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James' new ADA 60-P ... New photos

hey james, dont get disheartened fella, if it was easy it would be boring 🙂

this is co2 issues, the diffuser you have...if its an ebay one from china will be pretty rubbish and bubbles bigger than you might like, mine is the same you just need to inject more and start it earlier so that the co2 can really saturate the water pre lights on.
Ammania is a funny bugger, seems that it doesnt like new nutrient rich soils... seen a few threads of it melting a few weeks down the line and did with me also, even the legend that is mr farmer has failed a couple of times with it.

You need to deal with the diatoms, people will often say that it will go by itself and it will, however, if you dont harass it then it takes longer and will damage the plant health causing a bit of a vicious circle. If you can go back to daily WC, clean the glass, use a toothbrush on the rocks and ruffle the plants around as best you can without uprooting them. Get some shrimp in the tank and a couple of ottos.
Stick at it, invest a bit of time everyday to the tank now and it will pay back dividends in a week or two mate, it a lovely scape and deserves to do well.:thumbup:
 
Thanks for all the advice, I remember reading that my disposable CO2 system might not be compatible with an in line diffuser (not enough pressure?).

Iain: You are correct about my diffuser, it started off fine, but I gave it a good bleaching last week and since then the bubbles look much bigger. I've since put it next my filter intake and these large bubbles are sucked into my filter while the finer ones are blown around the tank, whether this'll make any difference remains to be seen.

Do you think investing in a better diffuser will help? If so can any recommend a decent mid price one?

Funnily enough, since Thursday I've been doing what I can to improve things and it seems to tally with what you suggested - thorough toothbrush scrubbing, substrate cleaning, water changes, cleaning leaves manually and localized Easycarbo injections.

Surprisingly my Ammania shot up about 20 or 30mm in the first couple of weeks before it started melting from the bottom. I plucked out all the worst offenders and nipped off and replanted the healthy tops - the leaves were covered in what I assume was diatoms (I need to read up about these) so they had a good cleaning before they went back in.

I've also got a few S. Repens in there which were looking a bit rough so they had the same treatment, the tops that I replanted actually look quite healthy.

My Hairgrass seems to be doing ok, where it's pressed against the glass I can see new runners it's sending out which look healthy. I was reluctant to touch it before because it only had a tenuous hold on the substrate, it's rooted down better now so I was able to give it all a good rubbing between my fingers, that and a good hoovering has got rid of most of the brown bits. It looks much healthier now.

My MU seems to have nice green growth at the top, the dodgy leaves are all further down, obviously these leaves are to small to clean individually but rubbed them as much as I dared and injected a load of Easycarbo on them. It's hard to tell if they look better but time will tell.

Anyway as a whole the tank looks slightly better today and I'm feeling more optimistic. I'll be putting it on my new cabinet next weekend and upgrading one of my filters.

Cheers

James
 
Cheers Tim, I've bought an in-line diffuser I saw recommended on another thread, I'm going to fit it when I install my new filter.

I can't say if there's been much improvement yet but the deterioration seems to have stopped.

I'm posting because I've started to worry that my lighting might be too weak. I say this because my Ammania doesn't look like I hoped it would, the leaves are large and pale and it doesn't seem as compact as I was expecting. I've been searching on the web and I can't find much info on my LED.

Is it maybe worth investing in new lighting? I suppose the advantage of mine is I won't get the problems associated with too much light.
 
I wouldnt buy a new light just yet, I think the growth problem might be co2 distribution, give your new inline diffuser 3 weeks and see if theres any change first 😉 it might be worth trying a spray bar to just to rule out the lilly pipe
 
Not to much to report really.... my hairgrass is growing nice and green, the browness I could see before is more or less gone, the MU and Ammania haven't improved too much but the seem to be doing ok and the brown algae isn't coming back as fast. All in all fairly positive.

I'll be setting up my new filter and diffuser this week so we'll see if they'll improve my plant health further.

I'm really only posting to show off my new cabinet

elmg.jpg


Cheers

James
 
Glad things are looking up mate. I always find that hair grass seems to die off when first submerged but the others I don't have experience with. I think I will get some ammania sp bonsai to give it a go and see his I fair with this somewhat tricky plant 🙂

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
 
Cheers mate.

I'm thinking of replacing the Ammania with Staurogyne Repens if it keeps melting at the base, I'm not that keen on how it looks in my tank anyway. I'm sure it needs a lot more light to keep it as compact as I thought it would be, mine looks like a completely different species to what I saw growing in the Green Machine.
 
Here are a few new photos, everything's going well, very little algae, bit of growth and some new plants - a bit of Hydrocotyle tripartita and more Stauro Repens which went in last week. I think some pruning is in order at the weekend though.

7xgs.jpg


58fp.jpg


b5an.jpg


I'm not too happy with it overall as a scape though, in the new year I'm going to take it all out and plan it out a bit better. Hopefully with the knowledge I've got from UKAPS and the bit of experience I've gained so far I can come up with something to be proud of.
 
Sorry about the crappy photos, I left the memory card for the DSLR at work so I just took some quick snaps with my automatic.
 
Wot u on about James lol, looks great in your latest pics, just needs a hair cut !! 😀 Well done mate 🙂

Sounds like you had similar problems to me at the start, although i put hairgrass etc in without any co2, mega watts of light and then added poorly configured co2 by which time the HG (that looked like it was going to bonkers) was on it's way out, the Marsilea i had went brown and even the Stauro added after co2 I lost. Diatoms everywhere as well lol. I find it amusing that of all the plants i've tried since setting up, it's the vitro plants that everyone raves about (note - i realise it's down to my incompetance not the plants!) that I have none left of 😳 and all the potted stuff has hung in there.

I've had some great growth since Saturday after adding the bigger filter, spraybar and inline atomiser and tank is pretty much algae free now 😉 All good practice for the optiwhite tank rock scape that will be having a go with in early 2014...

You've done really well 🙂
 
Cheers Rob

I just think I could do a bit better next time, as you say though it's all good practice. I always get good comments from visitors and it does look nicer in real life.
 
This is a seriously impressive first scape. Shows what attention to detail and daily routine does.

I've gone to direct into filter injection (see journal and Best and simplest way to inject CO2? | UK Aquatic Plant Society) which works great for me. Ammania is a horrendous little b*stard that I can never get to do well.
 
Thanks for the comments.

Mike: I had a rocky start with the Ammania and ended up chucking half of it away because it was melting in one area of the tank. I had a bit of a change around - added one of those cheapo in line boyu diffusers, moved my filter outlets upped my maintenance routine and they seem ok now. In fact I had to move the remaining ones back to the position they were melting in and they're growing fine now.
 
Looks great, time too get out the scissors me thinks. Also noticed that your inlet and outlet pipes(tubes) look really dirty, give them a good clean and this will help with flow also.
 
Also noticed that your inlet and outlet pipes(tubes) look really dirty,
Click to expand...

How dare you?!?!! 😡







😛 Only joking.... I had a thread about my dirty pipes a few weeks ago, the solution I found was to buy the dark grey JBL ones that supposedly inhibit algae growth... which are the ones you can see in the picture.

I agree about the scissors though.🙂
 
Its was you 🙂 I knew id been in a thread about filtet piping but couldnt find it 🙁 was it 12mm black pipe you were after ?
 
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