A Green Rio

[kylealastairlove]

looking fantastic im jealous haha!

 

[stu40]

Looks fantastic, I dunno how I haven't spotted this thread sooner!

Ta & no Co2 (apart from a bit of carbon every now and then)
i don't update it very often, because it's sort of run its course.

looking fantastic im jealous haha!

Thanks

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

That makes me feel so much better about mine lol - I've been trying to educate myself a bit now that I am making plans and it can be a little overwhelming!

 

[stu40]

The best advise i was given when you start getting more plants in, in one go, was to start with a shorter lighting period (6?), then work up slowly.Lots of large water changes, for the first 2-3 weeks,
whilst new plants get used to your tank and emmergent growth melts and makes way for submersed growth.Did this with my new 60L, and i've had zero algae in 4 months (except diatoms, but i didn't bother with purigen)

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Thanks

 

[Jay1983]

This tank is neglected?? it looks insanely awesome!

 

[LongS]

Looks brilliant, how long did it take to get your vallis looking so healthy? Was it the easy carbo that made them so lush?

I have been toying with the idea of buying some as mine is looking a bit raggedy. Do you have to use easy carbo along with something else? or just on its own?

 

[stu40]

Thanks

The Vallis used to be a lot better, it's getting back to its formal glory after an outbreak of BBA.
This pic was after 2 months growth, no easycarbo added, just my med.hard water.Started with about half a dozen small plants, maybe 3" high.




only started adding the easycarbo to battle the BBA.
Depending on your substrate, adding root tabs underneath them may help, i've seen it work.
Good luck

 

[minnnt]

Liquid carbon additives often do more harm than good to vallis. Hardish water is what makes it flourish.

Stu, far prefer the neglected look.

 

[LongS]

Yeah i have hard water here. They are spreading runners everywhere but they tend to have a lot of holes in them, however this may be down to the Botia Histrionica.

I have a slight bit of black beard algae on some leaves but i have just cut my hours of light and trimmed the leaves away that were worst off. It seems to be going slowly.

Lovely tank anyway.

 

[stu40]

Liquid carbon additives often do more harm than good to vallis. Hardish water is what makes it flourish.

Stu, far prefer the neglected look.

I've had to slightly disagree.
In this tank, with Easycarbo @ 1.5x dose, couple of times a week.It's done it no harm.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

I'm confused stu-bo! Help a sista out. I thought when dosing carbon you have to do it every day as the plants start searching for it and will start to die?

 

[FishFanatic04]

I second that motion.

 

[stu40]

Stu-bo???
I've been called quite a few things, but that's a first

The general advise given is to dose daily.
However this tank was a bit of a mess with BBA so i needed to look at what i did wrong and how to fix it.As i was setting up the 60L, i decide to experiment a bit with this one.

Manually removed as many affected leaves as possible reinstalled weekly water changes
first 2 weeks
sunday-wc 50% and make sure that the substrate is clean.
tues-5ml (=x1.5 dosage) EasyC
thurs-5ml EasyC
sat-5ml EasyC

last 3 weeks
wc enough to get gravel clean, maybe 20%
dose tues & thurs sometimes sat as well.I do dose at roughly the same time of the day.

The tank's almost back to how i want it.Very little algae, decent growth
I've seen posts saying that Excel & Vallis don't mix.I have no experience of Excel, only ever used EasyC (i'm lucky my LFS sells it at a reasonable price), i always thought they were basically the same product, though i'm unsure of the concentrations.
My Vallis has shown no signs of melt, and is now throwing out lots of new runners.
No other plants are showing signs of Co2 deficencies, and there's no Crypt melting.
I'm not advocating that everyone should follow this routine, it just happens to be working for me.

 

[FishFanatic04]

Rebel!