No sweat jungle + walstad nano

[mario]

Hello everyone, I have recently redone my long neglected tank, a Superfish Scaper 90. My goal is to have a low energy, low maintenance tank that I can enjoy for a long time.
After my previous tank failed spectacularly, choked in algae (DIY CO2, I know, I know...), I lowered the light (from 50% to 10% of the very bright LED that came with the tank) and I noticed that the algae mostly disappeared while the plants survived, albeit with very slow growth.
My plan this time is no additional CO2, good surface movements and low light.

The substrate is play sand at the front, where I have ferns and anubias, and Tropica Soil at the back where I planted some easy stems.

The light is set at 15% for 10 hours per day and I fertilise with Aquadip plant food 15 ml twice a week. The fish load is quite light as I have 9 leopard danios and one unintentional loach (came clandestine in one of the ferns!)
I am currently transitioning between the Superfish hang on back filter and a Fluval 307 (mostly for the noise).
I don't think the fertiliser contains macronutrients: do you guys think that with the low lightning the fish waste plus uneaten food will suffice? As I said I don't mind slow growth.

Anyway, thanks for reading and for any comments or advice 😊.

Cheers, Alessandro

 

[Cazza]

Looks good!

 

[mario]

Looks good!

Thanks! Next update in 6 months to notice any growth I guess 😂

 

[John q]

Hiya Alessandro, I like this tank 😀

I lowered the light (from 50% to 10% of the very bright LED that came with the tank) and I noticed that the algae mostly disappeared while the plants survived, albeit with very slow growth.

It's refreshing to see somebody showing high light isn't always a must in a planted tank.

I don't think the fertiliser contains macronutrients: do you guys think that with the low lightning the fish waste plus uneaten food will suffice?

and Tropica Soil at the back

It's a bit of an unknown, depending where abouts in Kendal you are you likely have similar tap water quality to me, which is lovely and soft and ideal for keeping plants. Nutrient wise it contains about 8mg/l Calcium, 2mg/l nitrate, probably less than 1mg/l of magnesium and 0.8mgl of phosphate, what does this mean I hear you ask? Well, there is chance the the fish waste, tap water and tropica soil are supplying enough nutrition, but personally I'd be tempted to add a "SMALL" amount of magnesium sulphate in with your water change and see if it perks up the plants any.

You can check the water quality on this site, just type in your postcode.

Water quality | United Utilities

To find out the quality of the water in your area.

www.unitedutilities.com

 

[aec34]

“SMALL" amount of magnesium sulphate

..which can be as simple as a pinch/spoon of Epsom salts, if you’re a laid-back low tech person like me

 

[mario]

I have recently also set a little nano tank (around 10 l) with compost topped with sand and, guess it, a jungle that I hope will start growing out of the surface.

Cheers, Alessandro

 

[mario]

Some emersed growth

 

[mario]

The little tank has completely stolen my heart and distracted me from the bigger one! I have added some Lilaeopsis at the front to mask the increasingly legged stems (price to pay for emersed growth I guess). I have done an ammonia test as a chemistry game with my daughter and to my surprise it wasn't 0 (between 0.25 and 0.5) so I did my first water change since setting the tank about a month ago 🙈. With the low energy and dense planting I was hoping to be able to get away with minimal water changes but maybe not...
There is practically no algae so I slightly increased the light intensity but at the same time I have put a black background to limit the amount of natural light entering the tank from the window.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

...... I have done an ammonia test as a chemistry game with my daughter and to my surprise it wasn't 0 (between 0.25 and 0.5) so I did my first water change since setting the tank about a month ago 🙈. With the low energy and dense planting I was hoping to be able to get away with minimal water changes but maybe not...
View attachment 216587

Water changes never hurt, but I'd be pretty confident that you don't have any TAN ammonia, and the <"issue lies with the test kit">.

The reason I say that is that NH4+ is the <"kinetically preferred form of fixed nitrogen for plant uptake">, and you have all those plants producing plenty of oxygen, so microbial nitrification won't be <"oxygen limited"> either.

Cheers Darrel

 

[mario]

The main tank has been neglected for some time, everything in there looked sad and covered in a layer of green/black slimy algae as in the picture. Which algae is it? It's easy to remove but not really practical, especially on the stems .

I have removed all the stems and left basically just the epiphytes after removing the badly affected leaves.
My plan was to further reduce the lights (they were already pretty low at 15% of the super fish 35W LED for 8 hours) and be religious with the fertilizers (I have been bad so far) but maybe it's all wrong and I need to increase the lights?
Advice would be very appreciated.

The tank after the cleaning/rescaping
Cheers,
Alessandro