# 10 year 60cm tank... did some maintenance



## erwin123 (4 Mar 2021)

Hi, this is my first post here as I 'rejoin' the hobby.

Due to work and other commitments I had been leaving my 60cm tank to run by itself for a few years without any water change (I had like 2 fish in the tank so the bioload was manageable).  The tank already 10 years old and the only plants in it were* C.Wendtii 'green*', 2 lonely* C.Parva* shoots that never grew, *C.Wendtii Tropica.* The C.Wendtii Green was the most prolific, sending runners everywhere over the years.

With increased work from home, I decide to start doing some renovations. I sort of vacuumed up the top layer of the soil and put a fresh top layer over it (the very bottom of the tank is 10 year old soil and bio-rocks), and added some plants. The objective is still low maintenance so I am avoiding fast growing weeds and also planting a variety and see what survives in the tank and what doesn't... of course the old soil results in dust being thrown up whenever I do tank maintenance or feed the bottom feeders, but I'll figure that out.. doesn't bother me too much though I have a new canister filter on the way.

So far the surprise is the *Hygrophila lancea 'Araguaia'* that seems to be staying low and carpeting and the front left of the tank.
The  *Alternanthera Reineckii *in the right middle is also doing well but as the light isn't that strong it isn't spreading that much. But I just stuck one stem into  a gap in the rock (no glue, no string, just shoved it in) and its doing well closer to the light and there's already a sideshoot.
*Helanthium bolivianum 'Quadricostatus' *it grows and sends out side 'runners' easily but as new growth appears on top, the old leaves yellow and fade so perhaps not an idea foreground plant
*Cryptocoryne Retrospiralis *This was what was written on the bag, but articles say that its just repackaged Crispulata. I have 2 plants in the tank one with more light, one under less light. The one with less light is putting up classic dimpled greenish brown leaves, the one with more light (the Oto is resting on one) has long narrow brown leaves with the barest of dimpling.
*Cryptocoryne Crispulata *- I also bought the Tropica 1-2 grow Crispulata which are tiny at the moment, would be interesting to see the difference versus the Retrospiralis> Its supposed to grow tall enough to be seen behind the rocks, so thats where I've put it.
*Bucephalandra *3 various types. Apart from B. Kedagang which is an established type, the others go by unofficial fancy names
*Litorela Uniflora* - some sad strands in the soil. Didn't work out, but I guess thats for the best so its the only North America plant while the others are Asia-Australia
*Vallisneria Nana *- just acquired some with a view to hiding my surface skimmer in the left corner.


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## erwin123 (13 Mar 2021)

Replaced my old Ecco Pro 300 with a Fluval 307 and new Lily Pipes + Qanvee CO2 diffuser. The Qanvee generates really fine mist even though my regulator's working pressure is only 32psi. There is red-haired algae on a lot of the leaves, have to sort that out. I had a stalk of *Hygrophila Polysperma 'Tiger' *on the right where the leaves changed colour to the distinctive reddish-brown stripes, but it is really slow growing (I thought H.Polysperma grew like weeds...) The *C.Retrospiralis *are doing well while the Tropica 1-2grow *C.Crispulata *seem to be finally making some progress at the back of the tank, hopefully they will be tall enough to be see above the rocks.


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## timdjones10 (16 Mar 2021)

Looking forward to seeing it grow in some more


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## erwin123 (26 Mar 2021)

Just an update to warn others of my beginner mistake. this was an old tank and I did not check water parameters before restarting my fertiliser dosing so I simply got a bottle of 2hr Aquarist's complete  Fert.

Then I had a melt of the H.Lancea  (fortunately they are regrowing again) and a BBA attack. So I bought a Sera NO3 test kit (seems like many youtubers recommend Sera) and it said 50mg Nitrates... oops. I did some 2  x 15% daily water changes and stopped the complete fert dosing and reverted to dosing traces using Tropica Premium, and the levels went down to 25mg and now between 10-25mg. I should be able to bring it slowly down to 10mg. (I want to do it gradually because I don't want a massive crypt melt that accompanies radical changes of water parameters... since there are a lot of crypts in this tank...

But just to be safe, I've gotten some Seachem Denitrate. I'm running 2 canisters for this tank and  my 'slow canister' is a 2213 connected to an inline UV running about 120-150l/hr so thats within the recommended speed for the Denitrate media.

The photo shows the AR Mini continuing to grow and Nitrates didn't seem to affect its colour at all. So I've since added some Ludwigia Sp Red since its another red plant that is not affected by nitrates, just as an experiment.

But the H.Lancea was affected by Nitrates - the leaves melted off and new leaves to grow back were green rather than reddish. Now at 10-25mg, new growth is definitely redder. If I get nitrates down to 10mg or less, I should be seeing a nice red tone on the H.Lancea. So if I am too lazy to test, I guess I can just monitor the colour of the new growth to see if I have a nitrate problem...

Strangely the H.Polysperma Tiger (which should be a close relative) wasn't affected. This is an interesting plant that doesn't seem to behave like regular H.Polyspermas?  -I'm getting creeping growth with it, like the H.Lancea.

Finally, just as another experiment to see if it grows in this tank, I added some Limnophila Vietnam.  If it works, I'll remove some Crypts to make space for it in front, and also to allow the AR Minis in the middle to be a bit more visible since they are doing pretty well.


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## erwin123 (4 Apr 2021)

My nitrate levels seem 'stuck' at 25mg according to the Sera test kit (my tapwater has 0mg according to the same test). The tank is lightly stocked - now only 3 Densonii Bards. 2 Otos, 5 small corys and Yamato Shrimp so not exactly sure where the nitrates are coming from (old tank syndrome I guess), though at least they are not going up to the 50mg level (when I was dosing with the a complete fert with N without measuring Nitrates first...)

So I decide to remove one large stone in the middle of the tank to free up space for more plant mass, moved the Tropica 1-2 grow C.Crispulatas to where the rock was and dumped several stem plants at the back of the tank in the hopes that some will grow well and reduce the nitrates (Ludwigia Super Red is growing well but the Limnophila Vietnam doesn't seem to be growing at all - i guess water parameters not to its liking..).  The C.Retrospiralis is growing well and its leaves are reddish compared to the Tropica 1-2 grow C.Crispulatas (the packaging said 30cm growth in 30 days but....). Also made space in front for Bucelephranda - tied to ceramic rings with fishing line.


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## erwin123 (10 Apr 2021)

My weekly update. My nitrate levels appear to have stabilised around 15mg. I continue dosing only Tropical specialised only. In terms of growth in a week, there's the rather prominent AR minis, the H. 'Tiger' on the right, and the Luwdigia Super Reds at the back left, and Rotala Greens in middle back growing ok.  I moved a stalk of P. Deccanesis to the front right as it was being shadowed by the other plants at back. The Limnophila Vietnam - one stalk is ok, the remaining stalks are dying, I guess wrong parameters in this tank for it.


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## erwin123 (17 Apr 2021)

Moved a couple of Helanthium Bolivianum to the front. Waiting for the C.Crispulata to grow....
The H. Difformis is not growing taller but has sprouted 2 side shoots.


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## Kogre (20 Apr 2021)

This looks to be growing in nicely.  I especially love the growth of the red plant on the rock on the left (Alternanthera?).  Nice work.


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## erwin123 (24 Apr 2021)

thanks for the comments. 

Here's my weekly update. 

The *AR Mini *was plugged into a crack in the rock and has been growing well and I trimmed it once it reached the surface. Unfortunately, its really close to the LED so no surprise to see lots of *green dust algae*. Actually, over the past week I had a green dust algae attack but its such a nice shade of green, I hope it sorts itself out, but anyway this is the kind of algae that algae eaters like to eat? So I could look into getting more Otos/Yamato shrimp I guess. 

Trimmed back the *Rotala green *and now able to see single stalks of *L. Brevipes *and *Rotala H'ra *peek out from the back and the of course the *L. Super Reds *are growing like crazy.  (As documented earlier, I had excess nitrates so I planted several stem plants to absorb the ntirates and its working well).

The longsuffering tropic in vitro *C. Crispulata var Balansae *which is middle and which I was hoping to be a centrepiece plant (I was inspired by some photos on the web that use it) <some> growth. Inserted JBL Ferropol Root tabs to help it.

Perhaps thanks to my stem plants growing (and maybe the Seachem Denitrate I inserted into my slower canister filter), my once every 2 days ntirate testing shows nitrates actually hitting 0 at one point, so I dosed the complete fert after water change (2hr aquarist APT)  followed by tropica specialised (i.e. no N, P ) daily. Nitrates are holding steady at 10mg or well.

Being inspired by some of the Buces throwing up new bright red leaves, I went to buy more. The newest in front is the *Buce "Brownie Ghost"  *and on the left on the rock, *Buce *"*Cherish*"

In terms of plants not growing, the H. Lancea Araguaia on the front left is the oddity. It crept and spread very fast but sort of stopped growing. I pulled up some of the creeping plant in order to cut them and try to plant them vertically and noted that they had extensive roots. Hopefully the cutting and replanting will encourage some vertical growth. The *H.Polysperma Tiger * on the front right which has the same shaped leaves but a far nicer striped pattern continues to grow well and had to be trimmed back.


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## erwin123 (24 Apr 2021)

I practice safe plant disposal. i.e. I dump all cuttings into one of my plant pots and let it decompose. I also planted some just to see the result. I'm surprised at how quickly emersed leaves grow.  The Hygrophila Tiger emersed leaves look nothing like the submersed form, while the AR Minis new leaves sort of look similar.

A whole lot faster than the emersed -> subsmersed conversion. There's one more in the left pot. I think its a Vallisneria Nana... cant be sure.


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## erwin123 (1 May 2021)

My weekly update.  Nitrate levels remain at 5-10mg so there is no need to add N. I continue dosing with Tropica Premium

Stem plants at the back are growing well. Trimmed and replanted some. In the front right. Some stalks *H."Tiger"* have started bending, so cut and replant. Algae is still there including a lot of bright green algae on the *AR Minis *that are reaching the water surface and thus closest to the LEDs. Bought 20 cherry shrimp to add to the algae crew. I see them at places that I don't seen the Yamato shrimp so hopefully they are eating algae that the Yamatos aren't. While stem plants seem to grow at an inch or two a week, the in vitro  *C.Crispulate var Balansae *maybe added 1/8".  There is one show that sells the Dennerle full grown Crispulatas but the cost... I plan to wait for C.Retrospiralis to reappear and maybe I 'll get more of those.  Decided to add more Buces to the foreground. *B. Brownie Amanda*, and more *B. Theia*


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## erwin123 (9 May 2021)

My weekly update. Nitrates levels the same. Read some posts that Tropica dosing recommendations might be lower than what is needed for a heavily planted tank so I did 2 pumps instead of 1 after my weekly water change, and daily 1.5 pumps - did not seem to cause an increase in algae so I might continue with that. There is still algae that I need to sort out but I try to take small steps - a little bit of H2O2 treatment during water change. The *C.Crispulata *I guess one could say its growing because you can just make out the leaves in the middle of the tank. On the other hand, the C.Retrospiralis leaves on the right have already reached the water surface.

The *H. Lancea Araguia *is an oddity. Initially when planted, it grew very fast horizontally along the ground, when I did some maintenance, they have extensive roots, but they have stopped growing.  Admittedly the sides of the tank do not get the most light so maybe the light levels at substrate level are not enough. This is in marked contrast to the *H. 'Tiger' *on the right which has to be constantly trimmed. They always seem to want to bend and creep along the substrate.

Finally, the colours in this photo are different because I bit the bullet and upgraded to a Chihiros WRGB2. The built in bluetooth controller and app control is really convenient.. The only thing I would note is that because the tank is 45cm wide, I hope the plants at the back are getting enough light....


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## erwin123 (15 May 2021)

Weekly update. No change in water parameters. Continued with daily 1.5 pumps of Tropica Premium instead of 1.0 pumps and algae has not worsened, I even think the algae situation may be a little bit better. Do I dare to go to 2.0 pumps daily as long as it doesn't worsen the algae situation? Just got George Farmer's book and read how much Tropica he pumps... makes me wonder if Tropica Premium is less "concentrated" than  APT Zero, in which case I might switch to APT Zero after my bottle of Tropica is finished.

After installing the Chihiros WRGB2, I found the stem plants at the back of the tank bending forward. Trimmed them and put in my Aquazonic slim LED (23w, 1" wide fixture) right at the back to give the *L Super Red*, *L. Brevipes*, *R. Green*, *R H'ra *and *H.Difformis *more light.

On the emersed front, I found that it is really easy to grow A.R Mini's emersed. You just take the cutting, plonk it into a pot, and emersed leaves will grow after a few days.....


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## erwin123 (22 May 2021)

Weekly update. I did my regular WC on Wed, and Nitrates on Friday was 0 (so I starting dosing 2ml APT Complete and 1 pump of Tropica Premium).  Before that, I had moved from 1 pump a day of Tropical Premium to 2 pumps a day which happily did not cause Algae to get worse, so I was probably underdosing Tropica Premium previously (like I mentioned, I just got George Farmer's book and read how much Tropica he pumps daily, so that was helpful to give me the confidence to experiment beyond the 'manufacturer's recommendation').

Algae of course is still in the tank but I'm not hugely worried as long is it doesn't get worse. Not looking for quick fixes, but gradual changes to my dosing regime will hopefully help my plants get healthier.

My lighting schedule is 6.25 hr a day full power (Chihiros WRGB2 67w [diffused]+ Aquazonic 23w plus about 15min sunrise/sunset), CO2 1.5bps turned on about 45min before 'sunrise'

Planting wise, I finally decided to remove a very healthy and green *H. Bolivianum 'Quadricostatus' *from the rear of the tank (I just left it in the corner under the filter intake as I reasoned that only a 'super easy' plant could grow there) and do some shifting to make space for *Rotala sp 'Blood Red'. *I've attached a shot of the rear of the tank (with the rear LED fixture removed to show where I planted it - you can also see how the Chihiros alone would not be enough to illuminate the rear of the tank). And yes, I need to trim the *H. 'Tiger' *again, it just grows non-stop compared to the *H. Lancea*....

It would be a pity to dispose of the Quadricostatus so I just plonked it onto a plastic box and emersed leafs sprouted shortly thereafter.

Finally, I spotted a baby cherry shrimp... once... I hope they are doing well and have good hiding spaces. I hardly ever see them. I see the Amanos especially during feeding time as they are always trying to steal the wafers I am feeding the fish!


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## erwin123 (29 May 2021)

Weekly update. Still tweaking my liquid fert dosing to see how much I can increase it without causing algae problems (I still have lots of algae, just prefer not to get more ). With 2ml APT complete + 1 pump Tropica Premium daily, I am reading about 5mg nitrates 24 hours after dosing, so I will probably maintain this dosing and work on CO2. I have also increased my CO2 but the problem is that even without CO2, my drop checker is greenish-blue rather than blue, so its not so easy to see the colour transition. But at least it doesn't go yellow.  Anyway, I decided to order a ph meter from amazon and so I picked an Apera AI209 since it had 3k+ worth of generally good reviews. Still waiting for it to arrive and hopefully it will give me a better picture of how much the ph drops after CO2 is turned on.

On the plant side, I removed all the *H. 'Tiger'* from the front. I put the healthiest looking stem at the back and disposed of the rest. Since it was growing like crazy, I'm guessing that the spot they were in is a good place for growing plants. I removed one of the *H. Difformis* from the back and put a cutting in front. I really like the fresh green colour!

This was to  make more space for the *R. 'H'ra' *at the back which I'm trimming and is forming a nice bush but oops, too low to be seen. Will need to let it grow higher. The *R. 'Blood Red'* are doing well and can now be seen in the photos. One surprise is the *Limnophila. 'Vietnam'* in the front to the left of the AR Minis. There was like no growth for ages so I thought they were a lost cause but suddenly it started growing. Maybe they liked my new dosing regime. 

In the front, I planted *R 'Florida' *and *L. Pantanal. *I read that if you put in a new plant like that without any roots, you should turn the lights down to let it acclimatise. Unfortunately, I didn't do that and I kept the lights up.... my philosophy is to just plant it and see if it grows....  despite that, after 5 days, the first new growth of coloured leaves has appeared. Hopefully they will survive which is also why I don't want to make too many changes...

(p.s. look at the algae infested AR Minis behind.. at least they're still growing... trying to fix their algae issues is on my to-do list but I'll take small steps) I don't have Seachem Excel but eventually I might get some...

Finally, I had some lonely stalks of *L. Brevipes *which I had also written off as not growing. The recent new growth showed shorter inter-nodal distances and leaves were orangey but in my tank it is a really slow-growing stem plant compared to the others (only *L. Vietnam *is slower....)


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## erwin123 (3 Jun 2021)

Weekly update. Decided to remove the *H.Lancea *and replace with *E. Arcularis Mini.* Of course, when you have Corys in your tank you end up replanting all the uprooted hairgrass regularly, but  I hope to get them rooted eventually. The *H. Lancea *have been moved to my emersed pots and they seem to have survived.  I had trouble with emersed growing of *Ludiwigia Super Red *so I let one stalk breach the top and sprout emersed leaves first. Then I cut and replanted - the stalk with emersed leaves is doing ok! Had to trim *R. H'ra *because they keep bending forward. *R Blood Red *on the other hand seem to have no problems growing vertically and its time for their first trim, same for the *H. Difformis *which seems to be a great 'what to put in that dark corner' plant.

Eventually I plan to remove most of the *C.Wendtii's i*n the middle and replace with something shorter (maybe the *L Pantanals *which are colouring up nicely and growing faster than the *R Floridas*) so that theres a clearer view to the back of the tank. Need to find a suitable pot as I will just transfer it to emersed growing.

When I removed some of the *C.Wendtiis *I think I didn't remove the entire rhizome and left some under the substrate - because as you might notice in the front, the rhizomes left under the substrate have been sprouting new stalks of leaves. This is one indestructible plant.

Due to the warm weather which is hitting 30°C  over in my country I gave in and got an Artica chiller so that I can run my tank starting off at 28 °C (down from 29-30) first and maybe see how much lower I need to go (lower temp= more often the chiller is on = higher power bills etc). Hopefully this will indirectly help with the algae issues by helping the plants in the tank. Buces are supposed to like cooler water.


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## erwin123 (4 Jun 2021)

After taking that last photo, I popped by my local fish shop and I guess I'm showing my support when I bought a DET light screen from them . I think it makes the tank look a little more cheerful. I'm amazed at black Oyama backing paper which lasted 10 years and even though it was still very sticky, peeled off so nicely from the back of the tank.

I wonder whether the increased reflectivity of the light coloured background will be able to bounce more light from my lights to the bottom leaves of the stem plants.


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## erwin123 (8 Jun 2021)

Algae starting to appear on the lower leaves of the Rotala and Luwidigia. Some leaves of the Luwdigia have tiny holes - fingers crossed that they are not caused Amano shrimp (one or more of them have started eating my AR Minis). Leaves are also curling on the Ludiwigia. I know internet says its a 'difficult' plant to grow, but I'm just trying a few stems out for fun and hopefully even if I fail to grow it, at least I hope to learn something from the experience 

But if it survives, I might get more and replace the Rotala H'Ra which doesn't seem to want to grow straight (I've got a few stems creeping along the substrate...)


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## erwin123 (12 Jun 2021)

Weekly update. Removed  *C.Wendtii* in the middle (went to my emersed pot) to allow a clearer view to the back of the tank. Had to trim 2 off the *L Pantanal *as they reached the Lily pipe outflow. One of them was 'bent' as a result, hopefully it will grow straight after replanting.  Read about the difficulties in propagating it... fingers crossed.

Had to trim more *R. H'ra *creeping stems. There is one stem that has crept all the way along the substrate to the right hand corner. *E. Acicularis* - the Corydoras have probably won.  Whatever remains, we'll see if anything takes root. Also tried to Cut and replant some of the offshoots from the small amount of *Limnophila. Vietnam *left in the tank. I like how its so green and I feel it has prettier leaves than the *R. Green.*

Lowered the light for my WRGB2 to 70%. With fewer and fewer C.Wendtii, there are fewer shadowed areas.  Got some more *Brownie Ghost* and moved them to the right side on the assumption that they do better with not too much light.

US$36 for a Chihiros Doctor Mate ordered from China... it was cheap enough for an impulse buy.  In its current position, its currently bathing the algae ridden *C.Wendtii *with lots of bubbles (the plant is 10 years old and nearly indestructible given that I didn't maintain the tank for many years). Will post before and after photos...


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## plantnoobdude (12 Jun 2021)

After the addition of the rare plants, this tank is quickly becoming a favorite of mine! hopefully the ramosior bushes well, it's a nice plant. the pantanal seems to be growing well too, great job!


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## erwin123 (18 Jun 2021)

Weekly update. 

Removed all the *R. H'ra. * Getting a bit messy due to their bending + crawling along the substrate behaviour. 
Removed a *C. Wendtii *which was in the middle off to the emersed pots
Removed all the Tropica in vitro *C. Crispulata.* It just didn't work out and they didn't grow. When I pulled them out, 2 out of the 3 plants had a decent root structure but it just didn't grow. The *C. Retrospiralis (non-in vitro)* planted around the same time now has 45cm leaves. Lets see if they grow better emersed.
Moved the Amano chewed up *AR Minis *to the rear so they were rather dense in the midground and you couldn't see through them to the rear.  Triaged those in the worst condition. Off to the emersed pots.
Moved the *R. 'Blood Red' *to replaced the AR Minis in the middle.
Due to the removal so much plant mass (ie the H'ra and some AR Minis), it appears that the nitrogen uptake was reduced and this was shown in my NO3 test - visibly darker shade of yellow (I take photographs of the test solution under identical lighting conditions for comparison as well). So it suggested to me that I should reduce my APT complete dosing slightly and the next day, NO3 test was back to the same colour. While NO3 tests may not accurately give me the exact level of NO3, the change in colour at least lets me know whether my nitrate level is increasing. 


In terms of plant additions:

Added a couple of stalks of *P. Erectus. *I have a lone stalk heavily shaded by the Super Reds and its surprisingly doing fine (i.e. not algae ridden) though it remains short. So my idea is to have a few 'short' stems of P.Erectus in the middle to lead into the background.
Added some new stalks of *R. Florida. *They start gaining colour pretty quickly which is nice.This is a hard to propagate plant. I have some side shoots, fingers crossed. 
Added *B. Salzmannii. *The faintest traces of colour have appeared at the topmost leaves. Hope I can grow this. Fingers crossed.

I wish I could get more *L. Pantanal *as this is another hard to propagate plant. Some of the cut-off stems have tiny new shoots appearing but not sure whether they are growing larger.


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## erwin123 (25 Jun 2021)

Weekly Update:

Maintaining Nitrates in the 10mg range, I've settled on a dosing regime of 3ml APT Complete +  3ml APT Zero daily (my tank is about 100 litres). I will continue to tweak and experiment in the hopes of getting my *Pantanal *to colour up.
Moving the AR Minis to the back was a good choice given that the Amanos have developed a taste from them as the leaves with holes are much less noticeable. Hopefully the Amanos will eat only the lower leaves which are not so noticeable and leave the new growth untouched 😁

The *L Pantanal *are growing fast and it seems I am trimming them once every 10 days. Unfortunately I was careless and I damaged the crown of one of them😭. Haven't seen them in my LFS for some time as I think might be easier to just get more stems than to wait for them to propagate. There are some side shoots from my cut off bottom stems so maybe I'll get a suitable replacement soon. However, I haven't figured out the parameters for them to turn red. Same for the *B. Salzmannii - *some hints of colour but they don't seem to be colouring up.  They are from my LFS and same source as the *R Florida *(I can tell by the plastic bags they come in that they were from the same source) so I assume they are the real deal and not some ordinary green Bacopas.

Removed the *R. Green* as it was getting a bit messy and stringy like the H'ra and moved the *H. Difformis *over to the middle - I left a few stems of the H'ra together with the Super Reds and they are actually doing pretty well and growing fast despite being shaded by the Super Reds. I'll let them overgrow, hopefully they'll breach the surface and once they have emersed leaves, I'll cut and plant in my emersed pots.

Additions
*Ludwigia 'Guinea' *- a little bit of colour showing
*Syngonanthus 'Lago Grande' - *planted them side by side the existing stems of *P. Erectus *and they look rather nice (internet says Lago Grande - softwater, Erectus - hardwater... lets see how they do...)
*H. Pinnatifa *- I actually like the fresh green leaves and there have been so many threads about them in UKAPS I thought I would give it a try. I want something that can grow straight and be a nice background-ish plant.
*E. Polaris* - having failed at *Eleocharis Mini* (Corydoras dug almost everything out and I even saw a barb with hairgrass in its mouth...), I'm testing out whether I can use this to make a 'lawn'.


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## plantnoobdude (25 Jun 2021)

still my favorite tank @erwin123 algae looks to be residing. Lago grande is a beautiful plant. hopefully the salzmanii colors up.
I look forward to these weekly updates.


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## erwin123 (25 Jun 2021)

plantnoobdude said:


> still my favorite tank @erwin123 algae looks to be residing. Lago grande is a beautiful plant. hopefully the salzmanii colors up.
> I look forward to these weekly updates.


thanks, I'm looking forward to seeing the Blood vomit grow in your tank. Its a really expensive plant in my LFS so I'm not ready to try it yet.... the other super expensive Erio is the Eriocaulon quinquangulare....

The E. Cinereum which seems to be the same as Polaris (I'm not an expert the name was on the bag the plant came in), hope you are able to propagate it by splitting when it grows big enough, I want to learn how to do it.


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## plantnoobdude (25 Jun 2021)

me too : ) I want to get quinquangulare as well. but it seems to need a bit more light than i can provide at the moment.
E cinereum is very easy to split. i'll tell you how if you pm me.


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## erwin123 (26 Jun 2021)

Also just sharing an easy plant to grow emersed, the Ludwigia Super Reds. I just dumped a 2 cut stems into a glass jar and they just took off! Even in direct sunlight like this several hours a day they did ok and I didn't flood the glass jar, just kept it well watered.  I've just planted the bottom stem of Pantanal into another pot to see if I have any luck with emersed growing, since submersed propagation is so hard.


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## erwin123 (26 Jun 2021)

plantnoobdude said:


> me too : ) I want to get quinquangulare as well. but it seems to need a bit more light than i can provide at the moment.
> E cinereum is very easy to split. i'll tell you how if you pm me.



Thanks I've watched the videos which always make it look so easy but I'm reassured that you also indicate that its easy to do. I guess the concern is what is the minimum viable size of the plant after splitting. I guess I've made splitting mistakes with Bucephalandra before (i.e. some pieces I split didn't seem viable).


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## plantnoobdude (26 Jun 2021)

erwin123 said:


> Thanks I've watched the videos which always make it look so easy but I'm reassured that you also indicate that its easy to do. I guess the concern is what is the minimum viable size of the plant after splitting. I guess I've made splitting mistakes with Bucephalandra before (i.e. some pieces I split didn't seem viable).


yeah, you just want to wait untill the eriocaulon base starts getting wider, then the plant will begin to split. eventually the leaves that were once all pointing out wards, will start pointing at eachother. you can then split with a sharp blade. you can split before this, but success rates are lower.


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## erwin123 (2 Jul 2021)

Weekly update
The *C.Wendtii *on the left was shading everything too much. When my LFS brought in unnamed farmed Buces for at all time low prices including one Buce that was massive and which I could not name (the other farmed Buces were clearly Kedagang Red and probably regular Brownie Ghost (or Brownie purple), I decided it was time to replace the Wendtiis and transfer them to my emersed pots. Of course, uprooting *10 year old plants *also results in disturbing 10 year old soil - and one of the plants had its roots wrapped around the remains of a JBL Kugeln ball from a few years ago and that caused a mess when the ball disintegrated. Did a water change just in case.

I also got a JBL test kit to check GH - it was 6, so not super soft, so hopefully its a GH acceptable to all the plants in my tank 

My WRGB2 is set at 65%. I added a ramp up to 80%, hold for 80% for 1 hour, and ramp back down to 65% as an experiment to gradually increase the light levels after 2hr aquarist released an article recommending 80umols of PAR at substrate.

*B. Salzmannii -*throwing up a lot of aerial roots but not colouring up. Have to figure this plant out. 

*New plants*

I had just got a couple of *B. Wavy Greens *from another source and added the *B. Kedagang Red as well to the left hand side. *
*Large unknown Buce - *Can anyone ID the large Buces? They look like Theia but I have Theia in my tank and its way smaller?
My The side shoots of some of the *L Pantanal *are coming along nicely, hope to be able to cut and replant soon (to replace the one whose crown I damaged).
Found a source of *Limnophila Vietnam* so I added a bunch just in front of the *R Blood Red.*
Planted *S. Macrocaulon  *next to my existing *S. "Lago Grande".*


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## plantnoobdude (2 Jul 2021)

those jbl kugeln balls are annoying lol, biggest regret ever. great looking tank, pantanal filling in beautifully.


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## erwin123 (3 Jul 2021)

Shot of the rear of my tank using room fluorescent lights - the colour rendering is not as good as WRGB2 🌅 I've let the *L. Super Reds *get overgrown and breach the surface by themselves. I then cut the emersed stalks to replant in pots. The *Rotala H'ra *does not breach the surface but simply bends as it grows too tall, so I had to manually take out the H'ra stalks and lean them on the side of the tank and after a few days, emersed leaves appear. Once it appears stable, I'll cut and replant in pots.

The filter outlet for my Ecco Pro 300 seems completely blocked by the plants.... I'm going to upgrade to Fluval 407 soon for more circulation!




Finally, a pic of my Wendtiis. I'm glad I've been able to find them a new home outside the tank. They have such tiny leaves in emersed form.


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## erwin123 (9 Jul 2021)

Weekly update
I removed the stones on the extreme left to create more area for planting. As a result, I could see through to the tangled mess of *L. Super Reds *and *R. H'ra *in the left rear corner. I tried to do some maintenance. Will slowly work on this area. In the meantime, this tangled mess of stems was probably acting as a nitrate sink and may explain why my nitrates test 0-10mg/l every week despite me doing a double dose of APT Complete + a regular dose of APT Zero (shifting to APT EI + APT Zero once I finish the bottle to save money)

One *L. Pantanal *sideshoot was ready to be trimmed and replanted. Finger crossed that it will do ok. Another sideshoot should be ready for cutting and replanting next week.
The topmost leaves of *B. Salzmannii *have sort of started to change colour (or maybe they are just rotting away). I still haven't figure this out.
Planted some *Polygonum Sao Paulo. *Early days yet. Not sure whether it will adapt to my tank. I am not making much progress with *E. Polaris.*


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## erwin123 (9 Jul 2021)

*My Rotala H'ra story: *On 18 June I removed all my H'ra but left a few short stems amongst the Ludiwigia Super Reds. It seems that H'ra responds with rather aggressive sideshoot growth when shaded by other stem plants. I was trying to do some cleaning up of my stem plants and pulled out the H'ra and discovered this - 3 weeks growth of a single stem while shaded by the Ludwigia Super Reds.....I guess I found the reason why my nitrates always test at 0-10mg/l ... the stem plants are taking in the nutrients?

The problem with H'ra is that it bends like crazy in my tank. In my FTS above you can see one stem sneaking up on the H Pinnatifida. In comparison, the *R. Blood Reds *are generally growing straight... so far....

(that A4 paper can be used as a length reference , pls ignore that carpet plant caught in the roots of the H'ra..)


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## erwin123 (10 Jul 2021)

Upgraded my 307 to a 407. All the parts are the same so I just popped in the 407 without changing any hoses/connectors.

I have one extra media tray in the 407 but I didn't add any media. Before coming to UKAPS, I would have filled up the extra media tray, but now I know better! In fact I had previously removed some Matrix/bio media from the tray already rather than fill the tray full of 'bio media'... because I also have sponges inside! 

After making sure the 407 is running well, I will replace my Ecco Pro 300 with the 307. That will give me  a theoretical flow of 2400l/hr for my 100 litre tank. But actual flow is less as I have a chiller and that cuts the flow.


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## erwin123 (15 Jul 2021)

Weekly update
My replanted *L. Pantanal *sideshoots are growing. yay!  
Noticeable growth on the *P. 'Sao Paolos' *as well.  Maybe 2 more inches more then I will trim and replant (getting rid of the emersed leaves at the bottom of the stem at the same time) 
At the rear of the tank, the *H. Pinnatifida and S. Macrocaulon *are also growing and more visible in the photo. I had to remove some *AR* stems to give them more space.
The *L. 'Vietnam' *on the right side has become a little bit denser. This must be one of my favourite green plants as its so 'neat' whereas the *Rotala Green *is a bit of a mess (probably poor trimming on my part). 

GH measures at 6 drops according to my JBL GH test kit.  Thinking of trying to bump it to 7 to see if the *R Florida *responds. Read that Buces may do better with higher GH as well.

Plan to replace my Ecco Pro 300 with the Fluval 307 and install the Neo Flow Premium outlet pipes over the weekend (moving from 12/16 to 16/22 hose). Hope the improved flow helps plant growth! 🌊🌊🌊💧💦


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## erwin123 (19 Jul 2021)

Small glass jam jar watered with fish tank water, *L. Super Red *grows like crazy emersed, just like it does in my tank.




*Hygrophilas *are easy plants and are great nitrate sinks. However, since the *L. Super Reds *also grow like weeds and suck up the nitrates,the Hygros were replaced with something else but glad to see that they could survive the conversion to emersed.


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## erwin123 (23 Jul 2021)

I decided to have a desk tank next to my WFH desk (my 60cm tank is in the living room) to grow/breed cherry shrimp with a view to transferring larger specimens to the 60cm tank. 

Gex Deskboy fish tank 45cm
Gex Slim HOB filter Medium  (a really silent HOB filter with a comfortable 20x  water volume flow)
Gex Pure Soil Black (I use this in my 60cm tank as well, admittedly not much nutrients, but conversely, ammonia is usually never a problem.
Eleocharis Parvula
10w LED desk lamp.

Gex is one of those brands readily available in my country, even supermarkets stock their products, and my LFS does not sell this particular tank which was just the right size for desk. So I just ordered via amazon prime. Gex website here: Product data : Stratum | Aquarium Fish | GEX Corporation

I've added water from my main tank and have a bag of old 3DM bio media which I'm transferring to the HOB.


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## plantnoobdude (23 Jul 2021)

looks great @erwin123 making me want a shrimp tank aswell....


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## erwin123 (23 Jul 2021)

Weekly update. 10 years ago when I first started this tank (the substrate at the bottom of the tank is  the original substrate -10 years old ) I had an *E. Hadi Red Pearl* but died out of neglect. It grows new leaves really fast and you need to constantly remove the old leaves. Long story short, I decided to try it again. It is partially shaded by the mass of Super Reds but fortunately, it doesn't need strong light to turn red.

My Fluval 407 and 307 are now installed and giving me theoretical 24x flow though its not really noticeable. I have let the *L Super Reds* overgrow and form a tight compact mass including emersed leaves- thanks to this, they remain firmly in place right next to the Neo Flow Premium outlet (and as you can see from the photo, the Neo Flow is blocked and not visible). The Neo Flow Premium skimmer works well, and as a result, I have retired my standalone skimmer which is one less piece of equipment in the tank. I like the Neo Flow inlet a lot as well. As you can see from the pic, there are 'slats/slots' on both front and back which I prefer to inlets that have fewer slats/slots - a few dead leaves will reduce flow if the slats are all on one side...

*H. Pinnatifida *- the one at the back is growing well. It is directly in the path of the Lily pipe outlet flow and is swaying, but its still growing upright. While it seems to be growing well, the lowest leaves don't seem to be in good shape, to be honest.

*P. Sao Paolo. *Its been in my tank for 2.5 weeks and I am finally seeing signs that it is converting to submersed form with new pinkish leaves forming. The green submersed leaves look perfectly healthy though. Have to figure out how to get it more 'pink'.


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## erwin123 (29 Jul 2021)

Weekly update. Discovered the large Buces were *B. Theia *as I had suspected (shop brought in a new batch all labelled Theia). This means that once it sheds the emersed leaves, its going to be a lot smaller.
Did some moving of plants including moving the Theia forward and planting the *P. 'Sao Paolo' *behind them. The largest *L.* *Pantanal *went crazy and starting sprouting multiple sideshoots at the crown.








I have a large clump of *L. Super Reds. *They are obscuring an outlet Lily Pipe which has pretty strong flow (see the *Pinnatifida *swaying) so the clumping makes them pretty immobile as the emersed growth shows. I'll figure out how to make it more 'aesthetic', but its currently serving a useful function (and probably vacuums up excess nutrients).

At the same time, I'm pleased that the bottom parts of the stem look pretty healthy despite being in darkness. This is something I learnt from UKAPS- send CO2 to the substrate, and plants will be healthy even if shaded! (p.s. water dripped down the side of tank due to capillary action.. got to sort that out).

Finally, this is more of less the first full week after switching from *APT Complete *to *APT EI.  *
I'm now dosing daily 3.5ml of APT EI (roughly equivalent to 7ml of APT Complete at the same price!) and 2ml of APT Zero (I bought the Zero before I decided to start boosting GH... noted that Equilibrium also has Fe, Mg, K...) , and adding 10mg of Seachem Equilibrium weekly to boost GH from 6 to 8 after water change. Nitrates are still low, I suspect the mass of L. Super Reds absorbs the excess...
Hoping for my plants to colour up!


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## erwin123 (29 Jul 2021)

finally, and forgive the blurry macro pic - are these *L. Senegalensis *flowers??? or just sideshoots.


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## erwin123 (30 Jul 2021)

Weekly dosing N 15.12ppm (6ml APT Complete per day x 7 days)




Weekly dosing N  22.54ppm (3.5ml APT EI per day x 7 days)


I will dial back to 3.0ml APT EI per day x 7 days which will give me 19.32ppm N, and after a week of dosing at that level, will report back what 'colour' I get in my NO3 test.


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## erwin123 (3 Aug 2021)

This is a continuation of my discussion with Plantnoobdue in his journal thread about how to help Senegelansis colour up.

This is a reference photo for comparison with future photos to see if there is any effect to ramping up the light intensity ). Currently my tank is lit by 99w of LED. 67w from the WRGB2 which I am temporarily bumping up to 90% for a short period within the regular photoperiod, and 32w from my Aquazonic Spectra (which uses 1.5w LEDs).

The *R.Florida *have purplish new growth but the bottom leaves aren't too great
Two stems of *B. Salzmannii *are finally turning purplish at the top , again bottom leaves don't look too great
*L. Senegelansis ('Guinea") *some of the stems are trying a very dark red and the red leaves are curling

Also got the Aquario Neo root Tabs to try out.

And of course, the easy *L Super Reds *looking superb as usual. I decided to cut down the tangled clump and left a few stems planted. I may be moving the Pantanal to the left rear corner once I get a 2nd WRGB2 (waiting for a local 8/8 sale - 32w from the Spectra 60 doesn't seem enough).

I have moved a stem to the left front corner which is the area of maximum CO2 mist. As can be seen from the FTS shot, there are vairous Buces there, but as the 2hr Aquarist site mentions...  putting Buces in the path of CO2 mist often leads to algae... so I have to move those as well.


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## erwin123 (5 Aug 2021)

Update on my low-tech Shrimp growing tank. The objective of this tank is to breed /grow cherries till they are large enough to put into my main tank. 
23 July: Filled with water
24 July: Shrimp Introduced 
05 Aug: Update 1

12 litre tank, maybe filled to 10l.
9w table lamp that covers maybe 3/4 of the tank on  8 hours a day.
Gex Medium HOB filter.
Gex soil
Very lean dosing.

Despite being transferred from High tech to Low tech I did not experience any melting of the plants. They simply adapted. The *R Blood Red's *new growth is yellowish, the *Sao Paolo* turned all green, as did the *R. H'ra *which is on the right in the 'low light area'*. *The *Super Reds* on the right, in low light are also in the process of turning their leaves green. I also planted some emersed *Super Reds *in the HOB filter. I may need to dose more to help the *Eleocharis *along though.


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## erwin123 (6 Aug 2021)

Weekly update

The flimsy proprietary power connector cable for my DET lightscreen got damaged, hence the dark background in this photo. Have to speak to my LFS about spares.

*Plants*
Removed the entire clump of *L. Super Reds *and replanted a few of them. This left space for some replanting/shuffling of plants.  As a result, the Neo Flow Premium outlet is now visible. Hope to grow the *Pantanal *enough to block the outlet from view again.
Also planted some emersed *P. Palustris *at the back where the Super Reds were.*.* May need to wait some time to convert to Submersed before it starts growing. Will be getting a 2nd WRGB2 soon so I should have enough light for the *Palustris.*
Thanks to 2hr aquarist article that there are 2 types of *B. Salzmannii*, I realised mine was just the green one that turns slightly purplish. Went to a LFS to buy the purple ones and also picked up *E. Quinquangulare *as well.
A farmed *Buce "Dark Blue"* appeared in my LFS at a modest price so I just had to get it. Large emersed leaves are no indication of submersed leaf size so I expect it to get much smaller once it converts. . Waiting for the *B. Theias *to convert - with the large emersed leaves gone, there will be more room for planting ...

*Water*
The lower leaves of the *R. Florida *aren't doing too well. 2hr Aquarist says it needs calcium. I have been adding Seachem Equilibrium to move the Gh for 6 to 8, but since Equilibrium is adds both Mg and Ca, I have also added 4g of food grade CaCl2 from my local store to move Gh further up from 8 to 10 and will monitor if that was too excessive.


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## plantnoobdude (7 Aug 2021)

erwin123 said:


> *Water*
> The lower leaves of the *R. Florida *aren't doing too well. 2hr Aquarist says it needs calcium. I have been adding Seachem Equilibrium to move the Gh for 6 to 8, but since Equilibrium is adds both Mg and Ca, I have also added 4g of food grade CaCl2 from my local store to move Gh further up from 8 to 10 and will monitor if that was too excessive.


in my experience and from what i've read, the gh number doesn't matter much to plants. just have enough that t doesn't limit plant growth. 6-10 is a good number for most. also great looking bacopa sg. not sure if in EU yet though.


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## erwin123 (13 Aug 2021)

My Low Tech update first.
10 litres, 9w desk lamp.
Minimal fert dosing. 0.5ml APT every 3 days so far.
I don't have any special shrimp food, just feeding them Hikari regular wafers  and Hikari Algae wafers. 4+ baby shrimp spotted frequently on the aquarium 'glass' where there is algae. 

Plants seem doing ok. I moved a Pantanal stem that wasn't doing so well, and the clean-up crew got to work on it immediately! This is probably better than Excel or H2O2 spot dosing!
I drilled a hole in the HOB cover and planted a Polygum Sao Paolo. This is in addition to the L. Super Red stems that I just inserted into the filter at the outflow area.


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## plantnoobdude (13 Aug 2021)

for stems like that pantanal. it is usually better to chop off the tops than try let it regrow. ofcourse if growth parameters are not fixed it will just do the same thing though. I once had a similar issue with cuba. trimmed the top and upped co2 in that area. and it never did it again. though pantanal is supposedly much more finnicky than cuba. good luck!


erwin123 said:


> View attachment 173098


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## erwin123 (13 Aug 2021)

plantnoobdude said:


> for stems like that pantanal. it is usually better to chop off the tops than try let it regrow. ofcourse if growth parameters are not fixed it will just do the same thing though. I once had a similar issue with cuba. trimmed the top and upped co2 in that area. and it never did it again. though pantanal is supposedly much more finnicky than cuba. good luck!


thanks I have a few stems that suddenly didn't do so well after I moved them. 2hr aquarist says Pantanal doesn't like overcrowding as well. Hopefully I can fix the issues. I do not know whether they were attacked by the Amanos because some leaves show signs of being eaten. I've since reduced the Amanos in my tank from 9 to 4. They doubled/triped in size since I bought them from the store so I think 9 giant sized Amanos was way to much for a 100 litre tank and led to them eating the plants.


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## plantnoobdude (13 Aug 2021)

erwin123 said:


> thanks I have a few stems that suddenly didn't do so well after I moved them. 2hr aquarist says Pantanal doesn't like overcrowding as well. Hopefully I can fix the issues. I do not know whether they were attacked by the Amanos because some leaves show signs of being eaten. I've since reduced the Amanos in my tank from 9 to 4. They doubled/triped in size since I bought them from the store so I think 9 giant sized Amanos was way to much for a 100 litre tank and led to them eating the plants.


I have about 7 amanos in 45 liters haha. never had an issue with them eating plants. i'd think they only eat dying plants. but i've seen cases where they eat plats such as althernathera though.


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## erwin123 (13 Aug 2021)

Weekly update. *E. Quinquangulare *purchased in submersed form, hopefully adapts to my tank and doesn't die on me I think there is 1 new leaf popping out. 
*E. 'Bahia' *is undergoing conversion from emersed to submersed, wait for the first new leaf to appear.
Something triggered a reaction in the Pantanals, basically several of the stems, the main crown has stopped growing, like the single stem next to the Blood Reds which was multiple sideshoots. I suspect it could be water change where there was like a 3-4 degree temp difference. After that incident I do water changes and immediately add ice to reduce the temp quickly.
​*P. Erectus *is not doing well in this tank. I had some *L. Aromatica *in my lowtech shrimp tank which look healthy, so I moved one stem over, maybe to replace the *P. Erectus *for now. Though i suspect I may not have gotten a healthy specimen of the Erectus (it was in a plastic bag and not sure how long it was sitting in the bag). I would like to grow it again but I'll specifically buy a healthy specimen from an LFS that sells them straight out of a holding tank with Co2.

Moved the *H Pinnatifida *to the left rear corner as it was shading other plants. It has been growing well, hope it will survive being in the corner.


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## erwin123 (16 Aug 2021)

I have been temporarily moving my B. Salzmanniis with algae into my shrimp tank for cleaning. It really is more effective than H2O2/ Excel. After cleaning, I'll move them back to my main tank.


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## plantnoobdude (16 Aug 2021)

wow😍 very efficient cleaners,


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## erwin123 (28 Aug 2021)

just completed a 72 hour blackout.

50% Water change
Blackout for 72 hours. Set my Neo Flow Premium skimmer to suck in air to aerate the water. No ferts added, so water column NO3 was probably close to zero
Turned on lights at 4% briefly to feed the fish.
After 72 hours, remove cover and do 60% water change
Resume CO2 / lighting. Set WRGB2 to 35%
Interestingly, I found that most of the stem plants continued growing in total darknees. The *Blood Red* and *Super Red*'s new growth was still red rather than yellow/green.  Internodal difference was of course larger but looking at the photos I wouldn't say they were 'stringy'.  Some of the *Pantanal *stems hit the water surface so I trimmed and replanted. Noted one of the bigger stems shot out a huge mass of aerial roots during the darkness.

So generally, most of the plants coped well with a 72 hour blackout. The notable except is the *Erio. Q. * I think its slowly deteriorating. The *P. Erectus* also didn't grow during the blackout period and maybe looks a bit weak.

Just before the blackout, I planted a bunch of emersed *Eriocaulon 'Vietnam' *on the left side of the tank. Fortunately, these look ok, so I hope they will successfully convert to submersed form.


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## erwin123 (28 Aug 2021)

Getting a fair number of baby shrimp. I'm just feeding the shrimp 1 small hikari wafer a day which the adults finish pretty fast. As this is a casual tank, don't think I want to spend a lot of money on 'specialist' shrimp food.
Plants all seem ok and relatively algae free.


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## erwin123 (4 Sep 2021)

Weekly update

*Planting
E. Quin *looks like its not going to make and was weakened by the 72hr blackout. It was in submersed form and maybe I should have gone for an emersed sample instead. Tropica TC *E.Cinerum *appeared in my LFS so I decided to get some. Also added some more emersed *L. 'Guinea' *just to see if they will turn out better than the current ones which keep on losing lower leaves.

*Bucephelandra 'Mini Catherinae' *appeared in my LFS and I just had to get it because its leaves look very different (i.e. the 'mini' type)

Moved some *P. Palustris *to my low tech shrimp tank to make space for *Rotala Wallichii*.  Got a whole emersed bunch at a good price. As there wasn't space for all of them in the tank, I planted the extra emersed stems in a pot with my other emersed plants but all of them wilted except one.  As for the ones in the tank, they are in the process of converting and oddly, the new growth has very similar colours to the Pantanal (yellow with orange accents).

I am so happy that the 72 hour blackout made all my stem plants such as the *L Super Reds *grow straight up. Forrtunately, they're still growing straight. Fingers crossed.

My *R. Floridas *are a lost cause. gH 8 is evidently not enough and the stems have all shed their lower leaves., but at least there is new growth.

*Water Column*
After the 72-hr blackout, I am keeping the LED lights at a much lower intensity, roughly *40%* for the front with the Buces, and *45% *for the back with the stem plants. While CO2 is unchanged, I decided to reduce the ferts to follow the manufacturer's recommended dosage, which in this case is 2ml daily of APT EI for 100 litres. In addition, I'm also dosing 5g Equilibrium, 1g CaCl2 weekly with water change to bring gH from 6 to 8.

So my weekly dosing (APT EI + Equilibrium) appears to be roughly:

13 ppm N
4.2 ppm P
26 ppm K
2.6 ppm Mg
0.5 ppm Fe
Even with the Mg from Equilibrium, my Mg dosing is still quite a bit lower than "EI Dosing Mid" (i.e. since I'm using lower lighting, I'm using the "EI Dosing Mid" in the IFC spreadsheet for reference). After reading plantnoobdude's posts, maybe I should start looking out for Mg deficiency and get ready to add some Magnesium Sulphate...


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## erwin123 (5 Sep 2021)

*Low Tech Shrimp TankUpdate *

I'm seeing more baby shrimp every week in my low tech tank which is also sort of a 'storeroom' for plants.  
Low Tech Species list for reference:
*Eleocharis Parvula
L. Aromatica
P. Palustris
R. Blood Red
L. Super Red
B. Salzmannii
P. 'Sao Paolo'
L. 'Vietnam'
L. 'Pantanal'*(only in for 1 week - will see whether it is ok in Low Tech).


*Emersed update*



C. Wendtii, P 'Sao Paolo', H. Difformis





H. Lancea in flower




Overview shot of some of the emersed pots.


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## erwin123 (10 Sep 2021)

Took some photos while CO2 is on as *Rotala Wallichii *closes at the end of the photo period. The R. Wallichii has been in my tank for 10 days and appears to have converted pretty fast from emersed form to submersed form and is growing faster than *Pantanal. *I guess the next step is to wait and see and hope it will change colour to the pink I see in all those photos? There seem to be so many Rotala variants around and buying a handwritten plastic cup containing a bunch of plants, I 'hope' those are Wallichiis that turn pink and not some other Rotala....






*L Senegelensis *always looks better from the top where you can't see the dying lower leaves


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## erwin123 (16 Sep 2021)

Weekly update
Took the photo after Co2 turned off to reduce the amount of bubbles. But by then the *R. Wallichiis *have all closed up and the Pantanals are starting to close, and my photo period is only 6.25hrs...

Removed one *C. Crispulata *and all the *P. 'Sao Paolo'. *The former because it was getting way too large - 1 Crispulata for a 60cm tank is more than enough. The latter because you couldn't really see it anyway. I'm still growing them emersed and in my low tech. With the Sao Paolo removed, I  have started moving the *R. Blood Reds *to the back to make space in front to plant *Rotala Bonsais.* Unfortunately, I only found in vitro ones - for regular stems you can insert it 1 full inch into the soil, for in vitro, they have like, 1 cm of roots so I can't secure them that well? After planting them, they were repeated uprooted by the Cories... 🤣 I've learnt my lesson, in vitro plants and Cories don't mix!

Also added pics of my Buces for reference. The leaves in bad condition are the original emersed leaves. The growth of new submersed leaves for this group of Buces is painstakingly slow in my tank. The Buces with the smaller leaves tend to sprout new leaves faster. I read that Buces are much happier in colder water and my water temp is borderline for Buce viability (26.3 degrees C). Will continue to monitor. The flow is good - the bubbles from my twinstar at the opposite corner go around the tank and flow past the Buces.


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## plantnoobdude (16 Sep 2021)

wow looks very good! very little algae too. senegalensis issue seems to be resolved? what did you change mate, I need to know! 


erwin123 said:


> View attachment 174375View attachment 174376
> 
> 
> Weekly update
> ...


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## erwin123 (17 Sep 2021)

plantnoobdude said:


> wow looks very good! very little algae too. senegalensis issue seems to be resolved? what did you change mate, I need to know!


The Senegalensis is getting better but long way to go. I did a full pH profile for my tank and tweaked the CO2 for a 1.0 drop on lights on and no change in pH (i.e. stable pH) during the first 4 hours of photoperiod.  Eventually the pH drops by 0.1 more towards the end as I think the CO2 intake rate slows down after a few hours so CO2 level rises.

I find that having a Lily Pipe surface skimmer which is active 24/7 might be helping to stabilise the CO2 levels by allowing more CO2 to escape and thus prevent CO2 from reaching excessive levels.  Of course, this means you have to pump more CO2 but I learnt in UKAPS that the ideal approach to CO2 is to treat it as if it was free.

I read that Rotala Wallichii responds quickly if conditions is not ideal so I guess its a good plant to watch to see if anything is going wrong. On one hand, I hope it turns pink, on the other hand, I don't want to go overboard with anything and kill it 🆖


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## plantnoobdude (17 Sep 2021)

erwin123 said:


> I read that Rotala Wallichii responds quickly if conditions is not ideal so I guess its a good plant to watch to see if anything is going wrong. On one hand, I hope it turns pink, on the other hand, I don't want to go overboard with anything and kill it 🆖


i think pantanal would be a better indicator. seeing as it grows so quick. a friend of mine said his pantanal show iron deficiency within a day! if it's unhappy.


erwin123 said:


> I find that having a Lily Pipe surface skimmer which is active 24/7 might be helping to stabilise the CO2 levels by allowing more CO2 to escape and thus prevent CO2 from reaching excessive levels. Of course, this means you have to pump more CO2 but I learnt in UKAPS that the ideal approach to CO2 is to treat it as if it was free.


i think skimmer helps as well, my senegalensis now holds old leaves, but the algae seems to be attracted to the old leaves.....


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## John q (17 Sep 2021)

plantnoobdude said:


> . a friend of mine said his pantanal show iron deficiency within a day! if it's unhappy.


Interesting, a friend of mine sells magical beans at the local market... 

On a serious note if this plant reacts so quickly to a non mobile nutrient it should be put forward as a replacement to the duckweed index as famed by @dw1305


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## plantnoobdude (17 Sep 2021)

John q said:


> Interesting, a friend of mine sells magical beans at the local market...
> 
> On a serious note if this plant reacts so quickly to a non mobile nutrient it should be put forward as a replacement to the duckweed index as famed by @dw1305


except it is no where as near easy to find as duckweed. and a million other things will make it unhappy. so, not as nice as duckweed IMO


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## erwin123 (18 Sep 2021)

Geoffrey Rea said:


> ...
> 
> Luckily you have Rotala wallichii in your tank. It’s the first plant to fall when things are off, but also the first to react when things are to it’s liking. A good indicator of progress.
> 
> ...











						Help! Plants stunting and turning white
					

Hi all, I have a 80L tank that is running for the past 4 months. Although I didn't see issues with plant growth in the beginning, I am recently facing stunted new growth and white pale leaves in some plants.  Details about my tank: KH: 3dkh GH: 4dgh ph :7.2 before CO2 and drops to around 6.1...



					www.ukaps.org
				




I got the info that Wallichii is a good indicator of progress from Geoffrey Rea's post.


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## Geoffrey Rea (18 Sep 2021)

Suggested R. Wallichii was a good indicator plant for that specific setup @erwin123 amongst all the limited species in that tank. It’s a reasonably soft water setup, 3KH 4GH. Dennis Wong favours R. macrandra as an indicator plant in soft water as it is very sensitive to Co2 fluctuations.

Darrel’s / @dw1305 duckweed index works regardless of water to identify nutrient deficiency and is not limited by Co2. Very smart indeed.

Think when myself and others bandy around the term indicator plant, we’re simply referring to the most fussy species in the tank. It’s the first to tap out if flow, light, Co2 and dosing regime isn’t up to spec. Equally it’s very likely that if this one species is thriving, the health of almost everything else will correlate to the indicator plants current state (epiphytes excluded from this list depending on the method of nutrient delivery).

The whole tank is an indicator quite frankly; plants, fish, hardscape, glass, tubes and filter. On top of that, how quick some species begin to pearl and where they are in their diurnal cycle. You may notice some plants consistently shut up shop early and close up a couple of hours before the photoperiod ends for example.

It is difficult to provide guidance to a newcomer to the hobby with fast paced Co2 injected tanks, evidence is everywhere but you need to know what you are observing and how it relates to your interventions across time. So the inclination is to suggest observation of one attribute to begin with. The hope is their awareness will extend outwards and they’ll begin generating questions about observations of their system in general.

A bit like the first time we drive a car… clutch, gear changes, brakes, accelerator pedal, steering, lane positioning, adhering to speed limits/rules and assessing the road ahead. You may have aced that gear change from third to fourth gear, but it’s no good if you just put someone over the bonnet of the car whilst staring at the gear stick. We need to learn how to monitor everything until it drops into unconscious competence.


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## erwin123 (18 Sep 2021)

Geoffrey Rea said:


> ....
> The whole tank is an indicator quite frankly; plants, fish, hardscape, glass, tubes and filter. On top of that, how quick some species begin to pearl and where they are in their diurnal cycle. You may notice some plants consistently shut up shop early and close up a couple of hours before the photoperiod ends for example.
> ....






Thanks Geoffrey Rea as well as all the other UKAPS experts. I've learnt a lot here... such as most retail test kits are not useful... so the idea of an 'indicator plant' to help those who don't have enough experience to navigate by 'feel' is an appealing idea.  

And a last minute update, I got a bunch of Ludwigia Sphaerocarpa from a hobbyist who has done the hard work of getting them red. I hope I 'm able to maintain the colour and not kill it


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## erwin123 (18 Sep 2021)

I cleaned my in-line Qanvee diffuser today (after 5 months... oops I got to set a reminder to clean every 3 months) there was a fair bit of gunk inside, so I took a pH profile again to make sure a clean diffuser isn't sending too much CO2. A nice surprise was that I was getting a stable 1.1 pH drop (vs  1.0pH previously) though that could just be measurement error etc. Livestock is fine and my photo period is pretty short (6.25hr +0.25hr ramp up, + 5min ramp down)


*Event (Note: Lily Pipe skimmer is active 24/7)**pH*Degassed after 5 hours7.3pH in tank just before CO2 on 14156.81600 lights on6.21700 +1 hour6.21830 +2.5 hours6.21930 +3.5 hours6.22100 +5.0 hours6.22150  (CO2 off)6.22230 +6.5 hours (Wallichii closed up around 2215, Pantanals starting to close)6.32235 lights off


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## erwin123 (19 Sep 2021)

I was inspired by the diligence of Mr Grumpy in taking a daily time lapse of his low tech and thought maybe I should do some sort of regular comparison of my low tech. However, its not a straight comparison since I cannot resist adding plants.
There was no cycling time to speak of for this tank. I used Gex Shrimp soil which doesn't leach ammonia, added old filter substrate, water and plants, and added the first shrimp in 24 hours, and let the plants do the rest. Shrimp are doing very well and the baby shrimp are always hanging out on the sides presumably eating the bio-film/GDA.

What I like about Low-tech / low light is that slow growing plants like my *C. Wendtii Tropica* have remained algae free. In my high tech tank, I have to deal with algae issues with Crypts and Buces I guess because I was blasting them with too much light. At the same time, low light (aka 'desk lamp') hasn't affected the *Rotala Blood Reds *that much.. they grow really fast. The *Bacopa Salzmannii's *also surprised me by how well they adapted to low light. They are in the right corner of the tank, which is the dimmest portion of the tank, however, they remain green and algae free. However, their low light growth form is more elongated I guess they are trying to grow as tall as possible to get more light.

The latest addition to the low tech was an 'extra' *Eriocaulon Vietnam* and three cut off 'bottom stems' from my *R. Wallichiis *which I would have otherwise tossed. One of them actually has new growth popping up, so fingers cross.  I do not have high hopes that I can grow an Erio in low tech, but I hope the plant proves me wrong!  The one plant which I have been totally unable to grow in low tech are the *Pantanals, *or perhaps they can't seem to convert from high tech to low tech...


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## Libba (19 Sep 2021)

erwin123 said:


> View attachment 174435
> Thanks Geoffrey Rea as well as all the other UKAPS experts. I've learnt a lot here... such as most retail test kits are not useful... so the idea of an 'indicator plant' to help those who don't have enough experience to navigate by 'feel' is an appealing idea.
> 
> And a last minute update, I got a bunch of Ludwigia Sphaerocarpa from a hobbyist who has done the hard work of getting them red. I hope I 'm able to maintain the colour and not kill it


Really interested to see how you go with the Sphaerocarpa. I've been having problems with mine. So far I've learned two things: don't let it become shaded by other plants and don't let it become crowded by other plants at the root zone.


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## erwin123 (24 Sep 2021)

My low tech update first. It appears that Rotala Blood Red is very comfortable in Low Tech. It remains relatively red (this is desk lamp - if I had a WRGB2 with red LEDs it would likely be even redder) and the internodal distance remains short. one stem has even breached the surface and emersed leaves have appeared (sadly the emersed leaves are green).  In contrast, the Ludwigia Super Red has 'stringy' growth with an expanded inter-nodal distance.


I'm also getting promising new growth from the chopped off bottoms of the _Rotala Wallichis _which I replanted
I am facing overcrowding problems with the _Syngonanthus Macroroulon _in my main tank. So I dumped one stem into the tank a few days ago, hope it holds up. as I would like to plant more. Shrimp seem to like hiding in this plant.
The _Eriocaulon Vietnam _is 10 days old in the tank and is still alive , so I'm hopeful for that too 
Finally, the lonely _Pantanal _seemed to have converted into low  tech form with tiny thin leaves, looking nothing like the one in high tech.


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## erwin123 (24 Sep 2021)

My 60cm tank update. The *L. Sphaerocarpa *has straightened up after 6 days (when I got it the stems were bent). It throws a lot of shade but so far the lower leaves are still ok. If it adapts to the tank then I'll start figuring out how to help it colour up.

From a distance, its not so easy to tell the difference between the *R. Wallichii *and the smaller *L. Pantanal stems*, both are sort of yellowish-orange? Got to figure out how to help the Wallichii get the colours I see on internet photos.

After the disaster with the tissue culture *R. Bonsai *(constantly uprooted), I got some FoC cuttings from the hobbyist I bought the Sphaerocarpa from and so I'm waiting for them to adapt to the tank as well.

I did a little bit of maintenance on the *Synthogananthus* but the photo is a reminder to do a bit more. Each stem has about 3 fully grown sideshoots and when I pull them up and see quite a lot more sideshoots starting up, so I need to start trimming the sideshoots, replanting them, and reducing overcrowding. My plan is to move as many as possible to my Low tech shrimp tank if the test subject survives.


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## plantnoobdude (24 Sep 2021)

wow! looks very nice. definitely very jealous. considering a black out for my tank.


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## erwin123 (24 Sep 2021)

plantnoobdude said:


> wow! looks very nice. definitely very jealous. considering a black out for my tank.



Yes I found the 72-hr blackout is a good way to "reset" the tank and get rid of some persistent algae. Don't forget big WC before blackout, big WC after blackout. 

But I read Geoffrey Rea's post that his Erios didn't survive the blackout:  Dutch Donut   Maybe move them to holding tank before doing blackout?


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## plantnoobdude (24 Sep 2021)

erwin123 said:


> Yes I found the 72-hr blackout is a good way to "reset" the tank and get rid of some persistent algae. Don't forget big WC before blackout, big WC after blackout.
> 
> But I read Geoffrey Rea's post that his Erios didn't survive the blackout:  Dutch Donut   Maybe move them to holding tank before doing blackout?


ah... then my adjusting quinquangulare will definitely die haha. guess not.


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## erwin123 (28 Sep 2021)

Due to overcrowding, I got around to pulling out one of the Synthoganthus stems which had a total of 6 sideshoots + a number 7 baby shoot just appearing.
Replanted two of them in my low-tech tank (the one I planted earlier has survived its first week in low tech so hopefully the new additions will also survive) and given the number of Cherries that jumped on them, there was probably a lot of algae 😅.  I've only moved 5 of my cherries over to the 60cm tank... got to start moving more over to eat all that algae.

On the right of the photo there is one of my cut-off bottom stem of Rotala Wallichii sprouting new growth with a slightly yellow colour. I'm quite pleased that it has adapted to low tech as well.


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## PARAGUAY (28 Sep 2021)

Just had a read through of the journal. Informative journey well done. Interesting to see some of the plants used🙂


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## erwin123 (1 Oct 2021)

Weekly update. With a heavy heart I removed the last *C. Retrospiralis - *it was shading and preventing my *R. 'Blood Red's' *from growing nice and vertical, which led to shading problems for other plants in the tank. With some extra space to spare, I acquired a pair of *Ammannia Pedicellata 'Golden' *from another hobbyist. It's been in my tank for only 24 hours so I still don't know whether it will adapt and survive in my tank.  Based on what I read I've planted 2 root tabs for each stem. I am hoping that they will at least straighten up quickly (like the Sphaerocrarpa, my stems were quite bent for some reason)

*L Sphaerocarpa *on the other hand, has been in the tank for 1 week (plants take at least 2 weeks to adapt?) but has been growing about 1 cm a day so I've trimmed them a bit.


Had a CO2 'accident'. must have bumped into the regulator (unlike some designs, it is really 'loose' in that minimal force is needed to turn it) when cleaning my canister today, resulting in too much CO2. Only discovered a few hours later. Otos, Cories and shrimp recovered, but the Denison Barbs seem to jump whenever they are not happy about anything, so they jumped out of the tank.. (edit: i had 2 Barbs only, i.e. lost 2 fish)


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## bazz (1 Oct 2021)

☹️


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## Fiske (2 Oct 2021)

Most of the needle valves that come with regulators is absolute crap. I just bought 2 Camozzi valves I'll be installing soon, apart from allegedly being easier to adjust in small increments (we'll see...), it looks like they have a nut for fixing the setting. THAT is gold in my eyes.


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## erwin123 (2 Oct 2021)

Low Tech update. As *L. Aromatica *reaches the surface, the top leaves are taking on a purplish hue.  I think its Aromatica and not Hippuridoides because it has variable leaves per whorl/node? (for example at the bottom its 3 leaves  and increases to 6 leaves per whorl). 
Had to trim my  *R. 'Blood Reds', *they are great low tech red plants that constantly grow.
*R. Wallichi  *sideshoots continue to grow. The *AR Mini* in the far right under low light is algae free whereas in my high tech tank it always has algae 😅
I'm moving more and more excess *S. Macrocaulon*.into the tank. The shrimp like hiding in the 'umbrella' so I plan to add even more... probably on the right side of the tank. I might need to consider a clip on usb light or something for the shaded right side.


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## erwin123 (8 Oct 2021)

Low tech update. Move some more S. Macrocaulon into the low tech tank, trimmed the R. 'Blood Red'. R Wallichii continues to grow but still a bit reddish (In very dim light they turn green).
The L. Super Red in extremely low right on the right are long and stringy... maybe I need more light! Famous last words 😅


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## erwin123 (9 Oct 2021)

Weekly update. Did some minor maintenance. The *Eriocaulon 'Polaris'/'Japan' *in the middle is getting larger and larger, not sure what to do with it. The *Eriocaulon 'Vietnam' *is doing ok, but the *Rotala Bonsai *on the right is fillng out and I'll have to move the 'Vietnam' maybe to the front of the tank. Too much algae on the Buces while at the same time new leaves are appearing. H2O2 creates lots of bubbles of the Buce leaves but not much else.  I plan to buy a bottle of APT Fix to see if it helps....

The *Ammania Pedicatella *has survived the first week in my tank but some of the leaves are not looking good. There does appear to be new growth right at the top.. I would hate anything to happen to her. Do you really think she'll pull through?


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## erwin123 (10 Oct 2021)

Occasionally, I move stems with algae issues from my high tech tank to low tech tank for the cleaning crew to give the plants a good clean. Here they are working on one of my *Limnophila 'Vietnam'.*
Am thinking whether to do that for the Buces... cos most of them put out some roots into the substrate and not sure if they like sudden changes.. but maybe I'll just give it a shot (i.e. take the Buce out, zap them with H2O2, and put them in low tech to see if the shrimp will eat the dying algae)


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## erwin123 (11 Oct 2021)

First Buces sent for cleaning! 🧹 I put a few drops of Excel on the leaf before putting it into the Shrimp tank but that wasn't enough to turn the BBA at the edge red. Will need to zap the BBA again.

photography note:  after cleaning, I ought to have underexposed the leaf more as it became more reflective after the algae was removed?


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## erwin123 (16 Oct 2021)

One stem of *L. Aromatica *decided to colour up in my low tech tank.  I've not edited the colour/saturation of the photo - the colour is sort of a reddish brown. I have 2 other stems in more shaded parts of the tank and they haven't coloured up, so the inference is that it needs light to colour up?

In front of the Aromatica is my *Rotala Wallichii, *given its 'sensitive' reputation, I'm glad that it can propagate in Low tech (this is a sideshoot from a cut-off stem), and there is a tiny hint of yellow/orange colour at the top


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## erwin123 (16 Oct 2021)

Weekly update.
*Ammania Pedicatella *still hanging in there. still not sure of the condition of the lower leaves.
Need to trim some stem plants, but spent my tank maintenance time this week moving Buces to my low tech tank for cleaning.

During the Buce cleaning, I noted Fern had sprouted amongst a bunch of Buces. As this particular clump was supposedly 'wild' Buce rather than the farmed variety, I had hopes that it would be something interesting. In another plant ID thread it was ID possibly as a "Philippine" Java Fern. But I don't think I have space for a whole Java Fern in my tank so I moved it to the Low tech and got a replacement Buce. The current stock was a *B. 'Red Serenade *(too many fancy names, I just go by leaf size to differentiate Buces nowadays) so I got it and placed it where the Fern was.  As a result, you can see the *Eriocaulon Vietnam *a bit more clearly on the left hand side of the photo.


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## erwin123 (17 Oct 2021)

Low tech update. Decided to rationalise the layout and reduce the number of plants, after all this is a 16 litre tank (I thought it was 10 litres need to improve my maths). Still got a long way to go but I timebox my maintenance - eg: I set myself 30minute a week to do layout maintenance and anything more than 30min, I'll just leave to another week.    The Rotala Blood Reds are looking untidy because I just planted cut off bottom stems in order to grow new sideshoots, need to cut and replant the sideshoots I guess.

I'm quite pleased how 'easy' it has been to maintain a small low tech tank like this. Shrimp are breeding well and I've transferred maybe 10+ shrimp into the high tech tank already.

Maintenance routine

(50% water change once a week and top-up for evaporation.
During water change, wipe algae off the tank glass (i.e. acrylic).
After water change add:
Tiny bit of CaCl2 and MgSO4 I confess I don't even bother to measure)
1-2 drops of APT EI

1 drop of APT Zero mid-week (I have bottle that I need to use up)
Feed 1 Hikari tropical sinking wafer 5 times a week (regular wafer for fish)
As long as the water is flowing, do I really need to clean this filter? Especially since the tank is at my "WFH desk" and I prefer not to make a mess.  Instead I put a small piece of 100micron filter wool at the outflow and I replace that every couple of weeks after it gets brown.
I do not dose "Liquid Carbon" as I'm not trying to increase the speed of growth. I'm happy if the plants don't die.


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## erwin123 (23 Oct 2021)

Weekly update... just letting the plants grow. *Buce. Antyovani *appeared in my LFS. Internet says that is an farmed species from an Indonesian nursery with relatively large leaves ... so not another Brownie variant, I just had to get it and make space for it  The *AR Mini *bush at the left seems to have been quietly growing.





As I have not made much progress with the *L. Sengalensis,* I decided to let them grow instead of trimming them. My reasoning was to let them establish a decent root system (hard to do if I trim & replant them constantly) and see whether that would help with growth. Interesting, one stem split into 3 at the crown... not even clear which is the original crown.



*Eriocaulon "Polaris" (also known as "Japan")* getting a bit overgrown, but the cherry shrimp love it a lot and are keeping it clean. There are no instructions on the internet how to trim this? Do I treat it like hairgrass and hack away? On the left and right of the Polaris are the *E. Cinerums* which prefer to send out flowers rather than grow bushier.





I've not had any success with *R Florida*. Can I blame my water gH for this? (its 6). I've just left these 2 stems at the side of the tank since they are still alive and there's a little bit of colour.






I have *Eriocaulon Vietnam *in the extreme left and right of the tank, both are pretty heavily shaded but are doing fine. Previously I had the similar looking *Helanthium Bolivianum *in my tank and I must say I much prefer the Vietnam for a number of reasons. Behind the Erio you can see the bottom leaves of the *Ludwigia Sphaerocarpa *not looking too good. The plant is definitely still growing but need to figure out how to help it out. There is a Co2 diffuser right next to it on the left so it gets the Co2 mist.





Finally, *Ammania Pedicatella. *The stem on the left is doing a lot better than the one of the right, maybe because the one on the left has more light? The condition of the lower leaves suggests I still got a lot of work to do...
Buried amongst the plants is my other *Erio Vietnam*, which seems ok with being in the shade and crowded by the *R. Bonsai*.


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## erwin123 (24 Oct 2021)

Low Tech update
Allocated my 30minutes of weekly maintenance to sorting out the *Rotala Blood Reds. *Had to trim and replant the *L. Aromatica *on the left which is a nice red-brown. The *R Wallichii *will hit the surface soon so I will need to trim and replant.  I had a spare 2w USB clip on lamp which I added to light up the darkened right side of the tank (my desk lamp can't cover the entire 450mm width of the tank). The *L. Aromaticas* on the right responded nice by starting to colour up at the crown. *Aromatica *is really an "easy" plant to grow if it colours up in response to a 2w USB light.

So now I have 9w+2w = 11w of light for a 16 litre tank though admittedly, these are cheap lights and I don't know whether they are pumping out the same amount of light, as say, an equivalent wattage but more expensive aquarium light.

Added one more *S. Macroraulon *stem to the tank. The shrimp love this plant a lot, I guess it provides a very nice hiding place.


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## erwin123 (29 Oct 2021)

Update.
*High tech tank*
I've just been letting the plants grow. The *Ammania Pedicatella *on the left is growing well (more light than the one of the right?)
Took a photo of my eclectic collection of Buce.  The larger leaved "*Dark Metallic Blue"* (a common farmed variant from Indonesia) is sprouting new leaves regularly but the old ones have algae issues.

*Low tech tank*
This is the tank that I view the most often because its on my WFH desk. Plants are doing well and I love the rust-coloured leaves of the *Limnophila "Aromatica'*,  When I have the time I'll move all the Aromaticas on the right to the left side and move the *R. Wallichiis *to the right. The Wallichiis are able to grow sideshoots from cut-off stems but they more or less remain steadfastly green


*Experimenting TDS meter*
I bought a TDS meter and the figures I got were:

*Tap Water: 68ppm
High Tech just before water change: 258ppm
High Tech after 60% water change: 165ppm*
So in the course of the week, PPM increases by 50%.

*Low Tech: 160pm *midway between water changes ( I do WC on a different day). I guess the difference is primarily due to high tech tank getting a higher dose of ferts with my low tech getting 1/2 the amount of ferts. (I also bought a 0.001g resolution weighing scale for about US$11 (worked a whole lot better than I expected for the price))so I now know that 1 drop of APT EI from my syringe weighs 0.6g,


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## Libba (29 Oct 2021)

Tanks are looking great mate


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## erwin123 (4 Nov 2021)

Decided to come up with a plan to address the problems with the *Ludwigia Sphaerocarpa*. Took some overhead shots for my reference in order to gauge progress. I had to trim the larger stem as it reached the surface, so it has no problem growing tall. But the lower leaves are not in good shape.
I'm ruling out CO2 as a problem because its right next to a CO2 diffuser and getting the CO2 mist. The flow of the mist also shows that there is some flow in that area. Also, I have a stem of Rotala Florida right next to the Sphaerocarpa - The Rotala is like the canary in the coal mine where it comes to CO2 problems. pH drop is a stable 1.0 at lights on, dropping to 1.1 in the middle and 1.0 at lights off. I am also tweaking it to try for a 1.1 drop on lights on, max 1.2 drop in the middle.

But for the yellow leaves with holes, I'll go with nutrient deficiency (particularly mobile nutrients) as a working hypothesis even though I am dosing the manufacturer recommended dose of APT EI (daily dosing and weekly total 13.8ppm N, 4.5ppm P, 15ppm K etc) . I also add 4ppm of Mg weekly with Epsom Salt as some say APT doesn't have enough Magnesium and furthermore, there are Neo (Aquario's root tabs) and Ferropol Tabs next to the plant. The other plants also seem ok. I don't plan to increase water column dosing because that may affect the Ammania but am investigating additional root tabs - Nutricote (the Japanese version of Osmocote) is available here so I plan to get some. I'll also bump up the light levels slightly. I've gone gradually from 50% to 55%, maybe I'll slowly increase to 58%, (I do 1% increase every 3 days).


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## erwin123 (4 Nov 2021)

since I was taking overhead shots, here are a couple more.


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## Libba (4 Nov 2021)

What's your GH?

How are you measuring pH?


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## erwin123 (4 Nov 2021)

Libba said:


> What's your GH?
> 
> How are you measuring pH?



*gH *is 6 - JBL test kit
*pH *- Apera ph20 pH meter (calibrated with 4.0/7.0 solution) pH20 Digital Pocket pH Meter Pen Tester Kit-Apera Instruments
*TDS* - generic TDS test pen 160ppm (just after water change) to 230ppm (just before water change)
kH - don't have a kH test kit


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## Libba (4 Nov 2021)

erwin123 said:


> *gH *is 6 - JBL test kit
> *pH *- Apera ph20 pH meter (calibrated with 4.0/7.0 solution) pH20 Digital Pocket pH Meter Pen Tester Kit-Apera Instruments
> *TDS* - generic TDS test pen 160ppm (just after water change) to 230ppm (just before water change)
> kH - don't have a kH test kit



All sounds perfectly adequate. I'm having such a hard time trying to figure out why your sphaerocarpa isn't as healthy as it could be. Could you try experimenting with more flow during the photo period?


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## Rockfella (4 Nov 2021)

OP where are the torpedos?


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## erwin123 (4 Nov 2021)

Rockfella said:


> OP where are the torpedos?


Sadly, as i revealed earlier, I knocked into the CO2 regulator while cleaning my canister filter and didn't realise it. Later when Co2 came on, there was too much CO2 coming out. This caused the torpedoes to jump. My Co2 regulator dial is quite loose and easy to turn. i've learnt to be more careful so I check after cleaning my canister now.

The Corys and shrimp fortunately did not jump and have made a full recovery.


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## erwin123 (6 Nov 2021)

Weekly update

High Tech
Did some trimming of S. *Macrocaulon*. Some of them are *S. "Lago Grandes" *but its all mixed up already.  *A. Pedicatella *is surviving on the right side, so my focus is on the *L.Sphaerocarpa *on the left.

Low Tech
*Limnophila Aromatica *colour shifting from rust brown to slightly purplish. Removed some of the non-thriving stems to make way for more Macrocaulon cuttings from the high tech tank. Eagle-eyed viewers will see that there is a Monstera in the Hang on back filter - it was given to us to revive. One node has been potted in soil while one has gone into the hang on back. The old leaves may not revive but I think there is a new leaf forming. Fingers crossed....


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## erwin123 (13 Nov 2021)

Weekly Low Tech update. I've been taking photos using the LED desk lamp. For a change, I decided to use my spare Aquazonic 20w LED to light the tank, to see if a more 'expensive' (anything is more expensive than my desk lamp) light makes a difference. As for the plants, not much by way of update. The *P. 'Sao Paolo' *emersed growth is more than 30cm out of the tank and I think it likes being emersed just fine and is shedding its lower leaves.  Patiently waiting for the Monstera in the HOB filter to develop a new leaf.


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## erwin123 (13 Nov 2021)

High tech tank update: Not much to report. My focus is on helping the *L. Sphaerocarpa *out. The *R. Florida *next to the Sphaerocarpa are still doing ok when it comes to the colour of the new leaves... just to confirm that this area has sufficient CO2 (i.e. The Florida will wilt first if it is CO2 related). 

I've ordered some Osmocote clone ferts during the 11/11 sale, will follow 2hr Aquarist technique of 1 osmocote 'ball' per stem only. I picked the 'cacti & succulent' version instead of the regular 15-15-15 mainly because the cacti & succulent version has 0.25% copper, which is half the 0.50% of the other osmocote formulation.  Rotala Kill Tank here I come! (or maybe not...) 

On the other side of the tank. The bigger *A. Pedicatella *stem has nearly reached the surface and this will be its first trim. The smaller stem, not to be outdone,  has grown a side shoot


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## erwin123 (17 Nov 2021)

Low tech update
Seems like the old Monstera leaves do not revive (they are still drooping) but the plantchannels its energy towards new leaves. My first new leaf!

Apart from the new leaf, the before and after photos show the Super Reds growing like weeds in the HOB. I'm sure they're helping to keep the nitrates low based on how much of it I have to remove every week!

I got a $5 usb pump for the low tech tank due to dead spots. I have a usb power meter which shows it running at 4.8v 0.2amp (just under 1w) and its silent. I put the outlet just below the waterline to agitate the water since I don't have a skimmer in this tank. The surface is totally clean and clear now. This suggests that a skimmer is not totally necessary as long as you agitate the water surface sufficiently?


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## erwin123 (18 Nov 2021)

Low tech update. Bought a US$3.50 usb pump from a China seller. Running at 5v 0.2A or 1w, it uses very little power but moves a decent amount of water silently. Here's a video of it placed near the water surface and sucking in air and aerating the water. Thats a bit noisy so I'll probably have to lower it. Pretty easy way to improve flow in a tank.

The *P. Sao Paolo *has doing very well emersed with multiple emersed sideshoots forming. As a result, it doesn't need its submersed leaves but has instead started to sprout underwater aerial roots. I may have to remove it from the tank soon. (I already have Sao Paolos in my HOB filter).


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## LondonDragon (18 Nov 2021)

erwin123 said:


> Seems like the old Monstera leaves do not revive


I find mosteras don't like their roots permanently in water!


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## erwin123 (19 Nov 2021)

Thanks for the tip on the Monstera... will monitor carefully and repot in soil if needed.

Here's my high tech update. First trim for my *A. Pedicatella, *and replating of the two sideshoots that came out of the base. Roots were wrapped around a root tab.
*L. Sphaerocarpa *have lost all their bottom leaves though new growth looks fine.

I've taken delivery of my Osmocote-type Root Tabs (there seem to be 2 competing delivery systems Osmocote & Nutricote - Osmocote's delivery system depends by temperature, Nutricote is not - labelling for Starxcote says its affected by temp, so I infer its an Osmocote clone). I picked this formulation as it had the least amount of copper (0.025% vs 0.05% for many other formulations). Anyway, I have inserted them sparingly into the soil next to the more difficult plants and will see if there's any difference.


Edit: added an overhead shot with camera flash for my reference to compare with future photos (probably need to have off-camera lights to minimise the reflections etc....)
There is a new plant in this overhead photo - *Ammannia Capitellata* (originally "*Nesaea Triflora*") appeared in my LFS for $4 - cheap and obscure Ammannia are irresistible to me. I removed the front row of Syngonanthus (as the shot shows, still got plenty left) and planted the Triflora there, with Starxcote root tabs. This gives me two different species of Ammannias to test Starxcote on.


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## erwin123 (25 Nov 2021)

A. Pedicatella is doing well. The leaves of new sideshoot are looking much better than the new growth of the original stems, not sure why?

*********************************************************



Low tech update. After installing the usb pump to improve flow, the Aromatica grew 3 cm in 5 days and I had to pull it out for a trim. As I pulled, the root kept going on and on and on....


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## erwin123 (27 Nov 2021)

Weekly update. Lots of pics, but all resized to less than 0.5Mb

*Plant updates*
I manage to stunt all my *Pantanals* with all the funny stuff I'm doing (Yes I know Pantanals are a plant that love EI and I don't dose EI) so the crowns have stopped growing but several rather red sideshoots have popped up. Lets hope its an adjustment to the Starxcote....

Side photo of the *L.Sphaerocarpa *shows its current state where it has shed all its bottom leaves. If you look closely, there is a new sideshoot which is sort of exciting... as the sideshoot might be better 'adapted' to the tank conditions and maybe not shed as much?  And note that it is next to the *Wallichii *and *Florida*, which should provide 'early warning' of CO2 problems, which is why I'm treating this as a mobile nutrient problem and hope the Starxcote will help.

And speaking of the *Wallichii - *the stem is pretty red, but the leaves are not turning pink yet... will continue to work on this.

*New Plants
Removed: *I removed the very nice *Eriocaulon Vietnam*, split it, and replanted some of them in my low tech tank. I also removed the *L. Super Red* - while it was a beautiful red, it doesn't grow very straight and the stems keep on getting tangled. So I guess its time to try something new. I have plenty of them growing emersed though.

*Added: *I went to my LFS and they had another new Ammannia on sale, *A. Senegalensis*. After being inspired by the Rotala Kill Tank thread in Barr Report, any unusual and reasonably priced Lythraceae is on my buy list! Sticking with the theme, I also picked up *R. Macandra 'Narrow Leaf'*.

_________________________________________
*Osmocote Journal*
As I posted in another thread, I discovered a Masters thesis where the release pattern of Osmocote in water was studied - it was revealed that there is a big 'dump' of nutrients in the first two weeks and then a drop to a lower level. This suggested to me that I should put in a little osmocote weekly to 'smooth out' the 2 week spike
*17 Nov*:  First round of Starxcote (Osmocote clone) added. Small amount individually inserted with tweezers next to the 'difficult' plants.
*24 Nov: *Second round of Starxcote added added.

Observations: 

Nitrate Test (for what it's worth) shows the same colour as pre-Osmocote, TDS readings are also around the same.
No algae blooms. Usual GDA to scrape off the glass (as some photos show, I need to scrape more thoroughly...)


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## erwin123 (28 Nov 2021)

Low tech update. Split and replanted some of the *E. Vietnam*. Also replanted some *L. Super Red *stems - my lighting may not be bright enough to keep them 'super red' though (photo was taken with my spare Aquazonic 20w LED fixture which is not the regular light for this tank)
*P Sao Paolo *at the right side has sprouted multiple emersed sideshoots. Maybe its looking for more nutrients to feed those sideshoots as its sprouting aerial roots like crazy. I'll probably remove it soon once I figure out what to put in that corner.
And yes, I have all that Starxcote so I put a few into this tank as well next to the Aromatica and Vietnams! Low tech kill tank here I come!


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## erwin123 (2 Dec 2021)

I was on leave so I had time to do more maintenance. First signs of pink on the Wallichii as I have been slowly ramping up the lighting levels 1% at a time. Also continued my weekly addition of Starxcote... I may (or may not) have added too many this time (possible complacency as nothing bad has happened so far) so next week I had better pause the Starxcote additions.

Rear WRGB2:  63%
Front WRGB2: 53%
I have a total of 134w (67w x 2) on tap so I may be approaching the 'algae' zone soon. But at least I can say I saw my Wallchiis turn pink!  😅 
(p.s. it bought this plant in a plastic cup with the handwritten words "*Wallichii*" - i'm open to the possibility that this is *Cambodia *or *Enie*..... I'm not exactly sure how to tell the difference)


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## erwin123 (2 Dec 2021)

Miscellaneous maintenance photos


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## erwin123 (2 Dec 2021)

Finally, low tech update. It is still surprises me that you can grow coloured plants lowtech with an LED desk lamp.

Though not all plants remain red. I added some Ludwigia Super Reds that I had removed from the high tech tank. Unfortunately, they do not remain red in this tank and the new growth is greenish. I'll probably remove them later. Planted some Rotala Indica trimmings on the right.


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## erwin123 (6 Dec 2021)

Captured a short video clip to show the flow in my Aquarium. Recorded just after the CO2 switched off.

This is a 60x45x45 tank but if I exclude the 12cm of substrate, the tank volume is 60x45x33 = 89 litres (I usually refer it to100l because I've only just realised how much space in the tank is taken up by substrate that accumulated over 10 years😅)
I'm running Fluval 307, 407 and a usb pump at the left rear corner, published flowrate =1050+1350+200 = 2600 litres/hr, so thats shy of 30x flowrate.

I'm looking for a 'strong' stem plant that can be planted at the rear of the tank and not be bothered too much by the flow from the rear Lily Pipe and the current front-runner is the Ammannia Capitellata which is swaying ever so slightly (there's a single stem of R. Blood Red next to it that is swaying vigorously in the flow).


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## erwin123 (11 Dec 2021)

Weekly update
Did a trim of the various stems including the *L.Senegelansis*.  No progress with the *Sphaerocarpa *lower leaves despite 4 weeks of Starxcote addition, so I gave it a hard trim and replanted.  4 stems of *A. Capitellata *is too many - its a big green plant. Had to remove 2 stems to make way for an *A. Gracilis. *Growing the Gracilis side-by-side with the *A. Sengelansis *will help me learn more about growing Ammannias. Removed a couple of *S. Macrocaulon *stems as the tank was a little to cramped

The *Macandra Narrow Leaf *on the left is colouring up rather nicely.


Small dosing experiment. Will drop my APT EI dosing from 2ml/day to 1.8ml/day since my tank has only 80litres of water (60x45x32) after subtracting the rather deep substrate. Will continue to add a little bit of Starxcote each week just before water change.

Slowly inching up the lighting to the algae danger zone:
WRGB2 Front: 55%
WRGB2 Rear: 64%

________________
Edit/update: Got a new Apera PH60 pH meter and I did a pH profile. Recording it here for reference. I am managing a *1.03-1.14pH *drop during the photoperiod which is a *0.11pH *variance which is acceptable but can be improved. As I am slowly increasing light intensity to make the Rotalas pink, I plan to tweak CO2 to get a *1.1-.1.2pH drop. *


24hr Degassed pH *7.25*
2pm CO2 on (didn't record pH)
4pm lights on pH *6.22*
5pm pH *6.18*
6.30pm pH *6.13*
7.45pm pH *6.13*
9.00pm pH *6.10*
9.50pm CO2 off pH *6.11*


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## erwin123 (14 Dec 2021)

I've got an *E. Cinereum *suddenly growing like crazy in the front corner of the tank. The fact that the plant is pushing against the glass walls doesn't seem to be deterring it from growing. Given that the corner is the area of lowest light and probably weakest flow, I'm wondering whether this could be a reaction to its roots being deep enough to 'find' the Starxcote balls in the substrate. Yes, thats 12cm of substrate, with the bottom being 10+ years old 😅

Behind it is my *B. 'Wavy Green,' *and behind it, the *B. 'Red Serenade' *which has lovely leaves. The Wavy Green has some BBA which I put down to it being near the CO2 diffuser and strong flow; on the other hand, even though its growing, I don't think it has every been particularly healthy because its leaves are a rather pale green while photos on the internet show a rich deep green. I may replace it with something else.


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## erwin123 (17 Dec 2021)

Weekly update. I am trying to target a 1.2pH drop by increasing CO2 slightly but oddly my pH meter is reporting a higher 0.1 higher pH. I calibrated it again with the 4/7/10 solution and the higher pH is confirmed. I did not do any water change in the meantime so I'm checking whether my degassed pH has gone up (will need 24 hours for it to degas) Fortunately the pH reading is stable. I may need to deal with some BBA that is appearing (something to do with too much CO2 fluctuation as I try to tweak the CO2). Anyway, I bought a bottle of APT Fix since I was getting another bottle of APT EI, will try it out and see whether its more effective (more concentrated?) than Excel. Also, my google calendar reminder tells me that I need to clean my Qanvee diffuser tomorrow (I set it as a calendar item every 3 months).

When I have a new plant species, I usually plant it in two different locations to see if it makes a difference. Looking at *Ammannia Sengelansis *on the left side and single stem on the right, the difference is noticeable. The stems on the left have mega-sized leaves but are very green, the stem on the right is smaller leaves but is more 'orange'.  Lets see how the growth progresses over the next few weeks.
The *Buce. Wavy Green *on the left has always had slightly yellowish leaves rather than the deep green shown in photos, I may replace it if an interesting Buce appears in my LFS.

So far, the (slightly) reduced water column dosing does not appear to be harming the plants. My Sera NO3 tests show a lighter shade of orange/yellow consistent with a reduced amount of nitrates added to the water column and also suggests that nitrates have not leaked out from the root tabs into the water column?

For reference, my dosing adds up to the following weekly total:

9.7ppm N
3.2ppm P
11.6ppm K
0.35ppm Fe
2.5ppm Mg


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## erwin123 (21 Dec 2021)

Experiment time. Picked up 2 packs of 6% EDDHA-FE from China seller, $2 each +$1.50 P&P, total $5.50. Will be using it for house plants as well (my degassed water is pH7.5)

(1) Use Rotala butterflys handy-dandy calculator to determine how much to add for target ppm. In this case, it will be a cautious 0.1ppm as my All-in-one Fert adds 0.3ppm weekly. So total will still be below the EI target of 0.5ppm.
(2) Poured required amount into ice cube tray (0.001g weighing scale very useful).
(3) Freeze
(4) Insert into substrate as deep as possible.
(5) Verify whether water turns pink/red (i.e. how fast it takes for the EDDHA-FE to leak into the water column) [internet says 0.1ppm EDDHA-FE will tint water]

This is where I'm hoping my 10-year old substrate will 'help'. As you can see from the photo, the lower part of the substrate comprises regular aquasoil granules and the compacted 'dust' of disintegrated aquasoil which I'm counting on reducing the amount of leakage into the water column. The 12cm depth is also going to be useful. Will report back on the results of this experiment


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## milesjames (21 Dec 2021)

erwin123 said:


> View attachment 178010
> View attachment 178011
> I was on leave so I had time to do more maintenance. First signs of pink on the Wallichii as I have been slowly ramping up the lighting levels 1% at a time. Also continued my weekly addition of Starxcote... I may (or may not) have added too many this time (possible complacency as nothing bad has happened so far) so next week I had better pause the Starxcote additions.
> 
> ...


Nice healthy looking plants 😊 I think you might be right to doubt if it is wallichii how long has it been in the tank did it arrive with red stems?


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## erwin123 (21 Dec 2021)

milesjames said:


> Nice healthy looking plants 😊 I think you might be right to doubt if it is wallichii how long has it been in the tank did it arrive with red stems?







Hi, my Wallichii was first added in March 2021 (this photo is from Sep 2021) . They were emersed plants which had to convert to submersed form.

In Sep 2021 as the photo shows the stems were still green even though there was plenty of CO2, but I did a few tweaks including increasing the light levels slowly. I am also dosing all-in-one ferts rather than EI, so only adding 10ppm NO3 a week.


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## milesjames (21 Dec 2021)

erwin123 said:


> Hi, my Wallichii was first added in March 2021 (this photo is from Sep 2021) . They were emersed plants which had to convert to submersed form.
> 
> In Sep 2021 as the photo shows the stems were still green even though there was plenty of CO2, but I did a few tweaks including increasing the light levels slowly. I am also dosing all-in-one ferts rather than EI, so only adding 10ppm NO3 a week.


Great work on getting it to the reddened stem and pink leaf stage since this Sept photo was taken. 👍

Its definitely wallichii now I have seen this pic, if I had only seen the most recent pic, I'd have placed good money on it being Enie. 

Keep up the good work I look forward to reading about your progress over the coming months.


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## erwin123 (23 Dec 2021)

*Plants*
Weekly update. The *A. Senegelansis *is a big plant and I think the first plant that is standing tall next to the Lily Pipe outflow right behind it.  So its doing a good job in helping to obscure the Lily Pipe, usb pump, and Twinstar Nano in the left rear corner. Everything else I've tried gets 'bent' by the water flow.  Of course I dread having to uproot it to trim it - wonder how big a root system it has already - to withstand that water flow.

The one in the middle is turning more red than the ones at the side. The *Pantanal* appear to have revived after stunting when I reduced the dosing to 10ppm NO3.
I had the trim the nice sideshoot of the *A. Pedicatella *as it grew too tall, but the new growth appears wrinkled. I got the plant submersed from another hobbyist and I suspect that the tank conditions are very different from where it was raised. Submersed to submersed adaptation may actually be more difficult that emersed to submersed adaptation. I'll keep on trying but I might consider looking for emersed Pedicatella to see if there is any difference.
Another difficult submersed to submersed transition is *A. Gracilis *which had very rich pink leaves. The new growth is quite pale but I'm hoping that it will adjust and turn more red.
The *Macrandra* has to be trimmed and replanted - I'm surprised how extensive its root system is. Hoping it will complete its conversion from emersed to submersed soon.

*Starxcote*
I believe I'm at week 5 of my weekly Starxcote/Osmocote dosing. No change in NO3 test colour or TDS profile (i.e. if Starxcote is leaking nutrients, TDS should be rising compared to pre-Starxcote TDS levels). I continue to add Starxcote every week before water change. I'm hoping that the calcium inside can help the *R. Floridas *grow a bit better. For now, the Floridas are just acting as my CO2 alert system - anything wrong with CO2, they will be the first to go...

*CO2 *
My CO2 is still not stable - I was in the midst of tuning and daily profililng to hit target 1.2 but the past few days I had to go to office, so I left the CO2 'untuned' but on the 'safe' side which meant less CO2 than optimal (i.e. as I haven't dialled in a stable 1.2 yet, and I don't want to gas my shrimp by overshooting the target while I'm at work).  So there is still a little BBA which I will deal with once CO2 is dialled in.

*Light*
I shouldn't be increasing light without diallng in CO2 properly, but I have added a little bit to the rear light since there's no algae problem (algae yes, problem no  ) at the back of the tank, I've bumped up the rear light power a bit.
For reference, tank water surface to substrate is *33cm
Front WRGB2:  56% *(average of R+G+B levels )
*Rear WRGB2:  65%*
I'm probably on the verge of some major tank crash with this light setting, but until the *Wallichii* turns pink, I'll keep on going! 🌞🌞🌞

*Ferts*
Maintaining my "10ppm NO3 dosing" with 1.5ml of APT-EI daily (which was a reduced dose as a precaution in case Starxcote starting leaking into the water column).  As mentioned earlier, I added 0.1ppm EDDHA-Fe via ice cubes into the substrate which seemed to go ok. If you notice the *Hygrophila Araguia - *its new leaves are quite red - internet says it is one of those that turns reddish with less nitrates


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## erwin123 (24 Dec 2021)

I haven't posted many updates on my desktop low tech tank as its been neglected - I'm working in office more so the low tech tank has been left to its own devices (i don't turn on the desk lamp when I'm not around) with some window light. 
The shrimp still seem happy but most of the growing is coming from the emersed growth which I suspect is probably 'stealing' most of the nutrients from the water column. The Monstera is still doing ok, with progressively larger new leaves


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## erwin123 (24 Dec 2021)

Just sharing an example of a bad pH profile to show that Tuning CO2 is not easy (at least for me). So whenever someone says they have algae or unhealthy plants but their CO2 is 'good', I'm wondering whether their CO2 is really 'good' - as I do find it a challenge (but an enjoyable one, I get to learn how to use Excel to create time graphs )

While I found it relatively straightforward to tune in a 1.1 pH drop with about a 0.1pH variance, aiming for ph 6.25-6.20 which represents a 1.2-1.25 pH drop takes more effort.

I'm resorting to identifying the "overshoot" period where CO2 drops more than 1.25 (thats pH 6.2, the lower red line) and using the timer to turn off the CO2 for say, 15 minutes in the hopes that it will smoothen out the curves.

My tuning over the past few days was disrupted by a few things:
(1) I had to replace my main CO2 tank - I was tuning CO2 with a rapidly emptying tank, not a good idea - even if my regulator was dual stage, the amount of CO2 being pushed out the diffuser was apparently less notwithstanding that the bubble counter suggested everything was normal
(2) My 3-monthly clean of my Qanvee diffuser took place - it looks like if I want pH consistency, I will need to be cleaning the diffuser every month (maybe I'll just buy spares so I can do a 1-1 swap of the diffuser every month, and take my time to clean the dirty one.

Finally, I don't know what happened, but after Co2 turned off, the pH dropped a lot . I measured in 5 minute intervals after detecting the drop to verify that it did drop. I'll measure again tomorrow to see if this is repeatable. My understanding if there is an big dump of CO2 stuck in the diffuser, most of it is wasted and won't drop pH that much.


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## erwin123 (30 Dec 2021)

Weekly update.

*Ferts*
Reducing water column by 10% from 1.5ml to 1.3ml of APT EI daily
Continued weekly addition of Starxcote and EDDHA-Fe ice cubes to substrate.

*Plants*
Had to trim the *A. Sengelansis *on the left... several attempts needed to replant them as they kept on floating away.
I had an *A. Pedicatella *sideshoot growing fine, but after it got too tall and I had to trim and replant, the new leaves started to wrinkle up. But recently, it showed signs of improving. I'm cutting water column dosing by 10% and we'll see how it goes. My *L. Pantanals *still seem ok.
*R Macandra* ('narrow leaf') - has been a few weeks since I planted their emersed form. When I pulled them out to replant they had extensive root systems and have been branching, just that the colours and lower leaves are not the best. Will have to monitor. The video of my drop checker has a better view of the Macandra's issues.

*Lights*
Continued increasing the lighting in 1% increments. Now at:
Front - 59%
Back - 70%

*CO2*
After tweaking CO2 for several days and causing stunting and BBA due to CO2 instablility, I'm leaving as it is relatively stable and bottoms out at a max 1.29pH drop. Drop checker is green so it all likelihood my degassed water (which was degassed outdoors in the warm sun for 24 hours) contains only 2ppm CO2, and 1.3pH drop translates to 39.9ppm CO2. Will slowly spot dose the BBA with APT Fix.


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## erwin123 (6 Jan 2022)

I tweaked my 11 year old camera colour balance. I think its so old its colour balance sensor is being fooled by the WRGB2's RBG LEDs?  Was planning change my camera to a Sony mk IV but its local release appears to have been delayed 

Interesting to see the growth of *Ammannia Senegalensis and Gracilis *in a week. Would Starxcote have anything to do with it? (after all I reduced water column dosing)   Did a major trim and replant of the *L. Senegalensis. *Speaking of ridiculously fast growth, the *R. Blood Reds *have been growing like crazy as shown in this weeks' photo compared to previous weeks. I have kept to my usual maintenance routine for them but its not enough... I have to let them overgrow or shorten the maintenance intervals. I'm not sure what caused them to grow faster (more light? [I always feel like a heretic when I say 'more light' in UKAPS? 😅] I also dumped some spare cuttings on the left side to see if they can help hide the Lily pipe and maybe provide additional background colour.  There are a couple of other journals growing *A. Pedicatella (i.e. "Golden") - *closely following them to get more tips on how to help it 'unstunt' in my tank.

*Ferts*
Maintaining my 10% reduced dosing of APT EI at 1.3ml a day with no apparent ill effect despite increasing light at the same time. I will reduce it further to *1.2ml a day *for the coming week and monitor. If successful, I might even go for 1ml a day.... it will help my bottle of APT EI (aka 'dilute water') to last longer.. though there's always the risk that *Pantanal *will stunt in protest at less plant food...

*Water Circulation*
The advantage of having a crowded tank is that I can install an additional usb pump at substrate level (on the right-rear amongst the *Syngonanthus*, water flow pointing forward to the front of the tank) and can hide the wire easily... (good work by those Blood Reds!) Flow is king and maybe can help mitigate the effects of pumping up the light....

*My light levels are now:*
WRGB2 Front*: 63%*
WRGB2 Back*: 71%*
Inching towards a crash, 1% at a time. Where's my pink Wallichii? 😁


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## erwin123 (13 Jan 2022)

Weekly update

*Plants*
Had to remove the A. Senegalensis on the right as it was growing too big and I was running short of space. It ended up shading one of the Pantanal which was not happy and I think has started to stunt.  This will also make space for the Pedicatella.

Took a photo of my *R Macandra Narrow leaf* for reference.  To the left is my *Buce 'Wavy Green*'  which for some reason never sprouted the sort of dark green leaves I see in photos. It's always been this way even when I was dosing a lot more APT EI. Oh well, at least its leaves are not rotting away. The Buce behind the Wavy Green is called *'Red Serenade'* which is actually a rather accurate name as its new leaves are quite red. 

*Ferts*
Current dose is 1.2ml APT EI a day. For next week, I'm moving to 1.1ml a day. Hoping that *A. Pedicatella *will continue unstunting. Currently not very pretty, but good to have a photo as a baseline to see if there is any improvement (whats the point of taking a photo only when everything is perfect?) 😅  Will compensate with more Starxcote and root tabs into the substrate....

*Shrimp*
Cheap (aka lower grade) Bee Shrimp (the one with the black stripe)  appeared in my LFS. As these are the same species but generally hardier than CRS, I decided to get some to see if they would survive and breed in a CO2 injected tank. My tank is GH6, TDS 130 which is within the range. The temp is a bit high at 25-26 degrees but local breeders are likely to breed them in warmer waters than in colder countries.


*Light levels* - I only increased by 1-2% over the last week
WRGB2 Front: *65%*
WRGB2 Back: *72%*


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## erwin123 (20 Jan 2022)

Weekly update
Did some minor trimming. With fewer WFH days in the new year, I've become a "1 hour (a week) aquarist." 30min for water change, 30min for trimming, and hope the tank can run by itself and not crash  It may not seem obvious, but since last weeks' update, I actually trimmed some of the Rotala Blood Reds (didn't have time to trim everything), so they're overgrown again. Fortunately, they grow vertical and don't have many messy sideshoots like L. Blood Red (which is a tangled mess when overgrown). The *A. Gracilis*, seems to be a faster grower than the *A. Senegelansis*,  and the stem is turning a nice red. The effect of more light I guess.

I trimmed and replanted one of the tall but stunted Pedicatellas and hope it can unstunt. The rightmost Pedicatella appears to be in the process of unstunting but a week on week photo comparison shows the progress is painfully slow (maybe going down to 1.1ml/day dosing will help).

Continued to insert Starxcote and also inserted 0.2ppm worth of Frozen EDDHA-Fe ice cubes. The good news is that the water didn't turn pink, which means that most of it is being retained in the substrate (0.1ppm is enough to stain water).

Have found a local source for an NPK only  fert called Plantacote Triple 14, so I can insert a mix of tabs with and without trace elements: Plantacote® Triple 14 | PLANTACOTE


*Ferts*
Reduced to 1.1ml daily, lets keep going!

*Lighting*
Have increased by 2%. Lets keep going!
RGB2 Front: *67%*
WRGB2 Back: *74%*


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## erwin123 (27 Jan 2022)

Weekly update

Did some trimming of plants
Purchased Plantacote (Osmocote clone) root tabs. 14:14:14 NPK only : Plantacote® Triple 14 | PLANTACOTE  From the website its a Dutch company so I presume this should be more readily available in Europe compared to Osmocote.
I bought this just in case there are issues with 'trace toxicity' if I solely relied on Starxcote which has trace elements as well. I'll be inserting 50% Starxcote and 50% Plantacote weekly. Just added some, will see if there's any difference.
There are 2 stunted Wallichii leftover from my CO2 tweaking, am just waiting for their sideshoots to grow bigger so that I can replant the sideshoot and dump the parent stem.

*Ferts*
Maintaining at 1.1ml of APT daily, will give the *A. Pedicatella *time to unstunt. Will move down to 1.0ml daily if no progress.

*Lighting*
Increased lighting intensity by 5% (edited - increased it quite a bit. Lets keep going!
RGB2 Front: *72%*
WRGB2 Back: *80%*
The *A. Pedicatella *stems are showing some reddish colouration. Maybe it needs more light to turn the stems red. But I will go slow and increase 2% a week.


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## plantnoobdude (29 Jan 2022)

still my favourite tank on ukaps!


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## milesjames (30 Jan 2022)

Hey loving the tank at the moment looking fantastic 😊 I meant to ask what is your tank stocked with?


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## erwin123 (30 Jan 2022)

milesjames said:


> Hey loving the tank at the moment looking fantastic 😊 I meant to ask what is your tank stocked with?


Hi, look forward to seeing your latest tank photos too!

Currently its more of a shrimp tank
Peruvian Orange and Gold Line Cories. (though the front of the tank is pretty heavily planted, there is actually a lot of open space behind the tank for Cories to dig around, eg: near the Ammanias on the left - since I can't plant anything next to them since they shade everything)
Otos
Cherry Shrimp
Bee Shrimp


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## erwin123 (1 Feb 2022)

I did some trimming of the Wallichii which means I can get a rare unobstructed shot of the *P. Palustris. *The stem is very red but the leaves are still orangey rather than red. Maybe I need to upgrade my light to WRGB2 Pro ☀️


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## erwin123 (4 Feb 2022)

Weekly update (or rather, nothing much to update)
Nothing much to report. Continuing with 1.0ml/day APT EI dosing, weekly addition of Plantacote/Starxcote.
Increased lights another 2%
Trimmed the *A Senegelansis* this week.
BBA a bit annoying on the *Cinerum *flower stalks/stems.
Took the photo at the end of the photo period so the *Wallichiis *were closing up already.
I have a *L Sphaerocarpa *which didn't do well  and  I was unable to find any information on the internet what parameters it needs. So I just dumped in the left rear corner. But after the trimming, you can see it peeking through. Maybe it grows better in lean(er) dosing? 
Will probably do maintenance on the *Macrandras *which are spilling over to the front (the *AR Minis *are too heavily shaded, they might not make it). I'll  remove the *A.Gracilis *to make space for some spare Macrandra stems


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## erwin123 (10 Feb 2022)

Weekly update (or non-update)

Getting a bit overgrown. Did 30min of maintenance/trimming this week... but needs more trimming 
*Wallichii *is doing well
I like the way the *H. Lancea *is interwining with the *E. Vietnam *but I need to do some work on the BBA
Increased the lights another 2%, we are definitely getting into the high light zone, but BBA isn't really a light-related algae I think 😅

My water column dosing was reduced from 2.5ml a day (manufacturer recommended dosing) to 1.0ml a day with no apparent ill effects as the weekly photos show. I would like to see the *A Pedicatellas *unstunt more so I'm wondering if I can reduce dosing even further.


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## plantnoobdude (10 Feb 2022)

erwin123 said:


> View attachment 182470
> View attachment 182471
> 
> 
> ...


i think if you swap to tropica fertiliser the ammania will improve dramatically. Apparently my ammania isn't coming... i did get a nice amount of ludwigia white though! gonna have to find a new source for the ammania, so that sucks. tank looks stunning by the way!


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## erwin123 (11 Feb 2022)

plantnoobdude said:


> i think if you swap to tropica fertiliser the ammania will improve dramatically. Apparently my ammania isn't coming... i did get a nice amount of ludwigia white though! gonna have to find a new source for the ammania, so that sucks. tank looks stunning by the way!


Thanks... agree that the Tropica formulation is likely to be good for the Ammannias but the PO4 is really low, not sure if the other plants will be happy.  I'm hoping that it will be enough to reduce my APT EI dosing. Will be trying 0.9ml a day soon.

Because I'm back to WFO more this year, my aim with this tank is to be able to only spend 1hr a week working on it: 30min on trimming and 30min on water change because work is getting busy for me.  Not succeeding that well because some of the stem plants are growing too fast 😅


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## erwin123 (16 Feb 2022)

Weekly update
I can see my *Wallichii *clearly for the first time! 🤓 Honestly didn't know how many stems I had until I did a massive trim of the *L Senegelansis *and *B Salzamnii*
Because I give myself a budget of 30minutes each week to do trimming to means the *R Blood Red *is like totally overgrown as I had no time to trim them, and I need to trim the *R Macrandra *urgently too!

I have gone down to dosing 0.9ml/day APT EI, and the plants still look ok (except for that stunted Pantanal which is pretty obvious in the photo, which is sprouting sideshoots so I've just left it)  I will probably clean the algae covered Lily pipe on the left soon.  I probably need to set aside a little extra time to do all this.

Lights have gone up another 2%.  With the plants trimmed, the *Wallichii *are getting more light from the front WRGB2, so I'm hopefully they'll turn pink soon! Otherwise, its onwards towards 100% intensity! 😅


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## milesjames (23 Feb 2022)

Hey loving the tank  
How did you trim the Pantanal last time before the stunting happened from the top or bottom?


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## erwin123 (25 Feb 2022)

milesjames said:


> Hey loving the tank
> How did you trim the Pantanal last time before the stunting happened from the top or bottom?






Thanks. Pantanal I trim the tops and replant. After they stunted they got shaded by fast growing plants so they didn't recover. If they had space and light, sideshoots will grow from the stunted stems and can usually be replanted. 

This week just a photo nothing  much to update. Did some trimming, but doing as little maintenance as I can get away with (I will definitely do a weekly WC though).  I've let the *A. Senegelansis *breach the water surface and the emersed growth is fast.  I think I will clean the nearly black Lily pipe soon 😅


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## erwin123 (4 Mar 2022)

Another weekly photo but nothing to update. This is what happens when you only have 30min a week of maintenance time. I used the time to clean the Lily pipe (finally), trimmed some *R. Indica *and *B.Salzmanii.  *I will have to trim the *R. Wallichii *ASAP before they get (further) out of control.


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## Karmicnull (4 Mar 2022)

Still loving this scape.  It feels like a set from "the land that time forgot". I keep expecting little humans clutching spears to emerge from the undergrowth.


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## erwin123 (5 Mar 2022)

Karmicnull said:


> Still loving this scape.  It feels like a set from "the land that time forgot". I keep expecting little humans clutching spears to emerge from the undergrowth.


thanks... this is the sort of a scape for those with not enough time to do complete maintenance


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## PARAGUAY (5 Mar 2022)

Nice journey @erwin123


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## erwin123 (10 Mar 2022)

I finally hacked the *R. Wallichii *in time for this photo. And now the *R. Blood Reds *are overgrown.
I'm trying to figure what I can grow at the back of the tank that won't get blown away by the outflow from the rear Lily pipe (which also needs a clean - which is why overgrown stems are not such bad thing....).   The *S.Macrocaulon* are still right at the back but they are so short, they can't be seen - if I let them can too tall, they affected by the waterflow.


Tank size
60x45x45 (12 cm substrate depth)

Soil
10 years old a lot of which has disintegrated

Ferts
APT EI 0.9ml/daily equal to weekly dosing of:
NO3 5.8ppm
PO4 1.89ppm
K 7.9ppm
Fe 0.22ppm          +occasionally once a month 0.2ppm EDDHA-Fe ice cubes into substrate (didn't make ice cubes this week)
Mg 0.714ppm     + 2ppm from Epsom Salts

Weekly addition of Starxcote (NPK with TE ) / Plantacote (NPK no TE) into the subtrate

Lighting
WRGB2 Front: 84%
WRGB2 Back: 88%


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## milesjames (16 Mar 2022)

Why not try some aromatica or pogostemon octopus. Both have strong stems and quite forgiving.


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## erwin123 (17 Mar 2022)

Weekly update. No major changes. 30min of trimming.
Will be pulling out the E. Vietnam and E. Japan, splitting them and replanting. Will probably make a mess😅
The A.Pedicatella are looking better, which is encouraging in that I don't have to go 'super lean' for them to survive. 
Photography wise, I also set the exposure a little bit darker - i think my previous photos their colour was washed out because of overexposure.


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## plantnoobdude (20 Mar 2022)

@erwin123 . I think what you have is different from walichii and probably Enie. this is the best I ever had my "wallichii" look.  this was with the chihiros at 80-90% thats over 300 par! then I looked around forums and realised people with more dosing, less light, lower quality light had much better colouration from wallichii. I purchased my wallicihi from a seller on ebay emmersed, this time I bought a tissue culture of wallichii from tropica, hope it turns red!



chihiros at almost max power and no dosing....
I also have bought some ammania gold, something new and pretty to stunt!


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## erwin123 (20 Mar 2022)

plantnoobdude said:


> @erwin123 . I think what you have is different from walichii and probably Enie. this is the best I ever had my "wallichii" look.  this was with the chihiros at 80-90% thats over 300 par! then I looked around forums and realised people with more dosing, less light, lower quality light had much better colouration from wallichii. I purchased my wallicihi from a seller on ebay emmersed, this time I bought a tissue culture of wallichii from tropica, hope it turns red!
> View attachment 184782
> chihiros at almost max power and no dosing....
> I also have bought some ammania gold, something new and pretty to stunt!


thanks. I'm also suspecting that the plant was mislabelled (it was an emersed version). I'm planning to pay a visit to Roger Goh's shop and will hope to pick up 'real 'Wallichii and Tuberculatum! Good luck on the A.Pedicatella - but since you are dosing DIY and low K, you'll have a much easier time with it (I'm stuck with the amount of K in APT EI).


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## erwin123 (23 Mar 2022)

Decided to document my (lack of) tank maintenance. I pulled out the E. Vietnam and E. Japan. The pieces on the bottom left have been replanted, the rest gets tossed into my scrap/compost bin.  After removing the Erios, I realised that I had a rather large Rhizome of B. Theia that was 'buried' under the Erio - the Buce looks reasonably healthy but with a fair bit of algae so I had to fix that - though eventually I may move it to my low tech tank because the Buce simply isn't visible anyway once the Erios start growing a little bit.

R. Wallichii (or Enie) is way overgrown along with R. Blood Red.  R. Macandra 'narrow leaf' is going to have to be thinned out. It has totally covered the AR Mini 

I am going to visit Roger Goh's shop to pick up 'real' Wallichii, hopefully some M. Tuberculatum.. so rather than trim them now, I'll see what new plants I've got and pull out/trim whatever is necessary to make space for more plants! 

I believe that the increased speed of growth is due to higher lighting, rather than reduction of water column dosing 😅


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## Hufsa (23 Mar 2022)

Nice growth! Your Ammannia Golden looks happy 
Have you seen any changes in algae growth?


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## erwin123 (23 Mar 2022)

Hufsa said:


> Nice growth! Your Ammannia Golden looks happy
> Have you seen any changes in algae growth?



Thanks, I think its pretty much confirmed that A. Golden doesn't like overly rich water column dosing. The only question is 'how lean'?

Fortunately, I only had to reduce to 0.9ml APT EI a day, which is 5.8ppm NO3 weekly, so its not 'super lean'.  Maybe if I reduced further A Golden would look even better but I also want to strike a balance so that the other plants also look ok.

My preference is to stick with all-in-one ferts for simplicity so I'm also glad that I can grow A Golden without needing to resort to DIY exotic trace mixes as its not so easy to find the chemicals in my country 😅

The amount of algae I would say is roughly the same... its on the glass and on leaves that are heavily shaded .  I just scrape the glass every week during water change ...


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## erwin123 (31 Mar 2022)

Weekly update.
Did a bit more trimming than usual to bring the overgrown plants under control. I dumped quite a bit of *R Blood Red* otherwise they get overgrown within a week. No time to trim the *R.Macandra "narrow leaf" *which is now in dire need of a trim and also shading lots of other plants.

As mentioned in another thread, I bought another bunch of *R. Wallichii *this time it was imported by the LFC from APC Thailand: Rotala wallichii
They are too small to be seen at the moment but after they are fully converted, I can compared them to the Wallichii in my tank.  So far, their stems have turned red, which some say is Enie or Cambodia, but I'll wait and see if there's any difference from what I have in the tank. p.s. this photo was taken at the end of photo period so they are starting to close.

The more major update is that I moved a whole bunch of Buces into a tiny 2l tank, installed a usb pump for flow, and made space for *E. Quinquangulare. *This is my 2nd try. The first try, I had them in my tank, did a 72 hr blackout but they didn't survive. Hope to do better this time.

Finally, I did some trimming and replanting of *A. Pedicatella, *(the replanted stems at the back not so visible) but since I take a photo every week, I can show what 1 week of growth (or lack of growth) looks like. The bottom stem shows that you *must not shade Pedicatella *or it turns green? They are really light-loving plants. Time to upgrade to double WRGB2 Pro? 🌞


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## plantnoobdude (31 Mar 2022)

erwin123 said:


> View attachment 185538
> View attachment 185540
> 
> View attachment 185539
> ...


nice quinquangulare i should be getting some soon. my tropica wallichii has green stems though. leaves are orangeyy green still. my other 'enie'has red stems and yellow ish leaves.
pedicellata looks great, should be benefiting from nh4/urea in the root tabs along with lower K.


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## milesjames (31 Mar 2022)

Looking fantastic I gave up on my golden the BBA won out. I couldn't get the plant health to get it to recover.


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## erwin123 (1 Apr 2022)

milesjames said:


> Looking fantastic I gave up on my golden the BBA won out. I couldn't get the plant health to get it to recover.





I think its clear from the number of posts on the internet along the lines of 'help my A. Golden is stunting' ' that it really is a tricky plant, I hope my experience with it will provide useful data to those trying to grow it.  It clearly isn't as perfect as some photos I've seen, but I do not have the 'perfect' softwater parameters that it seems to require... my water is more like 'good enough' (Gh6, Kh 3-4), whereas I've read of some using nearly 0 Kh to grow this? Also, because I'm 'stuck' with the N-P-K ratios provided by APT EI, I can't experiment by trying to lower the K dose.

While I fully appreciate that someone like Tom Barr can grow it with EI, its clear that I couldn't. Here's a repost of an earlier pic under APT EI dosing. You can see stunting in about half the stems.... so you could ask: can't I just cull half of the stems that stunt, and keep the nice ones, and hope they grow sideshoots that don't stunt. I tried that but I still have stunted sideshoots coming out of stems that were unstunted... so there is no guarantee that an 'unstunted' stem will produce 'unstunted' sideshoots.

So if you want to learn how to grow it under EI, I'm unable to assist you - but if I had the resources (I dont have RO water), I would run an experiment to test whether reducing kH/gH would help the plants unstunt even if I maintain the APT EI dosing. (i.e. whether there are 2 methods to growing the plant
"moderately soft" water+ leaner dosing
 "very very soft" water+EI dosing

If you want to learn how to grow it with Lean(er) dosing and root tabs, maybe this journal can give you some ideas if you are planning to use an all-in-one fert 😅

But if you are planning to DIY your ferts, Plantnoobdude is dosing a DIY formula with low K and Urea - I'm watching his journal closely because some have claimed that A. Golden prefer low K in the water column, so his low K dosing might well promote ideal growth!

In the meantime you could try to grow other types of Lythraceae, especially those the 'prefer' softwater like R. Macrandra.  If Macrandra start growing like weeds in your tank, I think introducing A. 'Golden' into the same tank should not be an issue. Actually I hear that R.Macrandra variegated might even be more challenging than A. Golden.... (someone will no doubt say that R variegated grows like weeds in his tank)


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## erwin123 (1 Apr 2022)

One of my CO2 cylinders ran out (I have 2 cylinders) so I went to the LFS to send my cylinder for refilling and will get it back next Tuesday. In the meantime, the  "man in the van"delivered this to the shops, so I got one! Regular Pantanal didn't like my leaner dosing so I'll give Meta a shot as its supposedly easier?


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## Hufsa (1 Apr 2022)

erwin123 said:


> Meta


🤤

@erwin123 .. we're friends right.. the kind of friends who send each other plants.. 😉😁

I am super envious of the plant selection you guys have though!


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## plantnoobdude (2 Apr 2022)

I remember when meta was being sold for like 50 a stem when it was first introduced lol, like all stem plant weeds the price goes down rapidly at that. same with samolus. but buce, erios, etc, keep their value. awesome plant find and interested in seeing how it does compared to the pantanal.


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## erwin123 (7 Apr 2022)

Overgrown and overcrowding has resulted in my shaded plants becoming unhealthy. I guess the time has come to reduce the number of types of plants and not try to stuff too many species into a 60cm tank. I am doing a little bit whenever I have some time and should be able to create more 'space' to allow plants to grow without too much overcrowding/shading.  I'm hoping the Erio Q. will be successful this time!
Meta is at the back of the tank, still converting, I tossed a few Wallichii stems to make sure they were not blocking the light to the Meta.

The R. Macrandra plant mass is still a work in progress (I've yanked out one huge stem and tossed it.. which explains why there seems to be a gap in the plant mass, will continue working on it). And  whats with the Blood Reds.. overgrown in 1 week.... 

As for my lighting, I've gone to max Reds all around. Both WRGB2s are at 100% Red, 85% Green, 90% Blue.  I wish I could run my tank cooler but all I can manage is 25.5-26C 

The algae is happy (all that algae on the glass )


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## Karmicnull (7 Apr 2022)

erwin123 said:


> I guess the time has come to reduce the number of types of plants and not try to stuff too many species into a 60cm tank


I disagree!  I'm sure you can fit in a few more.  Still loving this tank


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## erwin123 (9 Apr 2022)

While I was refilling my 2nd CO2 canister, I left my Neo diffuser in my tank for a few days unused. When I hooked the CO2 back up, the Neo diffuser stopped working (no bubbles) and soaking in bleach didn't help. Odd. I had to replace it with a new one with worked fine.

Anyway, since I was messing about in the unsightly rear corner of the tank (the R. Macandra do a good job obscuring the mess), I decided to position the new diffuser under my external USB pump. The USB pump sucks up the bubbles and seems to be doing a good job pushing the CO2 across the substrate ... no visible bubbles float to the surface, as long as the diffuser is set at 1 bps. When I increase the CO2 to say, triple the amount at 3bps, the pump occasionally makes gurgling sounds (gas trapped in the pump) and I see bubbles being spit out and floating to the surface.

Heres a video of the concept. From the video I also notice that there are CO2 bubbles from my Lily Pipe output already being pushed to the corner substrate level which is good, so this extra diffuser is just to add a little more to the substrate level.

p.s. the orange lava chips were from 10 years ago. I wanted to create a slope at the back and a bag of this was a whole lot cheaper than aquasoil. So I put it right at the bottom, but after 10 years, they have made it to the surface.... I try to remove any that are visible from the front

pps I have never cleaned the twinstar and the area around the metal mesh disc remains a very clean white though other parts have algae.


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## erwin123 (14 Apr 2022)

Weekly update. Major hacking of plants. For the 3 overgrown Rotalas (*Wallichii, Macrandra and Blood Red*) I tossed half the stems and trimmed the rest by more than half and replanted the tops. 

I can now see that I have some space behind my Macrandras maybe for a new plant! 
(I just have to keep my Macrandras trimmed low so they can be seen). I had some old *L. Super Red  *hiding behind there but because they get entangled easily when overgrown, not a good choice for me and my lack of tank maintenance. 😅 

The Wallichiis right at the back of the tank are the new batch I bought from an LFS which brought them in from APC Thailand. After 2-3 weeks, they are "narrower" than my current Wallichiis in the middle but colour wise pretty similar. Will wait for sideshoots to appear and become fully grown - new sideshoots may indicate the final 'form' the plant takes in my tank.  

Am thinking of moving some of the Wallichiis there to make space for more Pantanal/Meta - assuming I don't kill the single *Meta *stem in my  tank (I took the photo at the end of photo period so it was closing up).

Finally a little comment about the *H. Lancea Araguia *at the front.  I do like their reddish-brown colour mixed with the green of the Erio and hairgrass.

I have not tweaked my ferts for the longest time - I've settled on 0.9ml a day basically (except I add a little more - 1.2ml on water change day) since the *A. Pedicatella *seem to be ok. Plants are happy, algae is also happy. 

Finally, I bought a locally made RGB lightscreen - in the previous photos I forgot to turn it on. But its on for this photo.


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## erwin123 (21 Apr 2022)

Weekly Update.
Nothing much to update. I trimmed and replanted the *Meta *which had sprouted 2 side shoots. So far no stunting despite relatively lean(er) dosing. I had purchased some emersed *Pantanal* just for comparison and they are still converting. Curiously, their newest leaves are still in the emersed form but they are nevertheless turning orange.  I know there are reports about Pantanals being confused and sprouting emersed leaves while submersed, so I'll continue to monitor.
The APC *Wallichii *at the rear of the tank have grown taller and can be compared with the original *Wallcihii *nearer the middle of the tank. While the colour of the plants look the same, the Wallichii from APC are noticeably 'thinner'.  

However, the conditions at the back of the tank are a bit different as the Lily pipe outflow caused them to sway like crazy while they were converting from emersed to submersed form - not sure if that affected them.


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## erwin123 (23 Apr 2022)

Following the grand tradition of aquarists who plant their Pantanal/Mets/Cuba next to their Pedicatella, here's my obligatory Meta+Pedicatella photo! The red at the top is real - its far redder than the colour I was getting with Pantanal. But I have to figure how to make more of the lower leaves the same colour! 😅

Photo made possible as I decided to trim down my Pedicatellas which enabled me to see the nice red sideshoot on the Meta. Hopefully it will be a viable stem that I can harvest and replant!


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## plantnoobdude (23 Apr 2022)

your meta and ammannia look much better than mine😅 @erwin123 
would you say the meta is easier than pantanal? so far it looks like you have very little trouble growing it.
also, how do you propagate pantanal? mine just kinda grows, then I have to top it, because otherwhise it starts throwing emmersed leaves... maybe I need more light? the light is at 30-40% with a lot of cover from floaters. (this is to combat algae). so far I tried letting it grow accross the surface of tank to let it grow sideshoots, this didn't work. now I am floating a stem stump at the top of the tank to see if i can get some sideshoots.


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## erwin123 (23 Apr 2022)

plantnoobdude said:


> your meta and ammannia look much better than mine😅 @erwin123
> would you say the meta is easier than pantanal? so far it looks like you have very little trouble growing it.
> also, how do you propagate pantanal? mine just kinda grows, then I have to top it, because otherwhise it starts throwing emmersed leaves... maybe I need more light? the light is at 30-40% with a lot of cover from floaters. (this is to combat algae). so far I tried letting it grow accross the surface of tank to let it grow sideshoots, this didn't work. now I am floating a stem stump at the top of the tank to see if i can get some sideshoots.



I think its too early to say whether Meta is easier than Pantanal (internet says it is).  Will wait and see how the sideshoot grows and whether more are pop out. If Meta grows sideshoots easily then  I would classify it as easier than Pantanal.
For Pantanal, I think I only ever got multiple sideshoots when the main 'crown' stunted so that was not ideal.

I'm wondering if giving the Pantanal more 'space' around it will encourage it to grow sideshoots? i.e. if the area around the stem is crowded and shaded, the natural instinct of the plant is to put its energy towards growing higher - which also relates to your point about more light - if it gets more light, it might think it has reached the top, and will slow down vertical growth in favour of sideshoots? (just a theory, I'm not a scientist....)

My lighting is already maxxed out, with both WRGBs at 100/80/90.  However, I think that is still far lower PAR than a 4x T5HO setup, for example. I guess a WRGB2 Pro upgrade is coming soon.... 😅


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## erwin123 (29 Apr 2022)

Weekly update
Did a big trim and tossed several stems in order to ensure that Meta/Pantanal has space to grow. They do not like being shaded and in the past, have stunted when they are crowded out.  BBA on hairgrass, applied some APT Fix and it turned purple pretty quickly. 

The third photo shows the relatively red Meta compared to the orangey reds of the Pantanals that are still converting from Emersed growth. Will be trimming and replanting the Meta and leaving the sideshoot.  Hopefully by next week Pantanal will have converted to fully submersed form and we can make a direct comparison to Meta.


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## erwin123 (3 May 2022)

I haven't posted a photo of my low-tech tank for sometime. This was my 'work from home' low tech tank that sat next to my desk in my 'home office.' However, as I am mostly back at work, this tank has been totally neglected. No water change for 1 month, adding ferts (APT EI) as and when I have the time. I just took this photo as I had the May day holiday to do a water change (I guess 4 weeks was enough) and scrape some of the algae off the front.

Nevertheless, plants are doing well - there is no algae on the Bucephelandra! *Some of the Buces were recently transplanted from the hightech with various algae/BBA on them*. *In the low tech tank, the algae/BBA disappeared! *Of course in lowtech, the leaves are 'green, but they look reasonably healthy.  If you look at the right side, you can see a Buce flowering. As for the Rotala Vietnam (previously thought to be Wallichii), but now that I have the APC Wallichii to compare, I can see the difference, I haven't trimmed it as you can see... so they are playing the role of 'floating plants' I guess....

Once I have enough extra cuttings of the Wallichii, I can put some into the lowtech to see if they can turn pink


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## erwin123 (5 May 2022)

Weekly update
The 3 stems on the left are Pantanal converting from emersed form (discarding the emersed lower leaves). 
To the right of the Pantanal is the Meta sideshoot and the original Meta (still very red). There is one more Meta sideshoot lower down, hope it will make an appearance for next week's update!
The Meta sideshoot has hit the water surface and is ready to be replanted. Hopefully after replanting into osmocote enriched aquasoil, it will turn red.... I will be very sad if the Meta sideshoots don't turn red.... 😭

As I have removed most of the Buces in the front, I bought some more L. Senegalensis to boost the numbers in the front. They didn't like overcrowding and those that were shaded by the R.Macrandra stunted so I lost a few stems. I'm going to be really strict about hacking away the Macrandra to prevent it from shadowing the other plants.

I have begun a new experiment! I bought a small bottle of TSN (Tropica Specialised Nutrition)!  Instead of dosing 0.9ml of APT EI daily, I am now dosing 0.7ml APT EI, + 0.4ml TSN.  
Technically this should help the Pedicatellas even more by lowering the amount of K being dosed (TSN has really low K), but lets see if the trace amounts of Ammonium make any difference.


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## plantnoobdude (7 May 2022)

erwin123 said:


> Technically this should help the Pedicatellas even more by lowering the amount of K being dosed (TSN has really low K), but lets see if the trace amounts of Ammonium make any difference.


how much N are you dosing from N?
are you still adding the root tabs weekly?


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## erwin123 (7 May 2022)

plantnoobdude said:


> how much N are you dosing from N?
> are you still adding the root tabs weekly?


The IFC spreadsheet just gives the NO3 figure.
It says that 0.7ml APT+0.4ml TSN is 6.2ppm NO3 / 5.2ppm K
 0.9ml APT EI alone was 5.8ppm NO3 / 6.3ppm K (edited)
So I have reduced K slightly and increased NO3 slightly.

I'm still adding about 10 small plantacote/starxcote balls every week.

Macek in another thread mentioned Manganese, and I'm looking into that as well. I don't really have access to DIY ferts so I might get Seachem Trace and dose a small amount to see if anything changes.


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## macek.g (8 May 2022)

erwin123 said:


> Macek in another thread mentioned Manganese, and I'm looking into that as well. I don't really have access to DIY ferts so I might get Seachem Trace and dose a small amount to see if anything changes.



Yes it's a good product, but remember sulphate-based, so I recommend taking it daily as Mn precipitates very quickly.
In general, I recommend chelated Mn and in relation to Fe 1-2, or even 1.5-2


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## erwin123 (12 May 2022)

For reference the 4 stems at the front are Pantanal - Pantanal - Meta - Meta.  (one more Meta and one more Pantanal stem at the back of the tank, barely visible)


Weekly update
As mentioned earlier, I bought some Seachem Trace and targeting to dose 5ml a week. So I added 2ml after water change and then 0.5ml daily. This is the first week of dosing so too early to say if there is any effect I guess.
Cut the Eriocaulon Vietnam into half and replanted one half.

The Meta sideshoot I cut and replanted has turned red. There is a another Meta sideshoot just visible right at the back of the tank. By next week, I should be able to cut and replant, and hopefully it will turn red after that.
The reds on the original Meta are amazing. The colour of the Wallichii's red stem and the Rotala Blood Red at the right are good references for how red the Meta is.  I'm hoping the sideshoots will be as red as the original stem.


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## erwin123 (19 May 2022)

*Weekly Update*
I added my spare  Aquazonic LED that is only 1 inch wide with 15x1.5w LEDs (22.5w) that I could just squeeze in between the 2 x WRGB2 which are already running at 100/80/90. So now I have a total of 134w+22.5w = 156.5w of LEDs over my tank. The tank water depth is 32cm  so hopefully the extra light will help my plants grow better! Or at least turn more *Wallichii *pink! Algae are happy too! 😅


I have been adding Flourish Trace (2ml after WC, then 0.5ml a day for a total of 5ml a week) and am unsure if there are any changes/improvements. I might dial back the Flourish trace to 2.5ml a week (APT EI and TSN are supposed to have trace elements as well so I don't want to overdose). Have trimmed and replanted the Meta sideshoots so hopefully next week I'll have 4 full-sized Meta stems to photograph.


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## erwin123 (21 May 2022)

Update from LFS. Meta price has been slashed by half from $4 to $2. I guess Meta is so easy to grow, its reaching 'weed' status. In other news, I have not seen *M.Tuberculatum* on sale for the longest time, but *M. Roraima *was on sale and for $2, I thought I would just give it a shot, though internet says its a large plant and grows like a weed.  

I have 2 large stems of *Ammannia Senegalensis *at the back of the tank. Internet photos shows there is a slender more attractive form but all I get, even from sideshoots, are giant sized plants. So I've removed one of them to make space for the Roraima.


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## Hanuman (22 May 2022)

erwin123 said:


> Update from LFS. Meta price has been slashed by half from $4 to $2


Lucky you, I guess you got the local price. I payed $10 per stem most probably from the same shop where you bought it from if you got them from Green Effect. I got some Rotundifolia “sp Red” (blood red SG) and Erio. Setaceum for free though so can't complaint.🙏


erwin123 said:


> but *M. Roraima *was on sale and for $2, I thought I would just give it a shot, though internet says its a large plant and grows like a weed.


I wouldn't call it a large plant but it's bigger than Tuberculatum. It just grows fast and tall, faster than any plant you have in your tank I would say and faster than tuberculatum and tuberculatum is already a certified weed. When you plant it make sure to have the stem well dug and when trimming, cut just below a node. That's valid for any plant in fact. But I can see some major growth difference between two stems of Myriophyllum one next to each other if one was not properly trimmed or dug. It's very predictable. Also careful when planting, the stem can snap easily.


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