My 170l Planted Tank Diary V6 03 12 05

[jimbooo]

no work today mate?? LOL

lovely piccies

 

[AndyTaylor]

This is work, mate! I have a very busy december coming so i took a day off to get my tanks sorted while i can..
Just added my neon shoal and the angels are eyeing them up already. They grew up together but my angels seem to have forgotten that!

pity...they look nice against the green..

http/i25.photobucket.com/albums/c58/Andy...%2005/neons.jpg

I'm off to try to catch adult scissortails in a 70L

 

[AndyTaylor]

Thought i'd do a quick update as i'm sitting here...


Plants:
The tank is now fully planted... I added 4 new plants yesterday and that's it, i'm stopping!
Not all of them are in their final positions as i'm unsure how much some of them will grow. My 70L is being used as a temporary home for any that wouldn't fit or didn't work, and there's a few!
I'm quite happy with most of the tank so i'm just going to leave it grow and see what happens. My design plan, such as it was has turned into an exercise in trial and error. I'm finding that i need to see the plant planted in my tank before i can visualise where it should (or whether!) fit in. It's my first planted tank so i figure thats normal....and the learning is fun.

Plant list (or most of)

Elodea densia: Removed as i decided i didn't like it that much, and it wasn't really growing that well
Vals, Torta and Straight: these seem to hae picked up after initial die back problems, i spaced them out a bit and this seems to have helped.
African Water Fern: I haven't properly id'd this yet, but it's growing.
Hygrophilia polysperma: Recent addition and growing well, as you would expect.
Cabomba: doing well. pruned yesterday
Tiger Lily: Doing really well, needs pruning.
Water Wisteria: Not sure about this one. looks a bit like a carrot, the leaves of the carrot, that is! Staying for the moment.
Onion Plant: Grows too fast and covers the surface. Nice though. This came from my 70L.
Rotala spec. 'nanjenshan': Beautiful, this one. grows fast. and it's a nice contrast plant, texturewise, IMO.
Baby Tears: Hiding my bubble ladder and growing steadily.
Red Ludwigia: Courtesy of zig and one of my favourite plants...not keeping it's red very well.
Echinodorus Europa: Added yesterday.
Echinodorus 'Paul Klocher': added yesterday, amazing deep reds and purples.
Eusteria stellata: Again, thanks zig. My other favourite and growing really well.
Crypt's, various: All doing well around the base of my bogwood. 1 of the my favorite sections of the tank.
Ludwigia Arcuata: Added yesterday in the foreground for the moment.
Hemiantus: carpeting nicely, thanks!
Glosso: ditto.
Riccia Fluitans: Growing. Has pearled once or twice.
Anubias Nana: Growing on my bogwood and looks great.
Limnophilia sessiliflora: recent addition and looking great. Really bright green.
Myriophyllum mattogroscence: Added yesterday, not sure, looks a bit like a dead xmas tree. Browny red.

And that's about it!

Lighting:

Upgraded to T5's but didn't put enough in. Added 2 36W compact flourescents. 6500K lamps. Ordered 2 more yesterday, should have them midweek. Even the 2 i added made a big difference. And the fish look great under 6500K.

CO2:
Can't seem to get above 15ppm with the Nutrafin units so i'm making 2 2L pop bottle reactors instead. (thanks pseud) Want 30-35ppm steady before i add the lights)

E.I:
minimal until the lights and co2 are right. Very low Nitrate uptake at the moment. Dosing minimal trace.

Algae:
No serious problems yet but with the amount of plants i'm not really surprised. A little hair algae that'll most likely go when i fix the co2.

Water:
Stats acceptable. Some fine particles visible, i think i need to change the fine pad in the filter. Temp steady at 31C. Added a second heater for peace of mind.

Fish:
All the wildlife are doing well. Lost some neons to my angels but i kinda thought i might. Rehoming 5 parambassis raga later as they don't suit the setup. The apisto have setttled in brilliantly. My 70L is still home to a few that i'm not sure about adding. A beautiful 4 inch RTBS and 3 dwarf gourami, 1 if which is a mentalist and really aggressive but i love him! I think he'll have to be rehomed though.

The plan now is to observe and learn. Mostly pruning and training the plants the way i want them. i have some java fern and java moss to add at some stage.
This week i'll sort out the CO2 and when that's right finish the T5 upgrade. Then restart dosing.
It's been a steep learning curve the last few weeks and i still can't believe I have a fully planted tank in my sitting room that I made!
Thanks are due to everyone here on TFF for making this such a great infomation resource. i knew NOTHING about aquariums before i joined. problem was, i thought I did! I've never sen a forum like this one for sharing so much info and to still have an amazing tolerance for stupid questions.

Onwards and upwards!

 

[George Farmer]

I appear to have completely missed this thread - sorry Andy, I must have been away.

Great journal and the layout looks very promising. You are lucky to have zig so near too, I wish I had a "real" fish buddy!

One question though my friend - why is your temp. at 31C?

 

[AndyTaylor]

Thanks gf....i've a long way to go but the journey is fun!

My tank is at 31c because hmmm.... because my last tank was, i guess, and the fish seemed very happy. i hadn't really thought about it, you know.
what would you suggest, i guess it is a bit high, now that I think of it.


1 full tank shot:
http/i25.photobucket.com/albums/c58/Andy...05/fulltank.jpg

 

[George Farmer]

Great shot mate.

Personally I would lower the temp. (gradually of course) to around 25C (77F). I ran warmer because of my Discus but found the plant and fish seemed happier with my now lower temps. Algae also appears to prefer higher temps IME.

Obviously it's entirely your choice, just my two pence from experience.

 

[AndyTaylor]

I've started lowering the temp. now, gf. I'll bring it down over a week or two.

 

[zig]

I appear to have completely missed this thread - sorry Andy, I must have been away.

Great journal and the layout looks very promising. You are lucky to have zig so near too, I wish I had a "real" fish buddy!

One question though my friend - why is your temp. at 31C?

I auctually met up with Andy a week ago gf, we did a bit of plant trading and yes it is great to have somebody else from around these parts i was definatly on my own for a while, Andy auctually lives quite near me 10-15 minutes in a car so i would say we will definatly meet up again, things have auctually picked up quite a bit around Dublin planted tank wise, we now have 2 different shops dealing in great plants, one does exclusively Tropica plants and the other i only discovered yesterday thanks to Andy its quite close to him, i went there yesterday and picked up some plants, i didnt need anything but bought 5 plants anyway and really cheap as well, 5 potted plants for 20 Euro (about £15) i only bought them because i had been looking at pictures of them for so long anyway i got some Limnophila Aromatica, P. Stellatus narrow leaf (i hope im nearly sure its not the broadleaf version) E. Tenellus, Ludwigia Arcuata and a Java Fern so a pretty hot deal, and he had tons of others i would have bought also, so quite a turnaround from a few months ago.

We are both working on pressurised co2 as well, it looks like we will be renting the cylinders for the moment, on monday i should be pressurised and i am sure Andy will follow soon after, so its really coming together at last, anyway its great to have someone even to share trimmings with before i met up with Andy i didnt even know anybody else that even owned an aquarium!



Nice update Andy........id also lower the temprature as well mine is also 25C, i definatly favour lower rather than higher tempratures for the reasons gf mentioned unless off course you keep Discus or something like that.

Andy i might grab a few cuttings of the Rotola nanjenshan whenever you do a trim next, absolutely no hurry i should have something decent to trade as well if interested.

 

[AndyTaylor]

It makes it so much easier to be able to meet face to face with experienced people alright. and. as zig says, it's getting easier to get plants around here.
That LFS that zig referred to is 2 minutes from my house, as a newbie i bought my first small tank from him. Good that they've finally got some decent stock in.

Temp. is comong down, zig. That Rotala will be getting a trim next week and you're welcome to take some. I'll let you know...

 

[AndyTaylor]

This mess of a post below is the only way I could find of joining my 2 journal threads together so if you're read it, ignore it..... I'll continue with my original journal below it..

Andy






After a productive weekend stripping my tank apart to remove some bad fish choices, namely two Syno Eupetrus and an Bagridae catfish of unknown species (this one was 6 inches and growing, must stop rescuing fish!) i thought i'd post a couple of full tank shots

http/s25.photobucket.com/albums/c58/Andy...ank%20May%2006/

Running 2 x 36w CF's with diy CO2.....going pressurised this week hopefully and so should be able to turn on the other bank of 2 x 36's and re-start my EI dosing, which should deal with my growing algae problem.


All comments, advice, ideas, criticism etc, more than welcome.....particularily for the gap in the back right corner between the lily and the anubias nana...

Andy
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Luke_e
post May 2 2006, 02:00 PM
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Is this you're diary?
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=113804&st=48
Tank looks cracking mate, do you have your pressurised equipment already?


--------------------
IPB Image
27 uk gallon (33 US gallon) community tank
4 Neon Tetras, 3 Harelquin Rasboras, 3 Black Phantom Tetras, 5 X-Ray Tetras, 4 glowlight tetras, 3 bamboo/wood shrimp, 3 Mollies, 2 Otos, 2 Zebra Danios , 2 Bronze Corys, 3 Albino Corys, 3 Peppered Cory, 1 Bolivian Ram, 3 Panda Corys, 1 Whiptail catfish, 1 Apple Snail and 2 African Dwarf Frog, 4 Amano Shrimp, 1 mollie fry, 1 Platy


Juwel Rekord 70l
Work in progress, planting .
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AndyTaylor
post May 2 2006, 02:09 PM
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Nice one Luke_e, that's the one I couldn't find! I'll tidy it up later!
Pressurised equipment is on the way, thankfully. The algae is becoming unsightly, mostly because I removed all my fast growing stem plants after I got sick of pruning them all the time!
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zig
post May 2 2006, 10:51 PM
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Good start Andy, it looks good allready, lots of potiential, it has a good balance to it, are you going to add a foreground carpet type plant? maybe a hairgrass species like Eleocharis acicularis or Elocharis parvula might suit, both of these are quite easy on maintainence, any ideas yourself? I think Gavin from Wackers should be due a shipment this week, although i haven't gotten an email yet with the list, although with your setup i would be selective as to what i would put in it, less can be more sometimes, maybe add a bit of colour? Basically i dont think it needs much at the moment, i would definatly stick in a foreground carpeting type plant

You might also want to consider staggering your lighting, have 2x36watts come on first of all for maybe 3 hours and then the other 2x36watts come on later for 4 hours (both sets together) and then back to just the 2x36watts for the last 3 hours. This will definatly help with the algae initially, but its probably the way to go all the time with this tank, your lighting is ideal for this IMO, at the low light periods you will still be running 1.7WPG so its still a pretty decent amount of light, and then at the higher end you will be running 3.4WPG.

Im coming more around to thinking that this is definatly the way to go with highlight planted tanks, they dont need the full 3.4WPG (in your case) all the time, they just need a burst of high lighting for 3-4-5 hours per day depending on what you are trying to achieve, and then the rest of the time use the lower amount of light, this will definatly cut down quite significiently on potiental algae problems and at the same time make the tank easier to maintain.

Anyway just my .02 cent, but good start on your behalf, looks good so far.



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AndyTaylor
post May 3 2006, 09:09 AM
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Thanks zig,

I've had such bad luck with carpeting plants that they're not high on my list of priorities, but......The new plant shipment is in on Friday so depending on whats available I may try again. I haven't got the email list yet though.
I've tried hairgrass and dwarf sag before so maybe something different this time?
It definitely needs a color injection, any ideas? Reds or pinks, maybe?
I'm going to add some small broadleaf crypts around the base of some of the wood....crypt wendetti (sp?) perhaps?

Even at the moment I have the 2 36's staggered on timers, pretty much the way you suggest so i'll do the same when I turn on all the lights. I don't want to blast the tank with light because I like the Anubias and similar and don't want to lose them to algae, and, as you say, mostly 1.7 WPG for most of the day should make looking after the tank much easier.

 

[AndyTaylor]

My 2 threads have gotten badly mixed up so I'm just using this one in future.... The missing bits are here:
www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=140398

So, Test results after 2 days of pressurised CO2:

KH: 40ppm
PH: 6.5
PO4: +5
Nitrate: 15

I'm using the Hagen KH/GH test which claims that 4 drops added = to 40ppm. This gives me 28ppm CO2 which can't be right as I had more than that with the DIY kit.
I think it actually measures degrees of KH which gives me 38ppm. This seems more likely. If anyone can confirm this for me i'd be grateful.

Since turning on the full 3.6 WPG the grey spider web type algae on my Crinium (onion plants) has really started to grow. My Anubias are not looking too healthy either, any Java Moss close to the surface is more grey algae than moss.
Do I need to rethink my plant choices? I can always transfer the slow growing plants to my Rekord 70 and restock with more light demanding plants?

I remember now why this aint easy!

 

[Luke_e]

Andy, some of the links you've posted arent working as you've copy/pasted and the forum sometimes shortens the links and you've copied them. Its the photobucket links .

 

[AndyTaylor]

Thanks Luke_e.....never thought of that! Fixed now.

 

[zig]

I remember now why this aint easy!

Welcome back to planted tanks Andy dont worry mate you will tame this tank!!


I use the Hagen kit as well, 1 drop = 10ppm, so 4 drops = 40ppm is correct, it sounds about right if your using unbuffered water (no bicard added) this gives you a KH of 2.2 which only gives you 21ppm CO2 using Chucks calculator.

My KH from the tap is 30ppm which gives me a KH in degrees of 1.7, so yours at 2.2KH is probably about right, just increase the bubble rate slightly and test the Ph again after its been running for a while.

Your PO4 reading is very high for local water, have you done a water change lately? I would try and get this down to more reasonable levels. See if you can find Fleet Enema as well, i think you use some other enema for phosphate, we know for definate the dosage for fleet, it mightn't be a bad idea to pin this down and make sure you are dosing the correct amount of Phosphate.

I'd probably run at reduced lighting until you get things under a bit more control, I'd work on the CO2 levels and the PO4, i suppose it might not be a bad idea to remove the Anubias anyway, they are a hard plant to get right in a highlight tank, i tried and i failed, although its a long time since i have had any in my tank.

Any chance of a pic of the spider web algae? im just wondering what type it is, it might give a good idea of whats going wrong in the tank if you could identify it.

 

[AndyTaylor]

Thanks zig.... I'm going to crack this EI thing this time!

I was concerned about the PO4 level alright so I did a water change and substrate vac last night, I haven't been dosing PO4 and it's pretty much 0 straight from the tap. I'll bring it down with water changes before I dose anything.
I also moved all the plants around to try and get the Anubias some shade. Hopefully that will help.
I've removed most of the bad algae but i'll get some pics of what's left tonight...

I'm back on half lighting again until I get some control on what's going on. Actually, I think one of the single 36W blew last night so I may have no choice....

How does the conversion from KH ppm to KH degrees work?
I should probably buffer before I up the bubble rate though?