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Just did a water test and we're ready for planting! Some other angles

Maybe I will place it horizontal at the right. Not sure if will look nice but let’s give it a try in heat distribution.. although it seems the distribution is fine. It’s the same temperature at the other side of the tank (start measuring at different spots). Are you sure , also with the model...

They can be calibrated.

Hi, it’s always advisable to attach heater with angle for better heat distribution. Though I prefer my heater being vertical too. Easier to hide. I have one Oase Heat Up 300w and it’s spot on. When set at 23 it does 23. But I also have another Oase Heat Up 150w and it’s of by 1 degree. When set...

I have my filter set to 23c I have a Blau brand glass thermometer that reads 25c and a JBL version that reads 23c. There isn’t much consistency I think they don’t make stuff like they used to 😊 Makes it tricky to work out what’s going on but I’m also hesitant to try and fix an issue I may not...

Thanks Darrel! That’s a great overview! That overview suggest that today I ended up with 15 PPM with 2 bps. Instead of the range of 30-40 with 5 bps. I understand, now I also need to take responsibility for the fish and shrimp. So lower co2 and check if I can increase it a bit when the the...

Welcome 🤗 Looks like those rocks are limestone. Don’t think they are any good for planted aquarium especially with CO2?

Cool frogs! Welcome :)

I know measured it directly next to the heater. Then it’s off 4-5 degrees. Placed the thermometer now at the opposite site.. curious what’s the difference! Will let you know

No , defenitly not accurate! Off +/- 5 degrees Celsius. Can’t calibrate so will do some tests with measuring the temperature at a few spots and than slowly increase it to 23-24 degrees. The temperature is 19 degrees in house , so that can’t be the issue.. offcourse something to check with the...

Hi all, Any additional CO2 will benefit your plants, as long as none of your <"mineral nutrients are limiting plant growth">. Personally I'm not a CO2 user, partially because I could never forgive myself if I asphyxiated the pets <"I have a duty of care for">. If I was a CO2 user? That would be...

Also, when you measure the temperature in different areas of the aquarium, does it get closer to 24 near the heater and closer to 21 away from the heater? If so, it may be a flow issue. Regardless, as @Maf 2500 says, I have 4 Oase heaters and some are spot on, and some have a 2 degrees difference!

Aquarium heaters are not always that well calibrated out of the box so that is one possible reason. Some of the Oase heaters have a re-calibration system but yours looks different so not sure if that is an option. Also, what is the ambient temperature in the room? If it is a long way below your...

Welcome! :)

Hi all, You need to look at <"their urosomes">. cheers Darrel

Thanks @Zeus that's an incredible bit of work. So how do I fill in this bit to compare to APT 3? Using the APT dosing calculator on their site it recommends 1.8ml daily for my 60ltr

Hi all, I have an internal heater in my 90p aquarium. It’s an Oase Pro Heater 300W should be good to heat 125-200 liter. My aim is to get the temperature at 24 degrees Celsius. So I’ve set the temperature at 24. I recently checked the temperature with a thermometer and noticed it was only 21...

Cold turkey - or in this case a rapid change is always troublesome. Best approach would have been to gradually let the tank of the gas. But since you pulled the plug already I would go with what @X3NiTH says above. My guess, is that algae will become an issue if the plants starts to struggle...

Hi Andy, and everyone thanks again! I halved the co2 compared to yesterday (2 bps) and the Otos do good , they don’t grasp for air anymore and are looking for algae. I added a algae wafer if they can’t find enough. So that’s good for now. The drop checker (see picture) is much greener compared...

Howdy @RickyV ... Amazing! ... I am probably making a biz trip down to Dallas soon. Is this tank at the Dallas world Aquarium? - I'm sort of confused about whether it is. :) I will go out of my way to swing by... I can PM you my schedule when I know. Cheers, Michael

Reducing the light intensity would be the only thing I would do at the moment, I would hold back on reducing the fertiliser until you know the plants are coping without the co2 and you have the light intensity low enough that they are still growing, the Buce will grow in the near darkness so...

Thanks @X3NiTH and @Pixies , Thats what I thought, just wanted to make sure. Cheers, Michael

I’ve had otocinclus in a 145g tank that drops to 6.0 each day, for two years now. Big Amano shrimp in there, too. But: I have a LOT more surface disturbance than you do. An FX4 powers my Cerges reactor and an FX6 produces ripples all the way down the side of the tank. I have a power head...

Sorry to hear Gill, I'm sure a new door will open for you.

Sorry - yes it was ug/l (micrograms per litre) Typo

Thanks. I'm going to go with adding as little to the water as necessary.

The Nickel concentration should be expressed as ug/L, so it’s a typo, Edinburgh tapwater is treated to reduce the Fe and Mn levels (both can make water taste really bad and can stain laundry whites) so by extension there’s no possible way to have the Ni present at that level after treatment. :-)

Yes, you need Mg - 5-6 mg/l would be my recommendation with the water change - you can just front load it. If you want to keep shrimps you should add additional Calcium as well, I'd say 10 ml/l to give you 20 ppm of Ca. in total. Now, a couple of things; Your phosphate level is pretty high...

If your intention is to target 7dGH and 5dKH from Edinburgh tap (3dGH 1dKH) then the easiest way I would do it would be to add 2dGH of Calcium Carbonate and 2dGH of Magnesium Carbonate, both compounds have a dKH that equals their dGH (1:1). The tank water may be a little cloudy for a couple of...

Crangonyx pseudogracilis Crustaceans-Amphipods northern river crangonyctid Population dynamics and expansion of Crangonyx pseudogracilis, a potentially invasive amphipod This information is from wild populations. I think you can safely assume they will mature faster and reproduce more often in...

Just an edit to my post above. I have just found the light calculator at the top of this website and entered the tank details (although I’m not sure if my leds are ‘cree’?). This is what it calculates. Based on this, should I reduce my lighting intensity to about 40% (for a PAR of c40 for my...

Try making a few wabi kusa with you plants and sitting them on the substrate

The species I assume to be hyalella azteca, although they were just sold as 'mini scuds' on ebay, are not only omnivorous and great algae eaters but aggressively predatory if they start running out of food. If there isn't food constantly available the larger ones immediately begin actively...

I once had an amano with the most amazing irridescent blue colouration. It's a real shame they're so complicated to breed because I bet selective breeding could produce some mind blowing colours.

Hi all, Yes, I'm pretty sure I sent some to you. They are hyperactive, so if you had some left you would probably know. Cheers Darr

I have been having some minor teething problems with uprootings. THe acara and the leporinus in particular are large, and boisterous, and their fun and games seems to been regularly uprooting plants. THus I have been trying to protect some of the more vulnerable plants with small-medium...

The most lush and beautiful tanks we see around are arguably high tech. Of course, to get there takes a lot more than just putting down the money for the CO2 kit... While there are remarkable low-tech exceptions, the common thread among these tanks are CO2 and a very experienced and talented...

What you are doing is clearly working really well for you ! Is there any CO2 involved, or completely low tech ? The fish I am talking about are a large Blue Acara and a Strawberry leporinus. Neither are diggers, thankfully, but just quite big, and sometimes move fast, suddenly around the...

20 gallon lo tech planted. Fish are 3 guppies, and 7 platys, and 2 corycats. Now there are 3 tiny babies which might be guppies. I don’t have another tank. They’ve survived about 3 days so far hiding. What can I do? I try to drop flake food that’s real small over their hiding place while...

Little sneak after adding those guys from above. It is a small tank but lot a work for today 😅 tomorrow i am starting the journal with all details and diy elements. This tank is 12 days old, all parameters are great (daily 50% water change and adding good bacterias). Forst trimming of rotala...

Not sure what boisterous fish you have. Most say that large boisterous cichlid are incompatible with plants. I took the challenge and have been keeping small to large cichlid ranging from 3 to 10 inch in planted 75 and 125 gal tank. My strategy is to keep mostly tough epiphytes Anubias, Java...

Agree. Your alkalinity is fine. I think your CO2 is good as well. This could be as simple as ottos don't work until you have a fully mature tank with lot of plants that have been growing for a while. If you haven't had to trim your stem plants yet, it's probably too soon for ottos.

Hi @tam and @Little , Thanks for the tips. I expext the wood to be sinking. I tested it with the other piece and that was sinking immediately. Under water the force to keep it upright is much lower i noticed. The tip with the egg crate is a good one. Did not thought about that. But maybe I first...

Great to hear it improved! The bitrate was off for the resolution. It's 1080p 50fps right now, I can go up to 1944p (5 MP) but then the feed took a while to load, I may need to ask the IT people about that (edit: this is fixed now I just sacrificed FPS for resolution)

Yep - looks more Hi-Def! You up it to 1080P or something?

A little update on this tank. Looking back at the earlier photos it strikes me how much Is tank has changed - and how much the Lagenandra has taken over. Fine by me - it seems to be getting better with age and the colours on the leaves are coming out a lot more now. Significant developments...

Great. I will start the journal Asap :) 😀 today i was driving for 3 hours to get amano shrimps, clithon snails and mosquito Rasbora for my little "comeback" nano scape.

Otto's can be pretty fragile in my experience and are certainly not a good addition until the tank is a lot more mature & lots of algae on the glass/hardscape. Good job on lowering CO2.

I think the normal approach is a heavy stone behind or under it and glue the wood to the stone (with the tissue paper and cyanoacrylate glue method).

I just realized how bad the tank livestream looked and I think I fixed it. Here is the link again. Underwater Rainforest

I have a high tech tank and a low tech tank. The high tech plants grow extremely fast and I have to regularly prune. It’s a crazy jungle. The low tech is much more interesting as the wee snails, beasties and bugs survive better in there. I think there’s advantages to both but the high tech is...

@dw1305 Did you send me some of these a while ago? I have a lot of beasties from you living in my shrimp tank but I don’t think I have these. I’m tempted to change my main tank from high tech to medium tech and see if I can get more diverse life living in there. Seems to be positive and I quite...

I’m really going to pin my colours to the mast here and say, HR aren’t your friend. It sounds like you’re a smart, skilled individual and you will find a great role with a different organisation. Out of interest, can you do your role remotely? Definitely. More time on aquariums is always a good...

Striking resemblance?

Low tech only for the time being. I was running high tech tanks for a few years however I had mishap where I knocked my regulator and which caused it to massively up my injection rate. I didn’t realise until I saw all my fish gasping and on deaths door. Thankfully I only lost one or two fish. I...

A piece of slate and a stainless steel screw is the old school method. The slate is heavy (wood tends to float if not presoaked) and with the substrate on top too it gives it a firm base. I've also done egg crate and plastic cable ties (you need a hole that goes all the way through to make a...

Hi all, Get away with you, Crangonyx are quite cute, although that maybe doesn't show in the picture. Asellus are possibly a bit more <"aesthetically challenged">. They are both definitely hairless. Cheers Darrel

Hi all, That looks OK. I'm not a fan of making decisions based on test kits, but they don't look unrealistic as numbers. You have plenty of alkalinity, just ignore what people tell you about <"pH stability">. Have a look at <"Soft water tank">. Cheers Darrel

And an other question. Is it wise to place stones underneath the wood pieces o r should i leave this open for shadow loving plants?

Hi Chris, I am fussy and have ordered a Oase Styleline 85 cabinet (£90) for our 50cm tanks. It’s German made and seems to be of a high standard. https://www.lincsaquatics.com/oase-living-water-styleline-85-cabinet-white-p13533 (German language video but gives you an idea of the build)...

Hello, I am playing around with some hardscape i bought for my new planned 450L tank. I bought two big pieces of driftwood and i found an arrangement how i want to place them in the tank. But one of them can not hold itself in position, it falls over. Now i have a little rope to keep it in...

Afternoon, Out of curiosity, I have borrowed a lux meter from a friend to see if my current lighting intensity is low/med/high. I have read lux isn’t the most reliable and converting to PAR isn’t straightforward but the lux meter read 3,300 - I then divided this by 80 to give a rough PAR of...

Hi Andy, Thank you for your time and reply! Im using tab water , from Holland. The tank went through a 8 week dark start. Where the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were already good to go at week 4. Lighting period: 6 hours + 1 hour ramp up / down Co2 : 7 hours (1 hour before light go on , off 1...

Once they root, they root really well - their roots will cover the tank base so it is a case of keeping them in place long enough to do that. Temporary rocks is a good idea. The first two look too shallow to me - you see where it transitions from white to green? That's the joint between...

Go low. Less is more. It's about choices. Do you want a resource hungry, plant trimming, balance teetering, 'likes' winning, £££s spending, competitive aquascape? Or do you just want the plants to grow, the fish to swim and bask in the quiet satisfaction of it all?

Besides everything else to take in consideration with high tech aquariums the question of " time" is very important. It's never really happened with me but l think it's true ,when things go pear shaped with high tech people do leave the hobby which is a shame

Hi everyone, I'm in the process of putting together a shopping list for either a scaper 60 or scaper 90 tank and I'm looking for options with regards to cabinets. I'm not too keen on the superfish cabinets has anyone with these tanks used anything else they can recommend? Regards, Chris.

I adore your dedication to science and the coupling of free and effective aquarium solutions… but… man those things look fugly. It’s like hairless cats to avoid fluff on the sofa 🤣

Yep, it sounds like a great opportunity to do the things you couldn't before. And continue that great aquarium of yours as well!

I have 2 or 3 quite large (5-6"), boisterous fish in my 500 litre tank and am experiencing regular uprootings of plants as I am in the process of converting it to a planted setup. I came downstairs this morning to again one of my swords floating around the tank. Using plant weights doesn't seem...

Hi all, These are for <"Crangonyx floridanus">, but it is morphologically and ecologically pretty much identical to <"C. pseudogracilis">: <"Reproductive Biology and Adaptability of the Invasive Alien Freshwater Amphipod Crangonyx floridanus (Crustacea: Amphipoda, Crangonyctidae)">. cheers Darrel

Cool little things aren't they, they were a permanent resident in the filters at Coalville. Rest up and take care, A few of the engineers lost toe nails with this covid, they just fell off.

Thank You Guys. I was numb for most of yesterday, but people i worked with reached out and chatted with me. A few of the managers aswell. I have emailed HR this morning and asked what the appeal process is. As the HR person did not give me any details, even though she said it was included with...

Hi all, Well done. The pH definitely won't bother the Otocinclus, I've never kept Amano Shrimps, so won't pass comment. I agree with @Andy Pierce about Otocinclus being sensitive fish. I'm not a fan of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3), but potassium bicarbonate (KHCO3) would perform the same...

Amazon Frogbit on order!

The IFC calculator has a very steep learning curve, myself and @Hanuman tried to make it as intuitive as possible. We packed a lot in in each spreadsheet so it can be a little overwhelming at first, esp for folk new to ferts. Once mastered it does it all IMO. The dosing regime is the set of...

Welcome aboard the 🌿UKaps train!! :happy:

In contrast, for me, I'd be wanting some asymmetric planting with probably the tallest and greatest bulk of plants in the back right back corner. For that one would benefit from the deeper substrate there. I prefer asymmetry in aquascapes and asymmetric planting with height tapering from...

Thanks for all the kind messages! The red frogs are Epipedobates Anthonyi 'Santa Isabel', or Phantasmal Poison Frogs, hailing from Ecuador. They are incredibly hardy frogs and call loudly from 6am-8pm. The blue and yellow frogs are Ranitomeya Sirensis 'Highland' from Peru, though sadly extinct...

Great project. Hope you will continue to have beautiful algae free tank :) those Mlmosquito Rasboras will look great on this green island.

You are right it would help a little I've tried it all though. All that is left is to try doing nothing. Seems to be working considering the vallisneria has become NOT dormant after so many years... its odd. Why now? Why not when I was water changing like a lunatic and dosing fertilisers and...

It’s unfortunate that this has happened but as a former tradesperson myself, strike action was probably inevitable. If you have a skilled trade, you’re valuable to society and some companies artificially keep wages low in these roles. It’s an honourable job keeping people’s homes safe and in...

I can say with absolute certainty that it is entirely natural causes that make aquariums do badly. That is really good news - when you figure out what the underlying issue is and fix it, you're back in business.

Ottos are fragile in the general case even under well-established aquarium conditions, so not the best choice as a first fish into a new tank. What is your source of water - is this tap or RO? If tap, where are you located and what does your water report say? If RO, what are you adding to the...

Chin up pal, all part of the great trapesstry of life. On a side note, you are the victim of another union strike in the vain of workers rights. Power to the people... I'm not so sure 😕

Thanks everyone. Going through the local water quality reports plus my phosphate measurement kit, my tap water parameters are: I can't find the Potassium value and neither do I have a way of measuring. So if I was to have to add anything to this at WC before considering ferts, what would it...

If you would not mind posting a few photos, that would help a little.

Well its just poor plant health no matter what I do. Funnily enough the fish were completely fine until recently. Honestly the Laetacara were spawning and in shining colours a few weeks ago and dropped dead now. Its the same thing as in the pictures I posted when I started this thread. Nothing...

Start a journal for sure! We will all be excited to see progress!

I have a base layer of Nutribase. On top of that I put a thin layer of aquatic soil and some crushed API root tabs. I then capped that with the sand. I have been dosing weekly with API Leaf Zone. I went with a dark start which took just over 3 weeks but not sure that did anything useful though...

I dont know, but I don't think so. I think the two things are unrelated. Why don't you restate your issues and send a few pictures so we can see what you are experiencing?

I am really just completely baffled as to why the tanks are doing so poorly. Laetacara recently dropped dead from dropsy. Lots of Cherry barbs too. Water was good and clean and I didn't overfeed. The opposite probably but they weren't emaciated.. Can supernatural causes or so on cause...

Okay, so I'm looking at the IFC Calculator and one thing on all of the fertilizer blarb that I haven't quite grasped yet is dosing regime or target dose. How do I compare settings or entries on the IFC calculator to what it tells me on the 2hr Aqurist site for APT 3 Complete?

Hi Darrel, thanks for the reply! Yes , turned the co2 down a lot for tomorrow (lights and co2 are off now). So the ph which is 6.5 is not too low for the Otto’s and Amano’s? What can I do so I can still keep adding co2 on a level that it’s still beneficial for plants but keeps the water levels...

Just had another brainwave - Pencilfish ! A decent shoal (any of the common species) is a magnificant thing. These chaps are so full of character too. They tend to prefer softer acidic water though - not sure what your chemistry is.

Time for a long overdue update me thinks! Hi all, it's been a long time since I did an update on this tank! And in all honesty, the only thing that has really changed is the size of the Snakelocks Anemones! Some of the larger snails unfortunately got killed by the Hermit Crabs, which I...

As @dw1305 says, but also the plants look new, and there is no gas exchange to bring oxygen in.

Those green neons really do look great. Thanks so much for taking the pictures! Y’all are making this choice so hard!!!