# 16 gallon Rescape Journal



## daniel19831123 (16 Apr 2008)

After previously scaping a 16 gallon in dutch/natural style, I decided to strip the tank down and start of scratch. After looking at all the planted tank from cau aqua, I've decided to take the plunge and try something similar.

The most difficult task I find is getting bogwood which is of desirable shape to fit in a 24" tank. The nice one are either far too big or way too pricy. Redmoor wood sounds like a good option for me and I was tempted to buy a few of those when I visited the green machine but they were way too twisted for my liking.

After a long long search, I managed to find some manzanita wood that has some brilliant curvature. I bought a whole lot of it and get it imported from the states!   This is how many wood I received. I only used 7 pieces of them and got about 20 pieces extra!





Substrate wise, I decided to stick to akadama as it lowers the hardness of the water and this is much favourable to me. Washing these substrate was a pain in the back.... Literally pain in the back. Those long hours of squatting and kneeling besides my bathtub running my hand through icy cold water just trying to get rid of those cloudy water really kills my back. And I'm only 24  :? Took me over 4 hours to wash 15l of the substrate and still I don't considered the substrate to be clean enough.







As if washing the substrate is not enough, I had a whole tank of topsoil that I need to clean from my tank before the akadama can go in the tank. Some corner with deeper end of substrate was foul smelling due to the lack of oxygen and formed dead space. Well to make the story short, my room stinks of rotten eggs by the end of the day. (Garuf, if you are reading this, maybe you are lucky that you didn't come and help me out )







CO2 is supplied by a 10L CO2 bottle through a nano diffuser sitting right under the inlet of eheim 2232. CO2 is regulated by a solenoid.



15kg bottle, 2kg bottle, and 0.5kg bottle in a row.

Lighting is supplied by a germany company that auction cheap overtank luminaire on ebay. I've decided to go with 4x24W overtank luminaire with 2 normal day light tube and 2 grolux tube. Lighting is left on for 10 hours continuously on a daily basis regulated by a timer.

I've taken most of my plant out from my previous tank. It never ceased to amazed me how much organic substrate that the tank has accumulated within a month period. Rotten leaves and fish dropping were accumulated in unbelievable amount in areas that is invinsible to our naked eye. No wonder my tank keep getting grey staghorn algae. Any suggestion as how to avoid this issue will be greatly appreciated. I suppose increasing the flow will help but that means I need to invest another 60-70 quid in a bigger filter... 

Picture of some plants from previous tank



UG



mixed


crypt balansae. Got 25 of these little bugger. Pain to plant.... Ended up getting annoyed and trimming all the leaves away so they don't get in my way.

OK. after hours and hours of hard work, I finally managed to put together my bits and pieces.



Initial hardscape.

Will post more picture once the crypt starts growing leaves again and the plants are more settled.

Plant that will be going in this tank will be 

Pogostemon stellatus broad leaves
Limnophila aromatica
Didiplis diandra
Crypt balansae
Urtricularia graminofolia
Rotala rotundifolia sp green?
Blyxa japonica
Hamianthus Callictrichoides
Maybe some bolbitis heudelotti if there is space for the plant and I can be bothered to remove the wood to tie them onto it.


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## beeky (16 Apr 2008)

Looking good. I like the fan shape of the wood arrangement. How much did it cost to get wood sent from the states?! That's dedication!

When are the plants going in?


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## daniel19831123 (16 Apr 2008)

cost me about 50 quid inc. postage but i think it's worth it as I've now got enough wood to fully scape a 4 footer! The plants are in the tank now as we speak but not going to post any picture till they've grown a bit. I wanted to do a before and after picture when the plants are a little more settle.


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## beeky (16 Apr 2008)

That's not  a bad price for all that wood. Nice bits there as well.

Looking forward to seeing how it turns out.


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## JamesC (16 Apr 2008)

Nice one. That's a good price for all that wood. I'll be interested in seeing how you get on with the Akadama. You washed the Akadama the hard way. Took me about 15 minutes per bag to get it pretty clean by using a kitchen sieve.

I've got some UG growing in my tank and it has taken off big time. Seems to like the Akadama and roots really well.

Thanks
James


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## daniel19831123 (16 Apr 2008)

I could do that too but my housemate will kill me if she finds out that I've been dipping her kitchen sieve in what she refer to as dirt  I suppose the hard work does pay off. The water was clear from the moment I start filling the tank with water


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## johnny70 (16 Apr 2008)

Very nice, any chance of a link to where you bought the wood:?

Cheers
JOHNNY


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## daniel19831123 (16 Apr 2008)

It's a private seller. no webpage. I keep in contact with him through email. He's keen to sell his wood over to the UK. I think you can find them in local florist shop as they are the same one they use for flower arrangement but the one I see locally tend not to be as nicely curved as the one that this guy had hand pick though I had to say some of the branches sent to me were too thin to be used in my tank. They can be broken up and be used in a pico tank I suppose.


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## Arana (16 Apr 2008)

Loving the wood arrangement Dan, great start... when's the plants going in?


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## Steve Smith (16 Apr 2008)

Looks great Dan!  Loving the wood arangement.  Will be interested in how the UG grows.  Its a plant I've thought about growing, but I should really get to grips with something more basic first


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## daniel19831123 (16 Apr 2008)

The plant is now in the tank for 24 hours now. The UC and HC seemed a little tattered after replanting. They looked alright in the previous tank but due to my terrible work load in the hospital, I slack off on the tight dosing regime and guess what I've got algae! I spent quite some time trying to hand pick those one that hasn't been coated with algae and those that are coated with algae I will nip the leaves off. 

I've put pogostemon stellatus in the middle in between the wood. I tried to make use of the golden ratio but it's difficult when you have the base of the wood lying right there as a stump. I ended up planting the plants around it. Limnophila aromatica goes in the right end corner just to add a pinch of pink to the picture . The tank will be mostly fill with blyxa. can't wait till this tank mature and turn into a blyxa heaven.


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## Martin (17 Apr 2008)

I love these step by step journals and seeing how the scapes develop. An excellent start Daniel, that wood is beautiful, and the way you've arranged it is spot on. I think we all like to see all the different stages of a tank's development, including photos of co2 bottles and filters!I don't know why, maybe we are just nosey, or is that just me! I will post my tank journals one day, I have lots of photos waiting to be criticised. Anyway good work Daniel keep posting the piccies, everyone loves a photo!


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## daniel19831123 (17 Apr 2008)

This is the picture of the tank in day 2. Can't see the didiplis diandra at the moment as they are all hiding on the right hand corner between the two pieces of bog wood.

Hc and crypt balansae seemed to be throwing out some new leaves but no sign of growth for UG at the moment. I've trimmed all the leaves from my bolbitis mother plant and was thinking of adding them to the tank but can't seemed to find a nice spot for them to grow. Crypts were all planted in the back to create a background wall

Hopefully the limnophila will turn out red. If they didn't turn out as red as I want them to be, I might change them into rotal macandra and plant it right in between the V shape wood and make it the centre of focus.
Just a few picture of me cutting the leaves of bolbitis while crying my heart out. These leaves took me 4 months to grow and now they are going in the bin!










I had about 27 plugs of it. I think these plug will end up in my shrimp only tank to be grown again. Maybe I will have some to offer in 6 months time!


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## ceg4048 (18 Apr 2008)

Dan,
       As far as I know L. aromatica is not fundamentally a red plant (at least not the version I have), and is certainly not in the class of R. macandra in terms of red. The underside of the leaves can turn magenta and it normally only achieves non-green colors as it approaches the surface. I suppose if you carefully limit NO3 you might coax some red but you are just as likely to see yellows:


 



Cheers,


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## daniel19831123 (18 Apr 2008)

I was hoping mine is going to turn out this way. lol
http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/9205/20659809vm3.jpg

Yeah the plant I got from you pretty much turn out the same as yours. Even those one that I saw in the green machine are no where as red as these plants in the picture. I would kill to get hold of some of these specimen! They are truly stunning. Even macandra can't compare to that red.


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## Ark (18 Apr 2008)

hi daniel nice start, is akadama expensive and where can you buy it from online?


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## daniel19831123 (18 Apr 2008)

There is a few shops that sell them online. I bought mine for Â£9 per bag and Â£7 for postage. However if you are thinking of buying multiple bag there is another webpage that sells it for Â£11 per bag but postage is a flat rate of Â£8.50. That one works out cheaper if you are getting 3 bags or more. 

This is the webpage with flat delivery rate and each bag cost Â£11.95. this work out cheaper if you are buying more than 3 bags.
http://www.greendragonbonsai.co.uk/BONS ... BONSAI.htm

This webpage is better if you are buying 3 bags or less. Delivery for 2 bags of akadama remains at 7 quid.
http://www.herons.co.uk/index.asp


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## ceg4048 (18 Apr 2008)

Dan, undoubtedly there are other color variants, but one thing about dosing EI is that the high Nitrogen content of this scheme means that the plants will produce a very high chlorophyll population. This pigment is green so it will tend to obscure other pigment colors when high nitrates are dosed. I have a feeling that the extreme red in the plant shown in your picture is accomplished by very tight control of nitrates, not by just throwing megawattage at it. That may mean lots of testing/calibration to ensure that you do not bottom out nitrate, which causes problems. The choice is yours at the end of the day but I reckon if you want red while dosing EI then just get a red plant like R. macandra. From the new Tropica catalog I see that they do a red hygrophila now, which I hadn't noticed before, so that might be another option.

Cheers,


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## daniel19831123 (18 Apr 2008)

Guess I'll have to give it up then. The tap water here comes with 50ppm nitrate. Unless I use full RO water there is no way I can limit the nitrate. I suspect that's why my shrimp died. Might just leave the plant out or alter as my tank mature.


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## Garuf (18 Apr 2008)

Wow Dan! Great work on this, I wish I'd not been working! I can't wait to see how this comes on, all I can suggest is to up your co2 and ferts and see how it goes, something to really turbo charge that growth. 
How are your shrimp I'm thinking of getting some more but I can't be dealing with the loss, I'm sure its something in our water I just can't pinpoint what.


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## Arana (18 Apr 2008)

the plants look great dan, they will complement the wood well once they grow in


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## daniel19831123 (19 Apr 2008)

Garuf said:
			
		

> Wow Dan! Great work on this, I wish I'd not been working! I can't wait to see how this comes on, all I can suggest is to up your co2 and ferts and see how it goes, something to really turbo charge that growth.
> How are your shrimp I'm thinking of getting some more but I can't be dealing with the loss, I'm sure its something in our water I just can't pinpoint what.



Yeah it's definitely something in our water. i don't know any other place that has tap water with nitrate of 50 ppm! I know that poor packaging sometimes results in shrimp arrived alive but then takes week to die but the shrimp was looking alright when they were in my tank and then they started gradually dieing off... I'm going to give it another try but this time with Ro water remineralised. If they still die on me, I will then blame it on my poor tank maintenance. lol


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## Garuf (19 Apr 2008)

I dunno, even when I was cleaning my filter once a week and doing 80% water changes I was losing shrimp, snails too thinking about it. Maybe we're missing out on calcium or something?


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## daniel19831123 (19 Apr 2008)

yeah I lost a lot of snails too surprisingly. Our water is loaded with calcium but no magnesium in it. The whole stoke on trent and the nearby area is supply by the severn water supply and you can get a full report on the water parameter online. yeah that's pretty much what I was doing, cleaning filter every week and 50% water change every week. Initially I thought it's my EI that killed the shrimp since my japonica shrimp seemed to be fine. I think it's those finicky shrimp that we'll have problem with.


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## Garuf (19 Apr 2008)

I don't think so, I've lost cherries tigers and amano's all in our water, I'd be interested to see how RO goes, also I read that filtering the water through activated carbon before use could help. I've heard that our water pipes are all still lead, could be a problem, no?


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## Arana (19 Apr 2008)

Garuf said:
			
		

> I've heard that our water pipes are all still lead, could be a problem, no?



YES


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## Steve Smith (19 Apr 2008)

Would using a good dechlorinator help, one with good heavy metal removing ability?  Not sure about lead though...


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## daniel19831123 (19 Apr 2008)

I've done that before. I'm using prime and I'm using 3 times the recommended dose and still the shrimp died. I think it only binds the metal temporarily and then eventually it will release it. Hehe well at least I managed to keep all my amano alive. I might try using one tank with just pure Ro water and then when the shrimp established itself and finger cross and start breeding, I will add a bag of carbon to my bigger tank and see if this clear the water issue. If this trick works then it will work out much cheaper to replace the carbon than to buy RO water every week for water change. It's Â£2.50 per 25 litre! so which means I will probably be spending 5 quid a week on water changing.


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## Steve Smith (19 Apr 2008)

Or, source a cheap RO unit.  Seen some going on eBay for Â£20 - Â£30 recently...  I don't know much about RO though, so I could be wrong...


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## Garuf (19 Apr 2008)

It's not carbon in the tank, its filtering the water with carbon BEFORE adding it to the tank, I read a few shrimp folks swear by it.


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## daniel19831123 (19 Apr 2008)

I could get a cheap source of RO unit but the thing is that I live in a rented accomodation and I don't I can install it in this place. Unless someone is willing to install it for me, I'm more than happy to pay for the price of the unit. lol. Gareth, you listening?


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## Garuf (19 Apr 2008)

Huh? What was that Dan? I'm abit out of the way just to collect water am I not? I'll see what I can do however, thinking about it I'm sure there's a reefer in my village I might skate down and ask them what they use.


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## Ed Seeley (19 Apr 2008)

If you get an RO unit get a decent one and it will last for ages.  Mine's from RO Man and it has been great (over 5 years old now and still on the same membrane, just replace the prefilters every 6 months or so).  They are dead easy to plumb in and you can simply remove it and take it with you if you move house.


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## daniel19831123 (19 Apr 2008)

Don't you have to drill a hole in the in coming water supply and another hole in the out going drain and plumb the whole thing. I'm not even sure how to shut the main water supply off in this house! Does anyone has any step by step instruction with picture how to plumb an RO unit? I've been looking on the net and the one I see so far are complicated.


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## Ed Seeley (19 Apr 2008)

daniel19831123 said:
			
		

> Don't you have to drill a hole in the in coming water supply and another hole in the out going drain and plumb the whole thing. I'm not even sure how to shut the main water supply off in this house! Does anyone has any step by step instruction with picture how to plumb an RO unit? I've been looking on the net and the one I see so far are complicated.



You have to either pierce the cold water feed using the fiting supplied or you can get a different fitting to fit the mains feed onto a threaded tap fitting too.  All you do is find a point on the copper pipe and screw the fitting on; it pierces the pipe as you fit it!  It's dead easy and a small fitting that a landlord probably wouldn't notice...

As to the waste, yes it has to go into a waste point (or you can save the waste water too to use in a hard water tank or pond or put it out into the garden onto plants that need a lot of water like a bog garden).  However this simply means pushing the green waste line into a drain somewhere.  Mine used to go into the waste feed from the washing machine in the garage.

More tricky is how you save the product water.  Personally I have a water barrel in the garage with an automatic top-up.  I have a tap on the barrel and simply fill a container quickly from there and then this barrel slowly tops up and stops automatically when full again.

It looks and sounds way more complicated than it actually is.  

I've posted photos and an explanation of my set up here.


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## daniel19831123 (20 Apr 2008)

Well just decided to take the plunge and buy a 50 GPD reverse osmosis unit. I think I'm going to stick with the needle clamp method as it looks much easier than it is. It's still a little scary as I still can't find the main water supply shut off in my house. It better not leak or else I wouldn't know how to clear up this mess!

Will  be thinking of getting some SAE in my tank and probably some cherries shrimp. Has anyone kept dwarf shrimp and SAE together? Any idea if they will snack on the shrimplets?


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## Themuleous (20 Apr 2008)

I attach mine to the outside tap with a hozeloc connector, that way it's completely removable without any permanent damage.  It also means the waste runs onto the garden.

I got mine from Osmotics.co.uk.  I find the website a million times easier to use and for a 50GPD unit (with DI pod) its cheaper, by quite a bit.

http://www.ro-man.com/shop/product_info ... ucts_id/90

http://www.osmotics.co.uk/4-stage-50-ga ... Path=46_79

FYI - I just added a second membrane to mine, so the waste from the first gets recycled into a second membrane.  Its upped the product water rate by loads and greatly reduces the amount of waste water.  I might even get a third and recycle the recycled wasted!

Sam

PS - I highly recommend osmotics.  Customer support is superb, just like AE.


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## daniel19831123 (20 Apr 2008)

arghhhh now I'm gutted. for the same price I could have get a 4 stage filter! when you said 2nd membrane do you actually mean like a second set or RO unit and just connecting the waste to the inlet of the second unit to be filter again?


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## Themuleous (21 Apr 2008)

No, not a compete second kit, its literally a second membrane in housing that just clips onto what you have.

This is what I bought







Then I just added a second membrane in between the first membrane and the DI pod





The waste water from the first membrane gets pumped into the second, new membrane.  Then the product water from both does into the DI pod.





Hope that helps.  The blue tubing has product water.  Its far simpler to do than I had thought to be honest 

Sam


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## daniel19831123 (22 Apr 2008)

Got my RO kit today! Love it! Too bad the pipe system in this house is all hidden behind the wooden plank. I had to squeeze in the small aperture to get to the cold water pipe and fit it just to realise later when I need to tighten the nut, my wrench was too big to fit in the place. Picture to follow to demonstrate my point. Can't even check if it's just condensation or water leaking because it's damn dark. lol 

Hopefully this don't turn out to be a nightmare


 
This goes to prove sometimes size does matter! 






This pipe is so hidden that I don't think anyone will ever find out I made a hole in the pipe


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## Steve Smith (22 Apr 2008)

Looking good!  I don't think I would have the guts to go RO!  Mind, I don't think my water is that bad out of the tap, just quite hard!


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## daniel19831123 (23 Apr 2008)

Things not looking so good so far. The plants are growing way slower than I anticipated despite the high light, EI dosing and adequate stable CO2. Algae has been growing at a rate that I can't cope with. this is the first time I'm having problem with this kinda algae. So far no other algae problem besides what's in the picture.










Can anyone help me id this algae and how to correct it? I'm using EI and adding fert according to chuck calculator. Dosing macro on sunday, tuesday, and thursday and micro every alternate days. Water change 50% on sunday. 

I did checked out james algae guide and was hoping that it would be diatom or brown algae but then I have 7 otos in the tank and they don't seemed to be touching these algae. 

If it's hair algae or rhizoclonium then I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. regular water change and high nutrient dosing with stable CO2 and tank was matured from previous tank setup.





the green is actually of a lighter shade as I forgot to adjust the brightness when I took that photograph.

Any idea or advice?


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## Ed Seeley (23 Apr 2008)

Have you got any Excel or EasyCarbo?  Dosing some of that around the algae will soon knock it on it's head.  I'd do another water change tomorrow and syphon off as much algae as possible then dose after the W/C.  What are you adding to remineralise the RO water?


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## daniel19831123 (23 Apr 2008)

haven't started using remineralised water as yet. they are filling my storage tank as we speak. but I'm going just remineralised them with salt i.e. CaSO4, MgSO4, trace mix, KH2SO4 etc. I can't siphon that algae off. it's stuck so much to the plant that if I siphon it the whole plant just came off root. I'm dosing 3 x the recommended dose of excel now. Will see how it goes. just don't understand what went wrong. Never had this algae ever since i started keeping planted tank.


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## Ed Seeley (23 Apr 2008)

I'd still up the water changes to help remove any organics that may be encouraging the algae.  I'm sure it will only be a short lived thing while the plants get going.  Do you have plenty of fast growing plants in there to soak up all the nutrients?


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## Ray (23 Apr 2008)

Some people try cutting back the hours and level of lighting for the first weeks - could be that your plants are still adjusting to the new environment, increased CO2, not being emersed, etc. and are leaching ammonia triggering the algae.  Maybe you need to throttle back give things some time to bed in?


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## daniel19831123 (23 Apr 2008)

well I've got so called fast growing plants but I don't them being fast growing plants at all... Most of the plant came from my previous tank and they are pretty much submerged. 

Didiplis diandra, pogostemon stellatus, HC, UG, Crypt balansae, limnophila aromatica, rotal rotundifolia and Blyxa Japonica.

Didiples diandra, P. stellatus and Limnophila seemed to be growing at the same speed. Rotala is the fastest one but even then only grew about 1cm since a week ago....

Will probably take out of the tube tomorrow of that the tank will have only 72w rather than 96w. Or shall I just half it to 48w?


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## beeky (24 Apr 2008)

If it were me, I'd halve it. Do you see any pearling?


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## a1Matt (24 Apr 2008)

daniel19831123 said:
			
		

> Will  be thinking of getting some SAE in my tank and probably some cherries shrimp. Has anyone kept dwarf shrimp and SAE together? Any idea if they will snack on the shrimplets?



Yes.  I have kept cherry shrimp and SAE together successfully. No luck with breeding though, so can't say if baby shrimp would survive or not.

I also had a striped doradid (AKA chocolate catfish) and a large angelfish in the tank as well! I did not see the cherries within minutes of putting them in the tank. I asumed they had been eaten by the angel.  6 months later I removed the angelfish and the cherries reappeared!


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## daniel19831123 (24 Apr 2008)

beeky said:
			
		

> If it were me, I'd halve it. Do you see any pearling?



Well I never see pearling in my tank for some reason. don't know what's gone wrong here. I will only get pearling if I put the CO2 diffuser away from the filter inlet. If it's under the filter inlet, it get suck up into the filter and dissolve but no pearling. I don't think the previous method is any better actually because those pearling bubbles looks as if they are CO2 that just got stuck to the plants.


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## Themuleous (25 Apr 2008)

I would remineralise with tap, that plants could be lacking something and tap water contains all sorts of tasty things for the plants.

Excel should clear it in the short term.

Sam


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## ceg4048 (25 Apr 2008)

Dan you seem to be forgetting that your tank has not yet developed the proper population of bacteria yet. Also, how have you determined that your CO2 is sufficient, just because the drop checker is green? How do you know that 100 watts of light on a 16 gallon doesn't require that you drive the dropchecker into the yellow? You don't have nearly enough plant biomass and it not clear how many times a week you are doing a water change. Having fast growing plants is completely meaningless if all these other factors are ignored mate.  

Cheers,


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## daniel19831123 (26 Apr 2008)

But surely if the plant is using all the CO2 there will be less Co2 in the water and the drop checker should have indicated that shouldn't it? My drop checker is always on the verge of Green/yellow even when the lights are off and that should mean that there is plenty of Co2 in the tank right? I've used the 4kH solution instead of tank water.

The filter has been running for 4 months now, it should be pretty matured right? and there is not much fish load in my tank. Just 6 otocinclus.


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## ceg4048 (26 Apr 2008)

No, I think you might be missing the key which is that the amount of light that you have drives the demand for CO2 even higher. If this is T5 lighting you have basically unlimited lighting. If you have unlimited lighting you must supply unlimited CO2. Due to inefficiency of our injection as well as inefficiency of our flow, a green dropchecker does not necessarily indicate an unlimited concentration of CO2 available for uptake. If you are only seeing a limited amount of pearling this is one indication that your CO2 is poor.

Somewhere along the line many have assumed that a green dropchecker automatically means that the CO2 is fine. This might be true if CO2 never escaped the water. "Plenty of CO2" does not imply unlimited CO2. The CO2 uptake mechanism is not that simple. You can only determine this by continuing to add more CO2 until the growth rate is such that additional CO2 does not increase the growth rate. You have way too much light so you are beyond any margin of error. The wiser course of action is to drop the light significantly. 20-25 watts T5 would be plenty on this tank. You simply don't need that much light and it is killing you.  

Cheers,


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## daniel19831123 (27 Apr 2008)

The plant has started to grow quite quickly within the last few days and I think it will start growing very rapidly soon. Possibly now that the roots seems to be growing out of everywhere from the stems.

Thanks for your explanation clive but I seemed to get more and more confused over the CO2 issue. Assuming that this lighting is unlimited and I need to supply unlimited CO2, if I do so I should see pearling right? And if I'm not upping my Co2, I should lower down my lighting and the uptake of Co2 would be balance by the amount of photosynthesis and hence I should also see pearling? But I never see pearling in my tank unless I don't inject the Co2 in to the filter inlet and those gas bubbles looks more like Co2 that couldn't be dissolved rather than oxygen. I know that Co2 do escape easily from the water surface. I was checking out my drop checker the whole night to see if it changes colour once the light is off and Co2 is off. Surprisingly it remains greenish yellow throughout the night. 

Yes this is T5 lighting and I was attempting to have a high light and high co2 tank with not much fauna in it. I will half the lighting on the tank while keeping the Co2 the same for the meantime and see how the plants and algae grow. I've seen mark improvement since I've been starting the excel doses. Probably as the plants biomass increases, I will up the lighting again and increase the CO2 drive.

Nutrient wise I'm supplying the tank with approximately 

25ppm of NO3
30ppm of K
9ppm of PO4
10ppm of Mg
15ppm of Ca
0.5ppm of Fe

everyweek. (Calculation done using Aquaticplantcentral fertilator)Those are just basis estimation and chances is that I added more in the tank rather than less.


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## ceg4048 (27 Apr 2008)

Hi Dan,
           Yes, if you supply unlimited lighting and unlimited CO2 you will see pearling. If you have lower light you can see pearling with less CO2. The problem is that the plant decides whether the CO2 content is sufficient, not the drop checker. The fact that you get improved growth by using Excel is evidence that you have not been supplying sufficient CO2 (since Excel provides CO2.) You can lower the light but this alone does not guarantee that they will pearl with the amount of CO2 you are currently injecting. You may still need to add more CO2, but at least you will have a better chance of matching the Co2 requirement because of the lower CO2 demand.

It's really difficult to judge the dosing when given in weekly ppm because it's impossible to determine what quantity of nutrients you added to the tank to obtain those ppm values. The ppms look right, but did you prepare the solutions correctly or have you added the right amount of teaspoons/grams of powder? Are you even using powders? This is always ambiguous unless supported by mass/volume data. It's not that I doubt the validity of your dosing, it's just that the data can't be verified.

At the end of the day you must choose what actions to perform but the available evidence suggests that you need to increase your injection rate. Excel cures the symptoms but does not solve the problem of poor CO2 unless you intend to continue to substitute Excel for a higher CO2 injection rate.

Cheers,


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## daniel19831123 (27 Apr 2008)

I'm measuring the dry powder using electronic scales to make up solution and using chuck calculator and aquaticplantcentral fertilator, I dose the tank and it comes up with those figures. So drop checker is only valid if you have low-moderate lighting tank? I've tweak my lighting down by half and turn up the Co2 level. Now the drop checker is yellow. I'll update this journal in a weeks time to see if I get any pearling or if the algae is getting any better. It's kinda scary to see the drop checker being in the yellow region. I don't think I will even dare to add my new high grade CRS into this tank. Will see how the otos react to the CO2 level if I tweak it higher


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## ceg4048 (27 Apr 2008)

As stated in the opening paragraph of the Measurement article, CO2 is the most difficult parameter to apply, to measure and to get right in a planted tank. Have a read of the article =>http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=467

A Drop checker cannot tell you what the specific needs of a given plant is. It cannot tell you what is physically going on inside the reaction chambers of the plant's photosystems. It cannot tell you what osmotic forces are being generated at the leaf surface, how quickly the CO2 is diffused through the leaf or how efficiently the enzyme reactions and transport mechanisms are working. It can only give you a rough estimate of what the CO2 value is at a specific location in the tank. Based on this limited capacity the data from the checker is just as valid whether you have high, low or medium lighting. 

I think where you might be getting stuck is that you assume that a green drop checker should be valid regardless of lighting level. This is not really the best way to think about it. At lower light levels the low energy of the light throttles down the demand for CO2 and nutrients. The speed at which the enzymes capture and transport the CO2 molecules does not have to be very high and so a marginal CO2 concentration in the water column can work. We see this behavior in low tech tanks that do not even have CO2 injection. You could therefore get by with minimal injection and a near blue drop checker indication. As you increase the light, the speeds of the reactions increase because more light energy particles per second are making contact with the chloroplasts. In order to satisfy the increased number of reactions caused by the increased light energy a high concentration of CO2 is required so the injection rate must be high enough to drive the pH in the drop checker to green. As you increase the light further the rapidity and volume of the photosynthetic reactions require an even higher availability of CO2 so the injection rate has to increase to the point where the acidity drives the dropchecker into the yellow. Therefore a single injection rate and a single drop checker coulor does not satisfy all possible lighting levels. The higher the light, the higher the injection rate needs to be which is reflected as a brighter color in the drop checker. Higher concentrations are necessary to "force feed" CO2 across the leaf surface to keep up with the sheer volume of photosynthetic reactions occurring within the chloroplasts.

Terrestial plants, or aquatic plants in emmersed mode have breathing holes called Stomata which allow air inside the leaf. The CO2 concentration in air can be on the order of 150ppm so they are more likely to be nutrient limited than CO2 limited. In water the solubility and availability of CO2 is much lower. Other factors such as water flow and temperature have a much greater effect on this limited availability. The only way to overcome these difficulties is to increase the concentration to compensate. Te green dropchecker color is just a rule of thumb which more or less indicates an average concentration of 30ppm. In most cases this is sufficient but using extreme lighting pushes you completely out of the "norm" envelope. In fact 48 watts T5 on this size tank may still be over the top but it's a lot closer to normal than 96 watts.

Hope this helps clarify.

Cheers,


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## beeky (28 Apr 2008)

Presumably you could move the drop checker to see if the concentration levels change across the tank?


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## daniel19831123 (28 Apr 2008)

yeah I've moved it near the diffuser, opposite the diffuser, under bushes close to substrate. It's still yellow. The moment I change to the other tank I have with no Co2 injection, it turn blue


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## daniel19831123 (29 Apr 2008)

I was just trying out different setting on my camera and found a very cool widescreen feature on it.
Just thought I show everybody a little picture of what my tank is like at the moment. The plant grow is still not as quickly as I wished but They are growing alright. As you can see the crypt has sprout out a lot of leaves since the last picture.

Normal setting




Widescreen setting




I'm running my CO2 at a scary speed and my otos seemed fine with it. So currently I'm sticking to at least 5 bps driving the drop checker yellow! Dosing double on EI while the plant build up it's biomass.

The rotala rotundifolia in the tank looks out of place. Will be replacing it with pogostemon helferi once I receive it from lisa. Still waiting for my UG carpet to form..... It's been taking ages. I guess I bruised them too much while replanting it.


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## Arana (29 Apr 2008)

It's looking lovely Dan, nice job mate


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## daniel19831123 (29 Apr 2008)

After looking at my photos I really think that the plant with a tinge of red has not achieve it's  contrast effect that I would have hope for. I would probably change the Pogostemon stellatus to rotala macandra. And the crypts are looking as if they will form a wall and distract the focus from the wood. Might remove them and plant them in one spot behind the stump so that they kinda grow out of the macandra. The rotala rotundifolia can be moved backwards towards the back panel and be sloped while pogostemon helferi will cover the gaps where the rotala rotundifolia has been. Does that sound like a good idea?


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## ceg4048 (29 Apr 2008)

daniel19831123 said:
			
		

> ...I'm running my CO2 at a scary speed and my otos seemed fine with it. So currently I'm sticking to at least 5 bps driving the drop checker yellow! Dosing double on EI while the plant build up it's biomass.



If they are fine with it then you might be able to go higher and will get faster growth rates. Try 6bps or more until they start to not be fine, then back off. Better yet, move them to another tank and crank the needle valve as much as you want. Then you won't even need a drop checker and you will see amazing growth.  

Cheers,


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## daniel19831123 (29 Apr 2008)

sigh.... Luckily I upgraded my Co2 tank to 10l bottle or else it wouldn't even last a week with the rate I'm using it. And stupid me for thinking that 48w wasn't enough for this tank and spent another 50 quid upgrading it to 96w. thank god I didn't purchase that arcadia lighting kit or else I would have feel suicidal right now.

I'm keeping the CO2 between 3-5 bps because the otos although comfortable does show a funny twitch sometimes. I have 6 in there and I have yet to find the other 1, so far only see 5 around. Is that sign of Co2 intoxication? If the one that I couldn't find had died in this tank... it would be a hard to find where the body is and that's just going to contribute to my tank problem....


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## ceg4048 (29 Apr 2008)

Normally they get lethargic and you can see them rocketing to the surface for a quick gulp of air. If you do frequent water changes it won't be too big of a deal with the decay.

Cheers,


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## daniel19831123 (29 Apr 2008)

Yikes I think I better slow down the CO2 a little bit. that's what the fish are showing.... found all 6 just 5 minutes ago. Thank god for that


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## Dan Crawford (1 May 2008)

That looks real nice mate, i'd be chuffed with that.


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## daniel19831123 (1 May 2008)

Mine is nothing compare to those of you guys. Nothing to chuffed about. can't wait for the tank to mature and take a final picture.


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## aaronnorth (2 May 2008)

daniel19831123 said:
			
		

> Mine is nothing compare to those of you guys. Nothing to chuffed about. can't wait for the tank to mature and take a final picture.


once it's filled in though it will be of high stsndard


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## Themuleous (2 May 2008)

Very nice Dan love the wood.  Only comment would perhaps be to remove the more vertical on the left?  So all the wood comes out of one point.





Sam


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## daniel19831123 (3 May 2008)

They do originate from the same focus point but then the rotala  and the piece of wood in front has obscure the the base of the wood making it looks like it's a separate piece. I can't move it now as the rest of the wood would stumble over.... will have to try to hide it with plants


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## Themuleous (4 May 2008)

Right ho, just a thought 

Sam


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## Steve Smith (4 May 2008)

Looking good dan!  That wood is spectacular


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## daniel19831123 (14 May 2008)

Just bought a tetra tex 1200 for this tank! Got it today and was absolutely speechless. This is one of the best design external filter I've ever seen. Sturdy built, elegantly designed, came complete with filter media and last but not least a 2 feet long spray bar! The control on the inlet and outlet tube was so much easier to flick compared to those of eheim and fluval. The filter volume is massive too! 

The moment I start priming the filter in my 16 gallon tank, nearly 20%-25% of the tank water disappear into the filter! I know this is a little over kill for my tank size, but I'm just so adamant to do thing right so that I can see my plant bubbling. So far still no bubbling. Now that I've got the water turn over at 10X or more and the lighting at max, the only place that can possibly go wrong is the fertilisation and CO2. 

The tank has changed quite a lot since the last photos. I've added a few extra woods and 4 SAE which totally cleared up the algae! I've removed the rotala. Blyxa is growing really well. started off with 20 stems, I must have more than 50 stems now. It's just annoying some of them grow compact and some just grows leggy. I will be replanting most of them just 6 weeks prior to finishing the tank final look to get them to grow compact. Limnophila has been moved around to be the centre of focus and pogostemon stellatus has gone in the background .

Will be posting a picture in a couple of weeks time. Hopefully everything turns out well. Oh I've also removed the braces from the tank so it's now rimless and much more easier to clean.


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## beeky (15 May 2008)

People do seem to like the tetratec filters, it's just a shame they're not more popular among shops. All the ones I've been to just stock Fluvals and half do Eheims as well, similar with spares. As they're such a good price as well I'm considering getting one to replace my Fluval 204 which I've just added to my tank. Considering the big fuss they made when the 'new' fluvals came out, the tubing and bends etc are rubbish, a real let down.

How much did you get it for?

Have to say that I love the layout of your tank. Any more pics?


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## daniel19831123 (15 May 2008)

Will post a few more pictures in the next 2 weeks or so I've just removed the plants so it will take a while to fill it up. Once it's a little grown then I will post a picture. The HC and UG has let me down.... They are so slow to grow!

I got mine from aquatics-online and it cost me 70 quid which is a bloody good deal I have to say


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## mini (16 May 2008)

your tank looks brilliant, can you provide a link to the place you bought the wood?


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## daniel19831123 (16 May 2008)

There is no link I'm afraid. It's a seller on APC. You can search for his post in APC under manzanita wood and they are all imported from the US so the postage is quite expensive. Too bad I've agreed to sell the rest of the wood to john.


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## Garuf (17 May 2008)

If you ever buy any more Dan I'll go halves I really like the look of the scape you've got with it.


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## John Starkey (17 May 2008)

Hi Daniel, i love it mate personaly i like how it looks now,the only thing i would have done was to plant more heavily,take care john


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## mini (19 May 2008)

I spoke to the guy you mentioned about the wood and he is keen to ship it abroad, it just remains to be seen how much it will all come to.
Your thread is usefull to me as i've just set up a high light tank and ive already noticed i need to drive the co2 way up, you're much further along than me so im glad i have a point of reference for my own tank, keep posting


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## daniel19831123 (26 Aug 2008)

Unfortunately I need to scrape the tank before it matures as I need to move into my new apartment. Most of the stem plants didn't survive the transfer very well as they were kinda neglect about 2 weeks prior to the transfer and has got covered in algae quite badly. 

anyway decided to go to TGM and buy myself some happiness. Spent 40 quid in TGM and bought some quality plant and on my way back, thought I'll just check out the garden centre nearby and stumble across a nice little tropical plant section where they sell pogostemon helferi for Â£2.95 per pot! Grab myself all remainder 4 pots that is available there and then!

Just a few pictures of the plant before I plunge them in my tank. 










































As I was trimming the plants, I was shocked to find how much I've actually purchased! Ended up having to put 2 pots of pogostemon stellatus, 1 pot of java fern, 1 pot of HM and 2 big mother plant of limnophila in the spare planted tank to grow. The cutting from the main limnophila plant was enough to fill my tank up! There was so much plant that I can't find any space for the bogwood that was in the tank previously. After hitting myself in the head a few times, I decided to go with the jungle look and crammed the tank with plants and go totally high tech with the tank.

Tank spec :

Tank size : 24"x18"x12"
Substrate : 20kg of akadama approximately 4-5" in most of the place
Lighting : overtank luminaire by EQJ trading with 2 daylight bulb and 2 grow lux. Total wattage 96w running at 9 hours daily
CO2 : 3bps running on 10l CO2 tank with solenoid through rhinox 2000 diffuser straight into the external filter
Filtration : Tetra tec 1200 running at max lph
Ferilisation : EI dosing and water changes 50% every 2 weeks or every week if I'm free
No heater at the moment. Water heated to room temperature which is somewhere between 22-25 degree
Tank inhabitants : 3 otocinclus, 3 SAE
Plants list
1. Cryptocoryne Bullosa
2. Cryptocoryne Undulata
3. Cryptocoryne Balansae var crispatulata
4. Limnophila aromatica both emerge and submerge form
5. Pogostemon stellatus both emerge and submerge form
6. Pogostemon helferi
7. Glossotigma elatinoides
8. Java fern narrow leaves on bogwood
9. Rotala Najenshan
10. Ludwigia inclinata var verticillata var. panatal

This is what the tank look like on day 1. will need to make everything much more bushier by multiple trimmings.













If there is anyone thinking about saving bucks and purchase from the far east, I would say think twice. The plant I bought from the far east was posted in the earlier post in the blog. comparing the amount of money I spent there and the amount and quality of plant I get, there is no way that I will do that again.(well not unless tropica don't stock those plants)  Tropica plants rocks!


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## Garuf (26 Aug 2008)

Looks really really good, I'd advise you lower your lights though, 96w's is ALOT. 
Can't wait to see it grown out. 
Also, which garden centre did you look in?


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## daniel19831123 (26 Aug 2008)

Bridgemere garden world I think. I've been cranking up the CO2 and the ferts in the tank. It's been 2 weeks now the tank been up and running and not a single trace of algae, not even the GDA or GSA on the glass and that was even before the otos and SAE was added! The plant growth has been quite quick and the limnophila is nearly reaching the surface now. This is the first time I get to see some pearling in my tank. I'm still trying to get mine to pearl like Clive but so far only some of the plant pearls nicely.


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## Garuf (26 Aug 2008)

Well I never...I've not been there in ages, I'll have to check it out!
It's nice when it all comes together isn't it? I think you'll be fine then as long as you keep everything super high.


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## aaronnorth (27 Aug 2008)

looks good, where is the wood?


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## daniel19831123 (27 Aug 2008)

dumped in the spare tank soaking away. Don't have space for wood in this new tank setup. lol


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