# Aurora Aquatica



## Wisey (28 Jun 2015)

Hi All,

Firstly I want to say thanks to everyone for all the advice over the last few months, you have been a great help, I don't think I would have had a clue what I was doing without this site! Some of you may remember that I started a journal last year when I bought the aquarium, but then with a house move and various other expenses this year the project got put on hold.

Yesterday, I finally planted my aquarium! I'm really not very good at thinking of names for the project, but went with Aurora Aquatica as Aurora means dawn, and this is my first planted aquarium (and first aquarium of any type for about 20 years), so dawn is like a new beginning. Yeah, cheesy I know, but I was struggling for ideas 

So, firstly, my spec:

*Aquarium *
TMC Signature 60x45x45 Optiwhite
Charcoal grey cabinet (modified for side hose exit)

*Lighting*
TMC AquaRay 1500 Ultima Tile
TMC AquaRay 2 Channel Controller
iQuatics Universal hanging rail

*Filtration and Heating*
Eheim Professional 3e 600T - currently set to maximum flow
Cascade glass inlet pipe
Eheim Installation Kit 2 with extenders, basically a spraybar (this will probably be replaced with glass once I know what I am doing and the tank is established)
2 x Eheim double tap kits so that I can tap in to the inlet pipe for doing water changes and remove my atomizer for cleaning without removing all the return pipes.
Thermal Filter currently set to 24 degrees centigrade

*CO2*
CO2Art Dual Stage regulator with German solenoid and SMC Valve
UP Inline Atomizer (one of the stronger ones apparently, I didn't break it yet!)
Advanced Precision Brass Bubble Counter
2KG FE

*Fertilisation*
I will be dosing EI, currently manually
I have purchased the shelf and two 1.5 litre dosing containers for the TMC Easi-Dose system, I just need the pump before I go on holiday in August.

A few pics from set-up day to follow shortly...


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## Wisey (28 Jun 2015)

Totally forgot my plant list and substrate with the first post! Here goes:

*Substrate*
Tropica Plant Growth Substrate
Unipac Limpopo Sand

*Flora*
Microsorum Trident
Anubias Nana
Echinodorus Reni
Cryptocoryne wendtii (cap)
Limnophila hippuroides (cap)
Ranunculus papulentus (cap)
Hydrocotyle tripartita sp. Japan (cap)
Alternanthera reineckii mini (cap)
Micranthemum Monte Carlo (XXL cap)

Ok, apologies for the poor photography. I did use my DSLR, but I was setting up on my own and was more interested in getting the aquarium set up properly than taking good quality pics and it was a really bright day, so hard not to get any reflections etc.

First up is my bogwood! I know this is going to give me some flow problems, but I loved it when I saw it (ebay, gree0044). If it gives me issues, I will look at adding a small powerhead behind it.




 

I glued my Anubias to the wood with superglue gel, then the Microsorum as well. Was pleased when the Microsorum came out that pot that it was actually two separate plants, so I was able to spread it out a bit more on my wood. After placing the wood on some polystyrene, more so to boost it up in the tank than to protect the tank, I added the Tropica Plant Growth substrate leaving a gap around the sides and front so it was not visible.



 

The tank was then planted out and filled. Drop checker at the start:


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## Wisey (28 Jun 2015)

Quick pic of my cabinet mod. I used two rectangular grey desk grommets from ebay. I have another two spare in case I wanted to set-up on the other side in the future, I can cap these ones off with the inserts and put two more in the cabinet.



 

I had a nightmare with my CO2 to begin with. Was a bit of a panic as I set up last week with just water and tested all the kit and everything worked fine. A week later when I do the job for real, I didn't seem to be getting any CO2. I ended up removing my extra check valve which was up near the atomizer and things started to work. Drop checker after the CO2 had been going for a few hours.


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## Wisey (28 Jun 2015)

And now the day 1 planted shots!



 

You can see the Limnophila hippuroides around the back and the Echinodorus Reni at the far side. The Echinodorus is swaying in the flow, the Limnophila is not, but I am seeing CO2 microbubbles going round there, so there is some flow, just not as much as in the rest of the tank. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!


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## Wisey (28 Jun 2015)

When I got up this morning, my  drop checker was still a lime green colour. My spray bar is creating a ripple on the surface, but I'm obviously not gassing off much CO2 overnight. I do have an air pump and a spare timer I can set up if needs be, so I am prepared. This morning I did my 50% water change and then dosed some more ferts. As advised in a separate thread, I am dosing macro and micro on the same day at the moment. I know that is not ideal long term and I will dose alternate days, but with these daily water changes, I was unsure what to do for the first week. Any further advice on this would be appreciated. On day 1 I dosed the full EI level, but today I did 50% as someone said that with in vitro plants I should dose lower levels for the first week. All thoughts and comments appreciated.

My TMC tile is currently set to 20%, it comes on at 17:00 and goes off at 22:00 with a 15 minute ramp up and 15 minute ramp down. My CO2 is set to come on at 15:00, two hours before lights on and goes off at 21:00. I'm currently adding quite a lot of CO2, it is a fast bubble rate, but my drop checker never went beyond the green in the picture above. I'm going to get another drop checker that I can place lower down in the aquarium so I can get a better idea of CO2 levels at the substrate and behind my wood. I have really good flow in front of the wood, all the plants are slowly waving in the flow. I made sure I put my plants that needed more CO2 towards the front, I just hope my stems behind the wood grow. They do have good light still, they are not in shade as my tile is quite high, 25-30 cm above the water level currently.


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## Wisey (28 Jun 2015)

So, I wasn't planning on any fauna in the tank for 6-8 weeks, but just found this little guy trekking along the waterline. I can only assume he came in with the plants.


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## Alexander Belchenko (28 Jun 2015)

Nice tank and great start. One thought: I'd probably put the spray bar on the side glass so it will create flow around your wood. I suppose your spraybar slightly bigger than 45 cm though.


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## Jose (28 Jun 2015)

I like it. I would just recommend dosing full ei, specially at the start. Some people dose less micros and phosphates because they feel safer as far as algae is concerned. But its not necessary. Also I would double check for leaks in the co2.7


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## Wisey (29 Jun 2015)

Alexander Belchenko said:


> Nice tank and great start. One thought: I'd probably put the spray bar on the side glass so it will create flow around your wood. I suppose your spraybar slightly bigger than 45 cm though.



That might be possible when I upgrade to the glass one, I may also be able to do it by removing the extension piece on the Eheim one, I would have to measure. I'll see how things go and keep this suggestion in mind, thanks for the idea.



Jose said:


> I like it. I would just recommend dosing full ei, specially at the start. Some people dose less micros and phosphates because they feel safer as far as algae is concerned. But its not necessary. Also I would double check for leaks in the co2.7



Thanks Jose, I'll go back to dosing full EI. My tank has around 120 litres of water, so if I was dosing alternate days, I would dose 25ml of macro one day and 25 ml of micro the next. If I am dosing both each day for the first week due to the water changes, should I halve the 25 ml dose as I am doing it daily rather than alternate days?


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## Wisey (29 Jun 2015)

I reduced my CO2 input yesterday and also raised the spray bar a little more to increase the surface agitation. I'm still getting the green drop checker 24 hours a day, it's just staying the same pretty much. It may go a little further towards a lighter green at the end of my CO2 being on, but does not go to yellow. Is it ok if it stays green all the time, or should I be looking to reduce the CO2 I am adding?


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## Jose (29 Jun 2015)

Wisey said:


> Thanks Jose, I'll go back to dosing full EI. My tank has around 120 litres of water, so if I was dosing alternate days, I would dose 25ml of macro one day and 25 ml of micro the next. If I am dosing both each day for the first week due to the water changes, should I halve the 25 ml dose as I am doing it daily rather than alternate days?


I wouldnt worry and just dose the total ammount every day, because the concentration in your tank cannot go higher than double what youre dosing if youre doing 50% water changes. I dose a lot more than EI because my water is very hard and there are precipitation issues. Dont worry about build up of nutrients if youre doing 50% water changes.


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## Wisey (29 Jun 2015)

Jose said:


> I wouldnt worry and just dose the total ammount every day, because the concentration in your tank cannot go higher than double what youre dosing if youre doing 50% water changes. I dose a lot more than EI because my water is very hard and there are precipitation issues. Dont worry about build up of nutrients if youre doing 50% water changes.



Thanks, will do!


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## Jose (29 Jun 2015)

Wisey said:


> I reduced my CO2 input yesterday and also raised the spray bar a little more to increase the surface agitation. I'm still getting the green drop checker 24 hours a day, it's just staying the same pretty much. It may go a little further towards a lighter green at the end of my CO2 being on, but does not go to yellow. Is it ok if it stays green all the time, or should I be looking to reduce the CO2 I am adding?


I dont think you should. But the only way to know for sure is watching your fish. They should not show signs of distress. There is another way of measuring co2. That is with a pH metre and the "ph drop". You can ty and use that together with your d.c.


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## Wisey (29 Jun 2015)

Jose said:


> I dont think you should. But the only way to know for sure is watching your fish. They should not show signs of distress. There is another way of measuring co2. That is with a pH metre and the "ph drop". You can ty and use that together with your d.c.



There are no fish as yet, won't put any in for 6-8 weeks, I want to get the plants established and be sure that the tank has fully cycled. I'm planning on getting a PH meter, but my water is really soft, so think I will need to buffer it to get a stable reading. I have bought some filter bags and a tub of oyster shell chicken grit, so once I get the PH meter I will do that. Didn't think it was worth adding at this point as I am doing so many water changes this week.


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## Jose (29 Jun 2015)

Wisey said:


> There are no fish as yet, won't put any in for 6-8 weeks, I want to get the plants established and be sure that the tank has fully cycled



No fish?. Then reduce all surface movement to 0 during photoperiod as to retain most of the co2 inside the tank. Its a good idea to aerate the tank at night a bit though.


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## Wisey (29 Jun 2015)

Ok, I'll drop the spraybar again when I get home from work this evening.


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## parotet (29 Jun 2015)

I love the desk grommets in your cabinet. Can you tell me where did you find them on eBay? Which size do they have? 

Jordi


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## Wisey (29 Jun 2015)

parotet said:


> I love the desk grommets in your cabinet. Can you tell me where did you find them on eBay? Which size do they have?
> 
> Jordi



Hi Jordi, it's this one:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Grey-Rect...361?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4d0d3284a9


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## parotet (29 Jun 2015)

Ordered in white! Thank you

Jordi


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## alto (29 Jun 2015)

I have very soft water & find it quite easy to overdose the CO2 - almost killed the poor fish the first time as we were out & came home to apparently lifeless fish at bottom of tank    fortunately they started to recover with surface agitation & water changes, were definitely feeling a bit punky for a day or two, but no losses; I ran the tank with no lights & no CO2 until fish returned to normal activity.

CO2 runs at ~ 1bps on a 90 x 45 x 55cm tank, anymore & fish begin to stress (even once acclimated to life in CO2 world).
(note that tank is in a very bright room so with the long days, I run very low CO2 24/7, then increase bps for the photoperied, turning bps back down a couple hours before lights off) 

I usually run with some surface agitation, only still the water surface when I'm home to monitor fish (especially as we're in a heat wave!)

New tank set up's often experience surface film, which limits gas exchange & may include algae life, so I always run the tank with surface agitation for the first weeks.

Tank looks great, will be interesting watching it grow in


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## Wisey (29 Jun 2015)

Thanks everyone for the comments and advice so far. I have just returned home and carried out my 50% water change, not an ideal time as it's just in to my photoperiod, but I didn't want to wait until lights off as it will be late. It only takes about 15 minutes, CO2 is back on and the drop checker is still green as it has been ever since it turned green on Saturday afternoon. I have turned the spray bar back down a bit to try and keep more CO2 at this stage with their being no fish, but I have left a slight surface ripples as there is indeed a slight surface film. It's barely noticeable, but it is there.

My Echinodorus does not look overly happy, the bigger leaves look like they are in bad shape, I have removed the largest leaf as it's definitely decaying. I'm hoping that this is because it is switching to its submersed state, maybe someone can confirm? I'm about to post a couple of pics from my phone.


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## Wisey (29 Jun 2015)




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## Wisey (29 Jun 2015)

While I am on the subject of the Echinodorus Reni, I read that Echinodorus like a deeper substrate as they have a large root structure. I therefore planted in this corner as my substrate banks to around 8 cm in this back corner. The base layer of Tropica substrate was also made deeper, around 2 cm at the back compared to 1 cm at the front. I trimmed the roots to around 4 cm as seemed to be advised in a lot of the Tropica videos, so this plant will have a way to go before it gets to the enriched substrate at the bottom. Is it worth me supplementing it's root feeding with a root tab? I know EI is supposed to give everything the plants need, but I thought it might help the plant get established?


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## Alexander Belchenko (29 Jun 2015)

Be patient. It takes about 2 weeks for plants to develop new roots. Don't panic yet.


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## Wisey (29 Jun 2015)

Alexander Belchenko said:


> Be patient. It takes about 2 weeks for plants to develop new roots. Don't panic yet.



Patience is not something I have in abundance


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## alto (29 Jun 2015)

Trim more of those damaged leafs off the Echinodorus 'Reni' -
took me ages as I couldn't recall which video has the Echinodorus "plant handling" segment


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## Wisey (29 Jun 2015)

Thanks, I'll go give it another trim. I had seen that video and expected my Echniodorus to arrive bigger than it did, so when it was so small I didn't want to remove too much, a couple of leaves had already come off in transit. I know the Reni is a smaller Echinodorus, but this is smaller than I expected to receive.


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## Wisey (29 Jun 2015)

Hopefully that's better, I uprooted it, removed all the damaged leaves, also removed some stems from leaves that had already come off, just got 5 or 6 good leaves left and replanted deeper in the substrate.


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## alto (29 Jun 2015)

That plant size looks as usual for E 'Reni' - it will do fine 

I think you've motivated me to pick one up, I've been holding out for Tropica's Echinodurus 'Red Special' but it seems to be off their list these days


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## Wisey (30 Jun 2015)

Yeah, it looks like a lovely plant in the pics on the Tropica website, I chose it because it it supposed to be the smallest of the red Ecinodorus so thought it would fit better with my smaller aquarium.

I jacked up the CO2 to around double what I had it set to as my drop checker just never seems to change from green. I wanted to prove to myself that I could make it go higher. By lights off it was still green, but this morning it was a little yellow with a tinge of green still. As there are no fish I think I will leave it high for a few days and over dose for the plants, then look to stabilise it later.


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## Wisey (1 Jul 2015)

So things seem to be going reasonably well at this early stage. Most of my Ranunculus papulentus seems to be doing well, its really reaching up for the lights and growing well already. The Hydrocotyle looks in really poor shape and I was a little worried at first, but last night saw that all 4 groups I planted had tiny new leaves on them, so I assume that the old leaves are dying off and there is now new submersed growth. The Anubias has two fresh leaves on it which is also encouraging. My Montecarlo looks a bit rough, hope that is transitioning over and new growth comes through, the same goes for the Alternanthera reineckii mini, no new growth yet, some older leaves starting to die back. The Crypts show no new growth, but look fairly happy and have just generally perked up, the leaves were very flat against the substrate after planting, but seem to be, well, I can't describe it other than more perky, hope that makes sense, haha. The Limnophila hippuroides seems to be exactly the same as when it went in, so I am hoping that no news is good news with it being in the lowest flow area. It's not just died, so fingers crossed.


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## REDSTEVEO (1 Jul 2015)

Looking good Wisey. Just remember one thing though, "the only things that happen quickly in an aquarium are usually bad things"



Steve


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## Wisey (1 Jul 2015)

REDSTEVEO said:


> Looking good Wisey. Just remember one thing though, "the only things that happen quickly in an aquarium are usually bad things"
> 
> 
> 
> Steve


This planted tank lark will be a serious test of my patience! I'm not known for patience


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## Wisey (3 Jul 2015)

On Wednesday evening I installed another drop checker right near the substrate in the back left corner. I get good flow there I think, but it is good to be able to check now. I also replaced my fluid in the other drop checker at the same time, so I was starting with the same colour in both to compare. When I got home last night, CO2 had been on for 3 hours and and lights for 1 hour, the top one was still quite blue where as the substrate one was more green, so that was a surprise. Neither were as green as I would like though, so I upped the CO2 for the last couple of hours. This morning they are both bluish, so I will see how they are when I get home tonight after having the higher rate of CO2 for the whole photoperiod, hoping to come home to lime green this evening.

After this test, I am going to replace the fluid again tomorrow morning to give me a fresh starting point and move the drop checker behind my bogwood to see what I get round there.


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## 5678 (3 Jul 2015)

I've gone through something similar with my tank. I was having to start co2 around 3 hours before lights which seemed wrong. 

I found that by reducing surface agitation (pointed my spray bar slightly lower) I am getting a green dc at lights on in 2 hours. 

I am still finding that my PH is not at its lowest until into the light period though, so am trying to improve that now. I can get to a very light green bordering yellow DC and my fish are OK. This give me a PH of 6.9. I am aiming to have 7.0/6.9 for lights on. My circulation appears good, the DC is on the back wall 1/4 way up under the spray bar so it has to be something else wrong.
So far I have removed some media from the filter as it was pretty fully. I am then going to try putting the diffuser on the filter inlet instead of the outlet.


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## Wisey (3 Jul 2015)

It's going to take some trial and error to get this right that is for sure. After I got the drop checker to go green last Saturday it had refused to do anything other than stay green or go up to almost yellow, I never got it to go back to blue, even with surface agitation overnight. At the moment, with no fish in, I have reduced the surface agitation, as if anything, I want too much CO2 rather than not enough. It was set to around 1 bps yesterday, have upped it to around 2 to 3 bbps now and will see what that results in when I get home. 

Tomorrow I will be at home when the CO2 comes on, so that means I can see how things progress throughout the day. It's looking like a rainy day and my girlfriend is away in the US, so other than popping out to the official opening of the new Fishkeeper Scotland\Maindenhead Aquatics in Aberdeen I won't be doing much tomorrow, plenty of time to sit and watch what happens and worry about what is going on, haha.


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## l33yds (3 Jul 2015)

I don't think it's advisable to put the diffuser on the filter inlet buddy, the Co2 can have adverse affects on your filter causing seals to deteriorate quite quickly as the gas will build up in the canister. Just a heads up.


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## Wisey (3 Jul 2015)

So this evening, both of my drop checkers are green, so that's good news. I'm really suspicious of the fact the original DC stayed green 24 hours a day earlier in the week, when I cleaned it on Wednesday, it appeared to have some white gunk in it, probably from the surface film that I have at the moment. I'm now wondering if this had completely blocked the DC so that once it had gone green, it then wasn't exposed to the tank water any more and just remained green 24 hours a day. It now appears to be ok, so will just have to make sure it does not get blocked. The DC down by the substrate is defo green though and that's the one that I'm most worried about as its where the plants are! I have moved the lower DC as planned so it is behind my wood on the back glass, so will see if my stems round there are getting any CO2.

The surface film is getting worse, but previously this week I have just syphoned off water, not specifically skimmed the surface. It was worse than usual tonight and I could actually see a whole layer of CO2 microbubbles trapped under it when I got home. I skimmed it off manually before the 50% water change and will monitor the situation. I'll skim daily from now on, but if it keeps coming back I'll either get an Eheim Skim 350 or one of the glass inlet pipes with a skimmer built in.

So today is day 7, I'll try to get a picture later on once it is darker and I don't get so many reflections from around the curtains in the lounge (doesnt get dark until very late in Aberdeen at this time of year). There is not that much difference to the day 1 pic to be honest, but the ranunculous is certainly doing well.


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## Wisey (4 Jul 2015)

I just noticed tonight that I am starting to get a white\grey fuzz appearing on parts of my bogwood. Have read about this before so know that it is fairly normal. I know that shrimp tend to clean it up, but I don't intend to put any life in for another 6-7 weeks, so should I start cleaning this off myself, or just leave it? I guess if I leave it, it will have taken over before the shrimp go in. If I need to remove it, what is the best method? A toothbrush and airline to syphon it off?


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## Wisey (4 Jul 2015)

Most plants are showing new growth now, some old leaves dying off, but definitely new growth.

My two worries at the moment are the alternanthera and the Monte Carlo. My MC does have some new growth in the tips, but the bottom of its looking awful. Not sure what to do with it...


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## Wisey (4 Jul 2015)




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## Wisey (5 Jul 2015)

So today has been a bit of a disappointing day. As you could see yesterday, my MC was not in a good way. I did my 50% water change before lights on this morning, then set the CO2 to a new level when it started at 15:00 today. I dropped it down a little as yesterday I was at yellow about an hour after lights off. I had upped it during the photoperiod as it had not gone green by lights on. Today, 3.5 hours after lights on my drop checker is only just starting to go green and its not even the right green yet, its a dark bluish green, I have therefore increased my CO2 just now to try and get enough in to the aquarium. There is no fauna in there, so I guess I should just overdose for now and try and get the plants back on track. It would seem that when I have come home during the week and seen a green drop checker and hoped all was going well, it was not going green early enough. Being here at the weekend I can see that the CO2 is not getting up to the right level when the lights come on.

I guess that is why some of my plants have suffered, it is the ones that require more CO2 that have had problems it seems. My MC was in a really poor state, so I have had to remove most of that. The two clumps closest to the front glass were not too bad, so  have retained those. I also managed to pick out some individual plantlets that looked like newer healthy growth and have replanted those around the clumps. Hopefully I can keep the rest of this alive and it will fill in with some time. One of the clumps of alternanthera reineckii was totally melted, so I pulled that out too. The rest are not in too bad shape I hope, so fingers crossed.

After seeing my stems with new growth the other day I was encouraged that they were ok behind the wood, but some of them look to be melting now. I'm not sure how one can look perfect and the one that is an inch away is melting, surely they are getting the same light, CO2 and ferts in the same place? As yet I have not pulled any of the stems out, I'm hoping I can recover those as they are not as bad. I do still have 4 clumps of the stems in a little propagator, so could always transfer those in at a later date if I need to fill in any gaps from ones that don't make it.

My lower CO2 type plants look good, the anubias is putting out new leaves all the time, there is also new growth on the crypts. The ranunculous looks really good, well, one area does, its right near the front glass so must get lots more CO2, that is going really well. The two groups further back are ok, just growing slower, but not melting.

I'll post a phone pic of what is left of my MC in a minute


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## Wisey (5 Jul 2015)




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## Wisey (5 Jul 2015)

This is the Ranunculous at the front, going well!


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## Wisey (6 Jul 2015)

After removing one clump of Alternanthera yesterday, now the next one across is melting away, looks like they are taking it in turns to die. This is with the CO2 turned up higher as well.


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## Wisey (6 Jul 2015)

Tonight I had to do something about my Alternanthera and my stems behind the wood. I pulled out each group of stems, removed the melted stems and then planted the good stems as individual stems rather than groups. I have 10 good stems around there, so hoping that I can keep these ones alive with more CO2. I removed the bottom leaves and planted deeper in to the substrate.

With the Alternanthera, again I removed all the clumps, removed the melted leaves and stems, then rather than replant as groups, I separated each stem and replanted them all as individual stems. They are over a larger area now and each stem should have good flow. They are right a the front with good flow already, so hoping that not having them in groups will give them a better chance to grow. Fingers crossed.

After all the uprooting and planting, it was cloudy. I netted out as much dead plant material as possible, then I have just completed a large water change, around 70%. Things are much clearer now and I have cranked up the CO2 again to get things going.

If I am doing anything stupid, please tell me, but I have had no input from anyone since these problems started, so I'm pretty much guessing what the best way forward is.

I may order an Eheim Skim 350 and use it to not only skim the film off, but to push water around behind the bogwood and try to get better flow to my stem plants. Would that be a good idea? Will it be a problem if it is next to my inlet pipe and pushing in the opposite direction? I don't really want to place it at the other side of the aquarium as it is then on the side that is often viewed as you enter the room.


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## Wisey (6 Jul 2015)

After replanting...


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## Wisey (6 Jul 2015)

And the stems at the back...


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## 5678 (6 Jul 2015)

I'm no expert, but can you list out your light period and co2 levels at various times (use a ph pen?)

I was seeing similar melting when my co2 was not up enough during the light period as it sounds yours is.


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## Wisey (6 Jul 2015)

My lights are on for 5 hours, my CO2 comes on 2 hours before lights on and goes off 1 hour before lights off. I'm fairly sure it is a CO2 issue, but I don't have a PH pen to do proper profile yet. The drop checker is so slow to respond and with me now being back at work, it is impossible to see what state it is in at lights on. I turned up the CO2 last night, when I went to bed it was almost yellow. When I got up this morning, the lower drop checker at the back was blue, the one at the surface was still almost yellow. When I got home tonight at around 18:00 (an hour after lights on, 3 hours after CO2 on) both my drop checkers were green. I have upped the CO2 even higher this evening, the bubble rate is way beyond anything I could possible count now. I can understand why the stems at the back would melt if there was a lack of CO2 due to the flow, but I don't understand why one stem melts and the one that is an inch away looks perfectly healthy? The same with the Alternanthera, it was all in pretty much the same area, the piece at the left of the group nearest my MC melted while the rest looked ok, then once I remove that, the next piece over melts the following day. If the whole lot went, I would understand it, I don't understand why two clumps of the same plant within an inch of each other display completely different behaviour. I'm just going to leave the CO2 on at the ridiculously high level now and see if I can at least keep the plants alive. My intention was to buy a PH pen at some point but a decent one is expensive, the cheap ones are not reliable.


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## 5678 (7 Jul 2015)

Light intensity for those 5 hours?

With that big bit of wood flow might be an issue? The plants at the back may not get a good dose of co2. I've just ordered a small hydor pump to use to rule out circulation issues. 

What angle is your spraybar pointed at?


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## Wisey (7 Jul 2015)

I know these TMC tiles are pretty bright, so I thought I was being careful and I am only running it at 20% at the moment. My spray bar is pretty much pointing directly to the front. I did have it a little higher, but was advised to lower it while there is no fauna in there to keep as much CO2 in during the photoperiod as possible. There is a very slight surface ripple, but not much. It is since I lowered it that I have had the surface film become more apparent. This morning my lower DC behind the wood was blue, but my surface level one at the front was still lime green. It would appear that the CO2 moves up to the top of the tank overnight, but maybe it is not being degassed due to the surface film.

The wood may well be causing an issue with flow which is why I put a DC behind there to see what my CO2 levels were like. They are lower than the surface one, but then that is not unusual. That DC still goes green during the photoperiod, I just don't think it is going green early enough at the moment. I have increased the amount of CO2 going in for today, but I suspect this evening my DC will go yellow due to the quantity of CO2. I think I may change to having the CO2 come on 3 hours before lights on to give it a better chance of being green at the start of the photoperiod.

I'm sure the tank would benefit from better flow behind the wood, it is a question of how I achieve that. The spray bar seems to be much more powerful at the end which is closed rather than the end where the water comes in from the filter, I therefore get my jets spraying at a slight angle towards the left hand side. They don't quite hit the front of tank, but they go a good 3/4 of the way across the tank and I can see the circular flow that I would expect. All the plants are moving in the flow at the front, I can also see my Ranunculous and Crypts behind the wood at the left hand side moving in the flow. The Echinodorus at the right side moves in the flow to some extent, but is still very small and compact and close to the substrate. My filter inlet is also behind the wood, which I hoped would create some additional flow by drawing water along the back of the wood, but it could just be taking water straight from the filter flow down that side. When some plant leaves were floating around inside the tank, or when I watch the CO2 bubbles, I can see that flow does go around the back of the wood, it is just not as vigorous as it is at the front of the tank.

My stems behind the wood are Limnophila hippuridoides. According to the Tropica website, although classed as a medium difficulty, they are listed as having a low CO2 requirement, but Medium light demand. I therefore hoped that with the low CO2 requirement, they would get what they needed behind the wood even though the flow was lower. The fact that my Monte Carlo and Alternanthera also melted and they are right at the front in the highest flow I guess demonstrates that I am just not getting the CO2 up to the right level in the entire tank, rather than it just being a flow issue behind the wood.

My Hydrocotyle tripartita is planted towards the front in a row up the right hand side and I am hoping that fills in around the wood. This plant has had all the original leaves die back, but new submersed growth has come through on all 4 groups that I planted and it is looking like it is going to do well. It really does move in the flow though, so I guess along that side it is getting good flow. One thing that is very noticeable is how differently the Ranunculus papulentus is doing in different areas of the tank. The best group is at the front and can be seen in the pictures above, it has more than doubled in height in a week, it really shot up! In the picture of the stems above, you can see in the background that there is some more Ranunculus papulentus at the far side which sits just behind the wood. This should in theory get a lot less flow and CO2, it has also grown well and now sticks up above the wood, but has not grown as much as the one at the front. There is another group just behind the MC which is out in the better flow at the side and this has hardly increased in height. It is not melting, it is just not growing as quickly, which seems strange compared to the group which is about 3 inches away which you would expect to get less CO2. Anyway, it is alive, so I am not worrying about that.

I'm seriously considering getting the Eheim Skim 350 and placing this at the back right corner behind the filter inflow pipe. That should then take water and push it along the back behind the wood, although it may sit too high to get flow at substrate level, it should be taking CO2 rich water from the surface near the filter level and improving flow behind the wood. The other alternative would be a small nano powerhead which I could put lower down which would be taking water from the flow down the right hand side and pushing it along the back more. Maybe I'll do both, but I think I will start with the skimmer for now as I would like to get rid of the surface film.


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## Wisey (7 Jul 2015)

Ok, skimmer ordered from Amazon, will be here on Thursday!


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## 5678 (7 Jul 2015)

Which one? I've been looking at the inlet surface skimmers. 

Have one of these arriving today too http://www.charterhouse-aquatics.co....html?osCsid=e2e2a889eaf14ecd9cc3f2a05f2542df


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## Wisey (7 Jul 2015)

I ordered the Eheim as have read good comments about it on this site:

https://www.eheim.com/en_GB/products/accessories/cleaning/surface_skimmer_skim350

In a perfect world I would have a nice glass inlet pipe with a skimmer, but that won't help with flow, so the Eheim kills two birds with one stone, removes the surfact film and will give me an additional 350 lph flow behind my bogwood.

Those little Pico pumps look good. I may well add one of those underneath the skimmer to push more water behind the bogwood closer to the substrate level, but will see how I go with the skimmer first.


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## moroland (7 Jul 2015)

Hi
Maybe moving spray bar from back wall to left side  and puting circulation pump like koralia 1600 under will help with flow behind wood. 
How many media baskets you have in your filter? You culd take out one or two .


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## Wisey (7 Jul 2015)

moroland said:


> Hi
> Maybe moving spray bar from back wall to left side  and puting circulation pump like koralia 1600 under will help with flow behind wood.
> How many media baskets you have in your filter? You culd take out one or two .



The joy of the plastic Eheim spraybar is I could shorten it and fit it on the side, so that may well be an option although my concern would be that if its not hitting the front glass from 45 cm, it will be even worse trying to go down the full length of the tank, so I could then have problems with my higher CO2 carpet plants at the front.

My filter has 4 media baskets, currently the top 2 baskets are empty. The bottom basket has pan scrubbers in it, I put in a lot though, like 2 packets which is probably 18 pan scrubbers, all on end, so they are acting like a thick piece of coarse foam. The second basket has alfagrog in it, the basket is not jammed full, enough I hope to build a bacteria colony, but not so much that its overloaded. Have I maybe used too many pan scrubbers? I guess I could improve flow by taking some out, but I do want some form of mechanical filtration in there.

On my return from the filter I have the Up Inline atomizer and an eheim double tap, so that will restrict some flow, but I have the pipes as short as possible. There is also a double tap set on the inflow pipe, but again the pipe is short. That double tap set lets me tap in to the inflow pipe with another tap and length of pipe to setup a fast syphon without sucking on a tube for water changes. I then swap the hose round to the opposite end, connect to the other tap on the filter side and switch the filter back on which pumps my fresh water from the container in to the aquarium. It makes water changes super easy, so I am reluctant to remove the taps.


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## moroland (7 Jul 2015)

Wisey said:


> The joy of the plastic Eheim spraybar is I could shorten it and fit it on the side, so that may well be an option although my concern would be that if its not hitting the front glass from 45 cm, it will be even worse trying to go down the full length of the tank, so I could then have problems with my higher CO2 carpet plants at the front.



Good point but circulation pump may help



Wisey said:


> My filter has 4 media baskets, currently the top 2 baskets are empty. The bottom basket has pan scrubbers in it, I put in a lot though, like 2 packets which is probably 18 pan scrubbers, all on end, so they are acting like a thick piece of coarse foam. The second basket has alfagrog in it, the basket is not jammed full, enough I hope to build a bacteria colony, but not so much that its overloaded. Have I maybe used too many pan scrubbers? I guess I could improve flow by taking some out, but I do want some form of mechanical filtration in there.


You can try only with one basket pan scrubbers let say 12 and see how flow looks like then

As i remember you don't have any shrimps or fish in tank you can set up co2 for 24/7  2 bpm and see if it is help


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## Wisey (7 Jul 2015)

Removing the timer may well be the way forward, run the CO2 24 hours a day, at least for now without any fauna in there. I just want to keep my plants alive and get them established! I have another spare FE waiting in the wings and have just dropped a mail to the company I got these first two from to see if they have any more. They only charged me £5 each for the first two, so if they can keep me supplied (which I am not sure about long term), then I don't mind if I end up using a lot more.


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## Wisey (7 Jul 2015)

Some good news, my skimmer has been dispatched and is now estimated to arrive tomorrow so I should have that set up tomorrow evening. The FE company just mailed me back and have another couple of 2 KG FE's that I can have for a scuba diver each!


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## Aeropars (7 Jul 2015)

I'd be interested to see how much of a difference the skimmer makes to your flow. I'm toying with the idea of getting one too.


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## Wisey (7 Jul 2015)

Aeropars said:


> I'd be interested to see how much of a difference the skimmer makes to your flow. I'm toying with the idea of getting one too.



Theoretically, 350 litres per hour, so better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Pretty cheap too, plus it gets rid of the surface film and saves me skimming that off myself. The only downside that I see is that it is not exactly the most attractive thing to stick in the tank, but it's better than dead plants. I'll report back as soon as I get it set up.


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## Crawdaddy (7 Jul 2015)

Hi Wisey,  good looking tank. Sorry to hear about your Co2 problems. 

I had similar issues to yours. I am no expert by any means but here's a couple of observations of mine:
- ditch the hang on DC. I had one and always showed yellow whilst other lower down DC showed dark green. The design doesn't allow an accurate reading as the opening is narrow. besides the top water in the tank has more gas exchange going on. 
- place your other DC about 2 inches above substrate, put it in a place in a a tank you think is less likely to get Co2 flow. Leave it there for time being.
- your tank is small and not too many plants at the moment, filter is strong - so flow is probably not your issue right now. 
- as Moroland said you don't have livestock so I would stick your gas on 24/7, stick it on say 2bs per sec to begin with and leave it for a day see where you are. Adjust and repeat. 
- once you have that drop checker at the correct colour all day you can look to reintroduce the timer and adjust the timer not the bubbles. At the moment you're chasing the colour and yo yoing all over the place. 

Like I said had the same issues. Haven't got to the stage where I put the timer back in but running 24/7 co2 (with livestock) has helped me find stable gas levels.

Hope that helps

CD


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## Wisey (7 Jul 2015)

Crawdaddy said:


> Hi Wisey,  good looking tank. Sorry to hear about your Co2 problems.
> 
> I had similar issues to yours. I am no expert by any means but here's a couple of observations of mine:
> - ditch the hang on DC. I had one and always showed yellow whilst other lower down DC showed dark green. The design doesn't allow an accurate reading as the opening is narrow. besides the top water in the tank has more gas exchange going on.
> ...



Thanks, I think I will stick the CO2 on 24/7 when I get home. I'm expecting both DC's to be yellow when I get home tonight as I really cranked up the CO2. Would be much better to have it stable!


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## Crawdaddy (7 Jul 2015)

Seriously though mate. Ignore the top drop checker. It's lying to you. Trust the lower down one.


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## Wisey (7 Jul 2015)

Crawdaddy said:


> Seriously though mate. Ignore the top drop checker. It's lying to you. Trust the lower down one.



Yeah, that was definitely a style over substance purchase!


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## Crawdaddy (7 Jul 2015)

You're not the only one!


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## Wisey (7 Jul 2015)

Ok, so I have come home and removed the upper drop checker and relocated the lower one so it is a couple of inches above the substrate at the back behind the wood, instead of one inch above the substrate. The DC I have kept is currently green and that is with a really fast stream of CO2 bubbles going through the drop checker. I have removed the timer on the CO2 so it will now run 24 hours a day.

The stems that I replanted yesterday seem to have started melting, so I suspect I am going to loose all of those by tomorrow unless they make a miraculous recovery now the CO2 is on non stop. Some of the Alternanthera that I replanted yesterday is also looking like it may be starting to melt, but only a few plantlets and hopefully that may also recover now. I do have a small number of the limnophila hippuridoides stems in my propagator, so if I can get the CO2 sorted, I can move those over to the aquarium to fill in the gaps.

I don't think the skimmer will be low enough in the water to direct the flow where I would like it behind the wood, so I may need to see if there is a way I can put something on the outlet to direct the flow.


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## Wisey (7 Jul 2015)

My Echinodorus Reni has a tiny new leaf! Woohoo! It's not all melt and death!


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## Wisey (7 Jul 2015)

I'm considering ordering another plant. With my stems melting out the back, my concern is that I am not going to have anything growing up to shadow my Anubias. The Anubias is such a nice plant right now, would hate to ruin it, but it is right under the light with no shade at all. Do you think it would be sensible to put in a fast growing background plant behind it which will give it some shade? Maybe some sort of Hygrophila as they seem to be listed as easy and have a fast growth rate? Any suggestions appreciated.


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## Wisey (8 Jul 2015)

The group of Ranunculous that was behind the wood must have realised I had  plans to replace it with a fast growing stem, so when I woke up this morning, that plant had made a bid for freedom and was floating around the surface! I split it in to two pieces and replanted a piece with each of my two other groups, leaving that space free for a fast growing stem to go in and shade my Anubias. Would still appreciate suggestions on the Hygrophila if anyone has any please?



Aeropars said:


> I'd be interested to see how much of a difference the skimmer makes to your flow. I'm toying with the idea of getting one too.



Tonight I have installed the skimmer and gone through a few placements before settling on one for now. Initially I put it on the side glass at the back right corner and turned it up to max, but because the unit is so small, the outlet was higher than was really any use for getting water down behind the bogwood. I therefore switched it to the back glass and had it working in the same direction as my spraybar to boost flow on the right hand side, in theory hoping that it would push more water back along the substrate at the right hand side which would ultimately go behind the bogwood. This didn't work as the only place I could put it due to the spray bar meant that the outflow just hit the glass inlet pipe and flow was diverted. I therefore conceded that for it to be any use getting more flow behind the wood it was going to have to go on the left hand side of the tank. I'm not overly happy with this as that is the side you see when you enter the room, but it's doing a job, so I will go with it for now. I also added about an inch and a half of 12\16 hose on to the outlet, pushing it on more at the bottom than the top, so it angles the flow downwards towards my stems. Set to max it seems to push water about half way across the tank and then the flow seems to merge with the water from the circular motion of the spraybar and go upwards. It's better than nothing at getting some flow behind the wood, I saw a piece of plant that I had trimmed get pushed down behind the wood, slow down, but ultimately pass right behind the wood, probably being sucked by the inlet as well at the far side. When it reached the right hand side it hit the flow coming the other way and went back behind the wood. Flow should therefore be a bit better than before, the DC down there looks like being yellow this evening, although hard to accurately read with the tannins in the water.

As for skimming capabilities it is very good, it cleared the film from my tank in about 10 minutes! If you just wanted it for skimming alone you could run it on a timer for fairly short periods I guess. It does seem to create some bubbles, but I think that most of these are from CO2 bubbles that get sucked in from the surface and the pushed out in to the tank again, so it may well be helping with CO2 distribution, it should certainly be taking CO2 rich water from the surface and pushing it down in to the tank, but could also be adding some oxygen from the surface I suppose.

It seems I was hasty yesterday in thinking all my stems were done for. Although I have removed a couple today, the remaining ones although showing some melted leaves have all put out new growth today, so fingers crossed what is left is going to bounce back. The stems I have in the propagator have all got fresh growth on too, so will be transferring some more of those in to the tank at the weekend.

I don't have much confidence with the Monte Carlo, again it has put out new growth at the end of the plant, but the bottom of it is just melting. I'll see how that pans out over the next few days.


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## Wisey (9 Jul 2015)

I decided to take advantage of CO2 Arts 10% off and get myself some more plants. I ordered a couple of Hygrophila Siamensis so I can plant these in the background behind the Anubias to hopefully in time give it some shade. I still hope to get the limnophila hippuridoides to fill in the rest of the background behind the wood where the Microsorum is, with the Echinodorus Reni eventually filling in the right hand side and the shorter growing crypts at the left hand side where I have a view in to the tank from the side when entering the room. I may have to move one of the crypts that is currently in there to plant the Hygrophila. It was probably a mistake to buy the tissue culture crypts, I really only need one or maybe two plants, so could have just bought more established crypts for that corner. I have 5 plants in the aquarium at the moment which is too many really, then another 4 in the propagator which are looking a little sad, but still alive almost two weeks on.

I'm pretty sure that I am pissing in the wind with the Monte Carlo, it's just not worth it at this time, so also ordered myself an in-vitro pot of staurogyne repens (thinking now I should have ordered two, but will see how many there are). My plan is to remove the last melting bits of MC, possibly relocate the small group of Ranunculous on the left hand side, then have the Staurogyne Repens go in on that side, in time trimming to form a gradient from almost a carpet height at the front of the tank, gradually getting taller as you move back to make a nice gradient in to the crypt in the back corner.

Hopefully these will all arrive tomorrow, so I am going to hold fire on the water change I was planning for tonight, then tomorrow night, drain off probably 70%, remove the MC, move around the things that need to move, plant the new ones and fill up with fresh water.


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## alto (10 Jul 2015)

Sorry to hear about your melt issues.
I agree that running CO2 24/7 is a good choice, especially if there's significant ambient light in the room. 
If there's noticeable growth on the MC, I'd just leave it & interplant the S. repens (you can just "hover" the vac tube to remove disintegrated leaf melt at water changes) 

Sometimes shipping can affect the in vitro pots (& "regular" plants as well)


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## Wisey (10 Jul 2015)

alto said:


> Sorry to hear about your melt issues.
> I agree that running CO2 24/7 is a good choice, especially if there's significant ambient light in the room.
> If there's noticeable growth on the MC, I'd just leave it & interplant the S. repens (you can just "hover" the vac tube to remove disintegrated leaf melt at water changes)
> 
> Sometimes shipping can affect the in vitro pots (& "regular" plants as well)



The tank does not really get direct sunlight, but the room is quite bright in the afternoon (apart from today, seems that Autumn is already here in Aberdeen), so could well have been getting quite a lot of light before the CO2 came on. Apart from the MC, most things seem to be doing well since I went to running the CO2 24/7. If the only reason not to run it all the time is cost, then I am happy to stick with running it all the time, I have 3 spare 2Kg FE's now at £5 each and when my neighbour saw me come home with them, he asked why and after I explained he said they had just replaced all their fire extinguishers at work and still had the old ones. They were going to use them for training, but said he could put some aside for me, so looks like I might get some free CO2 too!

If I am running 24/7, do I need to set up an air pump to run overnight? I have a brand new one sat in a box in case I needed it, so no problem to set it up, although the DC is still only green just above substrate level first thing in the morning, so it does not seem to be building up to dangerous levels. I'm guessing it might be worth setting it up before any fauna go in though?

If there is any salvageable MC I will leave it in a small group at the front and see how it goes, but got my plants today and will get the S. Repens in this evening along with my hygrophila siamensis. I have two pots which looks like having 3 very tall stems in each, so hopefully I can a little shade on my Anubias straight away.

I'll try to get pics once everything is sorted this evening.


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## Alexander Belchenko (10 Jul 2015)

I prefer to run aeration over night. That has its benefits for ecosystem and filtration.


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## 5678 (10 Jul 2015)

If running co2 24/7 for stable levels, does aerating over night not negate this and fluctuate levels again?


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## Wisey (10 Jul 2015)

That's an interesting question...

I guess that though it fluctuates, it doesn't fluctuate as much as just pumping in CO2 for a few hours. Plants will produce CO2 at night so off gassing some maybe keeps it stable rather than gassing your fish at night? Hopefully someone who knows what they are taking about can chip in, I'm just guessing


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## Wisey (10 Jul 2015)

Ok, so some pics after tonight's planting and moving/replanting job. Just phone pics for now, sorry.

First up, most of the Ranunculous has now been located where the rest was doing so well at the front.






What's left alive of an £8.99 XL cap of Monte Carlo has been left at the front just in case it hangs on in there.





The new hygrophila has gone in behind the wood and Anubias. I know that it would look better with the taller stems at the back and shorter at the front, will rearrange in time, I just wanted some instant shade for the Anubias. You can also see I put a few bits of Ranunculous behind the small foreground bogwood, hoping that peeps over the top in time.


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## Wisey (10 Jul 2015)

Side shot of the new stems.





The few surviving limnophila stems that had new submersed growth were joined by some that I had in the propagator. Fingers crossed now the CO2 is stable that these survive. New leaf on the Echinodorus has tripled in size in three days which is encouraging.





The new S. Repens now goes up the left to the Crypts at the back, some of which were moved to get the new stems in. May have to thin the crypts as they fill in.


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## Wisey (10 Jul 2015)

Last up, the FTS...





Any my reward!


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## Wisey (11 Jul 2015)

So I'm two weeks in and now my CO2 is on 24/7 I have lime green constantly. If I wanted to increase the growth rate, I assume what I do is increase light gradually. I'm currently running for 5 hours at 20%, if I want to boost growth, is it best to increase the duration or the intensity? My lights currently go off at 10, would like to extend to 11 so it's still on if I'm up later, so would that be a good start, give it an extra hour but leave at 20% and see how that goes for the next week?

I was expecting to get diatoms as I thought all new tanks got that, so far nothing. At what sort of stage should I expect to see that?


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## Crawdaddy (11 Jul 2015)

Hi Wisey, I wouldn't rush into adding more light just yet. You've only just got things settled. Ideally you want the plants to have taken a hold and display a bit of growth. Then you can start pushing the accelerator (to steal another man's analogy). Maybe give it another week or two? 

After that, definitely go slowly I would say, add an hour every couple of weeks till you get it up to 8 or 9 hours. Then maybe increase the power until you get the growth rate you desire. Obviously stop increasing if you start to see plant deterioration or algae blooms. Look out for yellowing leaves, melting or holes developing in plants leaves. Excessive surface scum is also a giveaway.

Re the diatoms. As i understand it, If you have everything in balance then you won't necessarily get a bloom.


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## Wisey (12 Jul 2015)

Thanks for the advice, I'll be cautious for now. I'm starting to see growth straight away on the limnophila stems and for the first time in two weeks my alternanthera is starting to put out new leaves. Really encouraging to see the growth.

I did tweak the lights a little today, but not much. I was actually on 5 hours 15 minutes with the ramp. Have added 45 minutes so I'm on 6 hours at 20% and will leave it at that for a few weeks and monitor progress.

I should add that my light is also 30 cm from the water, so about 70 cm to the substrate, so I'm not blasting it hopefully. It gives me a good spread of light, no dark corners.


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## Wisey (12 Jul 2015)

Thought I would add a few cabinet shots.

FCS 










My two 1.5 litre TMC Easi-Dose containers for Macro and Micro. I don't have the pump yet but will order in a few weeks to get it set up before holidays in a months time.


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## Wisey (16 Jul 2015)

I had to go away for work for a couple of nights, so I left lights and CO2 as normal, dosed Micro Monday night, then Micro Tuesday morning before I left. Wasn't here to dose yesterday but arrived back today to find a few issues. 

Most plants are fine and new growth is evident, but my Microsorum Trident suddenly has discoloured patches on some of the leaves.









Any ideas what is wrong please?

My Anubias had put out a bright green leaf just before I left, I wasn't sure if it was a new leaf or was another flower stem as it was the same colour as the other flower stem and still tightly rolled up. Upon return its ended up like this...





I also had a circular growth on my wood, a small brown clump.




It was a little stubborn but scraped off, quite slimy, is this diatoms?

I also spotted something else unusual on the wood, pulled it off with my pinsettes. It was a small black thing with a see through end on it. No pic as it got a bit squished! Any ideas?


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## Wisey (16 Jul 2015)

Sorry, that should have been dosed micro then macro before leaving, not micro twice.

This is the black thing, or what's left of it after I rolled it between my fingers trying to see what it was.


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## Wisey (16 Jul 2015)

I also have quite bad tannins in my water still. I soaked the wood for three weeks changing the water two or three times a week, but it's still really giving off a lot of tannins. 

My hoses look really dirty, but looking at the glass it's not really dirty at all, so I think the hose may be stained by the tannins. I'm going to order a long cleaning brush for the glass and hose and hopefully I can clean this up a bit.





Is it worth my putting purigen in? I did an extra water change when I got home tonight to try and clean up the water a bit.


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## 5678 (16 Jul 2015)

Purigen is very good imo.


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## Wisey (16 Jul 2015)

Hmm, looking at jamesC's guide I think that might have been a clump of BBA that I cleaned off earlier.


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## Wisey (17 Jul 2015)

Can anyone advise what is happening to my Microsorum please? Pic above.


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## Wisey (17 Jul 2015)

I have just ordered the long flexible cleaning brush from CO2Art and some Easy Carbo and a couple of bags of Purigen from Aqua Essentials. Once this stuff arrives next week I will give all the hoses and glass a really good clean out, throw a bag of Purigen in the filter and swap out my atomizer ceramic and give the current one a clean. My drop checker is still reporting as lime green, so although I have a few issues, I do believe that my CO2 is stable now it is on 24/7.

I need to get my dosing pump ordered up, but I am now wondering whether I should order the 3 pump version in case I want to be daily dosing with Easy Carbo as well. Any thoughts please?


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## dw1305 (17 Jul 2015)

Hi all,





Wisey said:


> Can anyone advise what is happening to my Microsorum please? Pic above.


It looks like osmotic damage, could the powder? macro fertiliser have ended up on the leaves? before it was fully dissolved.

Same applies to the _Anubias_ leaf.

cheers Darrel


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## Wisey (17 Jul 2015)

That's interesting Darrel, thanks very much for your reply! 



dw1305 said:


> Hi all,It looks like osmotic damage, could the powder? macro fertiliser have ended up on the leaves? before it was fully dissolved.
> 
> Same applies to the _Anubias_ leaf.
> 
> cheers Darrel



I dosed on the Monday night from my old batch, then mixed up a new batch of both macro and micro on Monday evening, gave it a good shake, then left it for a few hours, another shake before I went to bed, then it sat overnight. I then dosed on Tuesday morning, I don't recall if I shook it again, but I thought it was all mixed up ok. It does make sense that the plants that seem to have a problem are the ones that are in the centre of the tank where I pour in the ferts.


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## Wisey (20 Jul 2015)

Well this planted tank is most certainly a learning experience, trial and error without doubt! I have made some mistakes this week and a few of my plants have suffered for it, but I have realised what I am doing wrong and hopefully made the right changes.

First of all is this issue with the tannins yellowing the water. I totally blamed the tannins for the fact my hoses were stained, assuming this was the case as the glass was not brown but the hose was. After my hose brush arrived today, I took apart all the hose, glassware and spraybar this evening and cleaned it. It's not tannin stained, its just bloody dirty! Disappointed in myself for not recognising this earlier, but everything is now clean and looking good again. Lesson learnt, as soon as there is any hint of brown in those hoses, it is time to clean it all out.

The other thing I realised yesterday is that my CO2 did not seem to be right, I had some plant melt, so I turned up the CO2. I think that I have been reading my drop checker as green, but maybe it was bluish green and with the tannin staining the water yellow, the combination of blue and yellow makes it look greener, like looking through a filter. Stupid mistake! This evening during the cleaning I swapped out the ceramic in my atomiser, massive difference, straight away there are way more micro bubbles in the tank. I think the tannins and dirt had clogged up the atomiser to some extent and that it was not giving me enough CO2. I believe that issue is now rectified and I am going to start swapping the ceramics round more frequently.

I received some easy carbo and was going to treat what I thought was BBA, but I rubbed the algae and it is brown and just came straight off, slimey, not difficult to remove at all. I therefore assume this is diatoms, I have removed it all and syphoned and netted it all out of the water. There was not a lot, just 3 small patches on the bogwood.

A few small plants had melted, probably due to my CO2 mistake, so I removed a few stems that looked too far gone, one of the small crypts and then cleaned out a few bits of the Hydroctyle. The Hydrocotyle is not in bad shape, each bit had some good leaves and bad leaves, I just cleared out all the crud and replanted all the healthy so that looks much better. Hopefully now the CO2 is looking better things will improve.


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## Wisey (22 Jul 2015)

I have been running now for about 3.5 weeks and since correcting things the other day, I am quite happy with the way it is going, no more plant melt at this time. I am noticing small amounts of diatoms, so I am quite keen to get some clean up crew in there in a week or two. I know it is a bit early for fish, I'm supposed to wait 6-8 weeks, but at the 4 to 5 week point, will it be ok to put in a couple of Amanos? 

My water is really soft so I believe I would need to alter it a bit for the shrimp. I used a Nutrafin GH/KH test kit on my tap water last night and that required just two drops for each test to change the water colour. That therefore translates to a GH of 40mg/l and a KH of 20 mg/l if the kit is to be trusted, which I know it is not, but I don't think there is any other way of doing this sort of test until I can afford the PH\TDS pen to get a TDS reading.

I bought a bag of oyster shell chick grit, so I can throw a bag of that in the filter. What is the best thing to do over the next few weeks? Test the tank water rather than the tap water, then add the oyster shell and see what impact that has? Or am I wasting my time with the GH/KH kit? Do I just need to get the PH/TDS pen? I just ordered up my dosing pump so don't really want to fork out for the PH pen this month if possible.


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## Wisey (26 Jul 2015)

So today was water change and clean up day, came to the aquarium to find the filter was running well below max power. I therefore have the filter a clean out and took the opportunity to remove some of the pan scrubbers from the first tray. Flow is now way better!

The limnophila hippuridoides has been struggling, I have a separate thread about that going in the Tropica forum. I have ordered two pots of established Tropica plant rather than tissue culture, hoping that it will get established. I only have a few tiny stems left, so removed them to make way for the new plants and moved them to the front where they should get more light and CO2, if they grow then I'll move them back with the new plants later.

As I'm no longer trying to push water down on to the stems, I have removed the hose from the skimmer and turned the skimmer so it's on the back glass and pushing water forward to add more flow to the flow from the spray bar.

I notice that most of my smaller plants in the foreground are bending forwards. I suspect this is because they spend all day aiming themselves at the light from the window at the far side of the room rather than the aquarium light as its only on for 6 hours in the evening. Probably beneficial that the CO2 is on 24/7 so they have CO2 in the day.

Anyway, quick phone pic 4 weeks from set up.


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## Andy D (26 Jul 2015)

Hi Wisey,

Just catching up on the posts for the last week or so.

All I wanted to say is that it still surprises me how quickly a tank with no livestock can get dirty so quickly. I can certainly understand why daily water changes are done for the first week and then every day the next week and so on. 

Looking forward to further updates.


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## Patrick Buff. (26 Jul 2015)

Hi Wisey,

Nice tank and setup.

Don't rush it to much, take your time with it and let it settle. Your are doing just fine. Don't use to much flow at the start, wait until the biomass get's bigger. About your plants and the amount of CO2, use more micro and macro's ferts to it.

Patrick


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## Wisey (30 Jul 2015)

My new plant order arrived from TGM yesterday, so I had a planting session last night and also worked on some of the existing plants to tidy them up. I drained 50% of the water, then planted up the new Limnophila H. If I had realised how many stems you got in one Tropica pot I may have only ordered one pot, but I had two, so I planted densely and will let it fight it out. I'm really hoping the more established plant does better in my tank. I moved the DC down next to it and I have lime green bordering on yellow and I can see gentle flow behind the wood, so hoping that it has what it need to survive.

My Ranunculous had a few manky looking bits lower down, but its tricky to deal with in tank as it is so low and all connected by runners. I therefore uprooted all the bad bits, took some good with it, trimmed off the bad and replanted the good. I also took the few bits of Ranunculous from the left of the tank and replanted with the bits over on the right. I think it looks better all together and the space cleared on the left will be filled in with S. Repens in time.

My next task was the S. Repens; I had a Tropica tissue culture pot in my order to start filling in gaps faster. There were so many stems in the pot, but all really tiny, way smaller than the ones I got from CO2 Art recently. It took a long time to get stems ready for planting, but with some patience I planted about 20 very small stems in the area where the Ranunculous had come out and then started filling in gaps between the older stems. Some of the older stems have put on some height, so I topped a few of those and replanted the tops in the gaps.

I decided that I needed to do something about the Alternanthera Reinecki Mini. Most of the plants that went in at the start that switched from emmersed to submersed growth ended up loosing the original leaves and replacing them with new ones. This was not the case with the Alternanthera, each stem had new leaves but also had bad looking lower leaves at substrate level, they were still alive, but not in good condition. My Alternanthera is growing very slowly, I guessed that it may well be trying to put a lot of energy in to maintaining all these old leaves and fighting a loosing battle. I had planted over a wider area than I intended originally, so I uprooted all the Alternanthera, painstakingly removed each bad leaf, then replanted all the plantlets with just the new growth. I retained the roots of each one and planted a little deeper leaving some of the stem and the new good looking leaves above the substrate. Hopefully this was not a mistake, it looks much nicer now. I'm hoping it focuses on new growth now and thrives in time!

My Echinodorus Reni is gradually adding new leaves, but they never get very big. I had to remove one leaf during the problems I had a couple of weeks ago, but still have some original leaves and 3 new ones. I was hoping that this would grow faster. The pictures on the Tropica website are of a plant much taller than what I have. I know that's probably after months of growth and I am only 4 and a bit weeks in, but I had thought it would grow quicker. The growth rate is listed as medium and size 15-30+ cm's. My concern is that if the Limnophila H. now gets going and the Echinodorus does not, then it may end up being too shaded. I'll have to see how that goes, but with it being a small plant and deep substrate it has a long way to reach to get to the Tropica substrate at the bottom. With it being a root feeder, I bought some Seachem Flourish Root Tabs and pushed one in by its roots just in case it will appreciate some more localised ferts.

With all the uprooting, I then drained off a further 20% of the water to clear out crud and ammonia released from the substrate, then refilled with fresh and fired up all the equipment again. All looked good apart from a few smaller bits of Alternanthera that did not have deep enough roots to handle the flow, but I caught those and replanted and they are still in place this morning. I dosed a little extra macro and micro last night to help compensate for the water change, then back to normal dosing of Macro this morning before I left for work.


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## Andy D (30 Jul 2015)

Pics?


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## Wisey (30 Jul 2015)

Andy D said:


> Pics?



I'll try and take some this evening, will just be phone pics. The job took a lot longer than expected and I started later as I had to go to Royal Mail on the way home and pick up another package of bits from Aqua Essentials. I was still working on the plants when my girlfriend came round, so I finished the job while she did some work, but then I had to get dinner sorted and we didn't eat until something like 9. Pics were not a priority, steak and a nice glass of red was


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## Wisey (30 Jul 2015)

Ok, some pics.

New Limnophila H. stems. They were all bent over last night after planting, pleased to see they are all stood up and reaching for the light today, positive signs already.






The Alternanthera after its tidy up and replant.





And the Ranunculous. The two really tall bits at the back are emmersed that came from the propagator, so tall they hit the cover, so moved them in to the aquarium.


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## Wisey (30 Jul 2015)

My Hygrophila Siamensis seems to have put out new leaves just above the substrate on one of the stems.





All the stems have fresh growth at the tops, just this one that has growth top and bottom. Is this just leaves or is this new stems that will grow here?


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## Wisey (30 Jul 2015)

I want to try and increase growth in some of my plants that seem to be doing very little like the Hydrocotyle, so I have increased the light a little this evening. It's been at 20% for 5 weeks now, so have pushed it up to 30% but kept the duration at 6 hours. I'll try that for a week and see how things go.


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## 5678 (30 Jul 2015)

In my experience L. Hip takes a good while to get comfortable and then takes off growth wise.  It also seems to melt if there's not enough co2 and I found it to be very pale without enough iron.


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## Wisey (31 Jul 2015)

5678 said:


> In my experience L. Hip takes a good while to get comfortable and then takes off growth wise.  It also seems to melt if there's not enough co2 and I found it to be very pale without enough iron.



Yes, that's an interesting point about the CO2. Tropica list it as being a plant that will grow with low CO2 but medium light. I did some searching around and reading up on other peoples experiences yesterday and found quite a few people say it needs good levels of CO2. My drop checker is right down next to it and its green, so fingers crossed. When the in-vitro stuff melted my CO2 was unstable, now its on 24/7 I hope to have a better chance with these more established plants. They look happy, they were all sort of bent over and floppy after planting, but by last night they had all perked up and were standing straight up reaching for the light.


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## Wisey (31 Jul 2015)

Good news! My new toy is arriving today! I have quite a few things on this weekend, but should have time to play around with it tomorrow after I have washed the girlfriends car. It is a TMC Easi-Dose 2 pump master! It has taken Charterhouse a few days to get it in stock, but I will be collecting it from DPD this evening.

http://www.charterhouse-aquatics.co.uk/tmc-easidose-programmable-dosing-system-master-p-16151.html

I also got the Bubble Magus tube holder, it arrived in an earlier package, it is a bit bigger than I expected from the pics so rather more obvious on the top of the tank than I had hoped. I guess they are better for Marine systems where you hide it on the sump, but it appears to be a good quality item, very solid and durable, does the job.

http://www.charterhouse-aquatics.co.uk/tube-holder-for-bubble-magus-dosing-pump-p-10008.html

I already have two of the 1.5 litre containers:

http://www.charterhouse-aquatics.co.uk/tmc-easidose-dosing-container-litre-p-16131.html

Looking forward to having this set-up with 1.5 litres of EI ferts in the containers, I can then happily go away on holiday without worrying about ferts. Also means there is no chance of me forgetting during the week.


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## Wisey (31 Jul 2015)

I'm convinced my plants grew today after adding another 10% of light last night, haha


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## Crawdaddy (1 Aug 2015)

Wisey said:


> It is a TMC Easi-Dose 2 pump master!



TOYS!!!! 

Looking forward to seeing this in action. Tried building my own a while ago using a small water pump but never got near it working.


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## Wisey (5 Aug 2015)

I'm a bit disappointed with Fish Keeper Scotland aka Maidenhead Aquatics in Aberdeen. I was in just over a week ago and they had run out of Amanos, spoke to the lad and he said he would ask the guy that does the ordering to put them on the next order and that orders come in Tuesday. I called in tonight to check what they had with the intention of getting some on Saturday morning. Turns out they didn't get any on the order that actually arrived today and they are now doing international orders so they will only get fish every two to three weeks.

I usually go after work and the guy that seems to be running it is never there, so I'm going to call in the day tomorrow and see if I can speak to him and find out the score. Not sure if he couldn't get them or my request just didn't get to him. Either way, a three week wait for the next order seems a long time! I guess I'll have to try and find them elsewhere.


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## Sk3lly (5 Aug 2015)

Ive had a similar experience with a MA store near me. Took almost 3 months to get amanos in for me


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Wisey (5 Aug 2015)

Sk3lly said:


> Ive had a similar experience with a MA store near me. Took almost 3 months to get amanos in for me
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



It's annoying as they had a load in when they opened, they obviously sold loads but haven't got them in again. Apparently someone went in there two weekends ago and bought the last 37 in one go. I'm guessing I'm not the only planted guy going in there!


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## Sk3lly (5 Aug 2015)

Wow they are expensive shrimp so 37 is a lot! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Wisey (5 Aug 2015)

Yup, I can't remember what they were charging for them but not cheap!


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## Wisey (5 Aug 2015)

I feel I may have made a mistake with using Crypts in the back left of my aquarium. I wanted something that would be taller than the mid to foreground but lower than the stems to create a transition.

As you can see from the pic, the Hygrophila I added is super tall and the S. Repens is growing well. The tissue culture crypts are growing, but so slowly that they are just not going to keep up with their neighbours and I'm ending up with this low corner patch.

I'm not sure where I could move them and also heard they might not like being moved. I'm considering replacing them if anyone has a suggestion of something more suitable to fill that gap?

I'm also tempted to ease them forward and put something taller behind if that might work?


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## Wisey (7 Aug 2015)

I'm sure with my patience levels that I made a poor choice with the Crypts, so I'm definitely looking for a new option for that corner. Something that will grow to mid height, reasonable growth speed and that won't mind being a little shaded by the Hygrophila next to it.

I've increased light intensity again tonight, it's just over a week since I went to 30%, seen improvements in growth on the Echinodorus Reni. Have increased to 40% this evening, will leave that for another week then see how things are going.


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## Wisey (8 Aug 2015)

Today I set up my TMC Easi-Dose 2 pump master, had a few snags, but all seems to be working ok now.

The first issue was the pumps wouldn't prime, they seemed to drag the silicone tube through the pump, but not lift and liquid from the containers. I had seen a YouTube video that said most dosing pumps can have issues due to them being sat stationary so long in the box, so I dismantled both pump heads, made sure the hose was good, freed up the movement and rebuilt them. Both worked fine after this.

Second snag was that air seemed to be getting in at the connection point to the dosing container. It seems that it's not adequate to push the tube in until it clicks then apply the clip, you really have to push it down hard.

So, here's my setup...





And the bubble magus tube holder...





I was hoping that I could set these alternate days, but that's not the case, you just set the dose and then which hours you want it to run, so it can run 24 times a day, but it will run every day on the hour for every hour you set it.

I set both pumps to 10ml and tested, the macro pump gave me exactly 10ml, the micro gave me 11. I need about 75ml a week of ferts, do the micro pump is left set at 10 and the macro has been set to 11. I'm running the macro 7 days a week at 1700 for lights on, the micro runs 7 days a week at 0500 to space macro and micro dosing apart by 12 hours. I should end up with 77ml of each per week so that's about right. My only concern is the Sunday morning micro dose might get lost with the water change on Sunday morning, but I can manually dose a little extra if needs be.

I'm setup now with a litre of macro and a litre of micro, should last a while!


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## Wisey (8 Aug 2015)

Observant people will notice the drip on the left hand outlet side of pump 1! Bugger! That happened with pump 2 earlier but thought pump 1 was ok, seems not! It's easy fixed though.


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## Wisey (18 Aug 2015)

I've had a few issues recently, but think I know where I went wrong. I was away on business for a few days last week, was confident all would be well as nothing to feed yet and the dosing pump was set up. Unfortunately I returned home Friday to find one Microsorum plant was ruined, all the leaves were damaged. The other plant next to it was half damaged, half ok. I suspect that my mistake was mixing my ferts directly in the dosing containers, then setting up the system and priming straight away. I suspect that the ferts in the tubing were not fully mixed and it was further osmotic damage as I had last time I mixed ferts with manual dosing. The tube holder is exactly in line with the damaged plants so I am sure that was the problem. I have read that Microsorum will come back if you cut all the leaves back to the rhizome. I therefore cut all the leaves off one plant and half off the other and will see if it comes back. If not, I really like my Anubias, so will fill in any gaps with more Anubias at a later date once my stems are established for better shade.

On a more positive note, sticking with 6 hours but upping to 40% has had a good impact on some plants that were hardly growing. My hydrocotyle is now making progress, the Echinodorus Reni is putting out new leaves regularly and gaining height and the Limnophila h. has put on a couple of inches since planting.

I didn't remove the Crypts yet, but they don't seem overly happy. I've really not had good luck with tissue culture. My alternanthera reinecki mini is stationary, it's going nowhere.

The ranunculus is filling in and the S. Repens is also growing well. Trimmed more of that and replanted tops at the weekend. Also trimmed a couple of the Hygrophila stems which have now started to grow a double stem from the point they were cut, tops were planted and are growing too.

Pics to follow from the phone.


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## Wisey (18 Aug 2015)

Hydrocotyle finally going places!





Echinodorus Reni and the Limnophila H. doing nicely.





The rather sad looking Crypts with some melting leaves. Probably going to replaced with something else.


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## Wisey (18 Aug 2015)

What's left of the Microsorum, hoping it bounces back.






My non growing and disappointing Alternanthera Reinecki Mini. Tempted to replace with a more established non tissue culture version, opinions appreciated if there is something I can do to get this growing. More light maybe?





The S. Repens is filling in though, so that's good.


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## Wisey (18 Aug 2015)

I'm going away for a few days, so no changes at the moment, just want to leave it stable until I get home Sunday.

The FE had dropped cylinder pressure, so I swapped it out for a full one tonight to be sure it doesn't run out while I'm away.

When I get back it will be 8 weeks from setup just gone, so will be looking to add some fish! Amanos seem to be a pain to get hold of at the moment, but hopefully I'll be able to get some Otos  in there. I'm reluctant to add more light until I get some clean up crew in there.


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## alto (19 Aug 2015)

Great detail on this journal - I'm in awe of your efforts! 
(really makes me appreciate how much I deserve that "lazy aquarist" epithet  ... I've been "cleaning" my filter/hoses "tomorrow" for about 3months now  ...)

Some thoughts
- stop uprooting plantlets to remove damaged leaves, if the stem has melted _completely_ it's fair enough but otherwise you're damaging the roots hairs that are doing the nutrient uptake (or in process of getting established to do so), instead just trim in situ as well as you can (shrimp help a lot at this stage as they will often tidy up, if sufficient ratio of shrimps to plants & you don't feed shrimp much, this can be very efficient) & allow plant to become more established; then replant the tops when they've grown on enough (old "rule" was ~10cm stem plant + 2-3 leaf nodes that could be trimmed to become root nodes when this "top" is replanted, cut the stem ~ halfway between the nodes so that there's no chance of damaging that node, that extra stem bit will initially help to anchor, then "melt" in the substrate & potentially supply local nutrients ... or so the adage goes   ... if the internode length is long, a single leaf node is sufficient for root growth, the 2-3 is just "hedging your bet")
While tank & plants are establishing, resist the urge to help too much.

- some of your plants are "planted" rather deep into the substrate, eg those crypts prefer to have those submerse leaves at the substrate level; just use your fingers to gently remove the melted bits, scissor trim rather than "pulling" on the plantlet - emerse growth from crypts that travel below substrate & emerge happily from subterranean regions aren't subject to this (obviously).
I'd just leave these crypts in place & let them surprise you once they get going  (I couldn't find your plant list so no idea which crypt this is )

- Alternanthera Reinecki Mini, again I'd just leave it alone, give it light & CO2 & fertilizer (it doesn't actually need much as plant volume is low, it just needs "enough") & *time*
Tropica vids: layout 93 layout 75 In your tank, Day 0 is the last day that you uprooted/trimmed; obviously any incoming plant that doesn't need "adjusting" will get off to a quicker start than plants that have needed trimming etc ... this is why it's the _Art of Planted Aquaria_   (rather than _Science - _too many unidentified factors!) 

- depending on the state of the remaining plant, sometimes I remove damaged leaves, sometimes not ... during transition, the new plant doesn't have roots to support itself & until enough new leaves emerge, it's just stored energy in the stem/rhizome/old leaf ... so an older leaf with limited damage gets left, it's a balance of how much does this leaf contribute vs cost to maintain. I suspect there is some mechanism to scavenge stored "energy" from these emerse leafs. (though like everything else, it's a shifting balance)
(eg, I'd likely have left some spaced leaves on that microsorum - if it has enough stored energy in the rhizome, it should come back just fine, again just leave it in place & ignore, check intermittently for rhizome health - feels firm with no "mush" factor)

- re adding oyster grit etc to your filter to add GH/KH, you'll have more control with liquid GH/KH booster that you add to your change water. Depending on tank conditions/maintenance you can end up with lots of swings in KG/KH when using grit etc. My tap is very soft & acidic, I support the shrimp with frozen brine rather than messing with GH/KH but as with anything aquarium related, there are many paths to success


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## alto (19 Aug 2015)

mixed up my submerse & emerse on that crypt paragraph


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## Wisey (23 Aug 2015)

alto said:


> mixed up my submerse & emerse on that crypt paragraph



Thank you very much for the detailed response Alto, some really useful advice there!

I got back from my trip today to a few minor disappointments. I changed the CO2 over the night before I went away, was all running fine, but for some reason the working pressure dropped from its usual 40psi to around 30 psi. Not sure why this would happen? It reduced my bubble rate so I came back to a greeny blue DC. Not a disaster, just a few leaves melted on a very small number of S? Repens plants, but annoying. Some more algae apparent too, a handful of small green patches on the wood and a little diatoms. 

My Hygrophila and Limnophila H. have done really well, huge growth in 5 days. My Echinodorus Reni is doing well too.

The hydrocotyle has a little algae on a few leaves but has grown. Alternanthera still looking rather sad, will just leave it to establish again.

Yesterday was 8 weeks since setup, so it was time for fish. I decided with getting home to some algae and low CO2 that I would switch off the light and CO2, do the water change, then rushed off to MA and picked up 6 Otos!

Came home, set up the drip acclimation kit and left them in a dark bucket to acclimatise for around 30-35 minutes. After transferring them in, 5 went straight to the front glass and started cleaning! The sixth hid for about 15 minutes at the back, then joined his friends and they haven't stopped eating algae since they went in!

I'm putting the CO2 back to a timer, so it will go off at 22:00, an hour before the lights, but come on at 08:00. The room is bright and the 24/7 CO2 has been useful, but I want to give them an overnight break, but start early and make sure CO2 is up right through the day. They have been in a few hours, so about to add CO2 back at a low level so I can get the right amount dialled in tonight. I'll leave lights off for a bit, then add light for a couple of hours before lights off.

I'll try to update with pics once lights are on later.


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## 5678 (23 Aug 2015)

Wisey said:


> I'm putting the CO2 back to a timer, so it will go off at 22:00, an hour before the lights, but come on at 08:00. The room is bright and the 24/7 CO2 has been useful, but I want to give them an overnight break, but start early and make sure CO2 is up right through the day. They have been in a few hours, so about to add CO2 back at a low level so I can get the right amount dialled in tonight. I'll leave lights off for a bit, then add light for a couple of hours before lights off.
> 
> I'll try to update with pics once lights are on later.



I've just done the same, gas off an hour before the lights and then back on at 6am. Toying with either a surface skimmer or ADA air diffuser when I set up my new tank next week to try and help with gassing off over night and keeping surface film to a minimum.


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## Wisey (23 Aug 2015)

I have the Eheim skimmer going, plus good surface ripple. Have dialled in the CO2 conservatively so far, they don't seem fussed. Most of them have moved from glass cleaning to plant cleaning so they seem to be following orders


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## Wisey (23 Aug 2015)

Ok, some pics!

If you compare this to the previous shots you can see the growth now things are taking off!





My Anubis is a little dirty, Oto doing his job!









Apparently the skimmer needs some work too!


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## Wisey (23 Aug 2015)

It's been a long eight weeks to getting fish, really nice to have the Otos in there. Now she's seen them in the flesh rather than pictures, even my girlfriend agrees they are cute!

They sure are working hard, cleaning all the time. One of them is a little more subdued, hangs on his own more often than with the group and is happier to chill rather than shoot about with the rest, but hopefully he settles in with a bit more time.


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## 5678 (24 Aug 2015)

Ha! My wife likes the Otos in my tank too.

Any full tank shots?


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## Wisey (24 Aug 2015)

5678 said:


> Ha! My wife likes the Otos in my tank too.
> 
> Any full tank shots?




Just a quick FTS on the phone just now.





Relieved to get home tonight and find my DC is green and my Otos all seem perfectly happy. The DC does seem to be a deeper green than it should be, but now I'm home to monitor I'm going to tweak it up a touch and watch the fish.


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## Wisey (24 Aug 2015)

We have spent the last half hour searching and counting and can never see more than five Otos (all currently named Diego due to South American heritage). Hoping the sixth one is hiding somewhere, there are no jumpers on the floor. Fingers crossed he's in there somewhere.


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## alto (24 Aug 2015)

Diego 6 sounds definitely under the weather, hope he reappears over the next days/weeks 
I've yet to experience the _Leaping Oto  _  they are excellent at Hide-n-Seek


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## Wisey (24 Aug 2015)

I figured if he had bought the farm he's either stuck under the wood or in the skimmer. I took the top,off the skimmer and sure enough he was in there. Man down 

When they all went in yesterday, the first five went straight to eating, then last to go in just hid and avoided everyone else, moved a few times but was very listless. I figure he is the casualty, maybe he didn't acclimate well or was stressed from the move.

His five buddies are really active and constantly eating and feeding, so looks like just an issue with the one fish. It's a shame but I guess you can't always expect 100% of the fish to make it.


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## Wisey (24 Aug 2015)

The good news is the minor CO2 tweak has given me a better looking DC and everyone is swimming around like nothing changed. I'll monitor again in the morning, then again tomorrow night and see if changes are required.

I'm away for work Wednesday to Friday and my girlfriend is away Wednesday, but we're going to feed some courgette together tomorrow, then she can feed some Thursday. Still algae for them to eat, but don't want them hungry.

Just need to figure out a feeding system so it's easy to add a piece that doesn't float off and remove any excess of needs be. Am I best blanching the slice for a couple of minutes before serving?


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## Lukmana91 (25 Aug 2015)

About your althernanthera, could it be possible that it is shaded by the bigger and fuller Anubias?
As a general rule, althernanthera requires direct and strong light to fully utilize the co2 + dosing. 

Just a thought


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## Wisey (25 Aug 2015)

Lukmana91 said:


> About your althernanthera, could it be possible that it is shaded by the bigger and fuller Anubias?
> As a general rule, althernanthera requires direct and strong light to fully utilize the co2 + dosing.
> 
> Just a thought



It could be for a few plants, but most have unobstructed light directly from the tile. It's starting to grow now I have increased intensity, but my tile is quite high, so it coul be lacking light still.


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## Wisey (25 Aug 2015)

Today we lost another Oto, but lost as in could not find, not dead. 5 happy active fish last night, only four this morning. Assumed he was hiding, but came home to 4 active fish and number 5 nowhere in sight. Searched and searched, but decided to check the skimmer again and sure enough, he's in there, but alive! 

I'm guessing the one that died in there yesterday may have gone in alive and died before we found him. I switched it off and removed the floating weir, left him as he's swum out on his own. Looks ok, fingers crossed.

Has anyone else has this with the Eheim Skim 350? Loads of people use these and I've never heard anyone else say about this. I'm going to start a thread on the subject which may get more visibility than this thread.


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## xim (25 Aug 2015)

Skimmers with wide opening kill small animals all the time.
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/eheim-surface-skimmer-death-trap.31291/
http://forum.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/showthread.php?t=105344
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=406017


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## Wisey (25 Aug 2015)

xim said:


> Skimmers with wide opening kill small animals all the time.
> http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/eheim-surface-skimmer-death-trap.31291/
> http://forum.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/showthread.php?t=105344
> http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=406017



Thanks, I hadn't seen that thread!


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## Wisey (25 Aug 2015)

Just ordered up a piece of fine plastic mesh from eBay so hopefully it arrives Friday and I can put a fix in place. Until then it's staying off unless I'm sat there supervising while it clears the surface.


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## Wisey (29 Aug 2015)

Back from my business trip to Ireland and all was well with the aquarium last night. 5 happy Otos who have done an awesome cleaning job of the wood and plants. Good growth on everything apart from the Alternanthera, so I have increased the tile to 50% intensity, still at 6 hours for now and still 30 cm from the water surface.

Today I went and shopped for a few more fish. I was hoping to get a few more Otos after losing one, plus some Amanos, but MA didn't get Amanos again on their order this week, no Otos either.

I have just acclimatised and added 13 Ember Tetra (should have been 12, miscount in my favour by the shop) and 6 Odessa Barb. CO2 and lights off at the moment, will add CO2 once they have settled and lights on at normal time this evening. They seem to be settling and exploring their new home. The boisterous Odessas are actually the more cautious so far, favouring the stems to hide most of the time, but I'm sure they will be out on view later.


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## alto (29 Aug 2015)

Great update 

though I'm curious, why 6 Odessa?
(I'd think 8-10 for a nice mix of sexes/behavior etc)

In further too much opinion mode , "doubling time" for N-cycle bacteria is ~ 72 hours (they are S.L.O.W) so I'd try for a few 25% daily water changes ... maybe the plants clean up any "extra" ammonia but given the current photoperied/plant establishment stage etc I'd err on the side of caution, I also like to do daily water changes when introducing new fish as a disease precaution (re offer optimum water conditions)


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## Wisey (29 Aug 2015)

I went with 6 Odessa as I don't want to overload and seem to see different opinions in size, plus it was 6 for £20 so went with 6 today.

I'm tempted to increase the number of embers later this week maybe up to around 18. If you think I should add more Odessa, I could do that. 

I'm also tempted with a male/female pair of Kribensis


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## Wisey (29 Aug 2015)

As for water changes, did a small one today as I drew water from the tank to the bucket that the new fish bags were floated in, then drip aclimated for around 35-40 minutes. I topped up the tank with fresh water once the fish were in.

I'll be doing my usual 50% change and plant maintenance in the morning.


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## timofeje (30 Aug 2015)

Wisey said:


> I'm also tempted with a male/female pair of Kribensis



Don't, please don't. A pair of kribensis will make a very hostile environment of Your tank, especially when decide to breed.... I have been there and I lost half of all my other fish and had to almost destroy my setup to catch the fry later. Kribensis killed shrimp, cardinal tertras, rasbora espei ect.... and they did it just for fun, because they did not eat any of those.

If chiclids, then  "chiclids only" tank!


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## Wisey (30 Aug 2015)

That's a shame about the Kribs, I know they can be territorial when breeding, but from what I had read they are usually ok in a community tank.


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## Wisey (30 Aug 2015)

I cleared out the melted patch of S. Repens during the water change today, filled in the gaps with some cuttings from my propagator and with some tops trimmed from taller plants in the tank.

Getting good growth elsewhere. Finally spotted some tiny new leaves on some of the Alternanthera and these ones are red, so fingers crossed it's about to get going.

I'm persevering with the Crypts for now, but lacking patience. Will give it a few more weeks and see.

The Limnophila H. is doing really well now, not red yet, but growing well. I'm just hoping the Echinodorus Reni does not get overtaken and struggle to compete.

One of my Otos seems to have discovered that the bottom of the spray bar is a good place to hang out!






And a quick FTS.


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## Wisey (30 Aug 2015)

I meant to say I also removed the small bit of Monte Carlo. It was straggly and messy and is the one plant that the Otos don't seem interested in doing any clean up on. I may come back to a foreground carpet later on, but for now I'll extend the S. Repens in time and leave some of the sand clear.


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## Wisey (1 Sep 2015)

My Odessa barbs seem to have a penchant for both gardening and biting! I use the word gardening in the loosest possible terms, basically they like nibbling and uprooting the newly planted S. Repens. What's really strange is the established plants and new tops trimmed from the tank get left alone, they only pick at the tougher leaves that were grown emmersed in the propagator. 

As for the biting, if my hand goes in to replant they all crowd around and nibble on my hands! No doubt if I could get my feet in the tank the little devils would give me one of those fish pedicure things!


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## Wisey (5 Sep 2015)

So, time for another update!

The Odessas have done a fine job shredding them emmersed tops I planted, so most have gone, leaves me a few gaps, but I'll fill in with tops trimmed in the tank in time.

My new plants arrived from CO2Art yesterday, another Anubias Nana, plus an Anubias Nana Mini. I didn't want to wait until water change tomorrow as most of the planting positions would still be underwater with the tank half empty, so I tried to work fast with superglue gel.

The Nana was actually two separate rhizomes, so that was handy. I've glued them in where I want them, hard to get the perfect position with the shapes of plant I had to work with, but once they establish I'm sure they will fill in and turn their leaves to the light to give a more natural look.

The Mini was more difficult. This came as one piece and was a very dense clump, so when I tried to cut through I ended up with two bigger pieces and three smaller off cuts. I've glued these in and I'm hoping they look more natural once settled in a bit more.

One lesson learnt today is that gluing tiny bits of Nana Mini = fingers stuck together + Anubias stuck to fingers! Thankfully I have superglue remover in my model making kit.

The most exciting news is the introduction of my feature pair of fish! I decided that I would try the Kribensis, so went to MA and bought the dominant pair from their tank. They are aclimated and in and exploring their new home together. Although it's true they can be aggressive when spawning, the general consensus seems to be that they are good community fish. There are plenty of nooks and crannies, densely planted areas at the back, plus a cave under my bogwood, so they should be able to establish their own spot when they are ready and hopefully no problems.

I'll try to get some pics later after lights on.


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## alto (5 Sep 2015)

Wisey said:


> they only pick at the tougher leaves that were grown emmersed in the propagator


There's a good chance these "taste" different, also possible that they've started to breakdown structurally so it's a bit like shrimp/snails etc cleaning up slightly damaged leaves (that still look fine to human eyes) ... of course it's also possible that you've gotten a group of _Those _Odessa's

(FWIW my shoal of chocolate gouramies decimated the Micranthemum umbrosum - & nibbled several other plants - after apparently peacefully existing in the tank for some time  they were banished for  months, & have now been back in the main tank for a couple weeks, they've been minding their plant manners so far ...)

The Odessa's should be a good match for the kribs, ie limit the numbers of surviving offspring  to a manageable level 
As with most cichlids, YMMV when they settle into breeding, so an excellent excuse to have that back up tank  



Wisey said:


> Thankfully I have superglue remover in my model making kit.


that seems just a little too easy


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## Wisey (6 Sep 2015)

A quick FTS


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## Wisey (6 Sep 2015)

Mrs Kribensis with my new Anubias Nana Mini in the background.


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## Wisey (6 Sep 2015)

Oto on the Anubias


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## Wisey (6 Sep 2015)

Mr and Mrs Kribensis, struggling to get good pics so far.


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## Wisey (6 Sep 2015)

Mr Kribensis


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## Wisey (8 Sep 2015)

Had two Odessa Barbs jump to their death last night, really disappointing 

They had shown no sign of jumping the first week, but found one on the floor this morning about 2 metres from the tank, so it must have jumped and flapped around to get there. I counted and could only see 4 in the tank, so searched around and found another on the floor behind the tank.

I guess the water level is higher after the change on Sunday so that might make it easier for them to jump, but it was high last week too just after they went in and no jumpers then.

I guess I might have to get a cover made for the tank.


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## Wisey (13 Sep 2015)

Not a great deal to report today, but growth is good on everything except the Alternanthera at the moment. I did my water change and a full clean of all pipe work earlier, plus a little plant maintenance.

My Limnophila H. is growing really well now, but better in the corner where it gets more light. I've trimmed back the Hygrophila to give the rest more light. The Echinodorus Reni is now shaded by the Limnophila, so not sure how well it's going to do. I may move some if the taller Limnophila stems away from it next weekend to give it more light.

Some of the taller S. Repens was trimmed and the tops replanted to start filling in gaps created by the Odessas ripping out the emmersed growth I planted. The Ranunculous was thinned out a little and some taller stems trimmed out.

The Hydrocotyle is growing nicely now, a few taller bits almost ready to be pushed in to the substrate to have the plant spread out more, probably next week. I have a number of new Microsorum plantlets growing on the end of established leaves, decided to leave them be for now, let them grow a little larger. Hopefully I can use these to fill in the gaps in time.

The Crypt is still very slow, but it's making progress so I'll persevere with it as it should look great in time. I do wish I had bought an established plant rather than the Tissue Culture, I'm too impatient! 

I'm down to three Odessa Barbs now as we had a third jumper yesterday morning. I'm going to look at getting a Perspex cover cut, but need to find somewhere that will cut an unusual shape rather than just straight cuts so it fits around the equipment. Would be easy if it was just the inlet and outlet as I would have it cut short, but it needs to go around the dosing tubes too.

I'll try to post some pic updates tonight when lights are on.


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## Andy D (13 Sep 2015)

I had Odessa's in a Juwel Rio so never really had many problems with jumping but one did manage to get inside the internal filter as I had left the cover off.

I think James D could give guidance on the cover.


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## xim (13 Sep 2015)

Wisey said:


> ...
> I'm down to three Odessa Barbs now as we had a third jumper yesterday morning. I'm going to look at getting a Perspex cover cut, but need to find somewhere that will cut an unusual shape rather than just straight cuts so it fits around the equipment. Would be easy if it was just the inlet and outlet as I would have it cut short, but it needs to go around the dosing tubes too.
> ...



After you have the perspex cut to size. It can be filed to shape, smoothed out with a piece of sandpaper, then polished with a cloth and toothpaste. You can do it slowly. So it's hard to go the wrong way.

By the way, I think these clips look neat.
http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/having-a-lid-cut-whats-the-best-option.34366/#post-367583


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## Wisey (13 Sep 2015)

FTS...


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## Wisey (13 Sep 2015)

I've got 4 of the ADA clips which I bought ages ago as I planned to get a cover at the start, then decided to see how I got on open top.

I'll order up some Perspex this week. Is 6mm thick enough? Have heard of thinner stuff warping with the heat from lights etc.


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## xim (14 Sep 2015)

I have some pieces of 4 mm. thick on hand and I figure 6 mm. or even 10 mm.
would still warp with your tank size. I think it's unavoidable. 

Polycarbonate may be a better choice but I've no experience with it.


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## alto (14 Sep 2015)

Why not just pick up a glass cover?
 - no warping


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## Wisey (14 Sep 2015)

alto said:


> Why not just pick up a glass cover?
> - no warping



Is it possible to get more complex shapes cut using glass?


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## alto (14 Sep 2015)

If you go to a decent glass cutter - not sure on cost though.
The ADA glass tops are rather thin (reduced mass) to fit the clip system & allow an open strip for equipment, this won't prevent all escapees but should limit most losses


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## Wisey (20 Sep 2015)

Been away for a few days this week, but just Wednesday to Sunday, so left everything running as usual and had a friend drop in some premeasured food on Friday evening. Returned home today, all fish present and correct and good growth everywhere except the Alternanthera (as usual).

It would appear that the Kribs are either preparing to spawn, or maybe already have, but I suspect just preparation. Neither were around when I got home, but some sand around the wood has been shifted, reducing the side of some of the entrances in to the ways in and out. After a while the male appeared, but still no female. When I turned off the filter to do the water change she came out with him to investigate, so I assume with them both leaving the cave there is nothing to defend in there yet. She's back spending most of her time in there now though and hes just pottering around the tank.

As growth is good apart from the Alternanthera I have upped the intensity from 50% to 60%. The new leaves are starting to look redder, but still very slow and pale. Hopefully a boost of light will get it moving and hopefully get some better colour in to the Limnophila H. 

The lightweight plastic mesh I added to the Eheim skimmer does the job, no more fish loss there, but it needs cleared regularly as it clogs then the whole weir gets sucked below the surface. Fine on a daily basis, but a PITA when you are away on holiday.


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## Wisey (20 Sep 2015)

The Kribs are certainly on the prep stage. The end of the wood that naturally forms a cave has 3 ways in and out, so I guess they have decided against that spot. Just found two piles of sand heaped up around the Hygrophila stems and the female Krib is in and out from a hole she is creating under the left end of the bogwood.


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## Wisey (20 Sep 2015)

Here she is with her sand piles.


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## Wisey (23 Sep 2015)

With going away last week I hadn't been to MA to see what came in on the delivery. Popped in today, still no Amanos, but they did have more Otos, so I bought another 3 to bring us up to 8. I also expanded the group of Embers, another 6 bringing us up to 19.

Came home and noticed the male Krib looking more defensive, had a look and it seemed that they have brought eggs out of the cave and deposited them at the root of one of the Hygrophila stems. Next time I checked they moved them to a gap in the bog wood, but a vulnerable spot. She's now moving them all back in the cave while he stands guard.


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## timofeje (23 Sep 2015)

I told You! Kribs make a mess in a regular planted tank. When the eggs hatch You will have around 50 baby kribs and try to catch them after that... I ripped out half of my plants trying to get them out of the tank.
 But they are fun to watch. For the price You will have to pay, they have great show for You all the time. 

Good luck.


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## Wisey (23 Sep 2015)

I'll see how they get on, I don't have a second tank so will need to rehome babies or see if MA or the other LFS will take them in time.


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## Wisey (27 Sep 2015)

Things are going well, more light, more growth, zero algae, I guess the extra Otos help if any comes through.

Here is a quick phone FTS...


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## 5678 (28 Sep 2015)

Glad to see things going well!

How are your hippourides doing? I though about using them again in my 45C but bottles it!


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## Wisey (28 Sep 2015)

5678 said:


> Glad to see things going well!
> 
> How are your hippourides doing? I though about using them again in my 45C but bottles it!



The limnophila h. Is growing well, but not even, so I trimmed back the Hygrophila to try and give the shorter area more light. At some point I think I need to go tidy and trim, but a few more weeks growth first.

The Kribensis are now both shepherding around a large group of babies! We had another Odessa jump today, so only two left so not many predators to cut down the number of babies. With two Odessa vs make and female Kribensis they are doing an effective defence job. God knows how many we will end up with!

There has been some aggression, even occasionally towards the Ember Tetra who are minding their own business. The worst aggression though is one Odessa on the other. I guess now there are just two one is trying to dominate the other.

See how things go in the next few days. I moved my dosing tubes to the right side near the inlet and outlet pipes so I can get a top cut which just leaves a gap at that end, solves the issue of a more complicated cut.


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## Wisey (28 Sep 2015)

Mum and babies, they blend in to the grey sand though.


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## Wisey (28 Sep 2015)




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## Wisey (4 Oct 2015)

Today was water change and maintenance day. Had quite a bit of plant damage recently, think it's maybe the Kribs not getting enough plant matter in their diet with the Otos hoovering up any algae that appears, I never see any, they are pretty industrious. I usually feed peppers or courgette for the Ottos, but put some algae wafers in today for the Kribs.

We had another Odessa Barb jump today, the cover arrives some time this week, were down to one now. I'll wait until the top is on then get more Odesas or something new, not sure yet.

I uprooted all the Limnophila H. today, trimmed, then replanted. I swapped things around, put the taller stems where the shorter were and vice versa, hopefully it will get a bit more even now.

Trimming that will give the Echinodorus Reni some more light, also gave it another root tab, hopefully it gets more chance to grow now.

The Hydrocotyle is doing well, pressed it down, pushed some under the substrate, I'm gradually extending it round the front of the tank.

I removed a lot of the small new plantlets from the Microsorum trident, it's already bouncing back from the heavy trim, but pushed these plantlets down in to the roots in the gaps to hopefully get more growth back in those areas in time,

The number of Kribensis babies seems to have dropped from around 50 to more like 10-15 now. The parents are much more chilled now, but still a little feisty. Undecided whether we keep the Kribs, may return them and get some Corys to populate the lower levels. Love the Corys and much more chilled.


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## Wisey (4 Oct 2015)

FTS after the trim...


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## Wisey (4 Oct 2015)

The Alternanthera is still looking pretty poor, lets the whole thing down in my opinion. I have upped the light again today, still at 60% with the tile 30cm from the surface, but duration increased to 7 from 6.5 hours. Will see how things go this week, but tempted to strip out the Alternanthera and replace with something else in the next few weeks.


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## BruceF (5 Oct 2015)

Tank looks great. 

I’ve been growing the alternanthera mini since last May it had poor color and seemed to struggle for months.  Then I cut back on my dosing, especially the phosphates and now I am getting much better growth and color. I am not really sure if it was the phosphates or the reduction of N or what as I don’t ever test anything. FWIW


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## Wisey (5 Oct 2015)

Thanks for the input Bruce. Certainly something to consider, but I'm concerned about reducing dosing when most things are happy just now.

Does anyone know what is causing the leaf damage in my Hygrophila? Is this fish or CO2 or something else please?


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## Wisey (7 Oct 2015)

I realise those phone pics really don't come out very well on here, they look better smaller on the phone. That first one looks like algae in the pic here, but in reality looks more like microscopic holes in the leaf. I also have bigger holes as per the second picture and a few ends of leaves that are totally missing. It's all on the newest growth on the top of the Hygrophila, everything else seems to be ok. That is the tallest plant, so does get more light than the rest, so could well be a light vs CO2 issue or something?

The Kribensis babies have all gone, numbers were reducing day by day and then when they got down to about 10-15 left, the parents just stopped bothering to defend them and kept leaving them out and about on their own. I suspect that the last remaining Odessa Barb has had his fill. Either that or I am going to find them all in the filter next time I do maintenance!

I sent MA a message via Facebook about the Kribs last night and they have been really good about it. I guess its only fair seeing as they told me that they would be fine in a tank my size, but they have offered to take them back and give me something else of equal value or a credit note, so that is really good service as I suspect many shops would just refuse. I'm going to take them back at the weekend, assuming I can catch them, and hopefully get some Corys. I don't feel too bad about this seeing as they have no babies left now, its been fun to have them for a few weeks, but hopefully they can move on to a bigger home where they don't feel the need to dominate the entire tank to keep the fry safe.

Their return will leave me without my feature fish, so will need to think again about that. I am also down to a single Odessa Barb, so either need to get more of those once the cover arrives, or maybe consider something different, I'm undecided. I'm tempted to try something else, purely for the experience of having some different fish, although conscious that leaves the one guy on his own. I still have my 19 Ember Tetras and 8 Ottos, they are all doing fine.


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## alto (7 Oct 2015)

Tank is growing in nicely 

Does new growth on the Hygrophila S that is closer to the substrate also show this damage?
 -  if you trim the longest stems & replant at substrate, & new leafs show same damage, i's unlikely to be physical closeness to the light source as main cause
 -  have you played with your EI dosing? I don't recall how hard /soft your water is or pH (these values impact bioavailability of nutrients)
 -  you can try increasing/adjusting CO2 (but monitor fish)  
 -  you can try supplementing with a commercial fertilizer for a few weeks

I agree that it's good of MA to offer credit equal to the value you paid for the fish (often shops will only give a reduced credit)   
(OTOH your kribs are acting ... well ... like kribs  ... sometimes they are less dominating of the tank when spawning, but that is less common than the behavior you're seeing)



Some alternate fish might be:

_Dicrossus filamentosus_ these fish often appear as dull grey fish in the shops, but really shine in planted tanks, unless you happen to find sub-adult fish, you'd need to buy in several to select male/female - in a 60 x 45 x 45, I'd likely try 5 or so to start with, they really are quite social fish & you might even be able to maintain this number longterm. Note that _D maculatus_ has a somewhat different reputation

_Mikrogeophagus ramirezi_ these fish are highly line bred so finding resilient specimens can be challenging ... I picked up one group of electric blues that all died (shop offered a full credit, they'd had massive losses as well - interestingly, fish were fine for nearly 2 weeks, then the die-off began, only significant symptom was rapid respiration ... which these fish are prone to when stressed anyway, as "disease" progresses it becomes apparent it is disease & not stress), second group has been fine.
I'd been looking for nice rams for several months but shop offerings were balloon types (in all colors), massive "blue rams" that I can't decide whether it's hormones or hybrids (shape is all wrong!), or very nicely conformed electric blues ... I finally went with the blues.
They really are lovely fish & while they do that ram dance of 'aggression' it's very mild 

_Chocolate gourami_ - again you want to get a group of 8-10, look for a source that knows these fish - I find that once settled, they are really quite hardy (BUT again I have soft, acidic water so no effort for me in that regard), they have some really interesting behaviors but do seem to need a quite location - I see them much more out & about in the tank in the quiet corner than when I moved them to a more centrally located tank. At first they seemed to enjoy the larger tank (90cm x 45cm x 55cm vs 60 cm x 45cm x 55cm) but over several weeks became more retiring, I moved them back to their old (rescaped) tank & they settled in immediately ... a glance over at the tank always reveals fish, in the 90cm tank, a glance just revealed the empty glass box syndrome ...  This group really is stunning, with purple & green iridescence in fins, striking contrast of chocolate & gold (fish in the profile photos are rather dull & not showing their colors)  

Note that fish I've listed above, need to be the main focus, & other fish chosen to suit - all are less aggressive/slow eaters, so a rabid rasbora/tetra horde will be fat to bursting while these fish are just partway through their meal (I've not kept embers so no idea on their suitability).
Shrimp - adults in the tank are fine, I don't see many juveniles in tank, but pull them regularly out of the canister filter (Eheim)  (I finally grew out the latest batch in a Spec 19 - I emptied this out recently & had 40-50 shrimp)

Dwarf Apisto's - most are more aggressive than the two I've listed but as always with fish YMMV ... spend time on the Apisto forums to get an idea of which species might do best in your setup
They are also generally harder on shrimp populations.


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## Wisey (8 Oct 2015)

alto said:


> Does new growth on the Hygrophila S that is closer to the substrate also show this damage?
> - if you trim the longest stems & replant at substrate, & new leafs show same damage, i's unlikely to be physical closeness to the light source as main cause
> - have you played with your EI dosing? I don't recall how hard /soft your water is or pH (these values impact bioavailability of nutrients)
> - you can try increasing/adjusting CO2 (but monitor fish)
> - you can try supplementing with a commercial fertilizer for a few weeks



I had a look lower down last night and there is a little damage on new growth lower down too, so I suspect it may well be fish damage. I'm blaming the Kribs, but may be proved wrong if it continues after they go back to the shop on Saturday. My dosing has not changed for ages, I'm still sort of doing EI, its EI levels, but with my dosing pump I spread the dose over the 7 days and dose macro at 17:00 and Micro at 05:00 each day. My water is very soft, I just use tap water treated with Prime and the water report says 2 German degrees. I don't do any water testing so have no more info. I'm finding leaves from plants in the mesh I put in the skimmer every day at the moment, mainly from the Alternanthera and I am pretty sure that is fish damage. The Kribs do tend to root around in the smaller plants, occasionally bring up bits of S. Repens too.

When the Kribs go back I intend to get myself some Corys, probably 8 Sterbai, to populate the lower levels of the tank. Thanks for your suggestions on fish, I have never been a big fan of Gouarmi but the chocolate ones do look nice. I never see them in the shops up here though, but MA might be able to order them if I ask. I popped in to MA last night to get a bag from them to return the Kribs in and was having a chat. Their next order is in 2 weeks and they say they have ordered quite a lot of different Apistos, so I think I will get the Corys this weekend, get them settled, then see what comes in on the next order.


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## alto (8 Oct 2015)

Sterbai are one of my favorite cory's - they are very active & will bustle around the tank at all levels

I'm not much for gourami's either except for the choco's, licorice gourami are also very interesting but need rather dimmer lighting to be out & about in the open  - you can see them in ldcgroomer's Gourami Gloaming
I don't think I'd mix either with Apisto's .... I did have my choco's & electric blue rams in the same tank for ~6weeks (a rescaping project that dragged on), but both are just happier without the other.
Note the choco's won - they were just impervious to all the ram antics that work so well with other rams, also the choco's are very group oriented & will back each other up ... I find them very interesting for their behavior - which you don't get to see in shops or if you've only got a few.
I started with 10, lost 2 during the first couple weeks (picked them up from the shipping bags), shop had sold most & I wanted to replace the 2 I'd lost, as there only looked to be 4 in the tank, I decided to take them all ... which turned out to be another 8 - they are good at hiding! (shop gave me a good deal).
I had to treat this group as they were definitely under the weather (just decided to begin with formalin as external parasites respond well to meds & formalin is very effective though no longer in vogue at the hobby level) - they obviously felt better the next day, so treated intermittently over the next week. Added both groups together after another week or so - they immediately formed a single collective (as if they still all recognized each other). I've lost 4 to jumping - seems one decides to leave every few months.

Spend some time over at apistogramma,com - Mike Wise offers a very brief summation in the linked thread


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## Wisey (8 Oct 2015)

The polycarbonate cover I ordered arrived today. Warning, never buy anything from plasticsheets.com!

I paid £1.50 per corner to have a 20mm radius applied, thought it would look a little better. The radius is not accurate, just hand cut and an awful job made.





Emailed, no response, called, was told to email a pic and they would replace within 3 working days, really rude person on the phone though.

Found a link to their Facebook page and discovered loads of people with issues, crap quality, non delivery, ignored mails etc. I spent almost £30, I expect better quality than this. If I don't have a replacement by Monday I'm going to try and do a chargeback to recover the money through my credit card company.


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## Andy D (8 Oct 2015)

That's not good at all!

I thought for a minute you had used the same company I had (all of my covers have been very good - albeit all square cuts) as the web address was very similar:

https://www.cutplasticsheeting.co.uk


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## Wisey (9 Oct 2015)

They emailed and said they would ship a replacement, so let's see what turns up. If it's still crap I'll pursue getting my money back and try your place, Andy.



Andy D said:


> That's not good at all!
> 
> I thought for a minute you had used the same company I had (all of my covers have been very good - albeit all square cuts) as the web address was very similar:
> 
> https://www.cutplasticsheeting.co.uk





Tomorrow morning will be catch the Kribensis time, I feel it's going to be a bit of a challenge! Looking forward to getting the Corys though, fingers crossed they still have the Sterbai.


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## Andy D (9 Oct 2015)

I don't envy you that task. I hate having to catch fish in a planted tank. Especially if there is lots of decor getting in the way.


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## Wisey (9 Oct 2015)

I'm hoping they can be tricked into coming out in the open with food, didn't feed tonight, want them hungry in the morning! If I don't get them both in the first sweep I feel it could be a long process, they are hidey little things at the best of times.


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## alto (10 Oct 2015)

Wisey said:


> didn't feed tonight, want them hungry in the morning!


The best beginning 

Now just make a fish "trap" - I used a rectangular orange juice bottle, with rubber bands to hold the inverted top in place: added a few bits of frozen brine shrimp to the tank, then a good bit placed in the bottle, leave the room for 30 - 60 min & come back to a bottle load of fish  ... I'd be surprised if the Kribs can resist

Don't use too much food in the tank obviously (or the trap) as you still want the fish hungry in case you need a Round 2 - brine shrimp works well as it's very "aromatic" (& it's less filling than bloodworms), use whatever food you see the most excitement with..


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## Wisey (10 Oct 2015)

It actually went surprisingly well! I switched off the filter and the female Krib came straight out to investigate, net in, got her first try and in to the bag! The male was not quite so easy, but was encouraged out with some sinking pellets and caught relatively easily once in the open.

The Kribs are now returned and I have 8 Corys drip acclimating as I type. They had identical looking Corys in two tanks side by side, the one labelled Sterbai only had 3 left and the one next to it had loads but was labelled Agassizi. I looked at pics and I'm confident they are Sterbai and not Agassizi, I think it was probably 2 different batches from 2 different orders that were next to each other. If they do turn out to be Agassizi that's fine, but I'm sure it's Sterbai. I'll get some pics this evening if possible.

Another great thing about MA in Aberdeen, it's a Dobbies garden centre that has a cafe, so not only did I get Corys, I got a cooked breakfast too! Winning


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## Wisey (10 Oct 2015)

These are Cory Sterbai, right?





They chill out back or under the wood, but in the open they are so quick it's hard to get good phone pics.


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## Crossocheilus (10 Oct 2015)

Yep, those are definitely sterbai. I must say they are my favourite cory by far. The orange front edge of the pectoral fins is there main distinguishing feature along with the solid colouring of grey/white spots. I find most cories are just too pale, but these guys have strong patterning. Sorry if you have already thought of this but I notice a tablet/algae wafer in the pic (this may well not be intended for the cories) . I would recommend (unless you already know this) feeding them a fine granule food that will sink, as they much prefer these small mouthfuls to having to congregate on a single tablet.

The tank looks great btw, I envy the bushy growth of your alteranthera, mine is only just regrowing from the single stem that survived initial widespread melt


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## Wisey (23 Oct 2015)

It's been a while since the last update and there have been a few changes. The only bad news is that one of the Corys died within 48 hours, but the rest have all done fine. Thanks for the feeding advice, I'm giving them some pellets too, but have also switched to breaking the algae wafer in to lots of small pieces. Doing that and putting it on the sand with the filter off often results in 7 Corys and 8 Ottos all coming down together, the Ember Tetra even get involved.










The rest of the news is all plant related. The Ranunculous had been bothering me for a while, grows well, but wasn't positioned right and I had nowhere I liked to move it, so it's gone. As you will see from the FTS below the Hydrocotyle is going very well so as well as thinning it I'm training it round the front too. I like the open sand so you can see the big wood caves though. 

The Anternanthera has been annoying me for ages, I pulled it out, trimmed the tops they were the redder parts and replanted some of them. I know I'm starting from day one, but one more go rather than just get rid. I dummy hold out high hopes, I'm already thinking about alternatives, maybe Pogostomon Helferi.





My Echinodorus Reni is still tiny, it puts out new leaves, they just never get as big as the ones pictured online such as the Tropica site. It's got Tropica substrate, plus a root tab every month, plus EI dosing. I know it's maybe a little cramped where it is, but it's not shaded at the moment so not sure why it's so small. Advice very welcome please, I may even start a thread in plants forum.





My Limnophila H. is not doing great, it was growing, I trimmed and replanted, it's had a few weeks to get going again but very little growth and stems in the centre that get less flow are melting at the base. I'm considering swapping it out with something else, maybe some bigger Echinodorus, but not sure yet.


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## alto (24 Oct 2015)

Good news on the Cory front  - I must ask, though, what do your Sterbai *do*???

 I had a group of 7, slowly lost them singly over several months until only a rather melancholy 2 remained, finally added in 3 more (excited little devils even in the Q tank) & now all five swim madly about the tank, bulldozing shrimp (or anyone else) that may be in their path.
I've just moved the 5 into the newly scaped 90cm (swapped out old substrate for Tropica soil) so only fish is a chocolate gourami whose repairing a badly split tail - oddly as soon as the oblivious Cory Gang arrived, that deep undercover choco emerged into the middle of the tank 

Looking at your E 'Reni' it seems perhaps it's not getting enough light - or may just be off to a slow start - looking at the various Tropica layouts with this plant, it seems to alternate between quite tall (30cm height) or remaining quite short (15cm or so) ... as I recall Mr Teapot experienced some of this, finally removing it from Green Pekoe Pond (as the taller version).
Note that some root tabs can take ages to dissolve - can you check that they are not just still sitting there?

I'll miss the _R inundatus_ but agree it wasn't the right place for it

The Limnophila hippuridoides also isn't doing much - look at shading from other plants, possible nutrient deficit (don't recall what you're dosing).

You might consider trying the Tropica branded fertilizers for a month & see if that makes a difference.


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## alto (24 Oct 2015)

Wisey said:


> I'm already thinking about alternatives, maybe Pogostomon Helferi.



I like the red the _Alternanthera_ contributes, may be look at H 'Araguaia' which can be encouraged in more upright or more creeping growth


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## Wisey (26 Oct 2015)

alto said:


> Good news on the Cory front  - I must ask, though, what do your Sterbai *do*???



My Corys tend to hang out round the back behind the bog wood, less flow and lots of shady spots to sit around the stems at the back. They do come out round the front too and are very active and happy to come out when there is food. My bogwood does have loads of caves underneath, so they tend to potter around under there too



alto said:


> Looking at your E 'Reni' it seems perhaps it's not getting enough light - or may just be off to a slow start - looking at the various Tropica layouts with this plant, it seems to alternate between quite tall (30cm height) or remaining quite short (15cm or so) ... as I recall Mr Teapot experienced some of this, finally removing it from Green Pekoe Pond (as the taller version).
> Note that some root tabs can take ages to dissolve - can you check that they are not just still sitting there?



It could well be light, the Limnophila H. grew much higher at that side around it, so I uprooted all that and planted the taller parts in the middle and the short parts near the Reno to give it more light. It does not seem to have made much difference, it puts out a new leaf every few weeks, they just don't get very big. I have started a thread over in the plant forum just now so hopefully I'll get further feedback over there.



alto said:


> The Limnophila hippuridoides also isn't doing much - look at shading from other plants, possible nutrient deficit (don't recall what you're dosing).



I'm dosing EI levels, but I don't quite dose it as per the instructions as my TMC Easi-Dose pump allows 24 dosings every day but operates every day, cant set days off with it. I therefore added up how much my total weekly does with EI was for both Macro and Micro, divided the total by 7 and I then dose daily, Macro at 17:00 and Micro at 05:00. This does mean I lose some of a dose on Sunday when I do the water change, but its usually just the Micro which I don't tend to worry about. If I end up losing some of the 17:00 Macro does as I change the water later in the day, I always add extra Macro after the change to compensate for the loss.

There are a few other changes that I forgot to document in recent posts. I had added some Anubias Mini, but it did not take well, the leaves were quite yellow and some of them had some holes in. I'm not sure with the mini being so small that it did not like the amount of superglue on the rhizome, maybe it covered too much of it? It also didnt look natural in the places it would fit, so I took that out. I also moved one of the newer Anubias Nana pieces so all 3 plants are closer together making what I feel is a nicer grouping. I moved it further away from the Microsorum too, as that is now bouncing back well from its severe trim after the leaf damage.

After threatening the plastic sheet company with legal action, they didn't even bother to respond to the mail, but they did ship another sheet out to me and this time the corners had had the correct radius applied to them. I therefore now have a cover on the tank, its bowed very slightly already, but its not too bad. I don't really like it, but it does massively reduce evaporation and should stop the majority of future jumpers. There is an inch gap at the right hand side for the pipework, but it covers the rest of the tank.

I'm intending to have a good change around at the back of the tank. I gave the Hygrophila a trim yesterday, removing the largest stem completely and also another smaller stem, then replanting newer smaller side shoots back in to those gaps. It's not more compact and has some space to grow. That taller stem was probably blocking a lot of light from the shorter ones so hopefully they will grow up higher now as a group. I'm planning on removing the Limnophila H. as more and more stems are melting at the base and rather than replant, I'm just throwing them away now, I'm going to try something else. I'm just waiting on some further feedback for the Echinodorus Reni, either here or on the other thread before I decide whether that stays, goes, or moves. Once that's decided I will get a plant order placed.


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## Wisey (26 Oct 2015)

Assuming that the Echinodorus Reni is probably struggling to compete and seeing as the Limnophila was going to come out anyway, I have removed it and moved the Echinodorus a little further back. It's in much more space now, no plants around it for competition, nothing to shade it, being further back its away from the bogwood too which would have contributed to some shading of one side of the plant. I've given it another root tab and will leave it for a few weeks now to get its roots established again and then see how it gets on. Mick from Tropica says it looks healthy, just small and to get bigger it needs better conditions, so hopefully it has more light now. I'm going to move the drop checker back down there now to see how that goes as I suspect that that Hydrocotyle at the front deflects a lot of the flow up above the E. Reni. I did thin out the Hydrocotyle while I was in there and pressed it down in to the substrate at the back. Hoping all these things combine to give it a better chance.


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## Wisey (26 Oct 2015)




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## Wisey (26 Oct 2015)

I'm not overly convinced that everything is spot on with either ferts or CO2 or both at the moment. I have lifted off the dosing tubes, set them up over a jug and put a measuring cylinder underneath. My Macro ran this evening and delivered the expected 11ml which gives me 77ml over the 7 days and my EI dose would be 75ml, so that seems ok. I have now set the cylinder up underneath the Micro and will see how much that delivers tomorrow morning.

There is of course a question as to the quality of my ferts, I topped up the two container a few weeks ago and noticed today that there appears to be something settled on the bottom of the Macro and a little also in the Micro but to a lesser extent. I gave the Macro a stir and it brought up some stuff that just does not appear that it is ever going to dissolve, but it does not look like salt granules so not sure what's going on. I'll post a pic in a minute, but not sure how clear that pic will show what I am trying to describe.


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## Wisey (26 Oct 2015)

Do you see what I mean? It's almost like wispy strands...


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## Wisey (27 Oct 2015)

I checked the Micro dose this morning and that was also 11ml, so I'm getting 77ml per week as planned, so in theory I should have no deficiency...

I do feel that my tank needs more light as my Alternanthera won't turn red, the Limnophila H. grew, but slowly and stayed green and the Echinodorus is really small. I hear of some people running the tile I have at a really low intensity otherwise they get algae, I'm up to 70% now, but I do have it pretty high, so it may be worth me either increasing the intensity further or dropping the tile closer to the surface of the water.

If I do increase light I need to make sure my CO2 is better. I'm also considering putting my skimmer on to a timer rather than having it run 24/7, maybe run it in the night to off gas CO2 and also have it come on a couple of times in the day to remove any surface film, but try to keep more CO2 in water. I also have my spray bar causing quite a lot of ripple, so think I will drop that too. Now that the Aberdeen winter is on the way and the room is not so bright, I may also try to turn the CO2 on 2-3 hours before the lights rather than having it running from 08:00.


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## Wisey (27 Oct 2015)

Another annoyance is my black background is starting to peel. I used the Marina ClearView Adhesive and it worked ok for about 3 months, but then one side started to peel and now the other side is starting to peel. I did try using more glue to stick it back down, but it seems now that its started to curl, its never going to go back on. I'm therefore looking for a new background solution, any suggestions appreciated.


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## Edvet (27 Oct 2015)

Can you get at the back? Paint it?


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## Wisey (27 Oct 2015)

It's going to be pretty difficult to get to the back and I am a little reluctant to paint it as I would prefer to be able to change it if I wanted something different in the future. I'm thinking a piece of black foam board might be suitable, not sure how water resistant is, but the back is not an area I tend to get any splashes so might be ok.


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## xim (27 Oct 2015)

Wisey said:


> Do you see what I mean? It's almost like wispy strands...



Looks like some kind of mould.

IME, potassium sorbate + ascorbic acid works very well for mould prevention in micros mix but not in macros.

There are some moulds and yeasts that can detox sorbates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_sorbate

The reason it doesn't happen in my micros may be because some metal in the mix has inhibited those kinds of organism.


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## 5678 (27 Oct 2015)

If I read the above right, are you dosing macro and micro on the same day? I thought that was to be avoided?


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## Wisey (27 Oct 2015)

xim said:


> Looks like some kind of mould.



How concerned do I need to be? Do I have to throw away the entire batch? A lot of folk seem to use dosing pumps, how do people avoid this?



5678 said:


> If I read the above right, are you dosing macro and micro on the same day? I thought that was to be avoided?



Yup, I bought the TMC dosing pump as I thought it had really granular control, but it turned out not to be the case, it's quite restrictive. I can choose the volume of the dose which I have set to 11ml and I can choose which hours it doses, so basically it's yes or no each hour, 11ml or not 11ml for the 24 hours in the day. I can't set days and stuff like that. It's maybe awesome for Marine where you want little and often, keeping things stable, but it's proved restrictive for my purposes. I therefore can't take days off and have to dose both pumps each day, so separated the doses by 12 hours so they aren't going in at the same time. I brought this up on the forums and quite a few people said they dose together at the same time and have no problems with precipitation. Apparently precipitation is also more likely in hard water and mine is very soft. I don't really don't know much about the facts of this, other people I'm sure have different opinions and experience.

My other option is to use that formula which allows you to mix up a single macro/micro solution, I think you add something which stops precipitation, then I could run that from one pump and maybe dose some liquid carbon with the second to try and get more carbon in there.


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## xim (27 Oct 2015)

Wisey said:


> How concerned do I need to be? Do I have to throw away the entire batch? A lot of folk seem to use dosing pumps, how do people avoid this?
> ...



No, you don't have to. It's still usable as long as it's not clogging the pump.

People add about 20ml liquid carbon for a 500 ml solution to prevent it.

I'm using standard 3% H2O2 with the macros (don't use it with micros and don't mix it with ascorbic acid), 
currently at 15ml for 500 ml, cheaper, can keep it good for about a month. Might need to add more for longer period.


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## Wisey (27 Oct 2015)

xim said:


> People add about 20ml liquid carbon for a 500 ml solution to prevent it.



So I just add 20ml of my liquid carbon when I mix up my macro solution?

Do you think dosing macro at 17:00 and Micro at 05:00 daily is causing me any problems? If so I guess the all in one with ascorbic acid and potassium sorbate is my way forward.


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## xim (27 Oct 2015)

Wisey said:


> So I just add 20ml of my liquid carbon when I mix up my macro solution?



Yes, you can use it with micros too if you want, unlike H2O2 which can destroy chelating agents in the micros and oxidise ascorbic acid.



Wisey said:


> Do you think dosing macro at 17:00 and Micro at 05:00 daily is causing me any problems? If so I guess the all in one with ascorbic acid and potassium sorbate is my way forward.



I always dose both at the same time, everyday, no problem.


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## Wisey (29 Oct 2015)

Thanks Xim, I'll stick with my current dosing regime and add some liquid carbon to the mix,

I think I am going to increase my tile to 80%  (and sort out all my timers from the daylight savings change) then monitor and see how things go. No algae at all at the moment. I'll tweak my CO2 at the same time and add a timer to the skimmer to reduce off gassing during the photoperiod.


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## Wisey (29 Oct 2015)

Why is it that a whole patch of S. Repens is doing fine, no changes in the aquarium, then a few random stems decide to melt at the bottom?


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## Wisey (31 Oct 2015)

I removed the stems that were melting in the pics above, now 24 hours later 3 more stems next to where the ones that were removed from are melting too


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## tim (31 Oct 2015)

Hi wisey, melt usually indicates a co2 shortfall, did you increase your light intensity ? If so you may have needed to increase your co2 injection rate.


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## Wisey (3 Nov 2015)

tim said:


> Hi wisey, melt usually indicates a co2 shortfall, did you increase your light intensity ? If so you may have needed to increase your co2 injection rate.



In the end I didn't get round to changing the light so that's why I didn't understand why melt had started.

I've now had a CO2 disaster. I'm going away at the weekend and as the cylinder was looking low I decided to swap it over to ensure there was a fresh supply while I was away. I switched it over last night, but have never quite been happy with how my solenoid fits to the regulator so had undone and refitted that connection. I thought it was connected properly but got home tonight to an empty cylinder. 

Thankfully I have another spare, connected it up and got out the soapy water and sure enough that's where the leak was. I took everything apart, put it all back together then I was tightening the needle valve on to the solenoid and disaster struck. I guess that's only supposed to be hand tight?









The amount of swearing involved was high! I've switched off the lights, added some liquid carbon and will be on the phone to CO2 art for a replacement solenoid and needle valve first thing in the morning. All being well they can get it to me Thursday and I can set it up in the evening before I go away for the weekend on Friday morning.


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## Wisey (5 Nov 2015)

I ordered a new solenoid and needle valve yesterday and CO2 Art shipped it straight away on 24 hour delivery. Unfortunate this is Royal Mail we are talking about and all they managed in 24 hours was from Milton Keynes to the South Midlands depot!

I'm now stuck without CO2 until Tuesday night as I go away on holiday tomorrow, get back Monday night and will get the parcel at work on Tuesday. I guess all I can do is leave the lights off for the 4-5 days and hope for the best. I've been dosing liquid carbon with lights off the last two days, but I can't dose while away.

My S.Repens is melting, I guess that will all be dead and gone when I get back. Hopefully the Anubias and Microsorum survive being low carbon users. The Hygrophila is showing signs of being unhappy, so have to see how that goes.

It looks like I'll be redesigning and replanting a lot of areas from scratch once I get back from holiday, disappointing, but nothing I can do.


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## tim (5 Nov 2015)

That's a real shame after the effort you've put in wisey, all may not be lost with the staurogyne as long as the roots are healthy it can regrow from the stem once conditions are favourable again, may be worth a few water changes on your return clean up any melt and hopefully it'll bounce back once the co2 is dialled back in.


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## Wisey (6 Nov 2015)

tim said:


> That's a real shame after the effort you've put in wisey, all may not be lost with the staurogyne as long as the roots are healthy it can regrow from the stem once conditions are favourable again, may be worth a few water changes on your return clean up any melt and hopefully it'll bounce back once the co2 is dialled back in.



I didn't realise it would come back from the root alone, I was worried about the decaying plants effect on the water quality for the fish whilst I'm away, so I removed the plants that were melting last night. I left half the plants that looked healthy and I have some S. Repens in the propagator too, so will plant that up next week.

I'm starting to think how I might change things with some different plants, I've learnt a lot over the last few months, this mistake will be an opportunity to try some different plants out and try a slightly different look to the scape.


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## Wisey (12 Nov 2015)

So I got home Monday night, then got the new solenoid and needle valve at work on Tuesday. I removed the Alternanthera, most of the S. Repens that had melted, them setup the CO2, did a big water change and got the lights back on. The Hygrophila looks tatty but it's not been great for a while.

I placed an order with TGM for some plants as Aqua Essentials and CO2Art were low on stock and shipping is expensive to Aberdeen, so it just seemed best to get one order in and pay one expensive lot of shipping with TGM. I also knew that by shopping with TGM I'm getting Tropica plants which thus far have proved to be of very high quality compared to cheaper plants.

I'm expecting my plant order tomorrow and I'm currently soaking some small pieces of bogwood. I'm planning some minor additions to the hardscape and a big change in planting. When I'm done it will really just be background and midground that's planted. I'm unsure in foreground, I'm going to get the rest sorted then fill in the foreground afterwards once I see how the rest looks, see which areas are shaded and which get more light.

I'll try to post up some pics over the weekend as things change.


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## alto (13 Nov 2015)

shame about the troubles you've had 

but looking forward to the changes


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## Wisey (13 Nov 2015)

Really poor service from The Green Machine, very disappointed. I placed my order on Wednesday morning and paid the ridiculous fee of £13.95 for express DPD delivery. Even then, they will only ship to home and not work as my work postcode is classed as highlands even though its only 3 miles outside Aberdeen. I therefore always have to collect DPD stuff from the depot. Anyway, that's DPD's fault, but the TGM issue is even more disappointing. 

I spoke to them on the telephone yesterday as I wanted to know if the delivery was coming this week or next week when they got their next plant order. I was told that my delivery had just missed the cut off on Wednesday for pickup by DPD, seemed a bit of a strange excuse seeing as I placed the order at 09:48 in the morning! Anyway, I was told that my order was being picked yesterday and would be dispatched yesterday for delivery on Friday. That wasn't a big issue, I'm happy with delivery today, I would pick up from DPD after work tonight and plant tomorrow morning.

I checked my e-mail this morning as usually there would be a dispatch e-mail from TGM and also a mail from DPD allowing me to manage my delivery. I had specified in the comments that I would collect from the depot, but I would have checked online to make sure this was happening. Unfortunately, no e-mails from either TGM or DPD. I just gave TGM a call and apparently my order was not picked yesterday, it will be picked today and will arrive at the depot in Aberdeen tomorrow. The reason why? They have too many orders and only 2 people picking and 1 person packing so they didn't have time to do my order yesterday. If my company gave that excuse out to a customer, we would lose a lot of business. If they have too many orders for their staff, get some more staff.

I'm now in the position where I have to pick up the order from the depot at some point tomorrow, but will not be home from lunch time, so unless its available first thing it will sit at DPD until Sunday. I paid £13.95 to avoid the situation where the plants would sit in the box for days, if I had been happy with that I could have paid the standard DPD at £8.95. It's certainly put me off using TGM again.


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## alto (16 Nov 2015)

Hope plants were OK in the end

- looking forward to the new scape


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## Wisey (17 Nov 2015)

alto said:


> Hope plants were OK in the end
> 
> - looking forward to the new scape



I eventually managed to get the plants on Sunday morning then rescaped in the afternoon.

Quite a lot of work, I removed all the plants apart from those on the wood, then removed about 80% of the water to get rid of as much detritus that had been disturbed, the Tropica substrate is a nightmare when uprooting plants.

I added a piece of bogwood at the left to enable me to bank substrate behind to give the plants at the back a boost to show over the wood. More sand was added to fill in, around another 3 cm.

I planted two new Echinodorus Rose behind the wood, then two pots of Crypt. Undulata Broad Leaves, then three pots of Crypt. Wendti Mi Oya.

I felt the foreground had been too busy before, I've tried to concentrate planting away from the front glass.

The tissue culture Crypt. Wendti which used to be back left and was shades and tiny has moved to the front in a small gap in the wood, will see how it goes and move if it gets too big.

The Hygrophila was all removed and binned, it wasn't in great shape. Most of the Hydrocotyle was binned, but I kept a piece and planted back right corner. Not sure it's staying but didn't want to lose it all so it's just there temporarily until I decide.

The few S. Repens that survived are in the foreground on the left, hopefully full in a little more with bits from my propagator in time.

The Echinodorus Reni I was really reluctant to throw away as its healthy, just too small. I knew it would get shaded again if I left it at the back, so for now it's in the foreground centre. It probably won't stay there, I'll see if it grows now it has more light and decide what happens to it later.

The foreground sand was a bit low from lots of hoovering of melted S. Repens etc, the Corys had then dug up some Tropica substrate as the sand was so shallow. I filled in with fresh sand across the foreground to try and tidy up and smooth out the shape across the width of the tank.

Just a quick phone shot...






I'm practically starting again here, but with bigger plants rather than tissue culture. Nevertheless, it's going to take a few months to grow in.

I've had a little melt from on some Crypt leaves, which I understand is quite common when changing environment. So far everything seems to be doing ok. I'm away with work for two nights tomorrow so hopefully all well when I return.


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## Wisey (23 Nov 2015)

I've checked James' algae guide, but not certain what this is. Would it be some sort of hair/fuzz algae? There are a few patches on the sand plus one area of the bogwood, all in the front right corner.













I had a little bit of this before the planting change which I cleaned up but it's returned.


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## dw1305 (24 Nov 2015)

Hi all, 





Wisey said:


> but not certain what this is. Would it be some sort of hair/fuzz algae?


Looks like it is fungal, and probably originates from the wood.

cheers Darrel


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## Wisey (24 Nov 2015)

dw1305 said:


> Hi all, Looks like it is fungal, and probably originates from the wood.
> 
> cheers Darrel



Thanks Darrel, I guess it is just a case of keep removing it and hope it eventually clears up? The fungal issue I had with the black and clear spots on the wood did eventually go away after I removed it all, but now this has turned up in the last few weeks.


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## Wisey (1 Dec 2015)

Well, I'm still having CO2 issues. Ever since I fitted the new solenoid and needle valve, something has not been right, although I'm sure it's the regulator rather than the new parts as it appears to be the setting of working pressure causing the issue.

I have emailed Miro at CO2Art for advice tonight, but if anyone here can shed any light it would be appreciated. 

I used to run the system at 40 psi, dial that in with the blue dial on the front, then set the bubble rate with the needle valve.

When I put it all back together it seemed that I had to turn the blue dial quite a way to get any working pressure to register, but it kicked in and I set it around 40 psi and I got CO2 through, but then the flow started to slow then stopped and opening the needle valve does not increase the flow. I ended up pushing the working pressure up higher and the flow started again. Worked for a while, switching off and on each day on the timer, but then more problems.

Basically it gets worse every water change, I switch off, it gets depressurised as I'm filling bubble counter, but when I started up the next time I had to keep upping the working pressure to 50 psi before I got a flow of CO2 that didn't eventually stop.

I'm a bit late with this last weekends water change, it happened today as I was away. Tonight I dialled the working pressure to 40, worked then slowed, pushed to 50, worked then slowed, pushed to 60, worked then slowed. I started to push higher then thought that this pressure was way more then the system needs to run and I'm probably going to damage components downstream like the bubble counter and atomiser. I tried to reduce working pressure with the blue dial, but it won't reduce, so had to depressurise the whole system again.

It's switched off now and I have dosed liquid carbon today and will do so until I can get some advice on what's wrong. I'm sure Miro will explain how stupid I have been tomorrow, but appreciate any advice people here can give.


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## Wisey (6 Jan 2016)

Well, it has been quite a long time since my last update and a lot has happened in that time, but not much in the way of plant growth.

The CO2 regulator issues in my previous post went on for a while. Miro asked me to return the regulator so that they could check and repair it. I sent it back and reconfigured my lights to only run for 4 hours a day to limit any problems during the period without pressurised CO2. I dosed liquid carbon most days and things seemed to go ok. I got the CO2 regulator back and was told that it had been repaired, but I set it up again and had exactly the same fault as before. I got in touch with CO2 Art and they shipped a replacement regulator, but due to good old Royal Mail it unfortunately didn't arrive before I went away for a Christmas break in the US. By this time the S. Repens had already all died and I am left with Anubias, Microsorum, Crypts and some Echinodorus which all seem to do ok in the low light, very little growth, but they don't die.

I had no choice but to go to the US and leave things as they were, so I left it on 4 hours lighting, auto dosing ferts, no CO2 of any form. I also bought myself the Eheim Twin Feeder, so I could feed both flake and sinking pellets for the Corys and Otto's. This feeder proved to be a bit of a nightmare, it hugely overfeeds pellets, even on the lowest setting it dumped around 30-40 pellets in the aquarium each time and I would usually feed 8-10. I therefore made up a mix of pellets and flake and put it in one side of the feeder. It's hit and miss and I still felt it over feeds but not to the extent it was before, but I left it running and went away as I didn't have much choice. I did a water change the night before I left and crossed my fingers!

I came back after 9 days away and the fish seemed quite happy, but the water did look a bit yellow and there was some obvious dirt around the spraybar and inlet pipe at the side where the auto feeder is situated. My Eheim skimmer was also quite clogged. I'm assuming this was due to overfeeding. I was only home for one day before going away again so I did a large 70-80% water change, cleaned everything up and did the best that I could. The plants had done ok without the CO2, a little growth on the Crypts, no change from the Echinodorus, but things were alive. There was the odd leaf that had come off and ended up stuck in the skimmer and the flower on the Anubias had melted, but apart from that things were ok.

I then went away again, this time for 7 days. On the return things seemed ok, no dirt in the tank like the previous time, water quality better, but the skimmer a bit gunged up again. Fish all alive and well and no plant issues, so here we are a month on and although no progress from when the CO2 issue started, it's not like I have lost much.

I came in to work today and the replacement regulator is here, so at the weekend I will get that set up again, dial it in gradually and slowly increase the light, see if I can get some decent growth going.

I have to admit it is a new year and I am tempted to go with a re-scape at some point, but not too sure yet. I do feel that I have constantly had issues with getting good growth behind the large piece of bogwood and I am also lacking in good height in the tall aquarium. I feel my current scape would work in time for the 60x45x30, but with the 45 high I could use some height in the hardscape without blocking the flow to the back, maybe with some redmoor root root branches that are not going to be a solid wall like my bogwood is.

I'm undecided on the rescape, I'll probably try to get these plants growing better first as I would re-use them in the new scape anyway. I'll run the idea of changing the tank past my better half and see what she says!


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## alto (6 Jan 2016)

I always like the long slender branchy woods so naturally vote for the redmoor (or whatever) 

A tall grass such as_ Cyperus helferi_ or a _Valisneria_ (take care to choose a smaller/less aggressive version & be certain it's the labelled species) would add height

Your auto-feeder observations are pretty typical, fortunately everything seems to have come through alright 

When you remove rooted plants, just have a syphon tube nearby as you slowly ease out the rooted bits - it's often easier to trim stem plants & put aside the tops to be replanted & then go after the root portions; with a crypt etc, you'll want to trim the roots to a couple cm's when replanting anyway, so just pull up the plant, cut away from root mass, put aside the upper portion & then ease out roots with tweezers etc - doing it this way, I can manage with minimal "dust" clouds coming up from the GS.

If you turn the filter off during plant salvage, it's easy to syphon away most of the debris, then perform a large water change - even if water seems clear enough.

There's a lot you can do to alter the current scape without doing an actual tear down on the tank - though if you pull the bog wood, I'd move the fishes to a bin, as I believe it's sitting deep in the substrate - after one experience of massive fish losses during a partial rescape - nothing untoward noted but most everyone was dead/near death the next morning - I always remove as much livestock as possible if I'm likely to disturb the substrate to a significant degree.

(I'm also impatient & I'd just rescape for the New Year  )


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## Wisey (6 Jan 2016)

If I do rescape I'll defo remove the fish and run my external filter on whatever I put them in as it heats too. I'm a little hacked off with the Tropica plant growth substrate, even when careful it gets over the sand and my Corys dig it up too. I'll probably have a go with ADA Aquasoil next time, give that a try.


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## alto (6 Jan 2016)

Wisey said:


> my Corys dig it up too


surprised at this, I've put Tropica Aqua Soil (powder form as I prefer the look of the smaller particles) over the GS & never see any GS unless I pull it to the surface ...
note that with Aqua Soil (ADA or Tropica) it's quite easy to direct water flow & lift substrate ... quite a lot 

If you go ADA, just watch the ammonia release & perform those large daily water changes as suggested during the first month or so.
(I was lucky enough to get some of the Amazonia that just kept on _giving_ in the ammonia department - I never put any livestock in the tank & eventually just removed the substrate system, ADA rep was uninterested)


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## Wisey (11 Jan 2016)

I'm still having problems with my CO2 system. CO2Art sent a complete replacement regulator and needle valve out while I was away at Christmas. I got hold of it when I got back to work late last week and set it up last night when I did my plant maintenance. I was amazed when I had exactly the same issue as with the old regulator, CO2 starts, then slows then stops, increase the working pressure, it starts again, but then slows and stops. I tried multiple FE's and had the same problem with them all including an older one that was part full that worked fine in the past, so I know its not a problem with the FE.

The only thing I can think of now is the bubble counter. I'm using this one:



 

http://www.co2art.co.uk/collections...s-bubble-counter-for-regulators-and-solenoids

It has a built in check valve and I am wondering whether there is an issue with the valve in that it opens with the initial pressure of CO2, then slowly closes stopping the CO2, I increase the pressure and it opens again, but then closes up again. That's the only thing I can think it could be with having the same issue on two regulators. I have e-mailed Miro at CO2Art to get further advice.


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## Wisey (11 Jan 2016)

In other news, I popped in to Maidenhead Aquatics in Aberdeen on Friday on my way home from work. Had not been for quite some time with the holidays etc. They finally had Amano shrimp in stock, £3 each or 6 for £15 so I now have 6 Amano's  Been waiting for these guys for so long!


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## alto (11 Jan 2016)

sorry to read of your continuing CO2 oddities

For some reason Amano shrimps seem to be in short supply


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## Wisey (11 Jan 2016)

Well I removed he bubble counter and attached the tube directly to the needle valve and I still have the same problem so that eliminates the bubble counter. So bloody confused! The only thing not replaced or removed in tests so far is the atomiser, but can't see how that could cause this problem. If anyone here has any ideas your input would be appreciated. Same issue with two regs make me think it has to be my own stupidity, but can't see what I'm doing wrong!

Unfortunately I came home to find three dead Amanos on the lounge and kitchen floor, obviously they set out to find a new home


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## Wisey (12 Jan 2016)

CO2Art have now asked me to return both regulators, the needle valve, the bubble counter and my UP inline atomiser so they can test the entire system to see what is wrong. I'm not going to be able to remove it all tonight, but tomorrow I will have to go in and do some work to add a new hose in the cabinet to replace the section that the atomiser is in at the moment so I can keep the my filter running without it. Hopefully they can get to the bottom of the issue once they have all the parts. I really can't understand what is wrong.


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## Wisey (14 Jan 2016)

Everything has been returned to day so fingers crossed they can get to the bottom of the issue. When I took everything apart, gas that was in the regulator escaped from the FE side, but when the system is set up and running, that gas only gets through the solenoid for the first burst then slows and stops. I wondered if it was due to a power issue, so tried plugging the solenoid directly in to the power bar instead of through the timer, but that didn't help. I also tried plugging it straight in to a wall socket instead of the extension, but still the same issue.

I'm still undecided on the re-scape. I want to do it, but have a wedding to pay for in August, so if I do go ahead it needs to be a low budget rescape. I would probably invest in some sort of new substrate system, whether that was the ADA or maybe the Tropica to avoid the Ammonia issue with ADA and obviously some extra plants, but I might look for free hardscape out in the countryside. I did try that before and in the end didnt like the stone I found, but that was before I had ever scaped an aquarium, so this time I have a better idea of the shapes and sizes that I would want.


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## Wisey (19 Jan 2016)

Just had a chat with CO2Art on the phone. They can't find a problem with the regulator which is not really a surprise as I had the same issue with two regulators, but now that I have returned the full system to them they have found a problem with the UP inline atomiser. There is a leak around the seals where the tube fittings connect. I had checked both of these with soapy water and not seen anything, but with them having the whole system removed from the tank they tested the atomiser in a bucket of water and saw a leak here. They are going to continue testing the regulator overnight then return everything to me tomorrow along with a new atomiser.

I'm not sure how this fault with the atomiser causes what I saw with CO2 starting to come through the regulator then slowing and stopping, so if anyone here can explain how a leak down stream would stop the flow from the regulator it would be appreciated. I assume that it something to do with the lack of pressure in the system or something?


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## xim (19 Jan 2016)

Wisey said:


> ...
> Unfortunately I came home to find three dead Amanos on the lounge and kitchen floor, obviously they set out to find a new home



I've seen an Amano freaked out by the flow of the outflow pipe and jumped out of the tank.
So the water parameters of your tank is not the only reason for their escape. I lower the water
level down 4.5 cm from the rim and it helps a lot.


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## Wisey (19 Jan 2016)

xim said:


> I've seen an Amano freaked out by the flow of the outflow pipe and jumped out of the tank.
> So the water parameters of your tank is not the only reason for their escape. I lower the water
> level down 4.5 cm from the rim and it helps a lot.



This maybe explains why they got freaked out, because I use the filter and a tap connector in to my filter inflow from the fresh water container to refill the tank, so the water is half way and then splashes down in to the tank from the spraybar. The fish seem to really enjoy this, I assume its like a rain storm for them and something they might experience in nature, they move from the back of the tank to the front to get in to the fresh water. The shrimp on the other hand just went nuts and started doing laps at the top of the water. They didn't leave until the following day though, they all seemed fairly settled once the water stopped going in.

I used my normal method to change water last night and the remaining three shrimp did not seem bothered, they are quite in to hiding anyway and tend to potter around in the wood and plants, so they just kept out of the way. One has taken up regular residence in the cave under the bogwood and sits at the entrance until I drop food close enough for him to gain courage to come out, grab it and take it back to his cave.


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## Wisey (21 Jan 2016)

My CO2 equipment should be returned today, have had the text from Royal Mail to say they will deliver today. Tonight is a free evening, so I should be able to get this set up and tested. Fingers well and truly crossed that I can get CO2 in there and keep the surviving plants going. Most of the Microsorum has melted now, but the root and rhizome appears healthy so hopefully it will bounce back with time. My Crypts are losing the odd leaf here and there, as is the Anubias, but that tends to loose lower leaves that get very little light, it looks healthy otherwise.

I do still have a rescape in mind, but want to make sure I have working CO2 kit before I invest any more money in the tank. I have a wedding to pay for in August, so it is going to have to be a low budget rescape, either using the Dragon Stone I have that I decided not to use with this first scape, or with some rocks I can find locally for free. I just need to get myself some redmoor root, I'm keep my eyes out online for the sort of pieces I have in mind, but never seem to find what I want. I wish there was somewhere locally that stocked a decent amount, but the only LFS that has some just keeps a handful of pieces more aimed at reptile cages as they do a lot of reptiles and amphibians there too.


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## Wisey (21 Jan 2016)

Popped in to MA on the way home and they now do a small selection of wood for hardscape! Had a rummage through and came away with 2 small and 2 medium pieces for £15. Couldn't use it all, but at that price it gives me options to work with.

Also ordered a few bits of Bogwood from gre0044 on eBay today, he's away until the end of the month, but I'm in no rush. That gives me more options too, will see what the bits are like when they arrive.

I really like some elements of the existing large bogwood piece in the current scape. If I tear this down I'm tempted to try and break off the two nice gnarly bits on the front right and the left hand end with the Anubias, use them as individual pieces in the new scape. Will have to see how strong it is after being soaked for 6 months.

I know mixing different types of rock is a bit of a no no, but wondering about wood. I guess it's not usual to have different types of trees in the same place. I may use pieces of Bogwood low down then some redmoor to add height to the scape without blocking too much flow. Any opinions on that?


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## Wisey (22 Jan 2016)

Good news! Got my CO2 kit back last night and with the new atomiser, everything is working! I have left it off during the day today as I didn't have enough time to set the required rate last night and keep an eye on the fish, that will be a job for this evening and the weekend.


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## Wisey (22 Jan 2016)

I don't believe what's happening! I'm having no luck!

I had left the CO2 switched off via the Solenoid, but the FE was open. Came home and as soon as I walked in I
could hear gas escaping. My right gauge was covered in ice and water and gas coming out the top!


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## aaron.c (22 Jan 2016)

Ahh man! That sucks!


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## Wisey (25 Jan 2016)

So I'm still waiting to hear back from CO2Art about the regulator. I got a mail on Saturday asking whether I had the solenoid and needle valve open when I started the system up as having them closed could damage the gauges. I'm aware that they need to be open and they were, I got a stream of CO2 as soon as I opened the FE, then reduced it down with the needle valve to around 2 bubbles per second, checked for leaks and all was fine. I ran the system all evening without any issues then switched off the solenoid when I went to bed. I have no idea when the gauge failed as I had intended to leave it off all day and then switch it on again Friday evening when I was around to monitor the fish, so I did not look at it in the morning. It was when I came home from work in the evening that I could hear gas escaping. Hopefully they get back to me today and we can get it sorted out. My two Ech. Rose plants are starting to die now as well, my Microsorum has no leaves left, but hoping the rhizome survives, the only things that seem to be doing ok are the Anubias and the crypts. They crypts are still losing some leaves, but I think that's leaves from before they switched to under water growth which are slowly being shed.

My Fiance has a weekend away in London at the end of February, so I am now planning a rescape that weekend as I will have all day to work on the tank. I just need to get my CO2 kit working, find some stone to use and find a suitable container for the fish to live in for the day during the scape. I have a month to get everything I need including some new substrate.


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## Wisey (25 Jan 2016)

Just heard from CO2Art that a replacement gauge is on the way, so hopefully that will be here tomorrow or Wednesday latest. They said I could send the reg back to have it fitted, but if I wanted to get it fixed quicker and was happy to fit myself they would just send me the gauge. Fingers well and truly crossed this is the last issue and I can get my CO2 up and running again this week.


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## Wisey (26 Jan 2016)

Good news, gauge arrived, fitted this evening, system set up and has been running for about 3 hours now. So far, so good. I'll turn off again tonight, still not confident in the rate of CO2 to have it come on while I'm at work tomorrow, but will run it all evening tomorrow and get all my timers configured again. 

Lights are currently on at 30% for 4 hours, so will start to bring intensity and duration back up to normal levels.

Preparations are being made for the rescape. Ordered some egg crate which I intend to use to raise some rock to get the scape I have in mind. I need to order a new black background, going to try window tinting film this time as the type I have now peels off eventually and you can't stick it back down. It's impossible to change while the tank is full so this is a perfect opportunity.


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## aaron.c (26 Jan 2016)

Glad to hear it! No more hiccups I hope


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## Wisey (28 Jan 2016)

So it's been a long time since I posted an FTS, not been much to see, it was November 17th back on page 12 and just after the new plants went in. There was then the CO2 equipment disaster and today is the first day it's all back running on the timer.

Got home tonight at 6, an hour after lights on. Lime green DC, CO2 started at 3. It's a fast stream of CO2, but fish and shrimp seem totally oblivious, so I'll just monitor through to lights off. I've increased lights to 6 hours at 60%.

As you can see if you compare the FTS below to the previous one, I obviously lost some plants. Ech. Reni has gone, S. Repens has gone, M. Trident almost gone but rhizome still healthy so should come back. The Crypts are still there, a little growth, new immersed leaves and old leaves dying off.





It's been a learning process and the rescape will happen in a months time. I'm going to try and bring these plants on as much as I can in a month and reuse as much as possible in the new scape.

I'm going to experiment with pushing the lighting over the next few weeks, see if I can find the sweet spot. I've never had algae since I set up the tank in June 2015 except a few tiny spots on the glass which went as soon as the Ottos went in. I do feel that with the light so high above the tank and the cover which will reduce intensity and it being a taller tank that the actual par at substrate is low and has caused some of my lack of growth issues. Even before the CO2 disaster when I was getting good CO2 levels I had very slow growth. I think now is the time to experiment, use this month before the rescape to find the balance between growth and algae, so if it goes pear shaped I can clean up the mess at rescape. It's going to be another learning process! That's what it's all about, right?


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## Wisey (3 Feb 2016)

Oh boy, I really need to stop buying wood from gre0044 on ebay, or at least be more careful! The dimensions of the pieces sounded ok and they were so cheap that I didn't think they were that big, but they arrived and they are way bigger than I had imagined them to be in my mind when I was thinking about a rescape! I didn't actually intend to use all 4 pieces, it was more so I had a selection to work with, but these are big! Might have to re-think how I am going to do this re-scape. I'm developing quite a collection of unused hardscape, about 18KG of Dragon Stone, some bogwood, some manzanita! I clearly have a problem with buying things on a whim and then changing my mind


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## Wisey (3 Feb 2016)

Just bought a 15 litre stainless steel stock pot on eBay, its about 28 cm diameter and 25 cm high, so hoping I can boil some bits of wood in that. Was only 15 quid and I guess I can sterilise it and use it for cooking, or just store aquarium bits in it and stick in the loft ready for next time I have new hardscape to clean/boil.

I think I am going to lift out the bogwood from this scape this evening, then do a massive water change as it will obviously disturb the substrate. This is for two reasons, first of all I want to give the plants I have the best chance of growing ready for being re-used in the new scape and the wood currently blocks a lot of flow. The other reason is I intend to try and break up this large piece and re-use some small sections of it in the new scape. I want to have my scape fully planned so I know how it will look in advance of the rescape day. I don't want fish out the tank and be half way through to find it does not fit and I need something I don't have to make it work. I'll take it out tonight, tie the three Anubias and the Microsorum on to a stone for now and pop those back in the tank, then I can break up this wood and plan my new scape. I'm also going to boil the bits I am going to use and see if that helps with the sporadic fungal outbreaks I have had.


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## alto (3 Feb 2016)

If possible have the syphon going as you slowly lift the wood - filter off, so you can remove most of the "cloud" as it puffs up - then filter back on once you've removed the wood and then large water change as usual

You might also add a 10X dose of Prime just before lifting the wood as it will help bind assorted N compounds, then add a double dose with the large water change.

OTOH if fish are few & not too difficult to catch, I'd be inclined to remove them ... _just in case_

Hope everything goes well from here - you've had rotten luck with all that CO2 business


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## Wisey (3 Feb 2016)

alto said:


> If possible have the syphon going as you slowly lift the wood - filter off, so you can remove most of the "cloud" as it puffs up - then filter back on once you've removed the wood and then large water change as usual
> 
> You might also add a 10X dose of Prime just before lifting the wood as it will help bind assorted N compounds, then add a double dose with the large water change.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the advice! With only one pair of hands it was hard to siphon and lift together. I dosed some prime first, let it circulate for a few minutes, then switched off the filter and carefully lifted the wood. Unfortunately, although the shrimp got out the wood sharpish, one of the Corys decided his best bet was to just sit it out in the wood! Got him back in the water, but the cloud was starting to spread by that point. I started the syphon and did a really big water change, approx 80-90% to try and get rid of as much as possible. I then refilled with double prime dosed fresh water.

I fired the filter back up to get things circulating and also started up the skimmer to help remove surface detritus that had been stuck under the wood. Once this was running I carefully removed the Anubias and Microsorum from the wood. I had been keeping them wet with an occasional water spray during the water change. I then tied them on to two pieces of stone and popped them back in the tank. It's not pretty, I only had string, but it's just to keep them going until I rescape. I left things for a few hours to clear and for the fish to chill out and I've just put the CO2 back on for the last hour of the photoperiod.

Fingers crossed they are all ok! I have my chunk of wood, I now need to see if I can separate it in to multiple pieces. I thought after 8 months in water it would have softened, but it still seems pretty tough. I suspect that job will require brute force and ignorance.


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## alto (4 Feb 2016)

what do you have in fish?
If it's just the Cories, you can likely leave the Amano shrimp in the same temporary tank whilst re-scaping, just include some wood/plants etc for shrimp to take refuge

At least wood removal sounds to have gone well 

I suspect the wood you have is that extremely difficult to break stuff


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## Wisey (4 Feb 2016)

My fish are 7 Cory Sterbai, 8 Ottos and about 15 Ember Tetra. I'm thinking that the Amanos will be ok in with those guys as they are all pretty chilled. The Amanos are quite happy hanging out in the open with them around.


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## alto (4 Feb 2016)

sounds fine


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## Wisey (4 Feb 2016)

Came home tonight, fish all look well, but no sign at all of the Amanos. They used to hang out in the wood I removed a lot of the time, but the stones I put in last night with plants tied to them were positioned to give hiding spaces underneath.

Fed the fish and that's something that would usually bring the shrimp out too, but still no sign at all. I then searched the lounge and kitchen, looking under furniture with a torch, no dead shrimp to be found.

Bit confused, was looking in the tank again when I noticed movement in the skimmer! I hadn't thought to check there as I have plastic mesh that stops fish getting through the gaps. The skimmer had been on all night and day since the water change to clear stuff out, I had only switched it off when I fed the fish tonight.

I lifted off the top, two Amanos came swimming out, the third refused to exit and I had to take the top of the skimmer body for to get him out! They must have climbed out the water, over the top, over the mesh and down inside! I can't believe all three did, clearly some collaboration going on! God knows how I'm going to keep them out of there going forwards! Think I need to get some wood back in they can hide in for now.


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## Wisey (4 Feb 2016)

My fiancé is working late and the flat downstairs is vacant, so out came a hammer and wood chisel, combined with brute force and I now have the 3 chunks of wood I wanted separated from the rest. The bit that not going to be reused is back in the tank for the shrimp to hide in. I'll also use it for cover in the holding and during the rescape.

Just had a surprise though, I have 4 Amano shrimp, not 3! I bought 6, but during acclimation I thought I counted 7 in the bag, but wasn't sure. As I transferred them to the tank I netted a few at a time, thought I counted 6. I've only ever saw 6 at a time, then 3 climbed out and died. Since then I have only ever seen 3 until today when a fourth just rocked up!


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## Wisey (8 Feb 2016)

Boosted my light up to 80% for 6 hours last night, so hoping to see even more growth in the next week or so. The two Ech. Rose plants that had done nothing since they were planted both put out new leaves last week after CO2 was restored and the light increased. I'm also starting to see new growth on my Crypts.


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## aaron.c (8 Feb 2016)

Hope the lights work for you at higher %


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## Wisey (8 Feb 2016)

aaron.c said:


> Hope the lights work for you at higher %
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



Thanks, it will be interesting to see. I have seen that some people do run them at 100% when suspended some height above the aquarium, so that might be the way forward for me too. I'll give it a week at 80% then step it up again if no issues.

I'm having a slight CO2 issue in that my working pressure keeps reducing, I thought this might be leak related, but have not found one yet. I set the pressure and it is fine, but once it turns off at night and comes back on the next day, its gone down from around 40 psi to 30 psi so its running, but not at the rate that I would like.


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## Wisey (8 Feb 2016)

Hmmmm, just found this thread while doing a search for reasons why I would be losing working pressure. Seems a lot of people that got regulators from a certain batch at CO2 ARt have had exactly the same problem that I am having and the timing of these posts ties in with when I got the replacement from them, looks like I may have gotten one of the bad batch. Anyone else heard about this on here?

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/9...e-regulator-working-pressure-fluctuation.html

If you skip to page 9, Karol from CO2Art admits that they had a problem with quality control on some parts. Looks like it is another e-mail to support!


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## aaron.c (8 Feb 2016)

Seems odd to lose pressure if not a leak. My reg doesn't loose pressure overnight. Wonder if they can tell which batch is affected 


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## Wisey (8 Feb 2016)

I have sent Miro an e-mail so will see what comes back. I have not seen anyone complain on UKAPS, but lots of American users having the same problem I had throughout December and January. It was December when CO2Art sent me this regulator as a replacement for the original that had a different problem. I hope they can sort this out without me having to go without CO2 for weeks again, fingers crossed they can send me the replacement before I have to return this one so that I can at least keep some CO2 going in even if its not as much as I really need, thats better than nothing.


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## Wisey (9 Feb 2016)

I reset my CO2 last night. I would usually run it at 40 psi, but I set it to 50 psi with the solenoid close, then opened the solenoid and it drops to 38 psi. I then set my bubble rate as required. Within 5 minutes the pressure had dropped to 36 psi and a couple of hours later it had dropped to 32 psi. I will have to see what it is when I get home this evening and it is on to the next days cycle. It's annoying as I get home and the flow is not what I had set the previous day, so my DC is dark green and the lights have already been on an hour. I then tweak the pressure back up and an hour later the DC is lime green. I checked for leaks again last night and still can't find anything.


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## Wisey (9 Feb 2016)

Miro has been in touch and confirmed that they have recently had some issues with their dual stage regulators. He has asked that I reset the system again and then set it up with the maximum working pressure, so that is a job for this evening. I can only assume that the first stage of the regulator reduces the bottle pressure to a level that means when I open the second stage to maximum its not too high to damage downstream components. I have e-mailed asking for confirmation of this as I have no idea how much pressure items like the bubble counter are designed to handle.


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## Wisey (9 Feb 2016)

Following Miros instructions I resleased all the pressure in the reg and setup again on the bottle, opened the solenoid and needle valve, opened up the flow of CO2 to the tank and turned the working pressure to maximum. This gave me 94 psi on the working pressure gauge. I set a sensible bubble rate, checked again 92 psi. Left it half an hour, checked again, down to 88 psi, went out for a while, came home and checked after it had been running for 2 hours, down to 80 psi, left it another half hour, it's closer to 78 psi now.

Something tells me this reg is banjaxed! I used the Snoop leak detection fluid on it and still can't find any leaks anywhere


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## aaron.c (10 Feb 2016)

Hmm not good that. My pressure drops when the CO2 comes on, but it remains stable.  And when the CO2 goes off, it goes back up again


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## Wisey (10 Feb 2016)

Miro says that is normal for the pressure to drop, but it should stabilise. I can understand it is normal for it to drop, but by 22:00 last night when the CO2 went off it was down to 72 psi. That's a 22 psi drop over the 4 hours I ran the system, surely that can't be right? I don't know if it would stabilise at 72 if it had been left to run longer, or would continue to fall. The bubble rate just got slower and slower over the 4 hours and I only ever managed a dark green DC throughout the whole photoperiod. Once the solenoid switched off it jumped back up towards 85/86 psi.

It will come back on at 15:00 today on the timer. I didn't adjust the bubble rate to accommodate the falling pressure last night, so I hope it should still be set to be correct when the gas comes on, in case it does come back on at around 86 psi again. If I had opened it up further last night then I would end up gassing my fish when it starts up later.

I can understand that there would be a change in working pressure when the solenoid opens, but I can't believe that such a large drop over a number of hours can be normal. I would need to set the bubble rate to a level that would gas my fish at the start of the photoperiod so that it was still delivering enough gas later in the photoperiod when the pressure had dropped. That's clearly not right!


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## aaron.c (10 Feb 2016)

Out of interest, why do you run it so high? I run mine at 50psi and I thought that was high.


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## Wisey (10 Feb 2016)

I usually run it at 40 psi, but Miro asked me to run it at maximum working pressure for testing purposes.

You would usually only need to run it this high if you were trying to feed multiple diffusers.


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## Wisey (10 Feb 2016)

Getting home tonight the working pressure is down at 72 psi again, around 1 bubble per second instead of the 3 that was set with the higher pressure yesterday. My DC is blue/green, so I have upped my bubble rate back to 3. My concern now is that the working pressure could go back up to 80-90 when it starts tomorrow and as I have opened the needle valve further I could gas my fish. I've emailed CO2Art with the latest info, but I've totally lost confidence with this regulator now.

Fluctuations of over 20 psi in a matter of hours leaves me in a position where I either risk my plants not getting the required CO2, or my fish could get gassed. Not a comfortable position to be in. I feel my only sensible option is to switch off the CO2 and reduce my lights back to 4 hours at low intensity until I can get this resolved. It's not fair to put my fish at risk. So frustrating as the Ech. Rose that was dormant and slowly dying has just started putting out new red leaves. Aaaaargh


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## alto (11 Feb 2016)

Just set CO2 to a relatively low/safe consistent bubble rate & leave running 24/7

If you're able to run lights when home, do this
 - low levels of CO2 will be present from the 24/7 method
 - just increase CO2 when you turn lights on
 - turn CO2 back down an hour or so before lights off

Your plants will still do better than with no CO2 
& you can wait on regulator replacement etc


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## Wisey (11 Feb 2016)

alto said:


> Just set CO2 to a relatively low/safe consistent bubble rate & leave running 24/7
> 
> If you're able to run lights when home, do this
> - low levels of CO2 will be present from the 24/7 method
> ...



That's a great idea, I wish I had seen this before I came to work. I have taken a chance and left it running on the timer. By the time it was about to turn off last night it had dropped to 68 psi, so it appears it has not stabilised at 72psi, but the rate it drops at has reduced now. When the solenoid closed it only went back up to 78 psi, so I hope that the bubble rate that is set will be ok, its not jumped back up to 80-90 psi.

Hopefully the fish are ok when I get home tonight and I will switch over to running 24/7 as you suggest.


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## Wisey (11 Feb 2016)

Miro and CO2Art have come good as usual! I have been offered the latest top of the range regulator which is not even on sale yet, will be one of the first people to get one and try it out. It will be such a relief to get reliable CO2 up and running before my rescape in a couple of weeks.

Preparation for the re-scape is going well. Lawn edging has arrived and new black tinting film for the background just turned up today. I got some nice rocks and think I just about have a hardscape plan created after some trial layouts last night. I just need to decide whether I get a lily or violet pipe, see this thread:

http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/flow-for-this-type-of-aquascape.39869/

I'm thinking the violet style is the way forward with the taller tank to get flow down to the plants.

I just need to decide on plants now and see where I am going to order from.


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## aaron.c (11 Feb 2016)

Well done @co2art - great guys 


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## Wisey (15 Feb 2016)

Thankfully my replacement regulator is due to arrive today. Over the weekend it appears that my solenoid has also failed, CO2 is running 24/7 even though I still had it set to switch on and off with the timer. When the solenoid is switched on I get normal CO2 levels, when the solenoid is switched off, I still get CO2, but at a slightly reduced rate! I have removed from the timer and just set to run constantly at a slightly lower level. Fingers crossed I can get the new one set up this evening and it solves my problems.


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## Wisey (16 Feb 2016)

So the new regulator went on last night and it is a really nice looking bit of kit, I think they will be popular when they go on sale, but I have no idea what it is going to retail at as its supposed to become the flagship model. There are some nice features, it now comes with a universal power adapter that you can switch to UK, Europe, US and some other that I have no idea where it is for. I like this as I hated having to use a UK\Euro adapter on it before, especially plugged in to a timer, it stuck out so far and was difficult to get in the cabinet behind the filter. The solenoid also comes with a short cable which attaches to a longer cable that goes to the plug, so if you want to detach to move the FE out of the cabinet, you can do so without having to reach back to the plugs, its a small thing but it contributes to making life easier.

The entire regulator design is better, it sits on the front of the FE rather than sticking a long way off the side, so its much more compact and will be really appreciated by people like myself with limited cabinet space. I also find things are laid out a bit better, there is a larger gap between the regulator and solenoid body which is helpful. They were so close on my old reg that a standard spanner would not fit in the gap, that's rectified now. The working pressure knob is also much more positive, its firm and the travel is shorter and it just feels more substantial compared to the old blue one that got wobbly when you wound it towards the lower end of the travel.

I have to say that I did have some problems with working pressure not stabilising yet, but within 5psi that is normal I'm told. I didn't have time for an extended period of testing last night, but will run it longer tonight and monitor to ensure that the pressure remains stable on this new reg.

In other news I ordered the new violet style outflow pipe from CO2Art last night and have just placed a plant order with TGM which should arrive middle of next week ready for the rescape. I guess this journal will close next week and a new one starts!


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