60l Rebuild Journal

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RYO, I can't give any tips or advice but I just wanted to say your tank really looks amazing. You should be proud of yourself. Great 'scaping.

(Expect a plethora of PMs from me demaning assistance with my tank! :D)
 
I think it looks great RYO dont get me wrong i just thought that the left hand side looked a little high for when the plants grow out a bit, they could be growing out of the tank in no time.

How long have you had the tank planted?

Thats quite a temprature swing i wonder will it get worse in the winter, its something im wondering about as well, i have my main planted tank in an alcove but one side of the tank is beside an external wall, pretty well jammed up beside it, and im just wondering when the really cold weather hits will i get temprature swings as well.

But overall great layout and excellent choice of plants, the only other thing that i noticed was the riccia on the driftwood, if it was me i would replace it with a moss, perhaps not Java moss but something else, weeping moss would look great but i dont know how easy that is to get in the UK.
 
Cheers guys .
pseud- No worries m8 will help all i can (for what its worth),but theres a wealth of experience here and that what make this the best forum out there.
Zig - The tanks been up for around two weeks now ,the glosso is spreading well and the Eusteralis stellata is colouring up nicely(ive even split it and added it to my 120L)
As for the temp i have a heater but it is never on ,hopefully i will have made my new hood by winter and the lights will be a tad higher from the water(aaaaargh!!! try and get my head round these bleeding compact fittings again lol)
 
Woohoo got my dry ferts at last (only waited 3 weeks lol),now ive got to get my swede round this EI malarky .
As far as i can work out for the 60L
50.4gms or 9 teaspoons of potassium nitrate mixed into 500ml of water gives me
1.03 nitrate per 1ml :crazy: (double the dose for the 120L)
Im not using the Potassium Phosphate (at the moment) as my tap water keeps me between 1-2 ppm any way.
For trace elements im using kent botanica grow ,but this recomends 5ml per 10gal per week or .3ml per 10g daily.How do people work out there trace needs or is his a suck it and see bit?
 
Its not difficult...............honest :D

Your calculation is correct for the nitrate for the 60l and just double up for the 120l.

For the trace or the Botanic grow you have to up the dosage, the recommended dosage is 5ml 3x per week for every 20 US gallons or 80 liters, you dose the KNO3 and PO4 on the same day and the trace on the off days.

You may have still dose PO4 or phosphate coming near the end of the week some tanks will use it up quite quickly, although the nitrate will be the quickest, if you have a phosphate testkit you would want to keep an eye on it and work out how much your plants are consuming on a weekly basis, i wouldnt just assume you have enough.

If you tell me your nitrate levels (tap and tank) i will work out a weekly dosing schedule for you, and then its just a matter of testing for a few weeks until you work out how much no3 and PO4 your tank is useing each week and then you wont have to test that much any more when you have this worked out.
 
Zig- my tapwater and both tanks show zero nitrate levels.
Tapwater is showing 2-3 ppm phosphate levels.Tanks show 1-2 ppm phospates by end of week.
 
Ok well you need to start dosing nitrate straight away, dose 1ppm no3 today, 2ppm no3 tomorrow and keep upping the dosage by 1ppm each day until your test kit gives you a reading of 5ppm or above and then start dosing 5ppm each day until you get a reading of 15ppm.

Basically that will probably take you about a week, 15ppm is your target

When it comes time to do your weekly water change dose 10ppm no3 to the tank, this 10ppm plus whatever is left in the tank will bring your levels to around 15ppm and then your job during the week is to figure out how much the no3 levels are reducing as the plants consume it, and you basically top it up every couple of days to bring the level back to 15ppm.

So firstly get the no3 levels up to 15ppm, do the weekly water change, and dose 10ppm to the tank and then during the week do tests for nitrate and try and work out the uptake rate, and do topups of no3 as the plants use it up to maintain a level of 15ppm approx.

You dont have to be that accurate the guidelines are pretty wide, when i say 15ppm its ok to be a bit over or under, this is the estimative part of EI, the important thing is to not let anything run out.

In my guide i say to try and reach a target of 10ppm but on reflection this is probably a bit low for people starting off on EI, it doesnt leave enough room for error, 15ppm is a good level especially with higher levels of phosphate, its a bit more balanced.

The first week is to get the no3 levels up and then next week you can start EI proper when you have reached the target level.

Hope that makes sense :S :D

Edit: id say with the amount of PO4 in your tapwater you would want to maintain no3 levels at between 15-20ppm i would try not to let it drop too far below 15ppm no3.
 
Cheers m8, ill get my mixin swede on and start the dosing and let you know soon how its going.
 
Eeeeek :-( , I was away for a long weekend (fishing again) and on the monday my wife phoned to tell me there had been an accident with one of my tanks (pictures of water all over living room shoots through my mind).
Turns out my 5 yr old son had tryed to feed the fish and dropped the whole tub of granular food in. By the time my wife had noticed the tetras had gorged themseves to bursting and my filter had turned into a soup maker.
She fished what she could out , plus 13 dead tetras and my SAE.
Ive just spent the whole day cleaning out the glosso and filter ( :sick: ) and done a near as damit 100% water change. (filter pads where washed in tank water from other tank)
Now i need to stock up on some new fish, all thats left is my 4 cories and 3 glow lights, any ideas what might look good in here.
 
ahh man, that sucks. almost happened to me the other week except the tub ended up on the carpet, an inch closer to the tank and i would have had the same problem. good luck.
 
Hate that, the granular stuff as well, turns to mush pretty quick so very hard to net out sucessfully even if your wife was quick on the scene.

No pocket money for the nipper for the next year thats what i would suggest.
 
I'd add a bunch more glowlight tetras... I love the little guys!
 
Quick update.
Running a bit of a battle with some brown stringy sludge algae (technical eh?)in the riccia and java moss, and a bit of hair algae umongst the glosso.
Ive added a second filter(fluval 3+) to help out the Eheim 2231 (pants filter )need to buy different filter soon(smiles nicely at mrs)
Maybe zig was right and the lighting is a tad much.
 
Been away for a week so quick update.
The algae seems to have been sorted out, brown snotty stuff has gone, still some hair algae but I've been overdosing flourish excel which seems to work.
Glosso is growing wild, its climbing the bog wood now. The only plant not doing too well is the Microsorum pteropus Windeløv ,i don't think it likes this much light.
I'll post some pics as soon as I've got time (multi tanks and 4mth old baby don't mix)
Oh yea just picked up a rena xp2 month old never used (£40 :D ), only prob is no user manual, anyone know how to prime it.
 

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