• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Neon Hill

EvitaL

Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
51
I have been following this great forum for quite a while and finally desided to start up my own journal. I have had aquariums for about ten years now, but I am just a starter with aquascaping and planted tanks. Still got lots to learn with my two tanks.

This journal shall focus on my smaller aquarium, here is some basic information about my current set up:
-Tank size: 60cm x 30cm x 30cm / 54L
-Equipment: Dennerle Scapers Light 24W, Eheim Aquaball internal filter, DIY Co2 addition with a yeast bottle connected to the filter outflow (not very succesful at the moment). Also adding some Easy Life Easy Carbo.
- Substrate: JBL Manado at the back, decorative very fine sand on the front.

Plants (not so sure of all these as I have bought them mainly from other hobbyist online and havent memorized all the names):
-Hydrocotyle tripartita
-Ludwigia repens
-Blyxa japonica
-Microsorum pteropus var. trident
-Najas conferta (?)
-Riccia fluitans
-Staurogyne repens
-Cryptocoryne wendtii
-Helanthium bolivianum (?)
-some sort of rotala?

Inhabitants: Small shoal of neon tetra, cherry shrimps, one male Apistogramma borellii whos female companion oddly vanished soon after introdusing to the tank (Im suspecting the cat), some snails that came along with the plants.

Pictures will follow.
 
Eheim Aquaball internal filter, DIY Co2 addition with a yeast bottle connected to the filter outflow (not very succesful at the moment).

Hey EvitaL, welcome to this site. As far as your CO2-issues, I can recommend the following:
- Stuff a cigarette filter (without the paper around it off course) into your CO2-tubing (works best if you wet the cigarette filter first);
- Attach the tubing with the cigarette filter to a smallish stone, so that the tubing is horizontal;
- Place the stone directly under the Aquaball (leave plenty of room for water to get under there as well), so the end of the tubing is about centered to the filter;
- Add the tubing to your bottles.

This works great, for several reasons:
1. The CO2-bubbles are tiny, thanks to the cigarette filter;
2. The CO2-bubbles rise into the filter intake instead of rising straight to the surface; this gives the CO2 much more contact time with the water, so the gas exchange can take place efficiently, plus, the water is then immediately moved through the tank thanks to the Aquaball;
3. After some time, the CO2-bubbles accumulate and rise through the filter, in the end being spat out by the filter, and moving through the water.

I've had some great success with this cheap method!

 
Hi Vinkenoog1977 and thank you very much for your reply and great tip! I have to test this method right away, as I was anyway planning to refill my yeast bottle.
In the future I was planning to upgrade to an external filter, perhaps a JBL Greenline e401, as I feel the aquaball is perhaps not quite effective enough. Even with weekly waterchanges and cleaning the filter, there is quite much debris getting stuck to the plant mass.
 
I tried an internal on my 45L (Opium Cartel in my sig), but that could not handle it, not by a long way, especially when heavily planted, this becomes an issue. Should you switch to an external, there are a couple of options with DIY CO2. The first would be to attach it to the filter inlet, i.e., getting the CO2-tube with the cigarette thingy, drill through the bottom of the intake, and stuff it in there. Pro is that the CO2-uptake is very efficient and no bubbles in the tank. Con is that bubbles get trapped inside the cannister filter, leading to burps and lessened performance (way around that is to give the cannister a shake every couple of days). Second method is using a "standard" CO2-diffusor, and positioning it under the filter outlet, be it a nozzle, a spraybar or a lilypipe. The Fluval ones work with DIY Bio CO2 (just make sure to use soda bottles, and not water bottles; the soda ones can take the necessary pressure much better).
Good luck with it, and am looking forward to the pics!
 
Thank you Vinkenoog once again, I will definitely take your advice into consideration when upgrading my kit. Might be even next month. Here are some pictures from the start-up about two months back. Have to take some more recent pictures this evening.

tFbOpe.jpg
xUDelX.jpg
 
Here is a quick shot from the tanks overall look at the moment. Sorry for the reflections and bad quality of the picture, our appartment is rather bright with plenty of windows, so difficult to take pictures of the tanks during the daylight.
Plants have gotten rather wild, looks like it needs a serious trim.
GFdMwu.jpg
 
I think I need to remove the stemplants on the left to bring out more of the hill-type structure I was aiming for. And the upper right corner might need something to fill in the empty space, perhaps some more Microsorum pteropus, or perhaps Anubias nana petite?
 
Did some small changes with the plants today and also added a small spray bar to the internal filter. I think the flow is little better now, but I am still going to upgrade to an external filter. After reading some threads here on UKAPS I decided I will purchase a slighter more powerful filter than what I first thought. Perhaps an JBL Greenline e701 would do the trick and I would finally get rid of the debris getting constantly stuck on the plants. Also would like to get some more neon tetras, as the current 9 seem to vanish quite well somewhere in the plant mass. Im also not so sure about the foreground plants, looks rather messy at the moment, but I don't know yet what would be suitable to grow on the fine sand with no fertilizers for the roots.. Perhaps need to change the sand to JBL Manado at some point, we`ll see. Here is the picture of this evening:

RGyUkC.jpg
 
Welcome to UKAPS EvitaL, your tank looks fantastic.

I suggest you hold fire on any new equipment until you've got 25 posts and can access the 'for sale' section.

Clive - one of our experts - claims that sand is just as good a substrate as any other as long as you're adding ferts to the water column.
 
Really a lovely tank mate, well done!

As James said, sand can work just as well as any other substrate or gravel, as long as you fert the water column (via EI or another method). You could also, as I now do, use some potting soil (just make sure there are no chemical/ artificial fertilisers in there; John Innes no. 3 is a favourite on this forum) under the sand, as a bottom fertiliser/ substrate; I would advise packing into some stocking or filter bags, otherwise things could get messy, especially with bottom feeders such as Cory's.
 
I ended up doing a total rescape on the tank. The hydrocotyle tripartita was just gathering too much depris and started to look mangly. Also wanted to organize the hardscape to get more planting space. Having still issues with the insufficient filtration and I am constantly searching if I could find a reasonably priced second hand external filter, but nothing has come up so far. I have had some troubles lately with BGA and diatoms. Tried to get rid of the BGA with a blackout and removing it manually, but today noticed a small patch had appeared on my blyxa japonica.

Will try and add a new pic, if my computer manages to work.
 
Last edited:
2f592eab6380cc29255385aebf1332f7.jpg


So here is the current look of the tank. Should propably rename the journal, as no more hill nor neontetras left.

Lähetetty minun GT-I9305 laitteesta Tapatalkilla
 
Yesterday I finally ordered the new external filter - a JBL Cristalprofi e701! Got it for a good price, and it is already on its way. If I get lucky might have it in my hands already this Friday. How happy can a girl get of a new filter?

I have been doing big waterchanges like a madman, but the tank is just dirty nevertheless. Hope the new external filter will help me out. Here is a picture where you can see just in how big trouble I am. Did a 60% waterchange yesterday and another 60% change today, and this is what the tank looks like after adding fresh water:
5d73646f4ea0a4deb5a055f296ce1c9d.jpg


I think all this debris is the reason for me getting BGA and diatoms. It is very difficult to siphon the bottom as the Manado is so light. I try to be carefull, but even the slightest disturbance of the bottom releases all this stuff floating in the water. What is odd is that my filter (the small Eheim Aquaball) always rather clean.

I have been thinking that after I get these problems sorted out and the tank balanced, I would like to add some nice red stemplant behind the wood. Wonder if the 24W Dennerle Scapers Light is enough for example for Rotala sp. "colorata" to keep its beautiful red color?




Lähetetty minun GT-I9305 laitteesta Tapatalkilla
 
i would guess, no, your 24w wouldn't pack enough punch to get colorata red. also, to get colorata red you need to starve the plant of nitrates (<10), which can be a tricky balancing act that may cause other plants to suffer if nitrates are 0 for too long.

you could try wallichi perhaps, the trips go red/brown in medium light for me.
 
Thank you Dantrasy, the wallichi looks really pretty as well, so I could try it out :) I must say I love your tanks! Real beauties.

My plans are to first upgrade the filtration, then to change the bio CO2 to a pressurized one and after I see how things get along with these, Ill look if I will upgrade the lighting or not.

Propably safer for me to learn things first with a lower light :)

Lähetetty minun GT-I9305 laitteesta Tapatalkilla
 
I had a three day blackout and fortunately got rid of the GBA, at least for now. Also received my brand new JBL filter yesterday and got it up and running this morning. It is working real nice and silently, cant here a thing :)

Scape wise I feel the tank looks sort of a mess atm, but my first goal is to try to get some nice plant growth and compete the algae. Attached some flame moss on the wood and had of course only some very light coloured string.

I am thinking of getting a small group of otocinclus to help me out with the diatoms. This is how we are looking today:
bc07698db14c12aef6857f20dfa1507b.jpg


Lähetetty minun GT-I9305 laitteesta Tapatalkilla
 
An update and some poor quality pics of how things are getting along. I bought quite an amount of staurogyne repensis from another hobbyist and got it planted. Seems to be doing nicely and growing strong. Also added pressurized CO2 to the setup via a sodastream cylinder. I dont have any drop checker yet, but I adjusted the CO2 to approximately 1BPS and fish are doing fine. My plants start to slowly pearl late in the evening just before the lights turn off.

ATM I am using an old Ferplast CO2 energy classic diffuser, but I am thinking of upgrading it to something else. Perhaps a bazooka diffuser? I was first thinking of an inline diffuser to the outflow, but I am afraid it might slow my flow too much.

Otherwise things are getting along quite nicely, but I am getting small amounts of BGA to the red moorwood branches closest to the light. The BGA seems to like the slow growing moss attached to the wood. I am going to do a few days blackout, it has helped before to this problem. Also keep getting some surface film, need to purchase an Eheim Skim 350 to help with that.
1ac1d46ea09be025c65fc61fb880b79a.jpg

ba9186639d988531f676287ac8d2632e.jpg

70bbf7431f3f24830c7d64b7de29f1f0.jpg


Lähetetty minun GT-I9305 laitteesta Tapatalkilla
 
Really nice, I'm intrigued by your co2 setup can provide a breakdown with pics of how it all works?
 
Back
Top