels are what you'd expect from typical EI dosing levels, 50% weekly water changes, and no uptake. So, it seems like your tank isn't utilizing most of the fertilizers you're putting in every week. That could be a plant load that is too low, or something out of balance with your lighting and/or CO2, or both.
> 
> If plants aren't taking up your fertilizers, they're also probably not effectively taking up free ammonia, which I suspect is probably a bigger driver of your algae woes than are unused ferts.
> 
> ...


More or less what I have in mind is getting the plant mass up, while also getting the ferts to a level where I'm at the lowish end of EI, basically providing the plants with what they take up in a week, with maybe a 20%-ish buffer. 

CO2 has been stable since adding the controller way back in the beginning of the summer or late spring. I've been calibrating the probe monthly and at most it's off .1 - .2 when I recalibrate. 

My lights start coming on at 5pm but don't ramp up until 5:30pm and then run until 11pm when they begin ramping down and finally shut off at 11:30pm. So I have 5.5 hours at full blast with an hour where it's ramping. 

I think what you're saying regarding the plants not taking up enough nutrients makes a lot of sense, and since my CO2 dosing is definitely at the ideal (40+ppm), I'm wondering if I should add another hour of full blast light to the schedule. 

I have about 36 new stems arriving tomorrow or Saturday so after removing a little hardscape in the back (four large rocks behind spider wood), that'll give me some more room to pack the back with stem plants. I'm just wondering if I should add another hour back onto the full sun lighting cycle to help amp up photosynthesis a bit more.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> More or less what I have in mind is getting the plant mass up, while also getting the ferts to a level where I'm at the lowish end of EI, basically providing the plants with what they take up in a week, with maybe a 20%-ish buffer.
> 
> CO2 has been stable since adding the controller way back in the beginning of the summer or late spring. I've been calibrating the probe monthly and at most it's off .1 - .2 when I recalibrate.
> 
> ...


When you say "full blast", do you mean your light's full output, or just the highest you run them at?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> When you say "full blast", do you mean your light's full output, or just the highest you run them at?


They're at 100% during the full sun cycle. 

A few months back when I was dealing with GSA, I reduced the length of the full sun cycle by one hour.

ETA: the fixture is the Twinstar 1200 SP. I have it hung about 6" above the water surface. It was a bit closer, but only by an inch to inch and a half since I also raised it when I cut the full sun cycle down by an hour.


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## EmotionalFescue (Jun 24, 2020)

Hmmm. I think you're probably in the zone on duration, but may be really high on intensity based on what you have in there. Are you running the light that high trying to get a carpet?

One of the best pieces of advice I've read on here is "it's almost always too much light".


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

EmotionalFescue said:


> Hmmm. I think you're probably in the zone on duration, but may be really high on intensity based on what you have in there. Are you running the light that high trying to get a carpet?
> 
> One of the best pieces of advice I've read on here is "it's almost always too much light".


Perhaps before adding an hour, I could raise the fixture a bit more? I would definitely help with the spread a bit. 

Regarding the carpet, I originally planted the tank around Memorial Day weekend give or take a week or two. I planted tissue cultures of Montecarlo and only within the last month have I begun seeing them spread the way they're supposed to (bright green, typical sized leaves versus darker green, small leaves). It's entirely possible that the plants on the mounds of the tank are getting too much light, while the plants furthest from the light source are barely getting enough. The thing that throws me though is that as Rotala get closer to the light, growth really amps up...I start seeing them sprout new offshoots. I think the only real way to know for sure is to finally get the PAR meter from my local club and test PAR. Temporarily what I can do until I get that PAR meter is position the lights a bit more in the center of the tank (from front/back) and see what that does, along with raising the fixture another inch. When I raised the fixture and reduced the photoperiod I also positioned the lights a bit closer to the back where the stems are.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Okay quick update. 

All four rocks that were behind my spider wood have been removed. I pulled every stem plant out, culled what needed culling, and replanted the existing plants in new locations. I also received 18 stems of pogostemon erectus and 18 stems of limnophila hippuridoides. The latter is one of the most pretty stem plants I've seen thus far. I wouldn't at all be surprised if down the road the only stem plants I have are those. 

Initial thoughts after removing the rocks.....it's BRIGHT. Super bright. I'll get some pics up tomorrow or the day after but OMG is the tank bright. It's amazing how removing four large stones would lighten everything up. I'll likely move my light a couple inches forward because now the rocks aren't blocking the light from reaching the bases of the stem plants. 

It'll probably be Christmas by the time stuff really starts growing in nicely, but I'll at the very least get an FTS up every week. 

The tank is looking good though and I'm excited to see what it looks like once everything begins filling up the back of the tank. 

I plan on running tests again on Wednesday. 

I made up my Tupperware containers of dry ferts and have 3/4 tsp of KNO3, 1/4 tsp of K2SO4, and 1/4 tsp of micros. On Wednesday I'll see what the lack of KH2PO4 does to the PO4 levels in the tank. If I can get it down to 1-2ppm, I'll start dosing it again, but adding only a little at a time to make sure I understand what the uptake of the plants is like. 

I probably did an 80-85% water change so hopefully that helps.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Quick FTS from a few minutes ago.

Had something weird happen earlier today. I added the dose of micros and kept hearing what sounded exactly like water dripping. I began investigating and couldn't figure it out so I sat there quietly and kept listening for it. It was regular noise so I sat down and just observed. I noticed something move on the floor to the right of the tank and there was what looked like a dried up rasbora. Had it not moved, I was certain that just by the looks it was a rasbora dorito. I quickly wet my hand, picked it up and carefully put it back in the tank. For a good 5 minutes it looked like it wasn't going to make it, but now 4 hours later, he's swimming around, looking a little rough around the edges but doing well. 

I'm still not quite sure what to do with the Pogo Helferi. It's been in the exact same condition for months, with smaller growth emerging from below that hasn't changed in at least 3 weeks now. 

The options I've had running through my head are:

1. Leave it
2. Dwarf hair grass
3. Buy more Montecarlo and plant it in that sand path while removing and tossing all the Helferi.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

So far the tank has been looking great since the changes. It's very clear and one thing I didn't anticipate is how much more pearling I'd see. Last night there were a ridiculous amount of oxygen bubbles being released by the plants. 

Today is testing day so I'll be running nitrates, phosphates, and potassium for good measure. 

If I were to make some predictions, I think realistically the following would prove to be true:

Nitrate: around 25-30ppm

Phosphate: it'll finally be readable, a hair under 10ppm

Potassium: perhaps around 30ppm

I still have no idea and haven't been able to find a straight answer for how much K is ideal. 

There has been no growth yet, but I wasn't really surprised. I don't expect to see any noticeable growth in the new stem plants until Thanksgiving week. 

The one bummer is it'll take a while for all the stems to be trimmed up equally so that the growth looks the same. I figure at least a couple months of the ugly phase until I get a handle on their growth rates and trimming. The Rotala, at least before the problem I had would reach the surface within two weeks of trimming. The Ludwigia Arcuata I haven't seen really grow very much, but it was also quite shaded since adding it. I don't know how fast Pogo Erectus or Limno Hippuridoides grows so it'll be interesting to learn more about these plants and factor in their growth rates in comparison to the Rotala. 

I moved the whole light roughly 1.75-2" closer to the front of the tank from where it was. So basically now the fixture is just about dead center of the tank. I'm hoping that'll give some additional light to the Montecarlo and that will take off. 

I was enjoying the tank last night before bed and the one thing that jumped out at me is the lack of pink/reds around the left spider wood. What I might do is take a bunch or two of the Blyxa and move them elsewhere and transplant one of the Pink Flamingos and Crypt Spiralis Tigers over there to mix in with the remaining Blyxa. I think that'll give some nice color contrasts on that side. 

I'll report back a bit later this evening with the test results. I'll probably also test again on Saturday depending on tonight's test results.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Sounds like your making the right moves. If there's one important thing to understand is your light. Light drives the demand for everything, co2 and ferts. So if you can't get a PAR meter see if you can google more. I'm sure someone has used that light at the depth you have and you can get a feel for it. 

Plants generally are good indicators of light. Rotala R is a prolific pearler, so yes you should see lots of pearling if the plant is happy. Mermaid weed should be red not only on the top but have some nice color down the stem under good light. Blyxa turns reddish, gold and bronze under high light. Your's looks healthy but it looks green in the pics, nothing wrong with that, but it does give an indication of light. The Pogo H needs pretty good light, is it blocked by the wood or any other plants. Long spaces between nodes of stem plants usually indicates not enough light, more compact, fuller growth means good light and the plant is not "reaching" for the light. 

In a fairly tall tank with so much hardscape and light demanding plants it's more difficult to give lower lying plants like carpets enough light without algae issues unless you up the stem count. Nothing keeps algae away and plant leaves clean like stem plants. Not flow, not gph, not even water changes. Plants constantly uptake waste/toxins that cause algae. 

I think I might have mentioned when you setup the hardscape to remove some rocks, most notably the ones behind the wood to make more room for stems and light. Poor light causes algae issues too, as the plants don't grow properly. Once this happens plant tissue dies and the resulting waste is algae food. If you need to do 80% WCs to keep algae away until things take off do it. You could do 80% anyway, bigger water changes only make things easier. 
Or you go the other way and get lower light epiphytes, ferns, buces, mosses and lower the light. Don't worry about the po4, no3. That is the not the problem.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Sounds like your making the right moves. If there's one important thing to understand is your light. Light drives the demand for everything, co2 and ferts. So if you can't get a PAR meter see if you can google more. I'm sure someone has used that light at the depth you have and you can get a feel for it.
> 
> Plants generally are good indicators of light. Rotala R is a prolific pearler, so yes you should see lots of pearling if the plant is happy. Mermaid weed should be red not only on the top but have some nice color down the stem under good light. Blyxa turns reddish, gold and bronze under high light. Your's looks healthy but it looks green in the pics, nothing wrong with that, but it does give an indication of light. The Pogo H needs pretty good light, is it blocked by the wood or any other plants. Long spaces between nodes of stem plants usually indicates not enough light, more compact, fuller growth means good light and the plant is not "reaching" for the light.
> 
> ...


I definitely intend on borrowing that PAR meter from my local club. The last several months I've had a lot extra added onto my plate at work with my CEO looking to partially retire and me beginning to take over more and more of what he does. It's definitely not a bad problem to have, but at the same time it means less time and far more burnout during the week. But the holidays are coming up so we should see a slight slowdown, but also from a client I've been working on bringing on board since May who is finally starting. 

I do know of one YouTube using this light in a tank that is exactly the same size - George Farmer. I haven't been able to see if he's done some PAR readings, but from the last time (3 months or so ago) that I watched one of his videos his tank seemed to be doing really well. 

Definitely will be borrowing a PAR meter though. If I wind up getting too lazy I might just rent one from Bulk Reef Supply. 

As the Rotala grows, the space between nodes seems to be on par with other high light setups. I did notice that one of the plants that didn't do well initially and partially died off was R. Macandra, but it eventually regrew, but it exhibited the typical signs of too much light....sideways growth versus straight up. 

I'll have to check Farmer's YouTube page to see if he's taken any PAR readings on his tank and also to see how his tank is doing.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Ran the tests and here is where they're at:

Nitrate: 20ppm
PO4: 8-9ppm - it's dark blue, but not quite as dark as 10ppm
K: 30ppm

I'll test again Saturday right before the weekly WC.

For some reason, and I suspect that reason being that I don't really know exactly how many gallons of water are actually in my tank after displacement from hardscape, sand, lava rocks under the sand, and then how many gallons of water are added back in due to the two canister filters, so I was overdosing ferts well beyond what I should have been.

My goal is to get my dosing levels at where the Rotala Butterfly calculator, and various other sources recommend. I more or less want to have 22.5ppm of NO3, 3.9ppm of PO4, and 22.5ppm of K by Saturday each week.

Based on what I'm dosing now, I'm not dosing any PO4, and have reduced KNO3 by quite a bit, along with halving the dose of K2SO4.

I'm sure I'll reach a point where I'm adding enough ferts to achieve those levels pretty closely, and a month later something will be off. So I know this is probably getting a bit too picky, but I want to understand what the base levels are based on - waste produced by plants, fish, decaying plant matter, etc., with the addition of ferts. Once I know that, I can target to keep my levels at the levels above.

What this will do for me is mainly set my mind at ease knowing that if something weird happens, I can eliminate a few variables right off the bat and start spending time looking elsewhere.

Depending on what Saturday's tests show, I'll either need to tweak something, or continue dosing what I'm currently dosing and move onto exploring other potential issues, like not knowing what my PAR levels are. If I don't need to tweak anything after Saturday I'll reach out to the local plant club and borrow their meter.

I could very well need another fixture, or maybe I need to raise mine a bit more, or lower it. To this point it's been a game of taking educated guesses based on PAR data I've seen on the Twinstar 900S, which is a smaller fixture.

One scenario I think is likely to happen is there was a PO4 reservoir in the tank that just wasn't getting used up in enough quantities by the plants, and my dosing was just causing it to build up more and more even with water changes. Stopping the dosing of KH2PO4 will let it slowly work down again so that I can figure out exactly how much to add back in. But what it seems like to me is I'm getting PO4 from somewhere other than ferts, but the ferts were exacerbating the issue. I started thinking about this just now after testing PO4 and seeing it's still fairly high, and this was after a very large water change on Sunday. It's not coming from my tap since that's at .50ppm, so it's coming from somewhere. My guess is one or both canister filters have a bunch of crap in them and need to be cleaned out. I'd put my money on the GLA being the cause since there isn't a pre filter keeping crap out of it. When I replaced the lava rock in the GLA, it was horrific. There was reddish brown sludge that I needed to wipe out of the bottom and sides, and a whole bunch of crap just sitting in the canister that drained out as I drained the water out of it. Two weeks from Saturday I'll see if that has been the cause. It'll be two months since the last full maintenance on it so if it looks like diarrhea when I dump the water out, and suddenly PO4 levels drop, I'll need to change the maintenance to monthly and see how that goes.

If you've made it this far I'm sure you can see this is making me lose my mind lol.

ETA: One thing that has been fairly confusing to me is let's say you dose EI, and suddenly you start experiencing algae issues. With a hardscape heavy tank such as this one, you want to add more fast growing plants to soak up some of the nutrients. 

Why not just reduce nutrient levels, which seems like the direction I'm headed in? I added a bunch of new stem plants, which I wanted to do anyhow because I like stem plants, but let's say I didn't. If I'm dosing enough nutrients to potentially cause an algae outbreak, why not just reduce what I'm dosing? It seems more in line with "lean" dosing than EI, but everything I know about lean dosing is that you have to watch your plants closely and see if you need to increase a dose of one thing or another. Why not test more frequently and figure out exactly what you need to dose? Just a random thought that popped into my head that I thought I'd throw out there and see if it elicits some discussion.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

OK, so algae is a micro-organism, it's highly unlikely it's going to care whether your no3 is 10 or 40 or your po4 is 1 or 10. It wouldn't need much to get going compared to the plants.

Every tank has excess ferts sitting in the water column, otherwise your test kits would measure zero all the time and the plants would have used everything up and become deficient. That's why it's much better to have too much fertilizer than two little.

There are two very popular ways to fertilize a tank, Use an inert substrate and generously fertilize the water column (EI-ish) or use an aquasoil type product where most of the nutrients are in the soil (ADAish) and your supplementing the water column lightly. What both of these approaches have in common is that they both are susceptible to algae.

Taking this a step further. Every tank whether it's planted or fish only, whether it's dosed or not can succumb to algae. So what do these tanks have in common? Light and waste, not the dosing. In a tank with no plants and no dosing the only thing that could cause the algae is fish waste/food. When these things decompose they release ammonia and other toxins that turn algae spores into full blown algae.

Because of the ammonia release from waste there is a large difference between natural organic nutrients like fish waste/food and the inorganic salts we dose that do not come with this baggage.

When you don't have enough uptake ammonia enters the water column and algae starts. That's why plant heavy tanks are the easiest to keep algae free and hardscape heavy the hardest. Nothing takes up ammonia/toxins as quickly as plants, NOTHING. If you stir up your gravel and let it move around the tank you will most like start either an algae bloom, BBA or other algae. Nothing has changed with the dosed ferts, but you released ammonia/toxins from the substrate into the column.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> OK, so algae is a micro-organism, it's highly unlikely it's going to care whether your no3 is 10 or 40 or your po4 is 1 or 10. It wouldn't need much to get going compared to the plants.
> 
> Every tank has excess ferts sitting in the water column, otherwise your test kits would measure zero all the time and the plants would have used everything up and become deficient. That's why it's much better to have too much fertilizer than two little.
> 
> ...


That definitely makes sense and is exactly the type of discussion I was hoping for. 

With reef tanks, controlling algae is pretty easy even though reef tanks get WAY more light, and for longer periods than we experience here with planted tanks. It's kind of a fourfold approach: water changes every week, high capacity GFO to remove all phosphates, clean up crews, and protein skimming. You can add a fifth approach in sensibly stocking fish. I like fish so I've always stocked a bit more than you're supposed to, but because of the other four things, I never had an issue with excess waste, or algae. My parameters in my reef never exceeded 10ppm of nitrates, and always 0 on PO4. I used algae magnets to clean the glass every day, but it was more biofilm than algae that I was cleaning away. I actually forgot another method with refugiums filled with macro algae to suck up additional nutrients. You'd run the lighting on that the opposite of your reef lighting. 

Obviously the reef keeping approach is drastically different, but now you have me wondering if it would make sense to add a UV to kill off some of the algal spores floating around in the water column? 

I'm still going to follow the plan I laid out above, but trying to think of ways to eliminate as much of the free floating stuff as possible. 

I was on the road pretty much all day yesterday driving to Indianapolis and back for lunch with my CEO, so I had a lot of time in the car to think about things, but when I came home I noticed that the algae I've been battling....it hasn't progressed and the threads of algae seem to be weakening. Either one change I've made is starting to work, or more likely it's a combination of changes that are having an effect. It'll be interesting to test everything again tomorrow and see if PO4 has come down a bit more. 

It's clear that there is some kind of imbalance and until I can test PAR, I won't know for sure what's causing it aside from continuing down the path of eliminating variables. 

At the end of the day I know that much of this testing is kind of pointless, but I like knowing for sure what my plants are consuming and the rate that they consume the nutrients. 

Hopefully these new and old stem plants start growing rapidly. It does look like they've all settled in and have straightened themselves out, in particular the new stems I added. Maybe the week after next I'll start seeing substantial growth out of them.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I don't know why I keep doing this to myself, but I tested again last night. NO3 is up to 30ppm, PO4 seems like it dropped a fraction. It might be 7ppm if I had to guess (bit less blue than on Wednesday), and K came down to 25ppm. 

The tank looks great though. It's been super clear all week. Fish are doing great, and the new and old plants look to be settling in nicely. Of the new stem plants, the Pogo Erectus seems to be putting on growth already. 

I'll probably leave my ferts the way they are...KNO3, K2SO4, and CSM+B. I've gone this far down the PO4 rabbit hole so why stop now lol. I'm going to limit myself to dropping below 5ppm and then I'll start dosing KH2PO4 again. The one thing I don't want to happen is I drop too low and start seeing GSA. 

I almost went and got more fish today but I had a pork butt sitting in the fridge since last week and it really needed to be smoked today so I spent most of the day doing that. I might go tomorrow, or maybe next weekend, or one day during the week after work. 

I'm also going to try to connect with the person at my local club that has the PAR meter and borrow it next weekend, or at least get in contact with them and schedule a date to pick it up in the event someone else is borrowing it. 

I'll be knocking the WC out today when the lights come on. 

I still have the long hair/string algae, but I'm not seeing anything new and what's currently there isn't really green any more. It's almost like it's dying off. Fingers crossed so hopefully the algae is getting ready to kick the bucket.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Hopefully the new plants will fill in, if they increase uptake significantly that should take care of the algae issue as well. In a tank with good uptake you could literally through in a piece of wood covered with BBA and it will just dye out and disappear. Algae will appear if conditions are right and disappear if they aren't, that's why pretreating plants prior to putting them in an aquarium is useless. Depending on the way the plants grow (size/color) they should give you an indication of your light. 

i would hold off on fish until everything is growing well and the algae is gone. Why add more organic waste? It's only going to make things harder. You had an uphill battle to begin with, because of all the hardscape and not enough plant mass. So hopefully you'll turn the corner on this. 

Addressing the UV from your prior post. Cant hurt I used to use them on big tanks. One you'll have crystal clear water and never get green water. Many times if you remove alot of plants or something gets stirred up it can start green water. Whenever I remove stems from the root and it makes a mess, I follow immediately with a big water change or suction out the area that got stirred up. Two the UV will also help with fish acclimation since it will kill pathogens in the water that might attack that fish when it's stressed and it's immune system is compromised. 

There's no problem with ferts, they don't remove anything significant especially if your doing EI type dosing. 
If you don't have a quarantine setup, the UV is the next best thing and in many cases better, but not a necessity.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Hopefully the new plants will fill in, if they increase uptake significantly that should take care of the algae issue as well. In a tank with good uptake you could literally through in a piece of wood covered with BBA and it will just dye out and disappear. Algae will appear if conditions are right and disappear if they aren't, that's why pretreating plants prior to putting them in an aquarium is useless. Depending on the way the plants grow (size/color) they should give you an indication of your light.
> 
> i would hold off on fish until everything is growing well and the algae is gone. Why add more organic waste? It's only going to make things harder. You had an uphill battle to begin with, because of all the hardscape and not enough plant mass. So hopefully you'll turn the corner on this.
> 
> ...


I'll need to do some research on UV units because it can't hurt to add one to the tank. The only issue is it's getting fairly tight inside the stand. I'm wondering if there are any units that I can maybe hang on the side where my inflow and outflow pipes are that's strong enough for this size tank. Worst case I'll need to start PVCing the GLA and reactor to make more room, but the reason I was initially planning on doing that is because I wanted to control the flow going through the reactor because I thought that I was not getting 100% dissolve rate on my CO2, but it turned out that my plants were pearling so much that the tiny bubbles were O2...like an absurd amount that made me believe it was CO2 escaping. After observing the tank up close I quickly saw that my assumption was wrong. 

Otherwise my plan is definitely leave things be and continue doing exactly what I've been doing. Things seem to be headed where I want them so I won't make any drastic changes, or additions, unless I'm adding more plants and just wait for everything to grow in. As soon as PO4 hits about 4-5ppm, the following week I'll add that back in with the macro doses. It seems like the tank is using 2ish ppm per week. So if I get down to 4ppm or so, if I add in 2ppm I should remain around 4-5ppm constantly. 

I think the craziest thing is every week when I swap out the Oase pre filter pads, the ones I pull out that have been in there one week are so ridiculously dirty that it doesn't really make sense. I feed the fish every other day, and the food literally never even hits the sand because they're eating it up so quickly. I'm not sure where all that crap is coming from but it's one observation I've made over the last month or two of weekly pre filter pad swaps. 

It is surface skimming so I'm guessing that plant matter and whatever other organic matter is being skimmed off the surface is breaking down into brown crud. 

I did make one other change mid week last week. Each week I have 6 small rubbermaid cups with lids. I add the dry ferts to the cups, Sun-Tue-Thur are macros, and the opposite days are micros and Saturday nothing gets dosed since it's water change day. I've always just filled each cup with the ferts and left them dry. On the day I'm adding them I just add some water, shake it up and then dump it. When I dump it, about half of the ferts were still crystals. I decided mid week last week to add water, shake them all up, and then leave them to fully dissolve so that when I add the ferts, it's all in solution. I'm not sure if that will make a difference one way or the other since it's going to dissolve in the tank, but figured that the ferts would be available to the plants more quickly in a solution versus slowly dissolving in the tank.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

You are very diligent in your journaling (unlike me lmao) so I'll be following along here. I think the more diligent members that really take time to journal everything and discuss always contribute the most so thank you.

I only read the previous few pages so apologies if I missed something

I think Asteroid's responses are spot on. I think the core of your issues are due to having lower plant mass in a high tech setup with good amount of light. This is literally the reason I am doing dutch style tank now - I can pack the tank with stems and everything is just easier. In previous setups I always had issues where I needed enough light to satisfy the faster growing stems but my hardscape would always have algae. It almost seems impossible to have it both ways... hardscape heavy tanks struggle to support the higher light environment for high tech stems simply because you can't get plant mass high enough to out-compete algae etc. For example you have that bit of carpet in front that wants a lot of light but in doing so you are going to blast all that wood/rocks with light as well. It might be doable but I think you would need immaculate conditions to avoid all algae etc

I will also say that decaying plant mass contributes to waste more than we expect IMO. Right now I have <20 fish in a ~90g setup and feed very little and am always surprised at how much waste I can vacuum up during water changes.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

klibs said:


> You are very diligent in your journaling (unlike me lmao) so I'll be following along here. I think the more diligent members that really take time to journal everything and discuss always contribute the most so thank you.
> 
> I only read the previous few pages so apologies if I missed something
> 
> ...


I always tend to write or journal what's happening, what actions I'm taking, observations, etc., mainly as a means of a sanity check. I might do something today that causes an issue 4 months from now so I'll actually go back and read through what was happening to see if it's a problem I caused and can correct. I did this with my reef tanks as well and it proved to be very useful. What I don't share is I actually have a test results spreadsheet with notes, along with a maintenance spreadsheet with notes, the latter of which is obviously used a lot more. I also feel that others can benefit from some of the things I'm trying to do, dealing with, or thought processes and discussions in the thread. 

I'm hopeful that I can get enough plant mass to grow so that it outcompetes the algae. One of the other things I'm going to do is add a lot of anubias to the tank. There are a lot of little nooks and crannies that can use some, along with maybe some crypt parva. 

I strongly suspect that if I stock this tank the way I want to stock it fish wise, I may need to amp up my filter cleanings. I'll know for sure in a couple weeks after I see how bad my GLA canister is. 

I think one of the things I've been trying to avoid is packing the tank with plants so that the hardscape doesn't get covered, but I think sacrificing some of the hardscape by covering it with plants seems like the only solution, and quite frankly as long as I do it the right way, it won't detract from the overall look of the tank.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

One interesting observation I made last night...

For a couple months it seemed like I could never find more than a couple Otocinclus at a time. My reticulated SAE's also didn't graze a whole lot on algae. I chalked the former up to the tank being so hardscape heavy that there's no way I'd see them all, and the latter I figured were so accustomed to eating fish food that they just completely lost interest in algae. 

Well last night and most of the last two weeks I've seen a startling difference in that the Otocinclus are actively grazing on algae in large numbers, but they've also been extremely active, and the SAE's are also grazing constantly. 

The only changes have been reduction in ferts, removing those four large rocks, and rescaping the stems and adding new ones. Water changes have remained the same so I'm not quite sure what to this of this. It's also not the level of CO2 because after adjusting my controller to raise PH a bit, I decided that since my fish seemed perfectly fine that I'd just lower it again. 

One variable is that my tank has been exactly 1 degree warmer than it has been throughout the summer. I think that change just started over the last couple weeks since the weather dropped down into the 30's here. My heater controller has a 1 degree range - if temp drops below 72.4 the heater kicks on and then shuts off at 73.4. The tank has consistently been at 74.4. Is it possible that those two species prefer the water to be a bit warmer than what I've kept it at? 

I will be making one more change, but this is strictly from a maintenance perspective. Rather than doing my water changes on Saturdays...which sometimes turn into Sunday water changes because of friends and family coming by, I'm going to switch to water changes on Friday nights, and then adjust my dosing days around that. I'll still plan on doing filter maintenance on Saturdays just to spread the load out a bit, except pre filter pad swaps on the Oase which I'll continue to do on water change days. So in the grand scheme of things, the only benefit to the tank on making this change is that it's more likely to actually get the water change on the actual water change day rather than being too busy to get it done because company is over. 

The stem plants really seem to be getting ready to take off with growth. I'd suspect that they're still focusing their energy on producing roots and once that's done they'll start actually growing. It's hard to tell if there has been any growth whatsoever since it would more than likely be minimal at best, but it won't be questionable once they're halfway up the tank lol. 

The one other update I have that I didn't want to mention until I knew for sure is the growth rate of nearly every buce in my tank. I'm seeing at least one new leaf every week. I'm doing something right, the question is what is it exactly  

The other thing I noticed is that when reading about MC, it tends to grow upwards when there's a lack of lighting. Mine grows compact along the sand. Is it getting just enough light to not start reaching up, or is there just not enough organic matter in the sand for them? I'm hoping to answer this question once I get the PAR meter. I did reach out to the local group and someone is currently using it but I got my name in there for the next to borrow it. 

Aside from that I'll test again tonight. I may or may not update this thread with those results unless PO4 went nuts and suddenly disappeared. Honestly I hope something like that doesn't happen because that'll drive me crazy not knowing why it suddenly dropped all on its own lol.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Wow, so I didn't expect these test results, but I can't say I'm displeased. 

NO3: 25ppm
PO4: between 2 and 5ppm, I'd call it 3ppm
K: between 30-35ppm

So between the last test which was just before my WC and today, PO4 dropped 3-4ppm. 

I really don't think I can attribute it to water changes since I've been doing the same water changes since I started going down this rabbit hole. 

Could it be that whatever condition was causing the plants to not efficiently take up PO4 has been solved? I did move the lighting more towards the center of the tank rather than biased towards the rear. The main reason I initially biased it towards the rear was due to the rocks that I removed blocking some of the light from reaching the stem plants. Did moving it forward enable more of the plants to start benefiting from more light? 

Could it be halving the dose of micros? I was adding 2X as much as I should have been adding. 

Could it be the slight increase in temperature? 

I doubt we'll ever know for sure, but the plan now is once I do my WC on Friday, Saturday will get PO4 added back into the macro doses. 

I think the only way we'll know for sure is if the plants go bananas with growth. 

I will test one more time on Friday, at least PO4. If it has dropped to 2ppm or below, then I'll know that the plants are starting to use it, but will need to make sure that I'm dosing enough for it to be freely available, without getting crazy. 

But hey, this couldn't have been a better surprise on a day where I was ridiculously stressed out from work. 

Anyhow, I'm glad this issue has been resolved! Now to just stay the course.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

After doing a lot of reading today, stuff from Barr and others, I think I may have a theory that really explains everything. 

If everyone recalls back about a month or more ago I had the rona and couldn't get my weekly water change in. I continued dosing normally though. 

During that week, towards the end of that second week I began noticing some changes in the tank. The stems weren't growing as rapidly as they were, and the most noticeable was Pogostemon Helferi Downoi had basically shriveled up. Any of the plants from the Alternathera species looked terrible. They've always looked terrible, but were looking even more terrible. 

@Asteroid I think you mentioned that I was putting a lot more stock into the value of water changes than I probably should be since skipping one shouldn't really make much of a difference. I completely agree, but after going back through the thread, and combining it with what I learned today I think I have a theory. 

So we all know I was dosing at least 2X what I should have been dosing. I confirmed this with my testing and looking at what Rotala Butterfly recommends. 

For that week I skipped the water change because I was too sick, I continued dosing, at 2X. Now with macros, meh right? Who cares if I'm dosing a month's worth in two weeks. That would literally have no effect because I was still within range of EI. 

But....I was dosing well over 2X of micros (CSM+B). So for god knows how long, basically when I switched from nutrient solution to dry ferts, I've been dosing 2X+. 

I was reading about deficiencies just to brush up on them, and I think it was one of Tom Barr's posts (not on this forum) but it was about excessive iron. Distorted and stunted growth on fast growers, most plants show signs of something not being right, and the appearance of filamentous algae. 

I'm not one to wrap a bow around a problem and call it good, but this does explain everything lol. It's been a couple weeks that I've been dosing micros at the correct level, and even a hair lower than recommended. What I've noticed in those couple weeks is Rotala leaves are much larger, fuller even than they were. The filamentous algae is still there, and I do my best to remove it when I see it but it doesn't look bright green any more. It's still growing wherever there's moss, but the color has definitely changed. 

Back when I had this problem I mentioned toxicity but didn't explore it further and only just found it by accident. 

In any case, that still doesn't explain PO4 building up the way it did. Could that stunting have caused the plants to not take up PO4, K, or nitrates and they just continued building up despite water changes? 

Everything seems to be responding well to what I'm doing so I'm more just curious to understand what the cause actually was. This is seeming like the most likely cause.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Took a couple fish pics that were cool. 


















I really need to organize my spare room so that I can get to my DSLR and macro lens.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> Took a couple fish pics that were cool. I really need to organize my spare room so that I can get to my DSLR and macro lens.


Tip. If you turn off your pump and CO2 for a minute or so before taking your photos you can get rid of most of those white spots.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> Tip. If you turn off your pump and CO2 for a minute or so before taking your photos you can get rid of most of those white spots.


I'll have to try that once I get my DSLR unburied. 

Believe it or not, all those bubbles are O2 lol. I thought they were CO2 for a couple months until one night I sat by my tank and carefully observed it and I'd say at least 90%+ is from pearling. 

The canister filters running just seem to keep them suspended rather than rising to the surface and bursting. 

I was glad to have figured this out because I intended on running an overly complicated PVC setup to mainly cut the flow down through my reactor.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> After doing a lot of reading today, stuff from Barr and others, I think I may have a theory that really explains everything.
> 
> If everyone recalls back about a month or more ago I had the rona and couldn't get my weekly water change in. I continued dosing normally though.
> 
> ...


Barr is usually pretty OK with very large dosing, so who knows. What did you read? You were only dosing CSM and not supplementing with additional FE dosing right? I mean you would really have to be dosing a lot to get to levels that would be counterproductive. 

Nice pics, you shot those with your phone?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Barr is usually pretty OK with very large dosing, so who knows. What did you read? You were only dosing CSM and not supplementing with additional FE dosing right? I mean you would really have to be dosing a lot to get to levels that would be counterproductive.
> 
> Nice pics, you shot those with your phone?


I was first reading through a bunch of old posts from him on what I think is his forum about deficiencies. For whatever reason I did a search on overdosing and started finding posts from him and others on excessive iron symptoms. Based on what I read, and the signs of this in my plants, it seemed to hit all of the symptoms I've had with my plants. Stunted growth, which is still visible on my Rotala, and stunted growth is definitely what seemed to suddenly happen to my Pogo Helferi, and basically every plant just seemed to halt in growth. 

I was dosing 2X what the calculator recommends and was doing exactly 50% water changes the whole time. If I'm dosing 2X for months, each water change is only removing 1X. The following week I'm dosing another 2X and when I do that water change, more than 1X remained in the tank. I think that maybe over months, iron built up and then the straw that broke the camels back was skipping the water change and continue dosing. One of the other symptoms, the filamentous algae was tied to excess iron dosing. 

Everything is recovering nicely, but it was definitely something that piqued my interest because of how well it described what I was seeing. 

Yep, those pics were from my iPhone. I gotta give apple credit on using great quality lenses in the phone cameras. Their built in software definitely doesn't hurt lol, but it does take pretty nice images. 

I took this pic of my dog a couple weeks ago with my iPhone. It's really starting to rival what my old DSLR can do lol.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I was first reading through a bunch of old posts from him on what I think is his forum about deficiencies. For whatever reason I did a search on overdosing and started finding posts from him and others on excessive iron symptoms. Based on what I read, and the signs of this in my plants, it seemed to hit all of the symptoms I've had with my plants. Stunted growth, which is still visible on my Rotala, and stunted growth is definitely what seemed to suddenly happen to my Pogo Helferi, and basically every plant just seemed to halt in growth.
> 
> I was dosing 2X what the calculator recommends and was doing exactly 50% water changes the whole time. If I'm dosing 2X for months, each water change is only removing 1X. The following week I'm dosing another 2X and when I do that water change, more than 1X remained in the tank. I think that maybe over months, iron built up and then the straw that broke the camels back was skipping the water change and continue dosing. One of the other symptoms, the filamentous algae was tied to excess iron dosing.
> 
> ...


a

I hear you and of course who knows, but stunting can happen for a ton of reasons, too little, too much, algae, co2 deficiencies and other water-related issues. That's why that picture you always see showing leaves with plant deficiencies is useless because they are based on terrestrial plant damage and don't take into consideration the additional issues when water is in the equation.

Yes, outdoor pics with tons of natural light the phone pics are very close to DSLR ones. When light becomes the limiting issue than the DSLRs do much better as the sensor in the phone camera is much smaller. 

That's a great shot of a great dog!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> a
> 
> I hear you and of course who knows, but stunting can happen for a ton of reasons, too little, too much, algae, co2 deficiencies and other water-related issues. That's why that picture you always see showing leaves with plant deficiencies is useless because they are based on terrestrial plant damage and don't take into consideration the additional issues when water is in the equation.
> 
> ...


Thanks, I definitely agree that lower light is where the camera phones fall flat on their faces. They're also not even remotely as good with macro. With a nice macro lens and even an entry level DSLR, you can take some macro shots that blow away what a camera phone is capable of. 

I agree 100% on the charts with leaf pics being useless. Back when I had GSA, not a single leaf showed signs of PO4 deficiency, at least according to those charts with pics. What I did see during that time were holes in leaves, which would point to something else entirely, like a K deficiency. 

I did go down the rabbit hole of Mg deficiency, that affected uptake of the other nutrients. I don't have a freshwater version of an Mg test kit though. I may pick one up for the heck of it, even though I probably don't have a need for it, even if it's just to establish what my tank is currently reading. 

If you can't tell, when I don't know how something works it bothers me lol.


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## johnson18 (Apr 29, 2011)

Nice pics, beautiful dog! My tank is the same way, by the second half of the photoperiod it might as well be full of La Croix. 

How old is your Apisto?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

johnson18 said:


> Nice pics, beautiful dog! My tank is the same way, by the second half of the photoperiod it might as well be full of La Croix.
> 
> How old is your Apisto?
> 
> ...


Thanks!

The bubbles do drive me kind of crazy but when the tank is full of them I know that the plants are happy. 

I’d say the apisto is probably getting close to a year old. I’ve had him since end of June or early July. My LFS had him for at least two months before I bought him. It’s always amusing watching people come by and get surprised when they see him since he’s so different from the other fish.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Definitely break out the SLR / macro for the Apisto. They are such beautiful fish. The pic you took is very nice, but with the SLR/macro you will catch more detail. Pearling plants also make great shots with a macro lens. I've gotten some really nice shots with my old Canon 60D and 60mm macro.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Definitely break out the SLR / macro for the Apisto. They are such beautiful fish. The pic you took is very nice, but with the SLR/macro you will catch more detail. Pearling plants also make great shots with a macro lens. I've gotten some really nice shots with my old Canon 60D and 60mm macro.


I have an old Canon XSI with a Tamron 180mm macro lens and that lens can take some amazing images. I "borrowed" my 50mm Canon EF macro to a "friend" and still haven't gotten it back. That was in 2012 lol. I basically wrote it off but the thing I like better about the 180mm is that you don't need to get as close to the subject as you do with the 50mm. I remember when I first got the 180mm, I was amazed by how many things that were impossible to get close enough to suddenly were fair game (bumblebees, butterflies, dragonflies, etc.). 

I'm hoping to get my spare room cleaned out over the next couple weeks. The room became "storage" after I moved here and even though I had a lot of plans for the room, other projects kept taking precedence. 

I've really wanted to upgrade to a more semi pro camera for a long time but could never justify spending the cash. My camera is so old that I may need to set up a secret squirrel fund for a new camera.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

I am jealous about the pearling. My plants are health and grow all too fast but I have never had pearling.

BTW. How has your GLA filter worked out? Earlier in the year I bought their CO2 reactor which also has a port for a heater. It looked like a nice solution. The first time I let it fill, water game gushing out past the red rubber seal. It made quite a mess and I decided that I could not trust it. Luckily they took it back after a bit of "conversation".


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> I am jealous about the pearling. My plants are health and grow all too fast but I have never had pearling.
> 
> BTW. How has your GLA filter worked out? Earlier in the year I bought their CO2 reactor which also has a port for a heater. It looked like a nice solution. The first time I let it fill, water game gushing out past the red rubber seal. It made quite a mess and I decided that I could not trust it. Luckily they took it back after a bit of "conversation".


I'd have a really hard time giving a good or bad review of the GLA. There are things I like about it, and things I don't. 

I like the capacity and the power of the DC pump. 

But, considering the price point, could I have gotten the same from a similarly sized Fzone? Fzone was out of stock of that size canister when I ordered so my options were limited. But they're both the same concept, I just wonder how the Fzone looks as far as quality of welds and stuff like that. 

The things I don't like about it are:

- When doing full maintenance, as long as you shut off all your valves, it's very heavy so you kind of need to bear hug it so that you're not grabbing onto the inlet or the pump components on the lid. Obviously common sense sort of thing, but it's pretty heavy and awkward. 

- Unlike literally every canister filter I've owned over almost 4 decades, you can't lube the o-ring. I lubed mine, put the lid back on carefully, then flipped the shutoff valves and then proceeded to flood my stand. I remove the lid, and probably flooded my stand 2 more times. Thankfully I sealed the inside of the stand extremely well knowing that I'd flood it at some point lol. The only way I could get it to seal properly was drying and wiping the whole o-ring off, then the ledge it sits in. What was happening was as I closed the clamps, the o-ring was just slippery enough to get pushed off the ledge. I played with it for a good hour before attempting to wipe the lube off and dry that whole ledge. 

- They really should have included a bleed valve in the lid. So after you get the lid back on and everything reconnected, you flip the shutoff valves and.......absolutely nothing happens. There's no way to purge the air, so the siphon can't flood the canister. I unclipped one of the clips and then listened to the hissing until it sounded like the water was getting close and then I closed it. My biggest concern is that by unclipping it, when I went to snap the clasp back down the o-ring would get pushed off the ledge and I'd be right back to flooding my stand. Thankfully that hasn't happened the two times I've had it open. A bleed valve would have made all kinds of sense. Not sure why they didn't think about that. Unclipping one clasp accomplishes the same thing, but a bleed valve removes the chance of flooding your stand while listening the the frequency of the hiss of air purging out of it. 

If someone asked me if I'm happy with it my answer would be "meh". It's powerful, holds a lot of media, but it's very prissy. 

Compared to the Oase, it's much more difficult at maintenance time. The Oase is almost idiot proof lol. When you do need to maintain the whole canister, as long as you lube up o-rings everything runs great. I'm just not sure I'd wanted to have a second Oase. The DC pump on the GLA blows away the Oase on gph. 

Sorry to hear the GLA reactor didn't work out. I remember when you mentioned you were ordering it and I was hoping it would have worked out because I really liked the idea behind it.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I did make a run to the LFS today. My intention was to buy a bunch of Amanos but when I saw the price I decided to pass. They were $5 each which I think it way too high for Amanos. If anyone has a good online source please feel free to shoot them my way. 

I did buy 3 mystery snails and 3 zebra nerites. Even though I have pest snails, I figured a few big snails can't hurt and they look cool. 

I also picked up a TC of Crypt Parva. I'll probably get those planted today. 

Aside from that it was tough to pass up on the fish I wanted lol. But with the issues seeming to be resolved, I'd rather wait a bit longer before adding more waste to the tank.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

ddiomede said:


> - Unlike literally every canister filter I've owned over almost 4 decades, you can't lube the o-ring. I lubed mine, put the lid back on carefully, then flipped the shutoff valves and then proceeded to flood my stand. I remove the lid, and probably flooded my stand 2 more times. Thankfully I sealed the inside of the stand extremely well knowing that I'd flood it at some point lol. The only way I could get it to seal properly was drying and wiping the whole o-ring off, then the ledge it sits in. What was happening was as I closed the clamps, the o-ring was just slippery enough to get pushed off the ledge. I played with it for a good hour before attempting to wipe the lube off and dry that whole ledge.
> 
> ...Sorry to hear the GLA reactor didn't work out. I remember when you mentioned you were ordering it and I was hoping it would have worked out because I really liked the idea behind it.


OMG. You nailed it on the head. I did lube the "O" ring because I have done that with my Oase. That probably caused it to slip out of position. The Oase is well engineered and the o-ring is captive and cannot really move.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> OMG. You nailed it on the head. I did lube the "O" ring because I have done that with my Oase. That probably caused it to slip out of position. The Oase is well engineered and the o-ring is captive and cannot really move.


The non-captive o-ring was definitely a huge fail. I'm surprised they didn't improve that because I'm sure we're not the only two who suddenly discovered this problem. 

I will say this in their defense, they possibly could have mentioned this in the manual, but I tend to not read them anymore lol. If you've had one canister filter, you've had them all


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> I have an old Canon XSI with a Tamron 180mm macro lens and that lens can take some amazing images. I "borrowed" my 50mm Canon EF macro to a "friend" and still haven't gotten it back. That was in 2012 lol. I basically wrote it off but the thing I like better about the 180mm is that you don't need to get as close to the subject as you do with the 50mm. I remember when I first got the 180mm, I was amazed by how many things that were impossible to get close enough to suddenly were fair game (bumblebees, butterflies, dragonflies, etc.).
> 
> I'm hoping to get my spare room cleaned out over the next couple weeks. The room became "storage" after I moved here and even though I had a lot of plans for the room, other projects kept taking precedence.
> 
> I've really wanted to upgrade to a more semi pro camera for a long time but could never justify spending the cash. My camera is so old that I may need to set up a secret squirrel fund for a new camera.


Yep, never lend anything out, you might as well throw it into a black hole, it's gone LOL.

LIke you said even with an old SLR like that XSI you have and a legit macro lens you can get amazing shots. Yep the Longer FL of the 180mm will get you closer to skittish insects, but with an aquarium probably not as important since the fish are kinda captive within a workable distance with a shorter FL. You can also handhold unless the 180 has IS. 

Another big advantage of the SLR is since it has a much higher resolution you could crop pretty aggressively and still get a sharp image. This was just a common frog in my backyard which was already cropped and then I cropped it some more and it's still pretty clear. 



















Pearling plants make really good macros. This is some Bolbitis heudelotii










Also Bolbitis, I think I used an off camera flash on this one to really push the light.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Yep, never lend anything out, you might as well throw it into a black hole, it's gone LOL.
> 
> LIke you said even with an old SLR like that XSI you have and a legit macro lens you can get amazing shots. Yep the Longer FL of the 180mm will get you closer to skittish insects, but with an aquarium probably not as important since the fish are kinda captive within a workable distance with a shorter FL. You can also handhold unless the 180 has IS.
> 
> ...


Unfortunately that 180 doesn't have IS. I think my 50mm did (actually now that I think about it, it was an image stabilized 60mm). I actually just saw the person I lent it to like 2 weeks ago and I brought it up again lol. I think it's going to take my going to his house and telling him I'm not leaving until he gives me my lens back hahaha. 

I'm sure that XSI still takes great pics....much better than my iPhone can. My plan this week and the 4 days weekend is to get my laundry room and spare bedroom cleaned and organized. That will give me access to the closet the camera bag is in. For whatever reason last week was a full week of herding cats at work so I was burned out. I hired two people, two weeks ago. One started on Monday and the other starts next Monday. The guy who started this Monday was onboarded, trained, and on Wednesday morning he emails me from his personal email to let me know he changed his mind. So I had to scramble to interview a bunch of people this week, along with trying to get an important partnership closed that I've been working on since March. My CEO also had a bunch of ideas last week. Needless to say drinking beers and cleaning up around the house was about as motivated to knock projects out as I was going to get. 

The one thing I bought this weekend that I honestly should have just bought months ago was a Flipper Float for cleaning algae. I was holding off on buying it because I have a hammerhead from my reef tank but had no idea where it was after the move. I still have no clue where it's at so after getting tired of cleaning the glass by hand I just ordered the flipper. 

The snails I added all seem to be doing well. The one thing I really liked was watching them going across the sand and cleaning it as they went. A couple even went onto some of the large buce and were cleaning the stems and roots of algae. Now if I can just find a decent price on amanos I'd be set. I figured 20 or so would be a good amount. I may call around locally to try to find a better deal than $5 each.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Nothing new to update since everything is just settling in nicely. 

The Limnophila are starting to grow now. I'd say they're roughly 15-20% larger than when I first added them. 

This Friday I'm planning to take advantage of water change day by moving my microsorum trident over to the rear, right of the "path". Stem plants just don't seem to do well there since they're shaded a bit by the branches of the spider wood so I'll be removing any stems from there and moving them elsewhere and then putting the trident there. 

I'll probably move some of the Blyxa from the left side to another spot, while moving one of my pink flamingos there to add a bit of color to that area. My crypt spiralis red has grown like crazy so I may add one or two elsewhere in the tank as well. I still have the crypt parva that I bought so I'll be adding that to the tank as well. What I might do is only separate the TC into 2 bunches, plant them and let them grow, and then once they've matured a bit I'll move them into a final place. I'm afraid that my reticulated SAE's will get a bit too rambunctious and tear them out before they've had a chance to root, so keeping them together will prevent that. 

I also am waiting for my local club person to confirm when I can pick up the PAR meter. She just got back to me earlier but said she will get back in touch to schedule pickup and drop off. So hopefully that will happen Friday and I can get some PAR readings. I might also clean out my little nano so that I can at least get some PAR readings on that for when I redo the tank. It'll give me a chance to play around with the Fluval app and see what intensity settings I'll need to be at. 

I'll get an FTS up tonight though along with a pic of the Limnophila and how much it has grown.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Today was the first day I didn't have family stop by so two days late, I finally managed to get my water change done. 

I did manage to pick up the PAR meter from my local club so I'll be taking PAR readings after work tomorrow. Initially my plan was to do a WC on Friday, pick up the PAR meter and then take readings on Saturday. Because I didn't have time to do a water change, I decided to hold off on taking any PAR measurements. So tomorrow I'll be able to see what's actually going on in the tank. 

I moved some plants around before I changed the water. I'll take an FTS tomorrow before I check PAR, but I created a whole lot of room behind my spider wood on the left by moving the microsorum trident to the right of the path in the back. Stem plants don't seem to do well in that spot and since that plant doesn't require high light I figured it would be a great place to move it. 

I also moved the Blyxa, at least most of it from in front of the left side spider wood, and in its place I put one of my pink flamingo crypts. I then sprinkled the Blyxa around wherever there was a bare spot. 

I also planted the TC of Crypt Parva. I was able to cut it into 3 small bunches and planted them in partly shaded areas. Once they grow a bit I'll separate them a bit better and plant them in other locations. 

The Limnophila Hippuridiodes is really starting to fill in nicely. It seems like it's not a crazy fast grower like rotala, but it looks great already. 

I'll be back tomorrow with an FTS and PAR measurements. 

I technically have the meter for a month, but I said I'd return it on Saturday. If I can find some time this week to break down my nano and set it up, I may try to take some PAR readings but I doubt that will happen since I don't have any plants for it yet. Or a plan for how to plant it really.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

One thing I forgot to mention in the post last night is I'm starting to regret choosing the dragonstone. 

Because of how many holes are in the stone, waste seems to get trapped in them. Out of curiosity I decided to place the tube from my python on one of the holes and the reddish brown crap that came out blew my mind. I typically don't use the gravel tube since I have sand, so I just remove it and use the tubing itself. I went around wherever there was a hole in the dragonstone and kept sucking the same stuff out. It was amazing how much was coming out. 

While I love the look of dragonstone, I don't think I'll ever use it again. It seems like it can potentially cause issues over time getting stuffed up with organic matter. 

I'll post again later with the results of the PAR measurements. I feel very impatient and want to do it now but I have work to do lol.


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## Scully (Nov 20, 2020)

I had a similar issue with my dragonstone. I also found it would increase my TDS drastically between WCs. I scrubbed the heck out of it before I initially put it in as well as after and it basically just kept falling apart. I have it in a box somewhere now, it should hold up well for a terrarium, but I probably wouldn't use it in an aquarium again.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Scully said:


> I had a similar issue with my dragonstone. I also found it would increase my TDS drastically between WCs. I scrubbed the heck out of it before I initially put it in as well as after and it basically just kept falling apart. I have it in a box somewhere now, it should hold up well for a terrarium, but I probably wouldn't use it in an aquarium again.


Structurally it's holding up pretty well, but it seems to be accumulating organic matter. It really is going to make maintenance much more difficult. 

Agreed though...I won't be using it again. The thought of the holes getting filled up with organic matter didn't even occur to me when I made the decision. Maybe in a couple years when I get the itch to do a rescape I'll use different rock.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Reddish brown? That sounds like clay that didn't harden into stone. Did you rinse it and clean out the openings of loose clay before use?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Reddish brown? That sounds like clay that didn't harden into stone. Did you rinse it and clean out the openings of loose clay before use?


The rocks were fully cleaned. The reddish brown is broken down organic matter. I see the exact same stuff shoot out of my canister filters when I bring them online after a water change. 

When I first rinsed my stone, I used pretty high pressure and blew through all of the holes in the rock to prevent any clay from falling out over time since it wouldn't look great getting mixed in with the PFS.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

So PAR readings are done:

I'll write them out by tank level (top, middle, bottom) and then left front/center/rear, center front/center/rear, etc. 

Top:

Rear left - 35
Rear center - 36
Rear right - 33

Center left - 140
Center center - 250
Center right - 240

Front left - 33
Front center - 33
Front right - 20

Obviously no surprise here. I was measuring an inch or two below the water line, which is roughly 6" from the fixture (total 7-8" below light fixture)

Middle: 

Rear left - 85
Rear center - 106
Rear right - 80

Center left - 117
Center center - 125
Center right - 130

Front left - 60
Front center - 92
Front right - 71

These readings were taken about midwater. Not super surprised again. But one thing that interested me is the center readings. They're roughly 100 PAR lower and we're talking like 7-8" below the previous readings

Bottom:

Rear left - 75
Rear center - 63
Rear right - 78

Center left - 90
Center center - 23
Center right - 78

Front left - 74
Front center - 92
Front right - 70

So based on these readings, I'm getting sufficient par it seems. 

I think the one thing that's most surprising is how close the midwater measurements are to the bottom measurements. There doesn't seem to be that much of a drop-off. 

One thing I can do is lower the fixture even more, but I'd sacrifice some PAR at the very top in the front and back, not that it even matters though. I think the most notable change would be the middle and bottom readings might jump 30-40 PAR in the middle, and 20 or so in the bottom. 

The bottom center/center reading is a bit off because the area is shaded by the spiderwood....the thickest branch in the tank. 

Should I lower the fixture and take readings again? I can realistically only lower it maybe one more inch because it would start hitting one of my lily pipes. 

@Asteroid what are your thoughts on these readings? They surprisingly seem okay from the little I know about what par is good in planted tanks lol. 

I think that random chart with PAR readings on the Twinstar 900 SA must have been taken out of the water because they seem like BS readings based on what I just took lol. 

FTS coming next post.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

This second pic are the Limnophila Hippuridoides. They're probably 2-2.5X the size of when I got them.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Yay, a PAR Meter! Well the most important numbers are obviously the bottom and most would determine overall PAR by the area right under the light. You must've moved the light more toward the front to get the 92. I think overall your at the cusp of med/high. All the plants look good, Is that some gold on the Blyxa. That would help determine lighting. 

Does the tank seem better, algae wise? More mass in the back. I would personally get rid of the monte carlo and plant areas of moss on flat rocks in and around the foreground. They won't require much light and you can then move light more toward the back to focus on the stems. High light for the stems will make a difference. If I showed you the difference for example with Mermaid Weed at 60-70 PAR and 120-130 you'd be very surprised. 

Also without a planted foreground you could just pick up the moss-covered rocks and suction out some of the sand that gets discolored and drop in fresh sand. It give the tank that "new look" again. As I mentioned deep tanks with hardscapes and light demanding foregrounds are a difficult combo.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Yay, a PAR Meter! Well the most important numbers are obviously the bottom and most would determine overall PAR by the area right under the light. You must've moved the light more toward the front to get the 92. I think overall your at the cusp of med/high. All the plants look good, Is that some gold on the Blyxa. That would help determine lighting.
> 
> Does the tank seem better, algae wise? More mass in the back. I would personally get rid of the monte carlo and plant areas of moss on flat rocks in and around the foreground. They won't require much light and you can then move light more toward the back to focus on the stems. High light for the stems will make a difference. If I showed you the difference for example with Mermaid Weed at 60-70 PAR and 120-130 you'd be very surprised.
> 
> Also without a planted foreground you could just pick up the moss-covered rocks and suction out some of the sand that gets discolored and drop in fresh sand. It give the tank that "new look" again. As I mentioned deep tanks with hardscapes and light demanding foregrounds are a difficult combo.


I think to have high light, adding a second Twinstar might make the most sense. I think the thing that throws me is that I remember reading recently that Tom Barr visited ADA at some point and took a PAR meter with him and found that at substrate level, almost every tank was 30-50 PAR. I was honestly shocked by reading that. 

I could move the light rearward a hair and take readings on the bottom again and see what I get. I could probably also lower the light a bit more since moving the light rearwards also gets it out of the way of the lily pipe that's currently blocking the light from being lowered any more than 1" or so. Moving the light towards the back and lowering it would really kill PAR in the front half of the tank though. 

Regarding the Blyxa, there's a nice closeup of it in the pic of my Apisto. You can definitely see some reds peaking out in each of the leaves. 

Now for the algae....that long filamentous algae hasn't really gone away and is still there. It seems to still predominately be on the willow moss. 

I can't say that I don't like your idea with the moss attached to flat rocks and laid down in the front of the tank. Without adding a second fixture, that seems like the only reasonable option unless I do something else, but my options are pretty limited without a second fixture. 

I guess the question is what do I do lol. Do I wait a couple months and scoop up a second fixture, or do I remove the MC and pick up a few TC's of flame moss and tie/glue them to flat rocks and let them carpet? The latter option is definitely a lot less expensive lol. A fringe benefit is I'd be able to repurpose the MC for my nano by gluing it to the branches of the bonsai tree I'm planning to use in that tank. The only challenge is I'm considering doing away with CO2 on that tank and going low tech. The complication of getting paintball tanks refilled just isn't worth the hassle any longer since I can't fill them at the same place I fill my CO2 tanks since they went out of business. There's only one place that will refill them and that's a paintball supply shop that for some strange reason doesn't have weekend hours. 

One of the things I'm considering doing is moving all of the Rotala over to the right side where the Limnophila is, and moving the Limnophila over to the left side. In front of the Limno I'd take some of the crypt spiralis tiger to give a bit of a contrasting color to the greens that would be in the lower portions of the stems since the tops will turn red as they get closer to the surface. One of the main reasons aside from color contrasts that I want to move them is the Limnophila are a much sturdier stem and won't get blown around by the outflow from my lily pipes. The Rotala are definitely getting knocked around especially since they're still in recovery from whatever the issue was that impacted them so I'm not able to trim and get them to form a dense bush quite yet. 

In the meantime, tonight after work I'll move the light back towards the rear again and take some readings to see where I'm at both in the back and the front. As long as the front stays around 50-60 par with the back much higher than it currently is, that should do the trick. 

I'm also going to remove the willow moss. That seems to be where the long thread algae originates so I'm just going to pull it all and toss it. The moss itself also doesn't look very healthy, but getting blasted by 250 par would be the likely cause 

If there aren't any other options than moss for a carpeting plant in the front, then that's what I'll need to go with. 

So far though I'm pretty happy with the way things are progressing. I think there's a good plan here and some decisions I'll need to make but overall the outcome I think could be good. 

The one decision I'm really happy about is moving one of my pink flamingos. It looks so much better where it's currently at and added a nice color contrast to that area.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

So quick update. 

I pushed the fixture rearwards exactly 1" and took more bottom of the tank readings. 

Previous readings for the bottom:

Rear left - 75
Rear center - 63
Rear right - 78

Center left - 90
Center center - 23
Center right - 78

Front left - 74
Front center - 92
Front right - 70

Moving the fixture rearwards one inch:

Rear left - 95
Rear center - 90
Rear right - 92

Center left - 90
Center center - 25
Center right - 97

Front left - 72
Front center - 85
Front right - 61

The rear numbers are what I was hoping that the movement of the fixture further back would make a pretty big jump and they did. On average there is a 20 par increase bringing everything closer to 100 par. 

The center measurements really didn't change. The only one that did was center right, but I could have screwed that one up yesterday. 

The front of tank measurements are what really surprised me. A drop of 10 at most. The front left and right aren't a huge surprise since the readings were literally taken from those corners, where light is hard to reach but the center didn't drop a whole lot. 

I think the only thing that will raise par even more in the back and center is lowering the fixture another inch. The side effect would be that the front readings would all plummet. I think I'll leave things where they are because these readings seem about as perfect as I'll get them without adding another fixture, which I'm not opposed to, but I also don't want to drop another $400 just to chase par. 

I do believe that whoever tested the Twinstar 900 SA did so without water in the tank because there's no way that fixture is that much more powerful than mine and their results were questionable at best lol. 

For the heck of it I played around with the meter in my nano tank. If the fixture was set on 30% on all channel except blue (stayed at 7%), the par was about 40. At 50% par went up to 55-60. At 100% par went up to a hair over 100. These readings were taken about in the middle of the tank and didn't really change much regardless of how far down you went, which in that tank I have a whopping 8 or so inches of water above the substrate lol. If I end up going low tech with that tank, I'll just drop the channels to 40-50% and that should be low enough to not have to worry. 

I'm glad that my local club has a par meter to borrow. While I'd love to buy one, I'll more than likely not have a need for it again unless I get different lights or something. I will likely borrow it again if I set up a reef tank again. I definitely have no need to buy one though. 

My kitchen lights are 40 par in case anyone was wondering


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

What your going through with your lights is the reason it's hard to grow high-light plants in all areas of the tank. To be honest carpets in deep tanks are a pain. Trimming and/or the eventual lifting of it is a lot of work. When i mentioned a moss foreground, I didn't mean a full carpet just scattered around the rocks and keep sand along the front. It will fill it out and look lusher, plus it doesn't require alot of work. When the moss gets too thick you can just lift out the rock it's on, trim and put back down. 

The big ADA tanks used MH lighting back then, I don't know if people were going for so much color, I doubt you would get much at 30-50 PAR if that's the intensity. ADA would recommend two 250watt MH lights for their 120cm (4 footer) tanks hung 30cm from the water surface over a tank I think was 20" deep.

I was gonna ask you about your kitchen lights lol. All I know is mine don't grow any plants well and I end up using special lighting for them.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> What your going through with your lights is the reason it's hard to grow high-light plants in all areas of the tank. To be honest carpets in deep tanks are a pain. Trimming and/or the eventual lifting of it is a lot of work. When i mentioned a moss foreground, I didn't mean a full carpet just scattered around the rocks and keep sand along the front. It will fill it out and look lusher, plus it doesn't require alot of work. When the moss gets too thick you can just lift out the rock it's on, trim and put back down.
> 
> The big ADA tanks used MH lighting back then, I don't know if people were going for so much color, I doubt you would get much at 30-50 PAR if that's the intensity. ADA would recommend two 250watt MH lights for their 120cm (4 footer) tanks hung 30cm from the water surface over a tank I think was 20" deep.
> 
> I was gonna ask you about your kitchen lights lol. All I know is mine don't grow any plants well and I end up using special lighting for them.


Makes sense for sure. I was watching a Green Aqua video a week or so ago and they set up a "Desert Scape" tank where they created cactus using moss, but attached it to flat rock so that when it came time to trim they could just remove the whole thing to trim outside of the tank. 

The one thing I was researching was Eleocharis Acicularis Mini since that doesn't need high lighting to spread. I read that it could fully carpet as low as 50 par. I don't think it would be a horrible choice to use DHG so long as it doesn't grow too tall. What are your thoughts on going in that direction? 

The kitchen lights definitely surprised me lol. I rarely even turn them on unless I'm doing a zoom for work, or just need them on because it's dark. There are three 2X2 fixtures in the drop ceiling down here in the kitchenette in my basement so with the cost of electricity continuing to rise, I tend to keep them off since they likely draw a fair amount of power when on. Honestly though I thought 20 par at most lol. I took the reading about a foot under them so it's probably higher than 40 par if I were to have gone much closer to the fixture. 

There was one thing that I recall from a George Farmer video on a tank that's about the same size, with my same exact light.....he actually ran a second LED light directly over his stem plants for additional lighting. I was thinking maybe that would make sense, and I wouldn't need to drop another $400 since it seemed he was using a less expensive second fixture.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

I wouldn't use the DHG. Even though short, I don't think it would look right with those rocks but of course its a personal choice. I think it will take a long time to carpet at those light levels. Putting another light on top is also an aesthetic thing if you care about that. I honestly would just put some low growing moss in between the rock areas, but that's me. 

This is an old 4 footer of mine. You could see the moss covered rocks around the foreground to fill it in with the sand front.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> I wouldn't use the DHG. Even though short, I don't think it would look right with those rocks but of course its a personal choice. I think it will take a long time to carpet at those light levels. Putting another light on top is also an aesthetic thing if you care about that. I honestly would just put some low growing moss in between the rock areas, but that's me.
> 
> This is an old 4 footer of mine. You could see the moss covered rocks around the foreground to fill it in with the sand front.


That looks great!

The plants around the bases of the rocks is something I've been wanting to pivot to if the carpet didn't work out, but I was looking more at small plants like crypt parva versus a moss. Are there any other crypt parva-like plants that I could use that stay on the smaller side? This is one area of aquatic plants that I'm fairly ignorant of lol. 

But one quick update....did the WC last night and I'm no longer seeing that long thread algae! I'll look again today but it seems to have disappeared.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> That looks great!
> 
> The plants around the bases of the rocks is something I've been wanting to pivot to if the carpet didn't work out, but I was looking more at small plants like crypt parva versus a moss. Are there any other crypt parva-like plants that I could use that stay on the smaller side? This is one area of aquatic plants that I'm fairly ignorant of lol.
> 
> But one quick update....did the WC last night and I'm no longer seeing that long thread algae! I'll look again today but it seems to have disappeared.


Another possibility is Echinodorus tenellus Micro. Might be know by other names as well, but this is a good foreground, stays small and doesn't require intense light. Also can develop some color as well. Some in my old tank.










As I mentioned, don't hesitate to do even bigger water changes if it helps with algae control.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

I spoke too soon...the algae is still there. There's less of it, but it's there nonetheless.

Last night I took the GLA canister filter offline and gave it the full maintenance treatment. I have 8 fairly large media bags in there filled with pumice (that's all it'll hold), rinsed them off, cleaned the inside of the canister, the metal grates they include with the canister, along with the pump itself. Got it back online and it's running like a champ.

The next time I maintain this will be in 3 months because it wasn't quite as dirty as I thought it would be. I last maintained it about two months ago so I'll wait until the beginning of March to clean it out again. The Oase is due for full maintenance in 3 or so weeks so that one has be running a little over two months since the last. Depending on how dirty that is, I may push it out to 4 months, or if too dirty, two months. With cleaning the pre filter every week, I assume it won't be very dirty but we'll see.

The plants are doing great though. Rotala for the most part seems to have recovered and are beginning to look fantastic. I'll run some water tests on Friday next week to see where PO4, NO3, and K are at and determine if I need to adjust my dosing since stuff is beginning to grow again.

I think if I remove the moss I may get rid of the algae problem. It started there, continues to infest it, and with the moss getting blasted by a ridiculous amount of par, the high light is likely contributing to the problem by impacting the moss. The moss is starting to look a bit better, but if I get rid of it and the algae problem goes away, it'll answer the question really quickly. I think the moss just hasn't been growing well enough to fight off algae.

ETA: Since I had the GLA canister out of the stand, I moved the CO2 tank and I wouldn't be surprised if I need to swap it out at some point this month because it was very light. It's currently on month 6 which is amazing. If by some miracle it can make it to the first week of July that will be a full 6 months on a 10lbs tank. 

My dosing is currently at 3/4 teaspoon of KNO3, 1/4 tsp of CSM+B, 3/4 tsp of K2SO4, and roughly 1/16th tsp of KH2PO4. What I'd like to keep my nutrient levels at is 20-30ppm of NO3, 5-6ppm of PO4, and 30-35ppm of K. I'll see what the result of Friday's tests are before the water change since that's the day I measure out ferts for the week.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Another possibility is Echinodorus tenellus Micro. Might be know by other names as well, but this is a good foreground, stays small and doesn't require intense light. Also can develop some color as well. Some in my old tank.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's a nice little grassy plant. I'll put that one on my list. I realized that I have no anubias in the tank. I may need to mix some anubias into the mix as well. 

I think the only way I can go bigger with water changes is if I add a second water change day. I'm already at the point where the highest levels of the substrate in my tank are exposed to the air during my current water changes which are probably in the 80% range. I think once the moss is removed the algae issue will disappear.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

If you already going that big on water changes you should be good, no need to add more at this point. Once the plant mass increases you should find a good balance.

If you do buy the Echinodorus tenellus Micro make sure you don't get the sometimes confused Micro Sword (Lilaeopsis brasiliensis)


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> If you already going that big on water changes you should be good, no need to add more at this point. Once the plant mass increases you should find a good balance.
> 
> If you do buy the Echinodorus tenellus Micro make sure you don't get the sometimes confused Micro Sword (Lilaeopsis brasiliensis)


I've seem some of the listings have both names in the description on a few of the plant seller websites lol. 

When I get some, I'll probably message them to make sure I'm getting the right one. 

Is the Lilaeopsis the "pest" version?


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

ddiomede said:


> Is the Lilaeopsis the "pest" version?


Not in this case, just a completely different plant that requires more light and doesn't grow as low.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Quick update:

CO2 tank is somehow still running. When I lifted it last week it seemed almost empty, but it's still running. 

Plants are doing well. I think the moss is suffering being so close to the light and getting blasted with way more par than it needs. I'll be removing it tomorrow after work when I do the weekly water change. 

The Limnophila are growing nicely. They seem to be a fairly slow grower, which is good since that means less trimming. 

The Rotala are growing, but much more slowly than they were prior to the stunting issue I had a couple months back. They've mostly recovered and look normal, but just aren't growing as fast as they did. 

The one notable thing that I did notice this week was the reemergence of GSA on my glass. It isn't getting on any plants, but this tells me that my PO4 levels aren't high enough. Tomorrow after I wake up I'll take a water sample to see what my levels are at after a week's worth of dosing and then adjust the ferts accordingly. The last time I tested PO4, it wasn't low by any means, but maybe my tank just requires a higher level? It'll be interesting to see what the test results are tomorrow. 

Hair algae is still there on the moss though which is why I'm just going to remove it entirely. 

The Pogotstemon Helferi Downoi just doesn't seem to be growing at all. The new growth is very small and I can't really say for certain if I've seen it grow over the last month. I may need to remove it at some point and get a new tissue culture of it. It grew like crazy until that stunting issue happened. 

The one thing I'm going to do some research on now is finding a freshwater iron test kit. I mainly just want to see what my iron levels are and whether or not I should tweak my micro dosing.


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## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Tank's almost empty, better fear the mythical EOTD boggie man? Oh do you have a dual gauge? 

The thing with moss is that many people use it high up on branches, rocks, etc in their scapes so it does receive alot of PAR. Can't be helped if it's mixed with high light plants. I think the stem mass will correct this but you shouldn't get algae on moss even with high light. One could literally drop an algae invested branch into a tank and if the tank is balanced well the algae just dies out (I've actually done this) since algae will grow under the right conditions it doesn't need to be introduced. 

Did you ever get the Pogo Erectus? That is a good indicator of light, nutrients, etc?


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Asteroid said:


> Tank's almost empty, better fear the mythical EOTD boggie man? Oh do you have a dual gauge?
> 
> The thing with moss is that many people use it high up on branches, rocks, etc in their scapes so it does receive alot of PAR. Can't be helped if it's mixed with high light plants. I think the stem mass will correct this but you shouldn't get algae on moss even with high light. One could literally drop an algae invested branch into a tank and if the tank is balanced well the algae just dies out (I've actually done this) since algae will grow under the right conditions it doesn't need to be introduced.
> 
> Did you ever get the Pogo Erectus? That is a good indicator of light, nutrients, etc?


Yep, it's a dual stage so I'm not worried. The needle still has yet to move though, at least it hadn't last night. I mean it's gotta move soon because that tank felt empty lol. I keep checking the bubble counter and sure enough, CO2 lol. 

I'll be interested in seeing what my Fe levels are tonight once the test kit arrives. 

I have been seeing another sign that may be a contributing factor, or not. Pest snails....brown or tan shells, right? In my tank their shells are almost white. So something is going on with magnesium or calcium, or something is affecting the two in some way. KH and GH haven't changed, and the only thing that I can see it being is CO2 levels maybe being too high? Just something interesting I observed, or another "clue". 

I did, but I think my SAE's like the taste because of the 6 stems I bought, only two made it to where I could replant them somewhere else. They haven't started regrowing though but were in pretty rough shape because I initially had them in a spot where the limbs of the spider wood were casting a shadow. They're in a high light spot now so I'm assuming they'll need to settle in before starting to grow. I think the fact that they were shaded weakened them enough where my SAE's thought they were tasty. The two remaining stems seem healthy enough to grow. If they don't make it I'll probably grab some more. 

The Ludwigia Arcuata is growing like crazy. I picked that up as a tissue culture and it literally didn't grow at all. Once I moved the Rotala to the other side of the tank they suddenly had light and took off. 

I'm still planning on moving stems around again, but I'd like to wait a while for them all to start growing really well, toss some of the bases of the older stems, and then replant and root the new growth. Once I trim a couple times I'll move stuff.


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## mourip (Mar 15, 2020)

Pics. We need pics!


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

mourip said:


> Pics. We need pics!


I'll take a full tank shot right before I do a water change tonight, especially since I need to trim a few things.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Alright, FTS that I forgot to upload last night. 

I also ran some tests and the results were as expected:

NO3: 25ppm
PO4: 6-7ppm
K: 35ppm
Fe: 0.5 mg/l

No real surprises other than finally knowing what my iron levels are. 










Next step is tossing the moss, trimming the longer stems and replanting them, and replanting any of the plants that were uprooted. I'm also going to hack down the H. Pin that is next to the moss.


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Quick update:

Before the water change, I went ahead and got rid of the remaining moss and trimmed the H Pin next to the moss pretty aggressively. Hopefully with what appears to be the source of the long string algae gone, that issue will fade away. 

I trimmed the longer stems and replanted the tops. Eventually I'll start getting rid of the older growth once I've been able to trim and replant enough healthy growth. 

I may try to source some more crypt parva and some smaller anubias to tuck into various spots. 

I'll try to get an updated FTS this evening since the removal of moss really seems to have changed the look a bit. 

CO2 tank is somehow still running. We're basically at 6 months on a 10lbs tank which is amazing. I wouldn't at all be surprised if I have to replace it by this weekend though, but then again I thought I'd have swapped the tank out months ago. The needle still hasn't budged, so I'm going to wager a guess that it needs to be replaced by Saturday. When I maintained my GLA filter a week or so ago I actually was able to lift the regulator and tank with one arm, while bent over inside my stand. I can't do that with a full tank. 

The Rotala orange juice and blood red on the left side have really started to color up after the water change and put on noticeable growth in just a couple days. Could my issues have resolved themselves? I guess we'll see over the coming weeks.


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## Count Krunk (2 mo ago)

Following along, great thread


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## ddiomede (Feb 21, 2011)

Quick little update. 

Tank is doing well and the plants seem to be growing in really nicely. 

The most interesting development is that the gauge on my CO2 regulator finally moved so it's probably a day or so away from needing to swap out to a new 10lbs tank. 

One of the other changes I'll be making is Friday after my water change I'm going to dose all macros, and then dose micros every other day. 

Last week I began thinking about different things about the tank and decided to run tests on the day of, and the day after doing a water change to see what my parameters were at, specifically N-P-K and Fe, and then checking the day after the water change to see what those parameters were being reset to. 

After getting some advice, I've decided to dose macros all at once the same day I do my water change, afterwards obviously, and giving my plants what they need immediately rather than waiting an additional day. 

What I plan on doing this Friday is doing the water change and dosing, then on Saturday morning testing to see where the macro levels are at, and then testing again the following Friday to see what exactly my plants used throughout a full week. After that I'll just observe to see what kinds of effects, if any, this change will have. 

I'll get an FTS up this week though.


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