Jacks Rio 125 (to Be Named)

[Truck]

more pics after i bought more crypts, i opted against the khulis, and instead i bought some peppered cories

any way heres the crypts

and again

 

[Truck]

small update minus pics

cories digging up my tropica plant substrate, so i have a semi visible tank now

crypts are doing well, no sign of melting at all. ironically the fast growing vallis is suffering with algae whereas the crypts arent

touch wood, im buying another 3 rams at the weekend

 

[SuperColey1]

Corys digging up Tropica = Sand not deep enough ( mine is at least an inch in the shallowest parts)

AC

 

[Truck]

im going to buy another 15 kilos and make it up to 3 inches about 1.5 at the moment

 

[SuperColey1]

3" is a little overboard. Do you mean 3cm? Mine is about 1" on average.

AC

 

[Truck]

well its 1.5 inch at the shallowest at the moment, which is worrying me

should i go for 2 inches plus? because it must be that in some places

 

[SuperColey1]

No idea. I have never seen Corys 'burrow' that deep!!!

AC

 

[Truck]

im amazed at how good they are! lol. ive pushed the over turned stuff down with my fist and covered it with sand

 

[nosoup4you]

well its 1.5 inch at the shallowest at the moment, which is worrying me

should i go for 2 inches plus? because it must be that in some places

Total substrate depth or just the sand capper?

 

[Truck]

sand capper

 

[Truck]

ive stripped out the crypts ( for sale in the united kingdom section btw) and ive saved 5 big willissi, and ive planted them offset to the right near the middle, and ive ordered 5 kilos of zebra stone from AE, anybody got any idea of how much this is roughly? dimensions? and then im going for a HC carpet, and im trying to get the P.helferi to spread along the mid ground. the rocks are going in front of the crypts if they're not too tall. or i might try and tie the crypts to the rock, unsure yet, but vallis remains along the back pane

 

[Million]

Why'd you choose not to get the khulis? They're a great fish

 

[Truck]

i dont think they would go with my scape

 

[Truck]

im dosing 5ml a day of easy carbo and im getting hair algae, so ive put the filter on hold and my priority is to get the pressurized system bought, which will take me 4 weeks to save up for, should i dose more easycarbo? or add more flow?

 

[SuperColey1]

Struggling with algae and are putting the filter/circulation on hold and getting pressurised.

Remember when you first came on TFF planted and I said patience is needed in this hobby? You now know why

I will start from the beginning of the journal (1 month ago...not a long time...patience!!!! It will work)

- You have 10 hours of pretty good light (56W T5HO) I would suggest that until the plants are established that you drop to 6 hours for a week or 2. It will be enough for them and you can add an hour weekly to get back to your 10 hours.

- You have quite a lot of fishload (20 Neons and 8 Aeneus) This is fine in a planted tank but if it can't be done gradually you have to wait for the plants and filtration to catch up with the highload.

- You have 1000lph of filtration which is OK. Buy the Nano diffuser and put it under the Maxijet MP400 for now.

- Up the Tropica TPN+ to 2ml daily and the EasyCarb to 5ml daily

- Get much more plants in there. Floating weeds if necessary. Plantmass fights algae better than anything else.

- Don't keep moving plants. Taking the Crypts out was a big mistake. Apart from the fact you've lost money on them. You now are putting in HC which is a very demanding plant!!!

I would say continue with looking at geting your filtration/flow sorted out!!! Save for pressurised afterwards, but sort the circulation out first. From the amount of EasyCarbo you are dosing the CO2 should already be OK albeit expensive in the long run.

If you go for the pressurised now and the circulation isn't sorted out then the CO2 will not be distributed very well anyway.

Be prepared for the HC to need plenty of CO2 and therefore good circulation to get CO2 to substrate level. Also if the HC struggles and gets algified leave it. ONce you get the Circulation and CO2 you can cut it back and let it regrow.

In summary remember the golden words: patience and ....patience (doubly patient!!!)

Good things come to those who wait.

Once you've got a handle on the art of growing and understand how everything correlates then you will be able to jump into scapes without as much patience.

so equipment wise get the filter/powerheads first. Then buy loads of weeds to pack that tank out and fight the algae.

AC