# A record of my low tech experiment



## tim

Hi folks, just starting this thread to record the progress of my little low tech experiment.
Tank specs 48ltr fish box acrylic tank, boyu 3x8w t5, cristalprofi 700 external.
Setup this a couple of months ago after reading this thread 
Co2 in a low tech | UK Aquatic Plant Society and being a little disheartened with co2 of late, when things go wrong they do so bloody quickly  I decided to have a little experiment 
No pics from initial setup but overjoyed with plant growth over the 2 months, I rescaped it 2 days ago for an island scape.




Will update as often as growth happens.
Cheers Tim.


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## Michael W

looking sweet! 

P.S can we have a plant list please


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## darren636

That is very nice, no liquid carbon dosing?


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## tim

Michael W said:


> looking sweet!
> 
> P.S can we have a plant list please


 tennelus, bolbitus, rotala rotundifolia, various crypts and anubias, myrophillium, little bit of didlipis diandra, various moss (I'm not sure on species) echinodorus rubera ? Najas sp roraima, juncus repens, plus cladophora tied to the wood and a few lava rocks (I'm good at growing algae so should work out well )


darren636 said:


> That is very nice, no liquid carbon dosing?


None mate I hate the bloody stuff it kills my shrimp,moss,liverworts I'd rather put up with a bit of algae nowadays tbh. I'm totally hoping the surface ripple will add enough co2 it worked out well on round one of my experiment, tank was a jungle in 2 months


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## darren636

Liquid carbon is nasty stuff. I will never use it again.


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## martinmjr62

Tim, looking nice mate.Been away from here for too long
You still running blue jelly island?
Just got a 33x33x35 cube for the living room and i'm going to be transferring the stuff from the shrimp tank to this, so watch this space for a new set up.
Cheers
Martin


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## Alastair

Great little set up tim and very lush. Another low tech convert 

Very nicely done


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## three-fingers

Looks great, will be interesting to see how the tank matures!

I've used soil bases along with DOCs from leaves, mulm and high stocking levels to try and increase CO2 in low tech tanks in the past (as per the Walstad method), with great results as far as healthy plant growth, but sometimes with uncontrollable algae growth (which I put down to fluctuating CO2 levels).  In these tanks I always tried to maintain minimum surface agitation, in order to reduce CO2 loss, as I estimated (and used the inaccurate liquid tests) average CO2 levels to be significantly higher than normal equilibrium levels.

Maintaining high surface agitation should help keep CO2 constantly at equilibrium level, provided 24w of T5 isn't driving photosynthesis too fast for that anyway.

I'm definitely with you on liquid CO2! Best used for cleaning ceramic diffusers IMO.


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## tim

martinmjr62 said:


> Tim, looking nice mate.Been away from here for too long
> You still running blue jelly island?
> Just got a 33x33x35 cube for the living room and i'm going to be transferring the stuff from the shrimp tank to this, so watch this space for a new set up.
> Cheers
> Martin


Hey Martin, yes mate blue jelly island is still running, good to see you back on here mate.


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## tim

Alastair said:


> Great little set up tim and very lush. Another low tech convert
> 
> Very nicely done


Cheers al, yours and big toms low tech scaping ability has been an inspiration mate.





three-fingers said:


> Looks great, will be interesting to see how the tank matures!
> 
> I've used soil bases along with DOCs from leaves, mulm and high stocking levels to try and increase CO2 in low tech tanks in the past (as per the Walstad method), with great results as far as healthy plant growth, but sometimes with uncontrollable algae growth (which I put down to fluctuating CO2 levels).  In these tanks I always tried to maintain minimum surface agitation, in order to reduce CO2 loss, as I estimated (and used the inaccurate liquid tests) average CO2 levels to be significantly higher than normal equilibrium levels.
> 
> Maintaining high surface agitation should help keep CO2 constantly at equilibrium level, provided 24w of T5 isn't driving photosynthesis too fast for that anyway.
> 
> I'm definitely with you on liquid CO2! Best used for cleaning ceramic diffusers IMO.


Hi three fingers, thanks for the feedback lighting should be ok it's flexible 3x8 w and can be switched individually so if too much algae pops up ill cut the lighting a little.


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## Michael W

This is just one of those tanks that can show the possibilities from going to low tech. I think most people get put off initially due to having very strong lights and a poor plant choice. If you get the right lighting for your setup and have the right plants and scape then you can create something like Al's Tom's and clearly Tim you are doing an excellent job.


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## Tim Harrison

Very nice Tim...the method works well for me, and looking back I guess it always has, so I'm sure it'll also work well for you too...it'll be a jungle in no time...


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## John S

Looks great Tim. What substrate are you using?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.


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## tim

Michael W said:


> This is just one of those tanks that can show the possibilities from going to low tech. I think most people get put off initially due to having very strong lights and a poor plant choice. If you get the right lighting for your setup and have the right plants and scape then you can create something like Al's Tom's and clearly Tim you are doing an excellent job.





Troi said:


> Very nice Tim...the method works well for me, and looking back I guess it always has, so I'm sure it'll also work well for you too...it'll be a jungle in no time...


Thanks chaps 


John S said:


> Looks great Tim. What substrate are you using?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.


Hi john, I'm using the soil discussed in this thread 
Shrimp soil | UK Aquatic Plant Society


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## dw1305

Hi all,





tim said:


> and being a little disheartened with co2 of late, when things go wrong they do so bloody quickly  I decided to have a little experiment  No pics from initial setup but overjoyed with plant growth over the 2 months


 The tank looks great. I think the posters on this thread have hit the nail on the head really, if you don't mind having a scape that grows fairly slowly, and you don't want a _Hemianthus_ carpet etc, there is no reason you can't grow the majority of plants low tech.

I usually want my plants to grow more slowly, rather then more quickly, and I find that over time, and once they've reached a certain critical mass, even classic "slow growing plants" _Anubias_ spp., mosses and _Bolbitis heudelotii_ may eventually end up growing more quickly than you might like.

cheers Darrel


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## Lindy

Are you using all 3 bulbs? what is the light duration?


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## tim

dw1305 said:


> Hi all, The tank looks great. I think the posters on this thread have hit the nail on the head really, if you don't mind having a scape that grows fairly slowly, and you don't want a _Hemianthus_ carpet etc, there is no reason you can't grow the majority of plants low tech.
> 
> I usually want my plants to grow more slowly, rather then more quickly, and I find that over time, and once they've reached a certain critical mass, even classic "slow growing plants" _Anubias_ spp., mosses and _Bolbitis heudelotii_ may eventually end up growing more quickly than you might like.
> 
> cheers Darrel


Thank you Darrel a lot of your posts have given me much food for thought


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## tim

ldcgroomer said:


> Are you using all 3 bulbs? what is the light duration?


Hi lindy, I use all 3 bulbs for 6 hours and I've rigged a 12v led strip to come on an hour before and it stays on for 3 hours after the main photoperiod, I've found the LEDs have stopped jumpers so far in what is a hectic household most of the time.


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## Michael W

dw1305 said:


> I usually want my plants to grow more slowly, rather then more quickly, and I find that over time, and once they've reached a certain critical mass, even classic "slow growing plants" Anubias spp., mosses and Bolbitis heudelotii may eventually end up growing more quickly than you might like.


 
I have to agree with Darrel on this one. My first ever plant was Anubias Nana Petite a few years ago. After half a year of slow growth like 4 years ago it had started to develop quite large. Eventually over the years I've split a lot and I have 4 aquariums with Anubias Nana Petite all from that one plant. I've noticed that the original will send 2-5 new leaves a week. If I gather all of the pieces that has been separated I can easily say Its definitely over 4 times the amount I've started with which in my opinion is a lot for Anubias. I found that as I broke off the first portion of Anubias, the grow rate increased too and certainly if you make a scratch with a clean blade on its rhizome, a a new one will branch out from that point. If you plan it carefully you can potentially shape the Anubias. You can see the original one in my shrimp tank in the sig, all the anubias in that one tank were originally one, I need to split the bigger one too again.

After over 8 months or so my Fissidens that I originally had is also starting to grow a lot faster too. I'm not good with science so I can't provide anything to really back up my observations but Its definitely something to think about. Its really just about letting things run on its own in my humble opinion.

Michael.


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## dw1305

Hi all, 





Michael W said:


> My first ever plant was Anubias Nana Petite a few years ago. After half a year of slow growth like 4 years ago it had started to develop quite large. Eventually over the years I've split a lot and I have 4 aquariums with Anubias Nana Petite all from that one plant. I've noticed that the original will send 2-5 new leaves a week. If I gather all of the pieces that has been separated I can easily say Its definitely over 4 times the amount I've started with which in my opinion is a lot for Anubias......... I'm not good with science so I can't provide anything to really back up my observations but Its definitely something to think about


 I think it is the "critical mass" thing.

You start with a small plant, it doesn't grow very quickly, but it slowly adds leaves, because new leaves grow and the old leaves persist. Over time the plants growth rate increases a little bit, mainly because it now has a large photosynthetic area, and this means more leaves are produced and it still has the the long-lived old leaves. As long as the old leaves aren't removed you can have several cycles of growth with an ever increasing leaf area. Soon or later you divide the plant, and then you have 2 plants and the process continues.

I don't tend to get much algae on _Anubias_ or Java Fern, and _Bolbitis_ is almost always algae free, so the same leaves can remain green and photosynthesising for years at a time. Eventually even though they grow slowly you get big plants.

cheers Darrel


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## Lindy

tim said:


> , I use all 3 bulbs for 6 hours


 
Wow, I've got 11 watt over a 30cm cube and have some green spot algae and, for the first time, staghorn algae. And that was with co2 at 1bps! I've decided to take the co2 off the tank and run low tech to breed yet more shrimp. The shrimp may have bred with co2 but not taking the risk. It did take a while for the algae to appear though so you may be in for some after all...


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## tim

ldcgroomer said:


> Wow, I've got 11 watt over a 30cm cube and have some green spot algae and, for the first time, staghorn algae. And that was with co2 at 1bps! I've decided to take the co2 off the tank and run low tech to breed yet more shrimp. The shrimp may have bred with co2 but not taking the risk. It did take a while for the algae to appear though so you may be in for some after all...


They are fairly old bulbs about 50 cm above the substrate, as long as it's not bba I'm happy to have a little algae as long as it doesn't take over  it's free shrimp food after all


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## Michael W

tim said:


> it's free shrimp food after all


 
I do like a bit of algae in the shrimp tank for exactly that purpose. Especially, if it is a new colony, I'll leave almond leaves and alder cones in there and the algae for the shrimps to graze until I have a high enough population.

Snails are awesome in a shrimp tank, enough said. <-- bit random but tis true!


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## tim

Added 12 cherries to the tank today on close inspection 5 are berried already will get some pics up of them soon  thanks for all the positive feedback so far


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## tim

Quick pic just for the record so to speak I've added some pogo erectus, I've also cut back the tennelus to remove a little algae which was on the leaves from the tank it came from interested to see how long it takes to grow back in. Also a few pinholes developing in the staurogyne lower leaves so I've upped the ferts a little. All in all ticking along nicely.


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## Alastair

Looking great tim really nice. Whats your dosing on this little beauty


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## tim

Alastair said:


> Looking great tim really nice. Whats your dosing on this little beauty


Hi Al, thanks mate, dosing 5ml a week of diy tpn mix (James planted tank recipie) dose spread over 5days 2x 20% water changes a week.


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## Alastair

tim said:


> Hi Al, thanks mate, dosing 5ml a week of diy tpn mix (James planted tank recipie) dose spread over 5days 2x 20% water changes a week.



Great. Looks really healthy mate well done tim. Lovely little tank


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## stu_

Clean, lush & lovely looking.
Any chance of a pic at some point to show how much surface agitation there is ?


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## tim

stu_ said:


> Clean, lush & lovely looking.
> Any chance of a pic at some point to show how much surface agitation there is ?


Thanks stu, I'll try and get a pic up later or maybe a quick iPhone vid may show it better.


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## tim

There you go stu.


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## aliclarke86

Totally missed this. How are you finding the soil. My shrimp seem to like it but is not buffering quite like some other shrimp soils. 

 Regarding surface movement, I have close to that on my high tech! And I dose LC .... STILL get algea!

 Looking to notch mate

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## Iain Sutherland

top job tim, very satisfying these little shrimp tanks hey mate.  Low tech has so many virtues...


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## tim

aliclarke86 said:


> Totally missed this. How are you finding the soil. My shrimp seem to like it but is not buffering quite like some other shrimp soils.
> 
> Regarding surface movement, I have close to that on my high tech! And I dose LC .... STILL get algea!
> 
> Looking to notch mate
> 
> Sent from my GT-I9505G using Tapatalk


Tbh I only test ph and Tds tapwater is 7 ph Tds of 320 ish tank is ph. 6.6 Tds of a steady 250 so it's doing a good enough job for my cherries but I think I'd use something else for crs etc.


Iain Sutherland said:


> top job tim, very satisfying these little shrimp tanks hey mate.  Low tech has so many virtues...


Thanks Iain  low tech is very appealing for sure.


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## Ravenswing

Congrats, really nice tank and good job!


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## tim

Ravenswing said:


> Congrats, really nice tank and good job!


Thank you Maria


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## faizal

Tim,,I just read through the whole journal,.....I am so sorry for being such a stranger these days . The choices of plants, the complementing colors of your rocks and black colored substrate look so spot on mate. Congratulations .  I am so happy for you. Hope you are having a blast with this.  Looking forward to seeing it mature nicely.


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## tim

Hey Faizal, good to see you back on here mate, hope life's treating you well, thanks for the nice comments low tech is pretty darn cool.


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## Samjpikey

This look great Tim , it's pushing me into going low tech for my next project . 
It's another example of a tank with healthy plants without addition of co2 or liquid carbon, 
What's your water change regime ? Do you add any ferts ? What's the substrate ? 
Cheers 


Sent from my mobile telecommunications device


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## Samjpikey

Sorry I missed what you said above about ferts and water changes ^^^^


Sent from my mobile telecommunications device


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## tim

Samjpikey said:


> Sorry I missed what you said above about ferts and water changes ^^^^
> 
> 
> Sent from my mobile telecommunications device


Thanks Sam there's a link on page 1 to the substrate, low techs cool mate especially if your running other tanks/ high tech as well, lighting intensity is key IMO. Ta for the good feedback mate.


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## faizal

Hey, ...I know it hasn't been that long ( in terms of a long tech tank's period) but how is the tank coming along?


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## tim

faizal said:


> Hey, ...I know it hasn't been that long ( in terms of a long tech tank's period) but how is the tank coming along?


Hi Faizal, it's going well, not much in the way of algae plants growing slowly but well, I'll try and get some pics up at the weekend, hope your tanks still ticking along nicely too


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## faizal

tim said:


> Hi Faizal, it's going well, not much in the way of algae plants growing slowly but well, I'll try and get some pics up at the weekend, hope your tanks still ticking along nicely too


 
I haven't been very regular on the water changes lately & haven't really dosed any sort of fertilizer into the tank up till  last night,...sort been very lazy as far as the tank was concerned & been taking things for granted.   But i have restarted my routine now as of last night. There's been an explosion of shrimps lately,...lots of shrimp poos.  Otherwise it's still much the same to look at Tim,...that's the reason why i haven't been updating the journal. 

Looking forward to your pictures mate.


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## tim

Changed a little, growth is good, a little too good so I've removed some of the hardscape to make room for plants, also removed all stems while growth was good it was more effort than I wanted trimming them. The tennelus didn't bounce back from its harsh trim so it's been replaced with hairgrass. All in all it's fairly low maintainence and should grow in slowly but surely.


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## Alastair

tim said:


> Changed a little, growth is good, a little too good so I've removed some of the hardscape to make room for plants, also removed all stems while growth was good it was more effort than I wanted trimming them. The tennelus didn't bounce back from its harsh trim so it's been replaced with hairgrass. All in all it's fairly low maintainence and should grow in slowly but surely.



Looks lovely and lush mate. Very nice


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## ourmanflint

Fantastic! Just hope anything I do looks half as good


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## tim

ourmanflint said:


> Fantastic! Just hope anything I do looks half as good


Thanks very much.


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## GlenFish

Really nice tank, looks very healthy!


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## tim

Quick update, started to get a little brown algae maybe due to sun hitting the tank maybe not ? Anyway changed the timing of the photoperiod to run along side the hours of most natural light see if there's an improvement



Cheers for looking.


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## faizal

It's looking really lush & healthy Tim. Nice growth too.


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## tim

faizal said:


> It's looking really lush & healthy Tim. Nice growth too.


Thanks Faizal, it's not as spotlessly clean and algae free as I'd like but it is fairly hassle free, plants are growing well and happy livestock, I just would like it a bit bigger


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## allan angus

nice tim ive read the whole thread with intrest just shows what can be done with a low tech approach great variety of plants


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## tim

allan angus said:


> nice tim ive read the whole thread with intrest just shows what can be done with a low tech approach great variety of plants


Thanks Allan, wish I'd started out in the hobby low light/ low tech tbh, so happy I found ukaps it's helped me grow plants


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## allan angus

yep i am glad i found it my little tank is full of shrimp and in 4 weeks when i move house i will be putting into practice all that i have lernt here i would be having
nightmares if i had followed the outmoded and contradictory advice to be found elsewhere on the web !


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## tim

allan angus said:


> yep i am glad i found it my little tank is full of shrimp and in 4 weeks when i move house i will be putting into practice all that i have lernt here i would be having
> nightmares if i had followed the outmoded and contradictory advice to be found elsewhere on the web !


Ukaps rocks  look forward to seeing a journal when you move Alan


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## allan angus

yes intend doing one just the pics to worry about but will get the grand kids to do that if i need to


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## faizal

tim said:


> ......... I just would like it a bit bigger



Go for it !!! Nice big shallow low tech,...


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## Edvet

Just one remark: take out the algae scraper, looks better without it AND it's better for the scraper too, to keep it dry and outside till needed


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## tim

Edvet said:


> Just one remark: take out the algae scraper, looks better without it AND it's better for the scraper too, to keep it dry and outside till needed


Will do, and I didn't know that, cheers


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## Barryg

Hi 
Can u elaborate on why liquid carbon is bad please.
Thanks Barry.


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## tim

I can elaborate on why I don't like it, it melts species of plant I like to use it is toxic to livestock at overdosed levels so I'd rather not risk long term effects to livestock by using it, I don't feel I need it all my opinion based on personal experience of using liquid carbon for over a year.


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## tim

The experiment continues and at the moment it's not going as well, flow through the spray bar became an issue uprooting the foreground plants so I've switched to some diy acrylic pipes, see how they go.




Got some bba, GSA and gda, I'll keep this running to see if I can beat them back without co2 if not my low tech days are numbered


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## dw1305

Hi all, 





> Got some bba, GSA and gda, I'll keep this running to see if I can beat them back without co2 if not my low tech days are numbered


How is it going? you could always try a few floaters, that normally does for GSA and GDA. BBA is more of a problem if you don't like snails.

cheers Darrel


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## tim

dw1305 said:


> Hi all, How is it going? you could always try a few floaters, that normally does for GSA and GDA. BBA is more of a problem if you don't like snails.
> 
> cheers Darrel


Hey Darrel, algae growth has slowed somewhat, I was away for a month and the tank as all my setups pretty much suffered from a lack of water changes, early days but the Gda/GSA on the glass hasn't returned little brown algae on the right side of the tank only which has plenty of sunlight (too much IMO) bba is manual removal but growth has slowed and it's only on hardscape not the plants fortunately, I'm a little more upbeat about this one at the moment.


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## sciencefiction

The tank is really lovely. Well done.
The algae could be because you've removed the fast growers or at least I can't see any on the picture. I think a combo of both works best.
No water changes does not promote algae in low techs, at least never happened in my low techs some of which have gone without any for a good long while. I do not dose anything though.

Maybe it's just an adjustment period in yours. My low techs seemed to have some sort of plant issues at the start with melts which sorted themselves out eventually. The only algae I've ever got is green dust algae at the very start of a setup and that was one tank,  which by the way is very easy to reproduce by overdosing a bowl of tank water with ferts and place it on the window sill in summer time. So I always associate it with nutritient overload, hence fast growers work well to keep a low tech in balance in my opinion.


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## tim

A weekend away without kids is a real novelty for the OH and myself, unfortunately returned today to find the spraybar on this had popped out of its suction cup and drained the tank all over the kitchen floor, filter motor has burnt out, not happy to say the least, about 4 inches of water left in the bottom thankfully my little exclamation point rasboras have survived, I've flooded an emersed tank I had running its small at 12 litres but they'll have to call it home for a month or two, I will be setting up a 40x40 shallow tank I have for them using a couple of hob filters, as my first foray into low tech it was short lived but enjoyable. Thanks for looking


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## sciencefiction

Oh, geez, sorry to hear about that. Terrible. Glad the fish are ok.


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## parotet

Wow Tim... I have just read your issue with the other tank and now this! 
Ok, in these situations, positive thinking: you have two empty tanks and more time to think about the next setups! 

Jordi


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## aliclarke86

How'd the Mrs take it? 

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## tim

sciencefiction said:


> Oh, geez, sorry to hear about that. Terrible. Glad the fish are ok.


Me too 


parotet said:


> Wow Tim... I have just read your issue with the other tank and now this!
> Ok, in these situations, positive thinking: you have two empty tanks and more time to think about the next setups!
> 
> Jordi


every cloud has a silver lining  it'll give me the opportunity to set up a tank I've wanted to for a while now shallow plenty of emersed growth, I've had a run of filter related bad luck recently.


aliclarke86 said:


> How'd the Mrs take it?
> 
> Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk


suprisingly well  got the mop out and started the cleanup for me  weekend away worked wonders considering it's the second filter related flooding in just over a month. Testing hobby sometimes


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## faizal

I am really sorry for the troubles that you've been going through,...but then again as you so awesomely put it,...every cloud does indeed have a silver lining . In this case,...an opportunity to set up that sweet 40 by 40. Go for it Tim.


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## sanj

Tim, 

how is it going do you have an update?

Thanks
Sanj


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## tim

sanj said:


> Tim,
> 
> how is it going do you have an update?
> 
> Thanks
> Sanj


Hi sanj, thanks for the interest. The filter accident above led to the demise of this tank, I was planning a replacement but we are due to move soon so the hobby has pretty much been on hold of late.
Cheers tim.


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## aliclarke86

I hope you have picked out a nice room for your tanks  are you buying a new place?

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## tim

aliclarke86 said:


> I hope you have picked out a nice room for your tanks  are you buying a new place?
> 
> Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk


No mate struggling to save a deposit stuck in the eternal London rental trap at the mo , I do have space for a few of my tanks in what should be the dining area but I've commandeered it as my tank space


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## aliclarke86

Awe man I can't imagine renting or trying to buy in London I'm sat on 20k thinking I've nearly got enough to buy, can't imagine that would touch London house prices. 
Its insane to think about but my better half's gran owns a 4 story house in notting hill that they paid 15k for......

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## tim

Prices are mental mate, eventually my oh will realise we will have to look further afield  until then work save rent and work some more.


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