# "Slow Roast" Rio 125



## MooseOnDaLoose (6 Jun 2017)

The magic Multiple Tank fairy dropped off a Rio125 so I'm going to get my nano sorted then make a start on this, maybe low tech but haven't decided yet.

It may be a few months before I get this going but figured I'd start a Journal since some drunken clicking has made these bits turn up today:




 

Looking forward to spending some time finding the right positioning.

The plan is some bigger background, carpet mid and foreground with a nice moss growing on the redwood.

Going to get the Nano growing nicely first though before doing anything with this.


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## greenmac75 (6 Jun 2017)

like your pieces,i'm  in.


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## Mannic05 (6 Jun 2017)

Great looking pieces of redmoor root.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn Moto G (4) met Tapatalk


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## MooseOnDaLoose (6 Jun 2017)

Cheap as chips as well.  eBay turned up trumps.  Let hope they sink after a good soak


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## SuperJam (6 Jun 2017)

Following the journal with interest 


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## gregl (7 Jun 2017)

Looking good so far, moss on those pieces is an exciting prospect.


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## MooseOnDaLoose (13 Jun 2017)

The wood is busy soaking and surprisingly after a couple of changes of water isn't leaching too many tannins.  Next up for the wood is some baby bottle sanitizer and it should be good.

Some more goodies turned up today:


 

All Pond Solutions EF2+ canister filter (It's a beast for 85 quid)
Dennerle crystal quartz
About 6 litres of Tropica Aquarium Soil (Bought way too much for the nano)
Drop Checker
Bubble Counter
Rhinox 2000
Some Purigen (I love this stuff)
Hydor inline heater (Went for a 300w as this room get cold in the winter, one radiator for a big l shaped room)
Some spare co2 tubing

Waiting for the Chihiros 601+ (wish I'd seen the one for sale on here before I ordered)
Solenoid

Then its time to start scaping, going to try the youghurt method with some moss and DSM to get it going.

Fun times!


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## MooseOnDaLoose (16 Jun 2017)

Wow the Chihiros turned up six days after ordering.  Bonkers!

Blimey thats a powerful light.  Getting close to getting started now.  Waiting on a solenoid to turn up then we can start thinking about plants.


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## Juraj C. (16 Jun 2017)

Do you plan to use chihiros light under the cover from Juwel or will you remove the cover?


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## MooseOnDaLoose (16 Jun 2017)

The cover is going and I'm thinking of using a plastic top that will just act as a condensation collector when the lights are off.  The rough plan is have that not completely cover the entire tank.

Do you have any views or advice on this?


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## Juraj C. (16 Jun 2017)

I just wanted to know how you plan to do it. I was recently thinking that chihiros light would be a good option for juwel tanks and now I see I'm not the only one


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## MooseOnDaLoose (19 Jun 2017)

Ahh cool.  I think I'm going to see if I can a condensation lid for it and see how that goes Juraj.  

Finally found some milton and the red moor was looking like all the tannins were out of it so i drained it, added the milton tabs and refilled it.  This is what I found this morning....


 

Guess it needs a few more rinses 

In other news everything is here apart from plants and a solenoid.  Might buy the plants in a week or two.  This is what I was thinking:


 

Dwarf hairgrass as a foreground carpet with some sag on the left and right.

Anubis at places on the wood, in the clump at the bottom was my thinking.  Then crypts around those clumps growing backwards into the tank.  Some of the wood with Java Ferns on them (still unsure about these cus they grow and grow and grow and grow and grow) hmm.  

Java moss on the upward parts of the 'trunks' of the wood then weeping on the more horizontal parts so it weeps down. 

Then the others as background fodder 

I'm trying high tech, CO2 into the inlet of the filter, tropica aquasoil then denerelle crystal quartz on top.  TNC Complete for ferts (maybe switch to EI later)

Now taking away the fact that I am a world class algae farmer does anyone have any advice on the above?  Should I add more, remove some etc?  Will the dwarf hair grass work out here?

Thanks everyone


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## MooseOnDaLoose (30 Jun 2017)

So I have all the things to put this together apart from plants.

I'm off for a surgery and a week in hossy next week so this tank will probably be put together October time when Im fit and able to do the water changes.

On hold for now


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## Juraj C. (30 Jun 2017)

Get well soon.


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## MooseOnDaLoose (14 Oct 2017)

Now I'm back in the land of the living and can lift more than a kettle I've moved the tank to its final position and started putting the substrates in.  

Tropica Plant substrate in the bottom capped with dennerelle crystal quartz.

The wood is now in its final position.  I hope you all like how its organised.  I tried about 30 different ways and finally settled on this.  I think it's going to look great with a carpet of hair grass and different mosses on the wood.



 

Need to do some cleaning up, then get the plants and equipment in then flood it.  Exciting


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## Leesey (14 Oct 2017)

Looks really good!


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## MooseOnDaLoose (15 Oct 2017)

so HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA!  I'm a noob and i screwed up!



 

Going well.



 

Yep looking good.



 

Oh darn it!

So next weekend will consist of stripping it, tying it to the crate in the bottom (Why i didnt do this I have no idea, must have slipped my mind) and fixing it all back together.

Should i just leave the lights off for a week or just let it run?


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## MooseOnDaLoose (15 Oct 2017)

Anyways ignoring todays cock up the plants are:

Eleocharis acicularis dwarf hair grass for the carpet.
Cryptocoryne beckettii as a specimen plant - Left wood grouping
Cryptocoryne wendtii as a specimen plant - Left wood grouping
Java fern on the wood on the left
Anubias barteri on the right piece of wood
Java moss on the wood

Simple but should look great once its all "sorted" and established.


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## Cactusface (15 Oct 2017)

Hi Moose,
                I set up a Rio 125 early this year, but just a standard planted set up, but I'm just getting to try a bit of Aqauscaping, your wood looks good and has structure. You plants sound good. I have just discovered that all the rock I have in my tank is I think so called "Ocean rock" as it releases minerals and makes your water hard, No wonder I did no good with my Apistos. So once I get my crystal shrimps sorted, the Rio's in for a make over with perhaps active substrate, etc.   Will keep an eye on your project.
Regads

Mel.


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## MooseOnDaLoose (16 Oct 2017)

Hey Mel!  

Dang about the rocks. Best of luck if you do change it around.

Ended up having some time tonight to fix my cockup yesterday.

Can't say I'm in love with the new layout but it's not terrible so once everything has grown in I'm sure it'll look great.  Moved crypts to the right of the tank and hoping the plants are going to be ok.

Day 1 Slow Roast


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## MooseOnDaLoose (24 Oct 2017)

Day 8

Crypts melting and some CO2 changes and way of injection.  I suspect I'll change CO2 to an inline when I can find one I like/trust.  For now its going via a Rhinox 1000 under the inlet.  Even this doesn't seem to be diffusing properly so an inline I suspect would work better.

Plants, the crypts are melting as mentioned above.  I think they'll recover.  Mini hair grass is anchoring down and opening up.  Some are pearling.  The anubis seems happy considering. The moss will kick off at some point and start growing.  The gluing hasn't really worked in lots of places.

Water changes 25% every other day and 5ml TNC Complete every day.

Ended up doing a water change and a bunch of fry from the other tank came over so I fast matured the tank with filter media from Charlie Chi and added a bunch of immature endlers to test.  They have been happy for days so added more each day, all happy.  Moved a Snail over to see and it's good so ordered more snails and got a bunch of cherry shrimp on order.

Apart from some bacterial growth on the wood (now dead because of the mature filter media added five days ago) all I've got is a bit of brown spot growing on the glass and parts of the wood.  The snails/shrimp combo should sort that along with the plants kicking into gear.

Lighting is the Chihiros on full power, 8 hours, 4pm-12am.  CO2 running 2:30pm - 10pm.  

Everything seems happy.  Next challenge is to get the CO2 to diffuse properly and get the drop checker to drop


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## Martin in Holland (25 Oct 2017)

MooseOnDaLoose said:


> the crypts are melting


Crypts usualy melt, but come back stronger.


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## MooseOnDaLoose (25 Oct 2017)

Martin in China said:


> Crypts usualy melt, but come back stronger.


Yea, they are already pushing out small leaves now.


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## MooseOnDaLoose (6 Nov 2017)

Suffice to say the emergency evac of everything out of Charlie Chi along with continuing issues balancing CO2 levels and keep them stable has created a bit of a mess.

Plenty of algae or various kinds.  Stressed fish from before the evac and after. Along with the issues with the wood early on have knocked the tank out of balance.

Now its to get things back on track.

CO2
  The JBL has turned up so I'll install that at the weekend
  I'm thinking of binning the DIY Citric acid jobber and going for a soda stream bottle and reg.  Money isn't there yet though to do this.

Water Changes
  Tank is smashing out nitrates faster than the plants can cope so water changes are now 30% every other day

Feeding
  Got an auto feeder (its really rather good with flake, everything else its junk with) put in flake and a slow sinker.  The grain size of the slow sinkers clogs it on the lowest setting and it basically gives out nothing.  Next step up dumps loads in to the tank (hence tonights water change).  Emptied and filled with just flake so should be good from now.

Filteration
  Had the same KH drops to zero I had with Charlie Chi.  Added a tablespoon of crushed coral to help buffer the CO2 injection against horrid pH drops.  Tank was getting down to 6 pH.  Had to stop that; suspect the wood is leaching 
  Added a nylon tight around the intake.  Filter was swallowing way too many shrimp.  This has dropped flow and caused the err skimmer to suck in a load of air as that became the preferred source for the filter.  Removed the skimmer and capped it.  Life is good again.

Plants
  They are growing.  Some are doing better than others.  Pretty much all mosses are covered in brown algae right now.

Tank looked a mess but it'll correct over the coming weeks so water changes, get everything in balance and then it'll be good.

Not how I wanted this tank to start but thats life.  It's all correctable right now so its just a case of keep up the discipline and crack on.


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## MooseOnDaLoose (7 Nov 2017)

This really is becoming the start from hell.

Auto feeder issue caused a metric ton of food dumped into the tank this morning.  Got home to dead shrimp.  Massive amounts of nitrates and a co2 cock up.

Urgh.

So this was before the water change, clean up and reset.  Stripped the filter from the Chi, removed most of the filter material and using this as a co2 reactor.  Working well, will see tomorrow.  Fish happier but damn this tank is a mess.

It'll settle over the next week and especially if i can get Co2 to settle then the plants will kick off and start sucking the mess out of the tank.

The start for this has been a real mess. Such is life...


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## MooseOnDaLoose (8 Nov 2017)

I am borderline ready to strip this tank, bin the plants and start again on saturday.

Its a real mess now, the big filter isn't pumping out anywhere near enough flow, co2 is now sorted but its a real clusterf**k.

I'm thinking, remove all the fauna.  The wood and then substrate.

Re-attach the wood to the egg crate, put in, substrate back on top.  Replant with new plants, mainly hair grass and mosses then re fill.

I dunno whether to leave it and see what happens now co2 is sorted or whether its beyond repair. Hmm


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## StephenB (8 Nov 2017)

I feel for you! My plants arrive on Friday for my new tank so dreading the appearance of algae.


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## MooseOnDaLoose (9 Nov 2017)

Oh its got loads worse!

The utterly terrible All Pond Solutions EF2+ won't seal. Thats why its flow is so bad.

The tank now is in a very sorry state.  Lights are off, because the filter is off (I don't trust it not to dump the tank on the floor) that means the inline heater is off.  I've got a small internal heater on at the minute but I'm not hopeful it will keep it warm enough.

I've got another 150l/h filter on the tank for now.

Urgh what a mess.

Fluval 306 is on order by I can't get that until sometime saturday so I'm going to have to grin it out for 2 days.

I'm thinking of getting some new plants on saturday when I go to pick up the filter and then rescape.  No time tonight to move the fish into a bucket either so I'll just have to hope they are ok until tomorrow night.

All the best laid plans are just that until they meet the light of day.


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## MooseOnDaLoose (19 Dec 2017)

After the massive problems of filters breaking and leaking everywhere the 306 has been on for a bit.  Inline jbl, and moved to a sodastream reg and solenoid.  The algae is bonkers but its going day by day.

Tank right now..


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## AverageWhiteBloke (19 Dec 2017)

But other than that everything going OK? Well done for sticking that out mate, a lesser man would have stripped that down. It all gets better from here. I hope anyway.



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## MooseOnDaLoose (19 Dec 2017)

Cheers fella.  I want to see if I can rescue it!  Damn its hard work but I'm convinced it can be saved.  

Temptation has been HUGE to sack it off though and never ever look at a fish tank again!  hahah


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## Kezzab (19 Dec 2017)

Tank looks awesome in a mad way!


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## MooseOnDaLoose (19 Dec 2017)

Kezzab said:


> Tank looks awesome in a mad way!


Its err very Natural


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## foxfish (19 Dec 2017)

Wow, looks amazing!!


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## dw1305 (19 Dec 2017)

Hi all, 





Kezzab said:


> Tank looks awesome in a mad way!


I was just thinking that, the pearling is phenomenal. It reminds me of <"this one">.


premierpark said:


>


cheers Darrel


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## AverageWhiteBloke (19 Dec 2017)

If shrimp had porn sites this tank would definitely be on it. Load it up with Amano and a couple of SAE. They'll make short work of that in no time if you don't feed them.  

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## kadoxu (20 Dec 2017)

MooseOnDaLoose said:


> After the massive problems of filters breaking and leaking everywhere the 306 has been on for a bit.  Inline jbl, and moved to a sodastream reg and solenoid.  The algae is bonkers but its going day by day.
> 
> Tank right now..
> 
> ...



Wow! It actually looks good!


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## MooseOnDaLoose (20 Dec 2017)

AverageWhiteBloke said:


> If shrimp had porn sites this tank would definitely be on it. Load it up with Amano and a couple of SAE. They'll make short work of that in no time if you don't feed them.
> 
> Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk


It's got six amanos (thinking fo adding more), a bunch of cherrys, two ottos and six nerterites.  Its gradually coming back especially now the co2 is sorted and stable.  

ProTip: baking soda, citric acid is bloody unstable at delivery rates on larger tanks... Who Knew??? (EVERYONE)


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## AverageWhiteBloke (20 Dec 2017)

Haha they sure did pal. Amano are the most effective at chomping algae as long as they are hungry. 

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## Edvet (22 Dec 2017)

At least it's pearling


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## kadoxu (22 Dec 2017)

Edvet said:


> At least it's pearling


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## MooseOnDaLoose (28 Dec 2017)

Algae getting less...




 

Found about 10 cherry shrimps loving it in the filter...



 

Getting better day by day although I'm not convinced it's winnable.  Time will tell


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## MooseOnDaLoose (31 Dec 2017)

Lighting dropped to setting 3 on the Chihiros guessing from data provided in a thread on here I think the tank is at around 40 par.  Currently doing pH profiles to find when is best to turn the lights on.


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## MooseOnDaLoose (9 Jan 2018)

Quite a lot of the algae now gone.  Some left on the glass (lazy snails hehe) and some brush on the left log.  Some still on leaves but they will be removed at the next clean up at the weekend.

Slowly getting there.



 

Looking a lot better than it did a few weeks ago


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## MooseOnDaLoose (9 Jan 2018)

Side By Side to show progress... Lots to do but looking much better


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## Jocke (13 Jan 2018)

MooseOnDaLoose said:


> Side By Side to show progress... Lots to do but looking much better
> 
> View attachment 112504



Nice recovery!
This is so encouraging for me to read. I had a beautiful tank a month ago but changed the light and got massive melt and after that massive algae outbreak.

If it wasn't for all the money i spent I would have liked just to throw it out through the window 








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## JackH (14 Jan 2018)

This is looking lush- lovely scape!


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## MooseOnDaLoose (29 Jan 2018)

A few more weeks later... Starting to grow in and get into its groove.  I'm leaving it be for now


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## MooseOnDaLoose (13 Apr 2018)

It's been a while and after letting it grow out loads I've removed about two ton of floating plants and are now letting them grow again.

Plan is to repeat this cycle a few times then do a full trim and reposition.  Considering this was a tank of bubbling algae not long ago it's come a long way.  

From an Aquascapers POV its a sack of sh*t.  From a fish tank owners POV the plants are happy and the fish are happy, breading and thoroughly interesting to watch.  I guess its in the middle of where I wanted and I'm cool with that.


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## MooseOnDaLoose (6 Apr 2019)

Good bye Slow Roast.  Its been painful but also a pleasure.

May your next owner have as much fun!


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