Supercoley's First Planted Tank Adventure

[SuperColey1]

Yes its true I've added yet more lighting and the pic is attached.

I though it was need because even with the 2.8WPG I already had for 1 week I couldn't see anything. Enjoy the pics.

Oh and I've put a new bit of slate base Riccia on the top of the cave, so we'll see how this all adds up.

Riccia First

And the new lighting. Can I add this 10W to my WPG??

Lol. had you worried there boys (and girls)

Andy

 

[atmmachine816]

Haven't been following this for awhile but it looks Amazing, good progress.

 

[SuperColey1]

The Fissidens Zippelianus and Mini Pelia arrived today from Aquatic Magic and I will be putting these in the tank later on tonight.

Pics to come in the next day or two.

Andy

 

[cheesy feet]

Gooooody

 

[SuperColey1]

Finally finished attaching and oops its 1-55am and I'm at work tomorrow. Oh Well. Catch up some sleep tomorrow.

The mini Pellia and Fissidens Zippelianus are attached to slate by hairnets (and held tight underneath with cotton) and here are the pics.

The Pellia is on a piece of slate approx 4" x 4" and the Fissidens 4" x 2"

Mini Pellia

Fissidens

I will post more pics at the weekend (hopefully it will have had time to settle a little by then and also I have added to the slate of Riccia above the cave, so some new tank pics might be in order.

Andy

 

[Themuleous]

I had some of that mini pellia, a lovely little plant, but slow growing but nice shape and colour.

Sam

 

[mlawson]

Nice tank.
The Pelia should look great once it's started to grow.

 

[SuperColey1]

I have a huge beard algae prob with my vallis at the mo. doesn't seem to be affecting anthing else so I may replace these soon.

andy

 

[chuts]

Looking great Andy.

Quick question, I will soon be getting the interpect compact lighting like yours Is the bulb holder watertight?

How hot do they get?

Cheers, Mike

 

[SuperColey1]

In short very tight and red hot, although it isn't warping the plastic hood or causing any other problems yet.

Got home today and the vallis looks like it is disguised as Osama Bin Laden with huge black beards drifting from them

Gotta check my params out ASAP.

Andy

 

[SuperColey1]

This week's update is pretty much a good , bad and the ugly version.

First of all I have changed the Original Tropical Lamp in the front to the Freshwater that used to be at the back before I put the 55W daylightplus in and from the pics you can see the difference.

Whe I first put the 55W in and had the Original Tropical at the front the sand looked a bit pink which was why I changed and I think you will agree it looks much better.

This first pic is the new look from the front of the tank

And this from the usual copied from Jimboo Angle

I think you can se that everything looks quite cool in there now.

This pic shows the difference at 12.00-14.00 and 22.00-00.00 which is either side of the 55W being on (intermediate light) so there is just the 18W Freshwater at the front on in this photo. This is my dusk dawn lighting.

I think you will agree with me it looks quite spooky but I kinda like it and it allows me to watch the fish under 0.6WPG and is letting the fish have a staggered increase/decrease in light instead of going from being blinded by the light to there not being any at all. lol
I do have moonlights timed as well and these run all through the night from 23.45 to 12.15. I can't take a picture of this as my crappy vivitar only shows the blue line at the top of the tank and no detail of anything else. lol

Onto the plants
This is the Riccia roof 1 week on and it has grown quite well. I have also added another mini section to diffuse the gap on the right.

Now this is the ugly.
My Vallis has had a massive attack of beard algae, other plants have a little including some of the tips of swords but for some reason not all the leaves!!!!

I think this is because since I started the high lighting the plants have been using more CO2 than before, and where I was confident that the 2 Nutrafins were producing enough (which they were because the drop checker was always mid to light green) it stayed at blue since I last turned the valve for 1 of the kits to refill it on wednesday!!!!. I have since redone the other kit with ½ teaspoon + maybe 1/8th more and now the ceramic diffusor is going mad (I am getting 2 to 3 bubbles per second going through the non return valve)

My drop checker is slowly returning to its green state. I think I may introduce a siesta period because it will then let the depleted supply of CO2 renew for the second spell of light, but I am not too keen on doing this as it ruins my night/dawn/day/dusk/night simulation.

EDIT: Remembering Sams Lighting link from the dutch guy so I'm gonna try 4-4-4 as of tomorrow. just gotta get my head in the cabinet and adjust the timers now

My other options are to use pressurised or get another Nutrafin kit and fit a 3 way valve.

Any suggestions welcome if this is not beard algae.

On a different note I bought a bumper load of Tetra Colour which has 2 bags of Pro, 2 of Ruby and 2 of Prima for £9 inc postage and there is enough there to last me for 6 months on this tank, so everybody is getting a nice diet as well now.

Look forward to your replies

Andy

 

[Squirrelbuddies]

Looks great, Andy! The riccia roof looks really good, too.

Regarding the vallis -- I have a terrible time with vallis in high light tanks. I try again and again and it just doesn't seem to work out. However, in my low light tank (1 wpg, no CO2, no EI) it looks fabulous. No algae whatsoever. Although, jungle vals seem to do ok with high light- but they get so big so quickly they block out the light and you end up trimming them every couple of days. (they take up a massive amount of real estate in the substrate, too.)

-sondra

 

[SuperColey1]

Wel tooday I did my water chnage and have taken all the leaves from the Gisnt Hygro, Vals and swords that were affected by the 'Bin Laden' beard and we shall see if it comes back.

To remind you all my current dosing is.

20ml - KN03 (from JamesC guide) (my tapwater is 10)Sun,Tue,Thurs
5ml - K2SO4 (from JamesC guide) Sun, Tues,Thurs
Don't do KH2PO4 because the tap water in Lincolnshire tends to be full due to it being farming country

Plant Nutrition (Not Plus) Mon, Weds, Fri

+ 1.5 x the inch per gallon rule with fish so some extra nutrients there.

Andy

 

[SuperColey1]

Just an update.

I have pruned the Polysperma (unknown sp) on the left and also taken out quite a few leaves from the Swords and Vals.

Also have renetted the Pellia onto a smaller rock, tied the Fissidens onto the bottom of the 'tree' and netted another piece of Riccia at the front of the tank.

GOOD NEWS : After a couple of weeks of battling with my CO2 and seeing a blue egg everyday, I am seeing green. lol

I took all the pipes apart and dumped them all in bleach and water along with the gang valve, bubble counter, non return valve AND diffusor.

Then cleaned them thoroughly, which involved using my old printer cartridge refill syringe (it has an 8cm wide and blunt needle that came with it) and put them back in my tank.

end result was WOW it looks like those amazing pictures on the adverts with huge swathes of white mist coming from the disc.

This weeks pics of the tank from the front and from the left

Riccia Growth on the cave roof after 2 weeks including MTS on cleaning duty and 'the Boss' White Ballon Molly 'resting' herself under the cave

New piece of Riccia and Pellia

Fissidens tied to the 'tree' (I hope this turns out to look like Aquatic Magic's advert pics)

Finally we have green, yahoo

Hopefully now the CO2 is sorted again we can expect the algae to gradually reduce

Andy

 

[SuperColey1]

After a lot of thought over the last few weeks. I have decide to make my next purchases the following (not necesarily in this order)

Tetratec EX700 External filter (£53 from Zooplus inc delivery) I think I will buy this one new as its a good price
Hydor 200W or 300W inline heater (probably off ebay)
Vecton UV 8 or 15 inline steriliser (As the fish r Fun internal stopped working so I just threw it in the bin)

I was looking at pressurised CO2 as well because I was having a lot of trouble with my 2 Nutrafins but as of last saturday and cleaning the pipes and valves and bleaching the ceramic diffusor, my drop checker is now bordering on yellow (It is a very pale green at the moment) so I'm not too worried about this now.

Andy