# A Tale of Two Roma's



## John q (5 Jan 2022)

“I’m going on an adventure!”

Well, not exactly an adventure but thought it was high time I started a journal, hopefully it will show others how our tanks progress and often morph from one path to another without us even realising it; failing that it will provide a useful place to document how my tanks evolve in the future and give me somewhere to deposit my photos.

This journal is slightly backwards, the tanks featured were set up around 14 & 15 months ago, at the time I didn't really document their progress, so have limited amounts of info and photos of this happening.

THE TANKS.

Both fluval roma 240's, in the two pics below they'd  been running about 10 ~ 11 weeks, both were using stock fluval 307 filter and the stock fluval 14.5 w aquasky light, from memory I had the light set at about 75%.
Substrate was coarse gravel.
Ferts: seachem flourish and api leaf zone dosed as per bottle instructions and a healthy stock of fish.

Pictures from December 2020.








Will update the journal over the next couple of weeks to get it showing its current state.

Thanks for reading.


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## John q (6 Jan 2022)

We're blessed in my part of Lancashire with soft water, some of it comes from our local reservoirs and some gets pumped to us from the lake district, tds from the tap averages 68ppm, it contains very little of anything. Is this of any importance? Probably not, just thought the information should be included to show there are some benefits to living up north.

I first got into fish keeping in the mid eighties after my brother left home and gave me his 4ft glass box; the inhabitants consisted of 3 silver dollars, 2 angel fish, a firemouth cichlid, 3 clown loach, a pictus catfish, a pleco, several tiger barbs, a couple of corydoras and a mass of Egeria densa.

Of course in them days we didn't have the world wide web to research things so we had to read books, along with the tank I was given two books, one was an a-z of aquarium fish, who's author I can't remember, the other one was this.




This isn't the original copy. I bought it for pennies last year to remind me of where the seeds of my planted tank bug probably originated.

Anyways, I digress...

Photos taken in February.




Plant health generally good but some issues starting to emerge, leaf tips on the cyperus helferi were turning yellow and attracting bba, was also getting some lower leaf melt on the siamensis 53b at the back of the tank. I swapped the positions of the hygrophila corymbosa from the left with the siamensis at the back, not sure why I did this....

Also added a jebao wm-5 wavemaker top right and doubled up the seachem flourish dose.

EBR from above tank.




Tank B.



Much more noticeable growth in this tank but having same issues with cyperus helferi and leaf melt. Added vallisneria spiralis tiger back right. Also added wavemaker.

Far right siamensis lower leaf loss.




Keith the Ancistrus.




Cheerio for now.


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## hypnogogia (6 Jan 2022)

John q said:


> This isn't the original copy. I bought it for pennies last year to remind me of where the seeds of my planted tank bug probably originated.


I had a copy of that back in the day.  Got me into wanting plants in the aquarium.


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## bazz (7 Jan 2022)

That rings a distant bell. Wasn't Barry James the proprietor of Everglades Aquatics in Cirencester. I went there once (long way from Lincoln in Mk4 Cortina) around 1980.
Can't remember the front of shop just the huge heated greenhouse at the back with ponds and tubs all over the place full of plants.
Cheers!


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## John q (7 Jan 2022)

bazz said:


> Wasn't Barry James the proprietor of Everglades Aquatics in Cirencester.


Do know for sure but in the forward of the book it mentions he set up an aquatic nursery in the early 70's, so you could well be right. 

Mk4 Cortina, proper motor 👌


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## PremierFantasy88 (7 Jan 2022)

John q said:


> We're blessed in my part of Lancashire with soft water, some of it comes from our local reservoirs and some gets pumped to us from the lake district, tds from the tap averages 68ppm, it contains very little of anything. Is this of any importance? Probably not, just thought the information should be included to show there are some benefits to living up north.
> 
> I first got into fish keeping in the mid eighties after my brother left home and gave me his 4ft glass box; the inhabitants consisted of 3 silver dollars, 2 angel fish, a firemouth cichlid, 3 clown loach, a pictus catfish, a pleco, several tiger barbs, a couple of corydoras and a mass of Egeria densa.
> 
> ...


Could only dream of TDS that low out of the tap living in London

Nice setups 👍


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## mort (7 Jan 2022)

Our water here in norwich is only about 400ppm higher than yours then

Nice to see some more classic type tanks. 

Unless Keith has had a shave this morning, or is just at the bumfluff stage, he might be a she.


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## John q (7 Jan 2022)

PremierFantasy88 said:


> Nice setups 👍


Thank you, both these tanks are the result of my 5 Yr old daughter asking daddy for a goldfish. 😁


mort said:


> Nice to see some more classic type tanks.
> 
> Unless Keith has had a shave this morning, or is just at the bumfluff stage, he might be a she.


Cheers mort. I too was convinced Keith was a she, he's probably 6 months old in that photo. 
Fast forward to August and Keith suddenly needs a shave.


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## Kave_art_man (7 Jan 2022)

London definitely provides you with that hard hard water, would be interesting if I finally move what a difference it would make to the plants and just getting used to the different parameters


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## John q (9 Jan 2022)

It's hard not to fall into the trap of seeing beautiful aquascapes and perfect plant growth and think "I want some of that" and I'm no different.
It's quite funny looking back, how instead of accepting the pictures we often see are the result of patience and more importantly experience we, or rather I, embarked on a series of changes that would give me the beauty I craved, it never occurred to me that it was my knowledge that was the weakest link.

I can't quite remember the exact timing of these changes, in the space of about six weeks I upgraded the 307 filters to 407's, added fluval aquasky 2 lights, started slowly removing the coarse gravel and replaced it with a fine gravel/clay mix, I also went down the ei route and started mixing my own ferts.

Picture below is how the two lights sit on the tank. Original aquasky to the right, set at 50%, aquasky 2 to the left, set at 25%. (~15w in total)




No two tanks are the same, you'll often hear people say this, despite having virtually identical substrate, filtration and dosing regimes tank B seems to provide favourable conditions for plant growth. Pictures from April.

Tank A.



Ph sits around 7.4, tds 165 ~ 220.

Tank B. (6 weeks younger than tank A)



Ph 7.2, tds 160 ~ 190.

Critter pics around this time.

Bought as Brown otocinclus. Suspect they are Otothyropsis Piribebuy?




Anomalochromis thomasi (African Butterfly Cichlid)




Cheers.


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## Conort2 (9 Jan 2022)

John q said:


> Bought as Brown otocinclus. Suspect they are Otothyropsis Piribebuy?


Looks like a hisonotus sp to me. Think these are often sold as brown otos.

Cheers


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## John q (9 Jan 2022)

Conort2 said:


> Looks like a hisonotus sp to me


Thanks for the heads up, will have to do some more digging. Any guesses as to which one of the possible 33 sp it is. This pic was taken in the tank at aqualife where I bought them.


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## Conort2 (9 Jan 2022)

John q said:


> Any guesses as to which one of the possible 33 sp it is.


I wish I could but the differences between some of these species is minimal.


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## heliophyte (10 Jan 2022)

John q said:


> Bought as Brown otocinclus. Suspect they are Otothyropsis Piribebuy?


Your first guess of the piribebuy might be correct as well. From what I've read they are sometimes sold as black oto's over here, the German name is brown oto.
See them here:   (with friendly German narration)


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## John q (10 Jan 2022)

Thanks @heliophyte  , interesting video and more food for thought..

I think like @Conort2  suggests it's difficult to get a positive Id on these fish because they all look very similar. I think the only way I could rule in/out Piribebuy would be to try and get some incredibly detailed photos and see if they match the description from Scotcat. ScotCat Factsheets: February 2018: Otothyropsis piribebuy Calegari, Lehmann A. & Reis, 2011


*Characteristics*​

Dorsal spines (total): 2; Dorsal soft rays (total): 7; Anal soft rays: 6; Vertebrae: 26 - 27. Distinguished from other species of the genus by having the following characters: middle series of lateral plates truncated two plates before the caudal fin; inner margin of the pectoral-fin spine smooth, with no serrae; distal margin of the accessory flange of the first ceratobranchial pointed; mid-dorsal lateral series with 17-18 plates and continuous; abdomen usually with unplated areas anteriorly in adults; and males with pre anal length 63.0-66.8% HL and 19-20 middle lateral plates.​​

I'm going to aqualife this weekend, hopefully if Steve (the owner) is in i can try and pick his brains on the subject.


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## John q (12 Jan 2022)

"Sometimes we're thrown off our pathways"
Indeed Katie, nice lyric from a nice song ~ The Flood..

At the beginning of May I decided to push the button and convert one of the tanks to high tech. The tanks had been ticking along nicely up to this point and plant health was generally good, I just had this nagging thought in my head that adding "a bit" of co2 would help me reach nirvana.

So all the bits were gathered courtesy of CO2 Art and set up over a long bank holiday weekend. Big shout out to Clive who's numerous posts on the subject of dialing in C02 helped me no end.

Nirvana here we come, we'll not quite. Two weeks prior to me installing the gas the house was flooded. The downstairs toilet sink flexi hose split in the middle of the night resulting in the whole bottom floor of the house to be flooded, having concrete floors can be a blessing, unless you have a flood, if the water can't go down it tends to go up.

Long story short I'd assumed the water damage was minor, how wrong can you be. What followed was 3 months of turmoil that resulted in me having to move both my tanks into a different room and probably resulted in me not giving them the care that they'd been getting up to this point.

Sorry to babble. Picture time.

Co2 installed against a backdrop of partition wall drying out, industrial dehumidifier and fans had been running for two weeks at this point.




July. Tank in its temp home in the kitchen, water changes were never missed but trimming wasn't being done on a regular basis. Was also starting to see early stages of bba, looking back I think the elevated temps we had in July didn't help keep co2 stable.





Tank B close up, still low tech at this point.Ceratopteris thalictroides "siliquosa"




And a couple of critter pics.









Cheers.


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## John q (16 Jan 2022)

With the house freshly decorated I could finally get the tanks back into the front room and devote a bit more time to them. 
I'd slowly increased the light intensity on the tank running Co2 and now had the back light at 85% and the front light at 50%, this provides an eye watering 28w of light. 😆 

I'd added a few (5) osmocote root tabs randomly scattered around the tank and was dosing 75% ei with extra phosphate, I'd increased the po4 amount in an attempt to halt some gsa that was appearing. 

Picture from October.




There's no rhyme or reason to how this tank is planted, it probably resembles an overgrown jungle rather than an aquascape. 

Second tank is still running low tech, it's being fed with 25% ei. 




I managed to get hold of 4 Nannoptopoma sp 1 (Robocop otocinclus). I'd read and been told that these were difficult fish to keep and the chances of long-term survival were slim, sadly this turned out to be the case. I lost 2 in the first couple of weeks and within a month the remaining 2 had passed 😢. Sometimes lessons in life can be harsh.




A few more pictures of the inhabitants in the tanks.

























Cheers.


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## Karmicnull (16 Jan 2022)

Lovely tanks, fabulous photos!


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## John q (16 Jan 2022)

Thank you @Karmicnull


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## John q (18 Jan 2022)

Over the next couple of months I made a number of changes. I decided to bite the bullet and add Co2 to the low tech tank. For some reason growing plants in this tank always seemed easier. I've no idea why and not suggesting these were the reasons but the ph was always lower in this tank and the tds readings always sat about 50ppm lower. 

When It came to injecting C02 these strange differences continued, the oldest tank requires around 10 bps split via two in tank diffusers, one of which is fed into the inlet, a 2kg fire extinguisher lasts 5 weeks. 1ph drop. 
The newer tank which uses the same diffusers installed in similar positions only needs 5 bps, 2kg bottle lasts 10 weeks, 1ph drop. 
Surface agitation seems similar in both tanks. 🤷‍♂️

Picture in December, C02 had been running about 8 weeks. 




The other major change was to add a maxspect jump to one of the tanks. I'd tried numerous ways of improving flow in this tank which always seemed to fail, so I thought sod it and splashed out on one. The flow on these devices is insane, it currently runs at 20% power, it also seems to be a firm favourite with the corydoras who regularly spawn on it. (No wrigglers have emerged yet)




Fts.. 




December brought another change in me reducing my ei dosing, I reduced it down to 37.5% of ei. The reason I did this to see what would happen, the results were this within two weeks. 




You can read more about the gsa saga here phosphate with EI - higher than 3 ppm?

Finally a few critter pictures. 












Thanks for reading.


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## John q (21 Jan 2022)

Almost upto date with the journal.

Both tanks doing ok now 75% Ei dosing regime restored. It's hard to tell from full tank shots but there is a small amount of bba that generally accumulates on the leaf edges of the slow growers like anubias, bucephalandra and the cryptocorynes, especially in the path where these plants get misted with CO2 bubbles. 
Having read @Geoffrey Rea  mention this on a number of occasions I ended up adding a few root tabs around some of the rooted plants and moved the anubias to slightly shaded area's, also made sure to tuck some of these roots into the substrate. So far it seems to be working. 

Tank temperatures sit at 25.4C and get 50% wc per week. 

Tank pictures from beginning of January.









Usual critter pics but thought I'd better add some plant pics to. 

Anubias nana petite and nana gold in new surroundings.





Horned nerite keeping those leaves clean.





Echinodorus rubin (I think?)





Inquisitive Angel eyeing up a Batik nerite snail.





Mikrogeophagus altispinosus ~ Bolivian ram.





Mikrogeophagus ramirezi ~ German ram.





Garra flavatra coming to say hello during maintenance.





And finally  Corydoras CW010 ~ Gold laser. 




Cheers.


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## Hufsa (21 Jan 2022)

Lovely lush tanks, I have a fondness for the jungle style 🥰


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## Conort2 (21 Jan 2022)

Fish and plants look very healthy, really nice tanks.


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## Geoffrey Rea (21 Jan 2022)

Beautiful work @John q and fab photos 😎


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## John q (21 Jan 2022)

Thanks guys, sounds cheesy but 14 months ago I knew very little about aquatic plants and then I stumbled across ukaps. Should really be me thanking you lot.


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## John q (24 Jan 2022)

Weekly update..

Quite a few changes this week. I've been tinkering with the fertiliser dosing for a number of weeks, one of the main reasons for doing this is to see if reducing the dosage puts less of a pull on CO2 demands, which I seem to struggle with. I also want to try and educate myself a bit, good or bad. All the info on dosing can be found in this thread page 10 onwards Lean dosing pros and cons

In other news both tanks have had a trim.

In this tank I ended up making a clearing in the centre to accommodate some, as the wife would put it "colourful plants." Apparently all the plants in this tank look the same... So out went the Ceratopteris, the Hydrocotyle got hacked and the Vallisneria thinned out.




In its place went some Ludwigia repens that was already in the tank and some new purchases comprising of Ludwigia peruviana, Murdannia keisak, Pogostemon erectus and a beautiful Cryptocoryne spiralis red from konrad.




I've no idea how these plants will fair, I have a knack of killing anything that's not in tropicas easy category.

In the other tank the Vallisneria and  P. Gayi got thinned, a clump of Lobelia cardinals that's been in the tank since April got removed, and quite a bit of stunted/eaten Hygrophila polysperma got removed. Added a couple of stems of Pogostemon erectus to see if they'll grow and topped-re planted various stems.





The corydoras have been busy laying eggs, she even paused for a snap.




She laid the eggs in her usual place but sadly the other fish had picked it clean within 24 hrs.




I think thats about it for now, so a few more pics.

Hydrocotyle with Ceratopteris in the back ground.




C. venezuelanus.




A couple of random fish chilling shots.








And a moody looking Neon rainbow.




Cheers.


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## John q (31 Jan 2022)

Note to self and anybody else that's reading this, after doing a big trim be sure to watch the co2 levels the following day. I came home last Tuesday to a yellow almost clear dc in one of the tanks and the ph had dropped to 6.2, which is 0.2 below its usual drop. Thankfully all the inhabitants were fine. 

So this week revolved around me tweaking the gas levels and the wife doing hourly ph checks whilst I was at work. Normal service was quickly resumed but the episode reminded me that things can quickly go wrong when we inject co2 into our tanks. 

The tanks themselves don't appear much different, I'm still getting small amounts of bba on the hardscape and leaf edges of some plants but nothing that weekly spot dosing doesn't keep in check. 

My ongoing tinkering with fertiliser dosing continues and can honestly say I haven't seen any positive or negative effects so far, although to be fair the latest regime has only been running 7 days so still in its infancy. 

Latest tank shots. 










I've been a bit concerned about the L471 of late, its seemed far less active in the last few weeks and then I noticed its belly looked a little sunken. Thus began operation "build up" this involved target feeding with a syringe containing blackworms, bloodworms, brine shrimp and grindal worms. It seems to be working and the little snowball is far more active and its belly no longer looks sunken. Its also realised where these tasty morsels get deposited and waits patiently in this spot around 7pm every evening, the corydoras have also twigged on to this and take full advantage. 




I've had a small amount of moss in this tank for some time and its never really done anything, adding C02 really seems to have kickstarted it, a small drifting fragment that landed on the dragon stone is slowly but surely spreading and clearly enjoying life. 




Really annoyed I can't get to premier aquatics for Fish Club Friday this weekend, I keep threatening to go and this week the special guest is no other than the esteemed George farmer. 

I have a consolation trip planned to pier aquatics on Saturday just to have a nosey at their corydoras selection, don't have anything specific in mind but suspect I'll be tempted by something. 😃

Thanks for reading.


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## Hufsa (31 Jan 2022)

What do you think caused the extra ph drop? Less uptake by plants, change in surface agitation (was there a plant growing there?), something else? I want to avoid this happening to me so im very curious


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## John q (31 Jan 2022)

Probably a combination of a few things @Hufsa  I'd resumed lean dosing so that had an impact on the amount of co2 the plants were uptaking, I'd also removed a large portion of Ceratopteris thalictroides and Hydrocotyle leucocephala, both fast growers and guessing they used a lot of the available co2. Lastly the above two plants were in the direct line of the outlet flow so suddenly I had greatly improved flow around the tank. 

All in all I'd created the perfect conditions for things to go horribly wrong.


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## Hufsa (31 Jan 2022)

John q said:


> All in all I'd created the perfect conditions for things to go horribly wrong.


Accidentally taking one for the team and posting about it so the rest can avoid it is what this is all about


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## MichaelJ (1 Feb 2022)

John q said:


> All the info on dosing can be found in this thread page 10 onwards Lean dosing pros and cons


Hi John, I am trying to figure out which of the lean dosing regimes your following, such as weekly NPK and trace ppm levels... are you doing anything different wrt remineralization (Ca, Mg) ?

Great looking tanks, as always!

Cheers,
Michael


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## Gill (2 Feb 2022)

John q said:


> Really annoyed I can't get to premier aquatics for Fish Club Friday this weekend, I keep threatening to go and this week the special guest is no other than the esteemed George farmer.
> I have a consolation trip planned to pier aquatics on Saturday just to have a nosey at their corydoras selection, don't have anything specific in mind but suspect I'll be tempted by something. 😃
> Thanks for reading.


Same, I live closer to Steve's than before. And its till 1.5hr journey for me, So too far just for one store.


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## dw1305 (2 Feb 2022)

Hi all, 


John q said:


> Really annoyed I can't get to premier aquatics for Fish Club Friday this weekend, I keep threatening to go and this week the special guest is no other than the esteemed George farmer.


That really is a "_two for the price of one" _offer. I've been trying to find a context to visit Ste Chesters, Pier and Aqualife Leyland etc. but it is a long haul from here. 

cheers Darrel


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## John q (2 Feb 2022)

MichaelJ said:


> Hi John, I am trying to figure out which of the lean dosing regimes your following, such as weekly NPK and trace ppm levels... are you doing anything different wrt remineralization (Ca, Mg) ?
> 
> Great looking tanks, as always!
> 
> ...


Hiya mate, yeah I should have posted my regime in this thread, I'm also finding it confusing to keep track of when it's fragmented over 3 different threads. 

Out of my tap.
Ca 6.6ppm
Mg 1.18ppm 

I add ~2ppm Ca & 0.9ppm Mg with the water change. 

Weekly dosing is.
N03 8.8ppm
N 0.65ppm (from urea)
P04 1.19ppm
K 6ppm
Mg 0.4ppm 
Fe Edta 0.4ppm & Fe dtpa 0.05

To be honest I'm probably going to pull the plug on this. Will update the other thread but in a nut shell I've had an explosion of bba in the last couple of days, gsa and getting some weird ass curling on some leaves. I can hear Clive shouting from the back benches "co2 co2" which might be the case, lol. For now though I think I need to follow my gut and put the tank back on an even keel.



Gill said:


> Same, I live closer to Steve's than before. And its till 1.5hr journey for me, So too far just for one store.


Probably 1hr 10mins for me if the roads are quiet, if its busy that can become a 2hr stress raising jaunt down the M6.


dw1305 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> That really is a "_two for the price of one" _offer. I've been trying to find a context to visit Ste Chesters, Pier and Aqualife Leyland etc. but it is a long haul from here.
> 
> cheers Darrel



Definitely Darrel, meeting Steve and @George Farmer in the same room... bliss.

I really like what ste is trying to achieve with his shop and wish him all the success with it. 
His fish club Fridays are geared up to include the whole family, last week they had a girl in from animal teach showing off snake's, lizards and various other creepy crawlies.


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## dw1305 (2 Feb 2022)

Hi all,


John q said:


> I really like what ste is trying to achieve with his shop and wish him all the success with it.


Same for me, I've known him (virtually) <"for a long time"> and he is a top bloke and <"incredibly knowledgeable">.

cheers Darrel


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## MichaelJ (3 Feb 2022)

John q said:


> Hiya mate, yeah I should have posted my regime in this thread, I'm also finding it confusing to keep track of when it's fragmented over 3 different threads.
> 
> Out of my tap.
> Ca 6.6ppm
> ...


Ah man! I am sorry to hear that!  Could it be that your implementing the lean regime too fast?   I am going down the same route, sort of at least, with one of my tanks where I keep shrimps (keeping the same dosing as always in my other tank), mainly to see how low I can get my TDS  while keeping plant health at the same level... but I am doing it slowly .... really slow... I am cutting down just a little bit every week - except for my PO4 where I initially made a big jump from 10ppm to 5ppm per week.  So right now I am at:
15 ppm of NO3
4 ppm of PO4
20 ppm of K
Traces I left unchanged at my current target of 1.25 ppm of Fe with ~1 ppm of Fe EDTA and ~0.25 ppm of Fe Gluconate. In addition I switched over to 100%  RO water.   Since I am keeping shrimps in this tank I am keeping my relatively high contents of Ca and Mg (30 ppm and 10ppm respectively).

So far I haven't seen any negative or positive change - except for the lowering of my TDS - which I think benefits my livestock (I think I might have seen one of my big Cardinal females  giving me a thumbs up the other day...).  The last time I checked, the tank was sitting just a smidge above 160 ppm. And with a couple of more 40% weekly water changes it should get down to 145-150 ppm.

Realistically, I don't think if I will go lower on NPK than 10 ppm of NO3, 3 ppm of PO4 and 15 ppm of K...  And if I start to see deficiencies I will slowly dial my dosing back up to the point where things return to "normal".... if all works out I am going to implement the same regime in my other tank, and start pestering everyone doing low-tech about how great the _middle of the road_ is 



John q said:


> I can hear Clive shouting from the back benches "co2 co2" which might be the case, lol.


Well,   you didn't change your CO2 setup that much? (I suppose) and don't have "new" flow issues,  but for implementing changes too fast? perhaps that might be cause for some reprimanding ... now that you mention Clive / @ceg4048 ... where is he anyway?  He  had to relocate to a place where they couldn't spell aquarium...  I thought that was a dead giveaway to mean my Great State of Minnesota, but it wasn't  
 ... well, he will be back soon to lecture us on our shenanigans I'm sure.   But  I still believe in the lean approach regardless of my ability to actually implement it.... @Happi's  and many others, results speaks for themselves, but it might just be a little harder than it appears, especially if your coming from full EI - which is fair enough.



John q said:


> For now though I think I need to follow my gut and put the tank back on an even keel.


Well, I'd go with your gut feeling any day of the week when it comes to keeping a planted tank... as evident by your results.

Cheers,
Michael


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## John q (3 Feb 2022)

MichaelJ said:


> Ah man! I am sorry to hear that! Could it be that your implementing the lean regime too fast?


More than likely... My usual approach to changes where the tanks concerned is to do it very very gradually. We all know plants can adapt to their surroundings, we see it constantly, but, and its a big but, they need time to do this. For some reason with this exercise I assumed the cold turkey approach was needed, big water change, cleanse the water column, and then bam instantly reduce the ferts. I guess I was looking for instant gratification. 🙄


MichaelJ said:


> Well, you didn't change your CO2 setup that much? (I suppose) and don't have "new" flow issues,


Didn't change it at all. I'd reduced the nutrients and slowed down growth, which in turn reduced demand for co2. I should have preempted the gas could spike and made some minor adjustments just like I would if I lowerd the light intensity but I didn't. Whether or not this ripple caused the resulting wave I'm un sure.


MichaelJ said:


> now that you mention Clive / @ceg4048 ... where is he anyway?


Probably sat at home having fits of hysterical laughter reading threads like this. 🤣


MichaelJ said:


> I am going down the same route, sort of at least, with one of my tanks where I keep shrimps (keeping the same dosing as always in my other tank), mainly to see how low I can get my TDS while keeping plant health at the same level...


Tom barr always said "try it and see" if he hadn't have tried things and witnessed the outcomes we'd all still be running walstad tanks or been petrified of adding phosphate to our tanks. 
I think we have to experiment, try and reach our goals, and by doing this we hopefully learn something about our tanks and plants, and maybe something about ourselves.


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## MichaelJ (3 Feb 2022)

John q said:


> More than likely... My usual approach to changes where the tanks concerned is to do it very very gradually. We all know plants can adapt to their surroundings, we see it constantly, but, and its a big but, they need time to do this. For some reason with this exercise I assumed the cold turkey approach was needed, big water change, cleanse the water column, and then bam instantly reduce the ferts. I guess I was looking for instant gratification. 🙄


I hear you... Well, I think if you have done it slowly the outcome would have been different - whatever _slowly _means... it likely also depends on the plants... My various Anubias and various Swords are tough as nails so I am too worried about those, but  I have lots of different crypts and I know they don't like rapid chances so I am keeping a close watch on those, if they (and especially my floating plants) seems unaffected I'll continue the descent.


John q said:


> Didn't change it at all. I'd reduced the nutrients and slowed down growth, which in turn reduced demand for co2. I should have preempted the gas could spike and made some minor adjustments just like I would if I lowerd the light intensity but I didn't. Whether or not this ripple caused the resulting wave I'm un sure.


thats a good question as well.... lots of variables.


John q said:


> Probably sat at home having fits of hysterical laughter reading threads like this. 🤣





John q said:


> Tom barr always said "try it and see" if he hadn't have tried things and witnessed the outcomes we'd all still be running walstad tanks or been petrified of adding phosphate to our tanks.
> I think we have to experiment, try and reach our goals, and by doing this we hopefully learn something about our tanks and plants, and maybe something about ourselves.


Certainly.  When you get the tank back on an even keel, you could try again I suppose. 

Cheers,
Michael


----------



## dw1305 (14 Feb 2022)

Hi all, 


John q said:


> I keep threatening to go and this week the special guest is no other than the esteemed George farmer.


The George Farmer visit to Ste Chesters "Premier Aquatics" video has been posted, I haven't seen it yet but I'm looking forward to it. 



cheers Darrel


----------



## John q (14 Feb 2022)

I watched some of the live link that Steve did but hadn't seen this video Darrel. 
For anybody that's wondering Steve is just as enthusiastic in person has he is in the video, he obviously loves what he does and his passion for aquatics is reflected in the high quality of the fish he sells.


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## John q (14 Feb 2022)

Two weeks in and I think the tanks are back on an even keel.
The first port of call was lowering the the light intensity by 10%, then my main focus has been trying to keep things stable, water changes have been more frequent but at smaller volumes. The first week following the bba outbreak involved daily 15 ~ 20% changes for a week and a 30% change at the weekend. The second week I was changing 10 ~ 15% every other day followed by another 30% change yesterday. I've also been doing weekly filter cleans. I'll probably continue with 2x 15% and 1x 30% for a few more weeks and see how I get on.

Any badly effected leaves were removed and the remaining  lesser infested ones got spot dosed with  excel 6ml daily for the first week and every other day for the last week. The plan is to reduce this to once or twice a week and then hopefully stop it altogether.

Fertiliser wise the main changes have been ditching the urea and increasing the Po4. K, No3 and Mg have increased slightly and Fe reduced slightly.
New dosing levels are:
Added with the weekly water change 2.27ppm Ca & 1.85ppm Mg.
Then via macro - micro dosing p/w:
No3 11.6 ppm
Po4  2.91 ppm
K 8.52 ppm
Mg 0.89 ppm
Fe 0.31 ppm from csm+b
Fe 0.11 ppm Dtpa.

Still have a small amount of bba but its definitely reducing. Gsa is still present on some older leaves, new growth appears free of it. The plants in general are doing well and the new growth is no longer stunted or twisted.
I've no idea what caused these issues or what part of my new regime is curing it. I can only think stability is helping out to some extent.

Still struggling to take half decent fts pics but here they are.










Last week I added 4 more horned nerite snails and 3 amano shrimp to each tank. Also spotted a couple more black otocinclus at aqualife in Leyland. I'd originally thought these were Otothyropsis Piribebuy but I'm now leaning towards Hisonotus notatus any thoughts appreciated @Conort2





Not sure if the snails will eat the remnants of bba...




Cryptocoryne spiralis red lost 2 leaves to melt when it first went in the tank but is now putting out new leaves, not sure if the green vein is normal in this plant but it looks stunning in the flesh. Photo doesn't do it justice.





I should have done a before and after shot of the echinodorus, 2 weeks ago the edges of these leaves were covered in bba.





Got a big bag of leaves and alder cones from @dw1305  last week and added a small amount to each tank yesterday, I usually scald any leaves that get added to the tank to stop them floating and getting sucked into the wave maker/gyre.
Was mightily impressed with the effect that 3 alder cones and 5 Hornbeam leaves (I think) made on the jug water after 40 mins. By contrast half a dozen catappa leaves would only add a slight tint to this water.




Lastly and sadly it's not all good news. My dwarf snowball plec that had been struggling for some time died 2 weeks ago. I think their timid nature probably makes them less than suited to active fish tanks and maybe that's the reason it perished. I do however suspect my tinkering with this tank has in some way contributed to its demise and that's something that sits heavy on my conscience.

Ta for reading.


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## John q (24 Feb 2022)

*Another big learning curve* ~ Finshed work early today (which is unusual for me) to discover some of the fish gasping at the surface, shrimp high up in the water, the corys looking very lethargic and one of the glass cats struggling to stay buoyant. 
A small ottolincus had managed to get sucked into the gyre and jammed it. This in itself is sad enough but the resulting reduction in surface agitation caused the co2 levels in the tank to spike. 

Did a number of water exchanges and turned the gyre up to 50% (usually set at 20%) thankfully within an hour all the critters were back going about their normal business. 

Whilst I was frantically changing the water I asked the wife to check the ph and take a picture of the dc. The ph had dropped to 6, ungassed ph is 7.4. Here's the dc pic.




Reason for posting this is remind folks that injecting C02 in our tanks carries risks, and even if we're careful things can sometimes go wrong, expect the unexpected. 
Also advice to anyone that has a gyre, use the mesh guards, they restrict flow a bit but can potentially be lifesavers.

Cheers.


----------



## John q (1 Mar 2022)

With all the nonsense that's going on in the world right now I thought it appropriate to start the update with something light hearted; Don't worry, I'm here all week!!

Aaaanyways... Tanks are doing ok.
The BBA isn't fully eradicated but there's only small amounts and are being dealt with one off weekly spot doses of excel. (5ml at water change.) Gsa is also in fast decline.

Ferts wise I realised I'd messed up and wasn't adding what I thought via macro and micro dosing. Based with this knowledge I did what most sensible folk would do and contined dosing this level.,🙄 erm... it actually got me thinking 💡.

When I first set this tank up it ran for a good few months with small weekly doses of seachem flourish and api leaf zone. The fish were clearly providing something good so thought I'd try and tap into that resource. Based on this assumption I'm now dosing this.

*Ca 2 ppm (added with water change)
Mg 1ppm  (added with water change)

No3 7ppm
P04 2.27ppm
K 8.42ppm
Mg 1.35ppm
Fe 0.25ppm (from csm+b)
Fe 0.09ppm Dtpa*

Fts still look a tad washed out, probably need to make myself a new pinhole camera.





Moved some of the Blyxa from the middle and put it far left. Also added Cryptocoryne spiralis red and Cryptocoryne flamingo to the right. Courtesy of Konrad and Roland.










Blobitis resuming its normal non twisted form.





More Flamingo and spiralis added to this tank also.




And finally a couple of critters.









Cheerio.


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## MichaelJ (1 Mar 2022)

John q said:


> Fts still look a tad washed out,


Hi John, you just need to add a bit of saturation and/or contrast to the image to compensate. Your close-ups looks great as always!

Cheers,
Michael


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## MichaelJ (1 Mar 2022)

John q said:


> No3 7ppm
> P04 2.27ppm
> K 8.42ppm


Hi John, I am curious if this is what you dose once a week now? 

Cheers,
Michael


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## John q (1 Mar 2022)

@MichaelJ 
Saturation and/or contrast. Will have a fiddle with the phone, I only recently found out I had I macro lens on the camera (I've only had it 2yrs) so complete numpty with tech. 

Yes that fert level above gets added weekly, split into 3 doses. I had to add some potassium sulfate in with this weeks water change to get that level of K but will just add it to the mix going forward. 

I've added more Potassium after a comment @JoshP12  made in the lean dosing thread, made me wonder if i'd benefit from adding a bit more. I figured it wouldn't do any harm, time will tell.


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## JoshP12 (2 Mar 2022)

John q said:


> I've added more Potassium after a comment @JoshP12  made in the lean dosing thread, made me wonder if i'd benefit from adding a bit more. I figured it wouldn't do any harm, time will tell.


It only will benefit with good substrate. It will help mobility/availability to help top up anything that isn’t meeting the demand (except co2). 

It can have harm. If you have poor substrate, you are breaking mineral balance so calcium etc and causing extra stress. Could also drive demand from leisbig too high if substrate is poor or unavailable or if rhizosphere undeveloped and not dosing micro for example.

Also can have harm on livestock as sudden change in minerals and osmotic pressure. Some can be negligible and maybe not noticed unless breeding etc.


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## John q (2 Mar 2022)

JoshP12 said:


> It only will benefit with good substrate.


Thanks Josh. 

So do you see no benefits from me adding this new dose of 8.42ppm K, previous level of K was 6.39ppm. 
Substrate is gravel with a SMALL amount of clay in it, but I haven't vacuumed gravel for about 8 months. 

Interesting to hear your thoughts.


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## MichaelJ (2 Mar 2022)

JoshP12 said:


> If you have poor substrate, you are breaking mineral balance so calcium etc and causing extra stress


Hi Josh,  _poor substrate _in this context, do you mean substrate that is leaching (i.e. Calcium) ?

Cheers,
Michael


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## JoshP12 (2 Mar 2022)

MichaelJ said:


> Hi Josh,  _poor substrate _in this context, do you mean substrate that is leaching (i.e. Calcium) ?
> 
> Cheers,
> Michael


Sorry should be more clear. 

Poor substrate - low CEC and low nutrient/depleted levels

When I say you are breaking the balance, I mean by just tossing in potassium it will break any balance that there was (30/16/10 for example Ca/K/Mg) —— unless rich substrate is there to be able to top up anything that was missing. 

So it could exacerbate issues by making things even more messy than they already are if substrate can’t help top it up (and this is only the case if the plant is struggling to pull from substrate and/or actually needs potassium —> it might actually need a higher concentration to be acquired by the leaf - depends).


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## JoshP12 (2 Mar 2022)

John q said:


> Thanks Josh.
> 
> So do you see no benefits from me adding this new dose of 8.42ppm K, previous level of K was 6.39ppm.
> Substrate is gravel with a SMALL amount of clay in it, but I haven't vacuumed gravel for about 8 months.
> ...


Don’t know. 

. 

Can try it and watch. It’s definitely a viable option acknowledging any existing algae will get worse since your feeding a very important nutrient but we shouldn’t have new algae if it was the fix. 

Really depends on the history of the tank. I’ll take a look through the thread to get a scope of the tank.


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## MichaelJ (2 Mar 2022)

JoshP12 said:


> Poor substrate - low CEC and low nutrient/depleted levels


Cation exchange capacity - Got it. Makes sense!


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## John q (16 Mar 2022)

Update time. 

Haven't seen any overall benefit or detrement with the additional potassium that I added a couple of weeks ago and think reducing the No3 down to 7ppm might have been a step to far, probably will raise this a bit in the next day or so but haven't fully hamerd out the particulars yet. 

With the holidays looming (yay Portugal here we come) I've to start prepping the daughter who will be the custodian of my tanks for 11 days. I've slowly started front loading the Macro's at wc day so that's one thing she doesn't need to worry about. Fish food will be pre packaged in  5ml jars to prevent any chance of overfeeding. 
She's a smart girl, I'm sure she'll be fine 🤞

So fts, still struggling with these even after messing with the settings. 









Also thought I'd add a few side shots.










Over the last 3 weeks I've slowly raised the light intensity on both tanks, nothing drastic and still fairly low levels in the scheme of things. Top tank ~ 34w bottom tank ~31w. 

The Blyxa is starting to take over one of the tanks and needs a good thinning, I'm a bit apprehensive about this, suspect I just trim the stems and replant it?





Spring is clearly in the air and a couple of the plants seem to be sensing it. The Aponogeton undulatus has finally decided to produce a bulb on one of its stalks, this is now planted in the other tank and appears to be doing well. 





Feeling left out one of the Echinodorus decided to put out an advantageous stem and isn't far off breaking the water line. I'd be surprised if this manages to flower due to me having a lid on the tank but one never knows. 









That's all folks. 

Ta for reading.


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## Hufsa (16 Mar 2022)

Beautiful as always 😊


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## MichaelJ (16 Mar 2022)

Dang! your tanks and plants look healthy John! - except for that single sword leaf in picture #6 - what's up with that? are you dosing fertilizer?


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## John q (16 Mar 2022)

Hufsa said:


> Beautiful as always 😊


Cheers mate 😄



MichaelJ said:


> except for that single sword leaf in picture #6 - what's up with that? are you dosing fertilizer?



That my friend is the leader of a nasty guerrilla group called the Tooting Popular F... I affectionately call him *Wolfie Smith.*
Their whole purpose in life is to recruit other like minded anarchists who practice the dark art of transfiguration.
Here's a picture of him in his younger days with his close associate. Echinodorus "the hit man" Reni, they were overheard planning a protest against lean dosing 😄


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## MichaelJ (16 Mar 2022)

John q said:


> That my friend is the leader of a nasty guerrilla group called the Tooting Popular F... I affectionately call him *Wolfie Smith.*
> Their whole purpose in life is to recruit other like minded anarchists who practice the dark art of transfiguration.
> Here's a picture of him in his younger days with his close associate. Echinodorus "the hit man" Reni, they were overheard planning a protest against lean dosing 😄



Hilarious!  ... I'll definitely start quoting this post when giving  advice! No?

Echinodorus Reni... tsk... tsk.. I have no plant id skills.... Why am I thinking of Wolfenstein now?

Cheers,
Michael


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## John q (20 Mar 2022)

Update not..    picture time..   







































Cheers.


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## John q (5 Apr 2022)

Currently on my jolly bobs in Portugal and its raining so perfect time for a bit of an update. 

Ferts wise I'm currently adding 9ppm No3, 7ppm K and 3ppm P04. Fe comes in the form of 0.2 ppm via ukpf trace and 0.1 ppm Dtpa. I've also raised Mn levels to 0.1 ppm.  

Tanks seem to ticking along nicely in general, still have some small amounts of hang over Bba & Gsa but I can live with it and haven't done any excel spot dosing for a good few weeks. 

Slightly obscure angled fts. 









Hard to tell from the pictures but I've been ruthlessly trimming both these tanks. Not sure which direction I'll eventually take them in, suppose it's like tipping up at the hairdressers with an 80's mullet and saying can you tidy this up please. 

The Aponogeton undulatus continues to reward me with with new plantlets, here we can see the beginning of a new leaf unfurling.






A few days later and its basking in the light (top right.)





Close up of the leaf bottom left showing a lovely pink hue.






Vallisneria spiralis tiger aka "the triffids" still attempting world domination, here's how they spread for those that don't know.





Cryptocoryne nurii "Rosen maiden" courtesy of hoggie doesn't seem to mind the relatively low light.





Schismatoglottis prietoi has never really done anything in my tank other than attract bba and gsa. Having said that its now rewarded me with a flower. 





2 nd attempt at Mayaca red and things aren't going well, not only is it stunted it also looks like it's shrivelling up. 🙄





Finally the echinodorus stalk broke the water line and found the underside of my light... the potential flower dried up and died. Just underneath the water level it threw out a new leaf... my echinodorus has had a baby.. 






Thanks for reading.


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## John q (18 Apr 2022)

Well back from the jolly bobs and pleased to say all the inhabitants are well, took me about 2 days to complete the head count but pretty sure there's none missing.

The tanks themselves were in much need of a good trimming, even by my standards. I'd already removed a few entangled vallisneria stems from the gyre and ceratopteris from the wave maker when I took these pictures.









Both definitely in need of a serious bit of pruning..

In other news it appears I have an inclination as to what causes BBA, or at least what helps prevent it. Answer = regular maintenance 🙄.
Even though I've only been away 11 days it seems the lack of daily maintenance has given the dreaded algae the upper hand.
There's definitely a lot to be said for spending 20 mins a day observing the tanks, and dipping your hand in should you spy anything unterward.

So here's a couple of pics for the algae connoisseurs.

Blobitis seems to be the worst affected and have had to remove a fair amount of it.




Old growth on the ludwigia looking shabby.





Windelov also had a fair bit removed.





Cryptocoryne providing lunch for the  horned nerite. Also note the gsa on the glass.










Haven't so much put this picture up for its bba credentials, although there is some on the echinodorus and vallisneria tips, to me its a good representation as to how overgrown and dense the far right of the tank is becoming.





And a final token hardscape shot.





I should at this point apologise to the Mods for posting so many pictures without shrinking them beforehand, hopefully it won't overload the servers 🙉

Jimmy Cricket was famous for saying "And there's more" and there is...

So I've obviously got my work cut out over the next few weeks and have already done quite a big trim, will be doing another one this weekend and hopefully that will restore the flow around the tank. For anybody wondering why I didn't just hack the lot back in one go its out of fear of spiking the co2 which has happened to me in the past, and almost gassed my fish.

On a brighter note the little echinodorus has now turned into a fully fledged plant. Its still currently attached to the mother plant via the stalk and will be separated soon, only thing is I don't have space for any more sword plants so my baby is probably going to go in the bin.









The Mayaca red which I'd assumed was done for is actually starting to put out some new growth that doesn't look like a pipe cleaner 😜, nothing fantastic but it's not dead so that's a bonus in my book. You can see the old crippled rotting growth in this picture and the newer slightly better growth coming through.





OK almost there, last few fish snaps.













Cheerio folks.


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## MichaelJ (18 Apr 2022)

John q said:


> Well back from the jolly bobs and pleased to say all the inhabitants are well, took me about 2 days to complete the head count but pretty sure there's none missing.
> 
> The tanks themselves were in much need of a good trimming, even by my standards. I'd already removed a few entangled vallisneria stems from the gyre and ceratopteris from the wave maker when I took these pictures.
> 
> ...


Very nice job @John q   ... Very lush and healthy!   I always like mine a bit overgrown - or is it just me being lazy.

Cheers,
Michael


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## John q (18 Apr 2022)

MichaelJ said:


> Very nice job @John q   ... Very lush and healthy!   I always like mine a bit overgrown - or is it just me being lazy.
> 
> Cheers,
> Michael


Cheers @MichaelJ  tbh I've been trying to thin out the growth for a while and did give it what I thought was a good trim before I went away. Thing is I hate throwing plants, i think the fish like the tanks overgrown and ultimately I like the unruly look of the tank.


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## John q (5 Jun 2022)

Super quick update: BBA is on the back foot.... lights increased to 100% ( thought I'd see what would happen 🤔.)
Rotala wallichii is showing some signs of stunting, but is growing. Fish are healthy, which is number 1 priority.. 😀. Cheers.


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## John q (12 Jun 2022)

Chap at the front is called salt, lady at the back is called pepper. 




Daughter goofing around 🤪 





Enjoy your Sunday's peeps 😊


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## John q (19 Jun 2022)

Probably time for an update...

BBA seems to like flow, to much flow encourages it, at least that's my observations.... so I've removed one of the wavemakers and tamed the gyre, bba is reducing 😀

Lights are currently at 100%, Water changes are at 60% with a mid week 20% thrown in. Fertiliser is added with the main water change, targeting 16ppm No3 and 5ppm PO4, micros dosed daily (0.1ppm Fe)

Is the regime working.. I've no idea

Rotala wallichii...
How can a plant sulk. Well this does, big time. Original stem via Roland is sulking and stunted, off shoot new growth is, ermm for me.... OK.









As always the fish take center stage.















Oh go on and plants.





Happy fathers day peeps, this was my prezzie.


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## Hufsa (3 Oct 2022)

How are your tanks doing @John q 😊
I always like seeing pics from your duo, they are so lush and green 🥰


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## John q (3 Oct 2022)

Aww thanks mate.. 😊 yes I'm well overdue an update which I'll do either today or tomorrow, and I promise I'll try and include some lushness.


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## John q (3 Oct 2022)

Soooo... a long overdue update, be warned there's going to be a lot of pictures 😉

The hot weather in July & August didn't do my tanks any favours, I spent a week doing 5am/6.30pm  water changes to keep the tanks below 29⁰C, but with work commitments this soon became a chore, for the next 4 weeks the lids were opened and a fan aimed at the tanks, temps came down to 27⁰C but still not ideal.
Nestled in between this I had the 2 week family holiday.
So quick synopsis, the tanks got mistreated a bit.

Here's a picture of the tanks in the middle of August looking all nice and overgrown.









The big winner amongst all this up evil was bba, mainly on the Blobitis and moss.



The biggest loser was the rotala wallichii.




Rotala and moss pictures were from end of July, by the time I got back from holiday in mid August they were much worse.

So decided I need to thin the plants a bit, and that's what I've been TRYING to do, without much success for the last 6 or 7 weeks.
The biggest noticeable change is the Blyxa, we went from this.






To this.




There's been about half a bucket of various plants removed on a weekly basis, although to look at the tanks you wouldn't realise it. Here's how the tanks looked a couple of weeks ago, I obviously need to be more ruthless with the trimming. 









Anyway sorry for the disjointed update, I'm probably trying to cram to much into one update 😅 

Finally some lushness for @Hufsa 





































Will post some critter pics tomorrow when the servers have recovered from photo overload, lol.

Thanks for reading guys.


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## Ady34 (3 Oct 2022)

Lovely tanks and lovely journal. A great read.


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## MichaelJ (3 Oct 2022)

John q said:


> Soooo... a long overdue update, be warned there's going to be a lot of pictures 😉
> 
> The hot weather in July & August didn't do my tanks any favours, I spent a week doing 5am/6.30pm  water changes to keep the tanks below 29⁰C, but with work commitments this soon became a chore, for the next 4 weeks the lids were opened and a fan aimed at the tanks, temps came down to 27⁰C but still not ideal.
> Nestled in between this I had the 2 week family holiday.
> ...



Hi @John q  your tank(s) look absolutely beautiful (again)!!   I like what you did on the trim.  I've been somewhat in the same camp as you. Over the late spring and summer I haven't had much time for the hobby quite frankly (was traveling domestically and abroad on and off for 10 weeks or so,  swamped with work and family events etc.), so I had to dial down WC's and maintenance quite a bit.. The great thing about established tanks is you can turn them around fairly quickly - just as you have shown.... My tanks - very overgrown and lots of plants doing not that great due to lack of of consistent ferts and trimming  (no algae to speak of though) - are now completely back to the state I like them to be in.

Thanks for the update! 👍

Cheers,
Michael


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## John q (4 Oct 2022)

Ady34 said:


> Lovely tanks and lovely journal. A great read.


Thanks Ady, appreciate the comment 👍 


MichaelJ said:


> Over the late spring and summer I haven't had much time for the hobby quite frankly (was traveling domestically and abroad on and off for 10 weeks or so, swamped with work and family events etc.), so I had to dial down WC's and maintenance quite a bit.. The great thing about established tanks is you can turn them around fairly quickly



Good to see you back mate and thank you for the kind words.

I think we all to easily fall into the trap of doing daily/weekly dosing or water changes and then get disheartened when normal life throws us a curved ball, and thus prevents us sticking to that tight regime. In reality well established tanks (in my case 2yrs) are quite resilient and seem able for a while to truck along without our intervention. Obviously if the tanks had been running on a razors edge this grace period would be somewhat diminished.


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## Tim Harrison (4 Oct 2022)

Looking fantastic John. Both beautiful and well tended aquatic gardens.
Your fish all look very happy; I'm sure I can see them smiling


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## Thea B (4 Oct 2022)

Your tanks are looking beautiful. Such lush plants! I think you must be near me as Premier Aquatics is one of my local fish shops (and the best one).


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## John q (4 Oct 2022)

Tim Harrison said:


> Your fish all look very happy; I'm sure I can see them smiling


Haha thanks Tim, sometimes they can frown.



Please note the parotocinclus had only been in the tank an hour when this photo was taken. 


Thea B said:


> Your tanks are looking beautiful. Such lush plants! I think you must be near me as Premier Aquatics is one of my local fish shops (and the best one).


Thank you. I'm about 40 miles away from Premier, so not local but Ste runs such a good shop its worth travelling to.


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## mort (4 Oct 2022)

The Thomasi cichlids look stunning. Such an underrated species.


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## John q (4 Oct 2022)

Thanks mort..  yes totally underesimated fish, as you well know in the fish stores they look rather bland when young but colour up beautifully once relaxed and aged a little. Also incredibly peaceful and easy to keep.


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## dw1305 (4 Oct 2022)

Hi all, 


John q said:


> I obviously need to be more ruthless with the trimming.


That is why I've gone to mainly using Ferns, _Anubias _and _Cryptocoryne_ spp, with a floater as my stem, over time. It just saves a lot of trimming. 

cheers Darrel


----------



## dw1305 (4 Oct 2022)

Hi all,


Tim Harrison said:


> Your fish all look very happy;


Certainly do. I was admiring the <"_Parotocinclus haroldoi">_  on the Pier website.


John q said:


> Thank you. I'm about 40 miles away from Premier, so not local but Ste runs such a good shop its worth travelling to.


Ste (Steve Chesters) is a top man, he really <"knows his stuff">.

cheers Darrel


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## John q (4 Oct 2022)

dw1305 said:


> I was admiring the <"_Parotocinclus haroldoi">_  on the Pier website


There beautiful fish darrel, just came home and found this guy or gal grazing on an echinodorus leaf.


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## John q (4 Oct 2022)

Things I forgot to put in my update....

Co2 bottles. I've  struggled getting them re filled, how do  you get rid of them...





Blyxa japonica shows good colouration with low light.




Ancistrus eat echinodorus.




Seemingly delicate plants can push their way through 65mm of compacted gravel.




And come out fine.




And finally everybody likes an otocinclus photo 👍




Keep your feet on the ground guys, but reach for the stars 🌟


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## mort (5 Oct 2022)

I think council tips can recycle fire extinguishers, or at least ours will. It's hard getting them filled but if you have any fire safety services around you, they might be able to help. We have one that services local shops and private building and they can refill and certify them quite cheaply. 
I seen in the past some of these services just swap your old for a refilled one plus the filling fee.


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## John q (5 Oct 2022)

mort said:


> It's hard getting them filled but if you have any fire safety services around you, they might be able to help.


The company we use at work won't service and refill them after the 10 year expiry date has lapsed, cost wise it seems its more economical to simply replace them a new. 
This works in my favour when we have the yearly fire extinguisher service as I always end up with a couple of free bottles. 

Think our recycling centre also takes them, will just have to remember to take them piecemeal.


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## John q (6 Oct 2022)

Did I ever tell u the joke about the creeping rotala and the panda garra?


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## John q (21 Oct 2022)

Random update. Going to watch Ben Elton... 
Fish are fine, plants are... OK. Pics contain gsa....

















Night night peeps 😴


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## Hufsa (21 Oct 2022)

John q said:


> Pics contain gsa....


In fishkeeping circles GSA is said to indicate a healthy tank 😊 Maybe there's something to it?

Lush plants and happy looking fish as usual @John q 😍
Does the panda garra like to play on your arm when you're in the tank?


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## John q (22 Oct 2022)

Hufsa said:


> In fishkeeping circles GSA is said to indicate a healthy tank 😊 Maybe there's something to it?


Well I'm hoping that's the case. Since adding the parotocinclus I've stopped the weekly front glass cleaning to try and ensure there's some extra goodness in the tank for them, been 3 weeks now without cleaning and certain areas are getting coverd in GSA, today is maintenance day and the glass will get a partial clean. 

Yes the Garra love to nibble my arms and hands when I'm in there, I used to think they did this because their diet was lacking something but now just think they are incredibly social creatures and like to say hello. 

Thanks for the comments mate, I'll probably do a more in depth update over the weekend.


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## Libba (22 Oct 2022)

John q said:


> I used to think they did this because their diet was lacking something



Their diet is probably lacking in human flesh


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## Hufsa (22 Oct 2022)

John q said:


> Yes the Garra love to nibble my arms and hands when I'm in there, I used to think they did this because their diet was lacking something but now just think they are incredibly social creatures and like to say hello.


Ive heard a lot of people say they come up on the arm, so i think theyre just curious fish as a species 😄 They're related to garra rufa, the so called spa fish after all


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## mort (22 Oct 2022)

I have a lot of moles on my arms and it's not great for feisty fish like barbs, where they seem to attack them like a gang of piranhas.  I had the same issue with blood thirsty clownfish including one cinnamon clown (who was dumped at our shop doorway, it didn't take long to find out why) who hated everybody and ended up as our 8ft coral tray guard dog. That little "darling" used to swim all 8ft just to take lumps out of me. Still we did know when anyone in the shop put their hands in the water, the screams still haunt me.

So it would be quite nice to be welcomed to the tank in a nice way.


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## John q (22 Oct 2022)

Two years old ...   what's changed... lights. Now have 2x aquasky and 1 aquasky 2 in 1 tank, and 2x aquasky 2 int  tother.






Ferts wise I dose, Yong Yong ying yang methods , of little importance 😃 think about that???

Easy plants are easy, difficult plants are difficult, for everything else there's Barclaycard.








In other news I added 12 tangerine tiger shrimp, haven't seen them since. Suspect the Rams and Gourami enjoyed there tea 🙄


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## John q (30 Oct 2022)

*The good, the bad and the ugly.*

Weekly update time, bit of a mixed bag this week.
The erm good... totally overgrown tanks.








Since adding the extra lights growth has taken off, which is good unless the plants grow quicker than you can remove them 🤔
Higher light brings brighter colours in some plants. 

Vallisneria spiralis going red.




Cryptocoryne spiralis red is losing its green stripe.




The not so good.
BBA..  Still here.






Doing glutaraldehyde spot dosing every two or three days, purely because I don't like adding it to the tanks, and to be honest I'm not overly bothered about a bit of algae, I have overgrown tanks, flow is hampered, and we don't care.... 

If we did care we would spot dose neat glutaraldehyde on exposed echinodorus leaves, now doesn't this look pretty.




Quick vacant picture of some glass catfish.







The bad. 

Unfortunately one of my rams has presented itself with exophthalmia (Popeye). You obviously question yourself "what have I done wrong?" The answer is I don't know, I've kept fish on and of for the best part of 40 yrs and never experienced popeye, I suspect trauma on this occasion 🤷‍♂️

I've treated the tank with esha 2000 to try and prevent secondary infection but don't hold out much hope for this fella. Not so nice pics of said ram, looks healthy other than the eye. 










Enjoy what's left of the evening peeps.


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## John q (10 Nov 2022)

Just a little update on the ram. He's still hanging in there and seems healthy enough and eatining normally.
The eye isn't protruding just as much and the eye itself seems clear, there is obvious signs of bacterial infection around the socket, although this has diminished in recent days.
The tanks had two rounds of esha so far and I've added some extra mgso4 for what its worth.
Suppose now its just a waiting game to see if he can pull through.









The Parotocinclus are still active and seem to be healthy, although of the six I added  I can only account for 5.










Cheerio.


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## dw1305 (10 Nov 2022)

Hi all,


John q said:


> The Parotocinclus are still active and seem to be healthy,


They look really good and have coloured up a bit. 

cheers Darrel


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## Conort2 (11 Nov 2022)

John q said:


> The Parotocinclus are still active and seem to be healthy, although of the six I added I can only account for 5.


They look really good. I moved mine out of quarantine the other day and could also only find five instead of six. since I’ve moved them I’ve not seen them at all in the big tank, hopefully they’re just hiding.

Are your feeding just on algae and veg or do they take any prepared food? 

Cheers


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## John q (11 Nov 2022)

Conort2 said:


> Are your feeding just on algae and veg or do they take any prepared food?


To be honest I think they're enjoying the algae and biofilm in the tank. At first they seemed keen on the veg but don't tend to bother with it now. I do feed various algae wafers and repashy cubes, although there's generally a three way fight between the amano shrimp, bristlenose or garra for who claims the prize. 
I'd say 60% of the time they graze the leaves, 10% on the glass and 30% playing hide and seek.


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## John q (13 Nov 2022)

Garra on a leaf, by Tony Hart.


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## John q (23 Nov 2022)

Good evening guys and gals, thought I'd a a few details of the tanks for those that like to know these things, and to be fair I don't often mention it.
Both tanks get an approximate 60% water change every weekend, if I'm very busy at work they might get two 30% midweek changes.
Action shot on water change day.




Top down view.




I have fairly soft water so to the incoming 130L of water I add magnesium sulphate and calcium chloride, occasionally I switch out the chloride for calcium sulphate 🤷, this gets me to about 11ppm calcium & 4ppm magnesium.
I then front load the Macro's to 11.5ppm No3, 4ppm Po4, 9ppm K. These numbers are worked on 130L, not the full tank volume.
Micro's get added daily (6 days), which gives me a weekly total ppm based on full tank volume.
0.2 Fe Edta from apfuk trace.
0.14 Fe Dtpa.
0.9 Mn.
I also add into the micro mix mgso4 and urea.
0.99 Mg.
0.35 N.

C02 enters each tank via two twinstar diffusers, one is placed under the inlet, and the other far left of both tanks. Not the best, or indeed most economical method, but that's what we have. 1ph drop is achieved in approx 3 hrs.

Most of the plants in these tanks are easygoing affairs, the difficult ones generally don't survive. My scaping style is, ermm... Messy.

Hope that fills in any blanks, now update time.

Latest fts.









Random plant pic.




Corydoras have been busy laying eggs again, here's the proud mother.




And her eggs.




Some random shots of the unidentified brown ottolincus. 












Meanwhile in the ok coral the Ancistrus braved a snatch squad consisting of an Angel fish and Parotocinclus, I'll set the scene. 
So enter stage left the players and a tasty algae wafer. 




The Angel fish builds up confidence and eyes the prize. 




Not so fast screams the Ancistrus and does a fancy tail flick manoeuvre.




The prize is mine, ha ha ha (evil laugh)




I'd assumed all the Tangerine tiger shrimp had been eaten, however during the latest water change about 6 of them broke cover and decided to show themselves. Not the best pic, but proof of life. 




Couple of moody fish pics. 




















And finally side view down one of the tanks. 




Thanks for reading.


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## hypnogogia (23 Nov 2022)

John q said:


> My scaping style is, ermm... Messy.


I like the natural look you achieve.


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## MichaelJ (1 Dec 2022)

John q said:


> Action shot on water change day.


Great shots as always John!  You really got this together.

Cheers,
Michael


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## John q (1 Dec 2022)

hypnogogia said:


> I like the natural look you achieve.


Thanks,  I'll take the natural look compliment any day of the week ☺️ 


MichaelJ said:


> Great shots as always John!


Still grappling with the phone camera mate but sometimes a half decent shot materialises.


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## MichaelJ (2 Dec 2022)

John q said:


> Thanks,  I'll take the natural look compliment any day of the week ☺️
> 
> Still grappling with the phone camera mate but sometimes a half decent shot materialises.


Can't believe your taking these shots with a phone camera... what phone is that?   It obviously helps a lot that your running at relatively high light...  The very few shots I've posted of my low-light tanks I had to use my real camera (Canon EOS 5DSR) as my iPhone 13 just wont cut it  (probably why I rarely post FTS  ) .

Cheers,
Michael


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## John q (2 Dec 2022)

Most of the pictures in this journal have been taken with a Samsung a51, the more recent ones with an a52, a fairly basic phone in the grand scheme of things.

Lighting wise.. no death ray devices on these tanks, total wattage on each tank is circa 60w, best guesstimate on open substrate par would be 40 ~ 50 par, and as you can see there are area's that have insane amounts of overshadowing, in these gloomy corners, 20 par perhaps?


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## MichaelJ (2 Dec 2022)

John q said:


> Lighting wise.. no death ray devices on these tanks, total wattage on each tank is circa 60w, best guesstimate on open substrate par would be 40 ~ 50 par, and as you can see there are area's that have insane amounts of overshadowing, in these gloomy corners, 20 par perhaps?


Compared to my tanks (especially my densely grown shrimp tank) it looks like Klingon Space Laser levels   ... it just looks brighter than it actually is...  I have no idea about my PAR levels... barely double digits. I am continuously astounded by the fact that some of my plants are able to "grow in the dark"  
Cheers,
Michael


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## John q (2 Dec 2022)

MichaelJ said:


> . I am continuously astounded by the fact that some of my plants are able to "grow in the dark"


That's a lesson that most folks will ever realise. 🤫


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## JoshP12 (3 Dec 2022)

John q said:


> That's a lesson that most folks will ever realise. 🤫


Think it’s a matter of style .


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## Blacksheep1 (3 Dec 2022)

I’ve just read through this whole thread and it was worth it. Fish , critters and plants are all beautiful. I also have the same tap water supply ( seemingly at least in a none stalker-ish way ) i think quite a few plants enjoy the softer water. 

Thanks for a very entertaining read 😁


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## John q (3 Dec 2022)

Blacksheep1 said:


> Thanks for a very entertaining read


Thank you for the very kind comments, much appreciated 😊 



Blacksheep1 said:


> also have the same tap water supply


We're definitely blessed with our tap water in this neck of the woods.


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## John q (4 Dec 2022)

Remember kids, when pinching out leaves try not to leave any of the old stalk behind, it's an haven for algae. 🙄
Please excuse the photo bombing otocinclus 😀


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## MichaelJ (4 Dec 2022)

John q said:


> Remember kids, when pinching out leaves try not to leave any of the old stalk behind, it's an haven for algae. 🙄



Very true!  A good pair of wave scissors are invaluable for cutting those leaves as low as possible.



John q said:


> Please excuse the photo bombing otocinclus 😀


Great shot John!

Cheers,
Michael


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## John q (4 Dec 2022)

MichaelJ said:


> Very true! A good pair of wave scissors are invaluable for cutting those leaves as low as possible.


Cheers @MichaelJ 
I do own a pair, but old age makes makes me lazy. (reminder to self, stop being lazy 😄)


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## MichaelJ (4 Dec 2022)

John q said:


> Cheers @MichaelJ
> I do own a pair, but old age makes makes me lazy. (reminder to self, stop being lazy 😄)


I hear you mate... I was supposed to do my WC's today (actually yesterday...), but the tanks looks great and its Sunday so I decided to just chill with some Crosby, Stills and Nash music and sip a good pour of bourbon and just watch the tanks! ... Being keenly aware that I might be anthropomorphizing, I somehow I think the fish and shrimps like my choice... 

Cheers,
Michael


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## John q (11 Dec 2022)

Holidays are coming
Holidays are coming
Holidays are coming
Holidays are coming
Holidays are coming
Holidays are coming

So why not tweak the co2.




Ph at this point was 5.87, fish were fine, but needs dialing back a bit 🤶

Anubias pic .




Shrimp in the hole



Botanicals.



Blyxa japonica.



Ma and pa corydoras.


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## John q (12 Dec 2022)

Managed to tweak the co2 again and now at 5.97, hopefully this is a bit more fish friendly. Still a 1.1 drop so will need monitoring. 

Finishing work a little earlier (to check the co2) allowed me to sit in front of the tank and watch the fish for an hour. I was rewarded with this cute sight. 

One of the little guys enjoying a Hikari wafer.




Unfortunately the wafer has attracted somebody else's attention!




What's the poor Parotocinclus going to do... Aww they decided to share the wafer. 

Little and large.








Cheerio.


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## John q (17 Dec 2022)

Jingle bells Jingle bells...  I'm  going away... 
Soooo... thought I'd better do an update. 
Crap pic, but this is what I see.




Final fts of the year.






2022 has been a blast, 2023 will see one of the tanks thinned and a bit more creativity added. 

Daughter will be watching the tanks, she's more than capable, but food prepared in advance.




Have a wonderful Christmas guys and gals, I'll leave you with some FISH and plant pics.

























Namaste 🙏


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## John q (22 Dec 2022)

Update that's not an update, but might be educational? 
Currently on my winter holiday away from the freezing temps, well they were below zero when I left..  now have this. 




Reason why it's possibly educational ls this. 




Red algae, or rather Rhodoliths. 
You can't see it from the picture but the beach is full of it. 
Being a nerd I googled it; result was red algae.... 😳  considered nuking it with glutaraldehyde.. lol we live, and we learn. All hail the calcareous algae. 

For people with my level of understanding.








						Rhodoliths: Our “Rock-and-Rolling” Underwater Friends
					

If you walk on the beach, you may observe many kinds of stones of diverse colors. Surprisingly, some of these “stones” may be algae! A certain type of red algae creates structures called redstones, also known as rhodoliths. Rhodoliths are important builders and can create extensive banks at the...




					kids.frontiersin.org
				




For the more advanced. 









						The Critical Importance of Rhodoliths in the Life Cycle Completion of Both Macro- and Microalgae, and as Holobionts for the Establishment and Maintenance of Marine Biodiversity
					

Rhodoliths are the main hard substrata for the attachment of benthic macroalgae in the NW Gulf of Mexico rubble habitats that are associated with salt domes, unique deep bank habitats at ~50–90 m depth on the continental shelf offshore Louisiana and Texas. With the advent of additional...




					www.frontiersin.org


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## MichaelJ (22 Dec 2022)

John q said:


> Currently on my winter holiday away from the freezing temps, well they were below zero when I left.. now have this.



No white Christmas!?  

We are hosting Christmas this year...  this how our yard looks right now here in Minnesota - currently -23 C / -6 F.  Our lake is frozen over (Doh!) - probably two feet of Ice right now. Time for some ice fishing soon 





Merry Christmas to you and yours! 

Cheers,
Michael


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## John q (22 Dec 2022)

MichaelJ said:


> We are hosting Christmas this year


Looks idyllic. We'll probably have that weather in May lol,  suspect the weather in Minnesota by then will be 🌞.  
Merry Christmas pal 👍


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## hypnogogia (22 Dec 2022)

MichaelJ said:


> this how our yard looks right now here in Minnesota - currently -23 C / -6 F. Our lake is frozen over (Doh!)


Beautiful!


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## John q (Thursday at 10:46 PM)

Short non glamorous update.

Christmas holiday abroad and then a chest infection resulted in the tanks getting neglected for 3 weeks. Prior to going away I had a small amount of bba that I suspect was being caused by the tanks being ridiculously overgrown, 3 weeks of no mantainance, slip shody ferts dosing and no water changes.... boom...







My daughter was feeding the fish whilst away but wasn't adding any algae wafers or the occasional courgette, the Ancistrus took umbrage and decided she'd find alternative fare.




Full tank shots after removing a total of 5L of plants from each tank and much needed 60% water change, still overgrown, still work to do.








Note the drop checker colour far right in the last pic, this is the result of removing to much plant mass in one go and not tweaking the gas, also suspect the undernourished plants couldn't utilise the excess co2 that was present.

The fix? Manually remove as much of the bba as I can, spot dose the hardscape and anything I can't remove. Increased water changes for a few weeks and regular trimming sessions to try and thin out the plants to restore some flow, hopefully that will banish the bba. 
I've also increased the ferts by 20% across the board, rational is the plants stores may well be depleted and need topping up, just enough might not cut it atm so excess is the goal.

Will the fix work? Time will tell.

Toodle pip.


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## MichaelJ (Friday at 1:58 AM)

John q said:


> Christmas holiday abroad and then a chest infection resulted in the tanks getting neglected for 3 weeks. Prior to going away I had a small amount of bba that I suspect was being caused by the tanks being ridiculously overgrown, 3 weeks of no mantainance, slip shody ferts dosing and no water changes.... boom...



This is what happens when you choose to bask in the sun! 🌞



John q said:


> The fix? Manually remove as much of the bba as I can, spot dose the hardscape and anything I can't remove. Increased water changes for a few weeks and regular trimming sessions to try and thin out the plants to restore some flow, hopefully that will banish the bba.
> I've also increased the ferts by 20% across the board, rational is the plants stores may well be depleted and need topping up, just enough might not cut it atm so excess is the goal.



Sounds just about the advice you would give to someone showing up on the forum with a similar situation! 👍

John, you'll have those tanks back in tip top shape in no time!  BBA is nasty though... will follow!

Cheers,
Michael


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## John q (Friday at 10:44 PM)

MichaelJ said:


> Sounds just about the advice you would give to someone showing up on the forum with a similar situation! 👍


Almost. I'd probably tell them to dim the lights as well. 😉

The advice to myself, and anybody else fighting algae is quite simple, hit it quick, and hit it hard, algae will spare you no quarter.
BBA pulls a knife, you pull a gun. BBA sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of their's to the morgue.

Let the games begin...


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