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Ive used play sand without any problems and it definitely doesn't inhibit rooting when i pulled up the tank it was the same as any aquasoil tank, the sand was used on its own and not as a cap though, and also it didnt turn anaerobic because i had mts and plant roots all through it. It is quite...

I got an RO because i want to mix saltwater for breeding nerites, and also because i want to be able to lower my KH.

Yes they are, but i didn't spend so much time in there this time as my mate is no longer working there... last time i had VIP behind the scenes so i seen the tanks from the back side and all the filtration etc, there are some quite large fish in the POW conservatory main pool. I was at kew for...

Went to kew, took some pictures. :)

Mine has some leaves, but i feel like it's dormant for winter, the leaf stalks aren't growing at all, and it's well rooted i got it about a month ago, when i bought them previously in spring/summer they got going straight away.

I have always always always used the API master test kits, but I've heard test strips are getting better these days, the Sera kits are good from experience but the one i used was the big black briefcase type kit with all the tests.

The plants will love the ammonia as long as it's not drastic levels, the snails will survive ammonia spikes, I'd say get it in tomorrow with your mate, plant it up, refill with dechlorinated water, change 50% then refill again with dechlorinated, and off you go, instant setup, wait for ammonia...

I would also not consider dosing Glut as low-tech either... :twisted:

Well i'm a fit chap, and lifting aquariums isn't the easiest thing in the world even for me, i calculated that if your substrate is 1/6th of the tanks volume that would be equivalent to 12.6kg, it is a lot of stress, not on the tank but mainly on yourself, don't do anything that's going to keep...

Wow sounds traumatic! maybe mine were better fed than i thought!

What will sometimes happen is algae eaters will initially feed on biofilms, which they really enjoy, but once these are exhausted they will switch to preferable plant sources especially young growth, the SAE seems a more likely culprit to me, i've not really experienced amano's eating anything...

Keep the plants dark and moist somewhere nice and temperate not too hot not too cold. The snails will survive with just a minimal amount of water for up to a few days as they can just suck back in the shell, especially if they are mts and pond snails, ramshorns may last a little less time, a...

Freshwater Rhodophyta :) very pleasing to look at it grow if you get it on the glass, it has very nice growth rings. Staghorn or oedgonium? http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm

So i have been around a few large sumps with fluidized compartments of k1, and they make very little noise, the water going into the filter socks probably makes more noise, not sure about in a canister though as there is probably more possibility of rattling against the plastic. On the subject...

Me put water in box! ugh ugh! :lol:

I voted low tech but i would call the fact I'm using Amazonia cheating really... I did do a tank with only sand and dosing ferts to the water column, it did very well and was going for over 2 years with no co2, part of the reason i stopped co2 was i was gassing out my shrimps and stuff, trying...

i have witnessed a few full ADA setups in person, nothing compares for clean simplicity and ergonomics, i would just have to save for a year or take out a new credit card to afford it though, like my friend Napoleon from here says.... if he didn't buy ADA, certain substances would be a cheaper...

Melamine sponges for acrylic tanks are the real deal though if anyone is rocking acrylic.

Where i live... not great options to be honest... i can collect some nice wood and stuff but finding rocks with real structure and character that aren't reactive is definitely an art form in itself...

Personally? i'm going to answer the budget option question as that's the type of hobbyist i am... Tank: 2nd hand Aquarist classifieds, ebay, gumtree. Cabinet: DIY or get one with the 2nd hand tank. Filter: Tetratec, Jbl or Eheim external, or hamburgmattenfilter with moss/rheophytes (still want...

I concur with this, razor blade in a scraper cradle (stanley and screwfix do good ones they are like 2 quid) and either just use water for the soft stuff, or a spray with vinegar and wait 5 mins for the chunkier stuff, i'm constantly scraping evap lines myself, but if you do it regularly you...

Loads on google just have a quick search for "white scouring pads" the 3m or scotch brite will be better quality but it all does the same job, i like them for the pyrex in the kitchen.

Hopefully the bucket test should prove if it is working, heaters are such a nightmare hope you get to the root of it. If i'm understanding the fluval heaters right (i don't own one) you set the temperature, then blue screen means temp too low, green is just right, and red means too high, this...

50w is only slightly underrated for your tank, i would have thought it should be fine in a reasonably warm double glazed room, should only need an hour or 2 in the bucket to see if it's working properly, how are you measuring temps? i would recommend getting a bog standard kitchen meat...

My latest efforts... this photography lark ain't easy.... and I'm not gonna lie the above post definitely went a bit over my head.... I gave it my best try comprehending it though :lol: I'm loving trying at least. Photographing through glass is a pain in the ass as you can see by my big fat lens...

Firstly, are they appropriately rated for your tank size? How cold is the room? the colder the room the more wattage you will need to keep a stable temperature. Check them inside a bucket with less water volume than the tank but enough to cover the heater fully, measure the temperature of the...

Hahahaha those are fantastic!

As it should be! My nephew is a good lad though, schoolwork comes first, but he is just a gamer at heart, i can't be against it as i have been known to be a habitual gamer myself, however trying to take a break more recently and live in reality. :) i would set him up a tank but i would end up...

My nephew is more interested in games and discord than aquariums unfortunately. [emoji23] Sent from my BV5500Plus using Tapatalk

My fish always seem to prefer the cold water end of the tank at a waterchange, i usually drop about 2 degrees C when refilling without any problems. I dont know whether it is that accurate or not but i take my temp off my heating thermostat and compare to a food grade thermometer, my thinking...

My thinking is more when you are talking about microporous materials the margins between the material types are quite small, while porous rock and volcanic pumices perform better than say bio balls or ceramic rings, the brand really does not matter in my opinion, and who's to say the effect is...

One of the best bowls i've seen, not something that's too common these days but back in the day everyone that wasn't fully into the hobby had a bowl or a biorb, it's very nice! the way you've planted and built textures is top notch aswell.

Omg they are cute!

i'd love more expensive media, but if i'm honest there are just better more bang for your buck things to spend my money on. I just use what i have lying around.... got bags of media in dark nether regions all over the place... :lol: You can also get unbranded alfagrog for very cheap which is a...

That's the beauty of a 400L tank... being able to have a community like that, well jealous but at the same time i'm just in admiration, everything looks well happy!

Mycorrhizae are fascinating and at the root (forgive the pun) of almost all tree deficiencies. When a tree doesn't have the appropriate leaf litter or mulching you will see slower growth rings, a drier more compacted root plate, rain run off, increase in parasitic fungi species etc the list...

I have read an article by Eugene Zagnitko, he says it is due to variance in water levels, and also elevated po4 levels apparently can induce flowering, he grows rare anubias including non aquatic ones according to the article. Anubias plants for beginners and hobbyists - TopTropicals.com...

Add it to a bucket and change all the water everyday until it has leached, or you could use tourmaline balls.

Lovely looking fish, healthy tank, love it. @Conort2

Could always use a booster pump before the RO unit to up tap pressure and reach appropriate head height. mine doesn't like being over 1 meter above the RO either, seems i'm on a similar pressure to you michael.

Nice Platycerium @foxfish :thumbup:

In-vitro tissue culture is great stuff, i'm definitely a fan.

does the main unit not hold the water? i wouldn't expose the media completely to air, just open the top so to speak, so you have a better surface area of water to exchange oxygen, because you have no throughput through the filter if you keep it all sealed the oxygen will deplete quite quickly...

I would recommend taking the pump unit off the top and exposing the filters to the air if possible, you will get better dissolved oxygen levels, the colonies should go a few days like that.

I did read recently about some UK suppliers having problems getting their plants wholesale from thailand due to a certain situation with trade and taxes in the UK, but I've not bought imported plants for a few years now, and whenever I did they had all sorts of insects residing in them, and...

Ahhh if only you had me there with my ms441 i would carve a path for your car bud.... :lol: the problem with getting cutters in to clear the stuff is they have to clear all the windblown on the way to the specific windblown tree that is blocking your access, it takes bloody ages for rural areas.

Oh my god! i was just enjoying the thread then came down to read this! I'm hoping for you! It didn't seem that bad down here but I know Scotland is another world when it comes to weather. Also a Honda generator not starting? first time I've heard of that.... is the world conspiring against you...

I noticed the noise with my 206 is related to the inlet outlet quick release, if you fiddle with the 2 levers it gets quieter for sure.

For me lowering lighting intensity via a dimmer or increasing the distance between the light unit and the substrate is the number one thing that helped greatly with any algae issue i have had in the past, Not in regards to stopping any bloom, but just in regard to slowing the whole problem down...

Did you plant front to back? or back to front? or neither? what was the planting order and how did you decide what to plant first? i'm assuming planting stems first is a good bet. :) nice job! :thumbup:

Are you using a spraybar i find it helps a lot with more thorough flow that seems to travel a longer distance underwater, or like wolf said powerheads are great, you could also use a surface skimmer to skim surface films and increase general flow in the tank, which kills 2 birds with one stone...

The Hydor is like the only option when it comes to in-line heaters really, also you can at a push do maintenance on them yourself if you are a handy individual including gasket replacement etc. Other than inlines i use eheim jagers the old faithful but even those don't last that long for me, my...

Yes you can, run the diffuser after the heater unit in the outflow, hydors are good, knockof inlines suck and aren't worth the saving you get, hydor all the way.

That's in the life plan for sure.... now i just need to find a rich wife to fund the fish room.... :lol:

Thanks foxy! :D

My anubias new leaves are a dead giveaway for lack of ferts, almost as good a canary as the duckweed index. Just an aside, i have experienced BBA not just as a result of not enough ppm co2, variable co2, inadequate circulation, but also too much circulation and crazy build up near filter...

From the articles i have been reading relating to nitrifying bacteria/archaea and chlorination/chloramination, there may be more to it. These bacteria are actually quite sensitive to low concentrations of chlorine. But it may be the case that the colony in your filter has vast capacity for...

Got a reliable thermometer to double check your tanks temperature throughout the day on a weekend? is your heater overheating? i'm just going through all the things that have happened to me in the past right now... :lol: I know how you are feeling though, early days of the hobby i used to get...

Should be no worries with prime.... weird that! are you using anything collected or any "found" rocks in the tank? absolutely anything you can think of that might be putting something into the water column...

I think the key to changing the shape of your layout is dedicated trimming and plant management, the tank looked very good beforehand but was not the ratio you were imagining, so now you have to build on that triangle ratio by trimming and removing overly large leaves and keeping the open space...

If only i had the finances to buy a spread like that every month.... :lol:

Could it be Chloramines? what kind of water do you use for water changes and how are you treating it? i always double dose my de-chlorinator and i fill up from just the cold tap around 40% of the tank volume dropping 2-3C in temp, and my fish are solid, however i don't keep anything too...

From experience using degraded/muddy amazonia it does spike really heavy when you move it, even if you rinse it which is pointless anyway, and by that point it's exhausted a lot of it's nutrient stores, so i would say just get new and start again. Keep the fish in temporary housing while you...

Mmmmmm Salad! 🌿🍂🍃🍁

That's weird because i thought my cat litter looked like oil absorbant granules, but upon checking, those are made from moler diatomaceous earth according to the company that makes them, also those seem like an off white colour whereas the cheap cat litter is really white, that could just be...

i've used argos play sand and westland play sand they are great, but need a fair bit of washing, as far as cat litter i have no idea, my litter tray always ends up a big cement block after a couple days so i can't imagine how it would work in my aquarium? is this stuff less absorbant than the...

Mine are always full of tiny particles of wood and nerite poop, pretty sure they eat the wood in my mind, always smells like cold tea inside my canister...

Freshwater wise when i went they had cherries, oranges, yellows, blues, the zebra ones and one type of sulawesi, i'm no shrimp expert for sure but they got a good choice of neocaridina, and they have amano's reliably, the rarer stuff i'm not sure as i don't think they keep it in the rack system.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl4DEcd7cdV5Yj9RS0MB1mQ this guy Marks shrimp tanks is pretty pro with the shrimp, learnt a lot there.

Yeah sorry i am referring to KH when i say hard water, My vallis is always lovely indeed, we have liquid chalk here. Rhodophyta induced by poor co2... makes sense i haven't used it in ages, and their other source of carbon is bicarbonates right especially as they are essentially a coralline...

Do you think this is definitely the case? as i feel from growing in hard water i have experienced excessive occurences of BGA and rhodophyta alongside detritus and silting in my tanks, do you feel it is solely because of the 'humic substances' or does bicarbonate availability have a part to play...

Tail looks distinctive and quite like nannostomus fry but i can't say for sure off a picture. What else do you have in the tank? process of elimination will give you the answer, look at pictures of the fry of every species you have in or have had in the tank, and whatever looks most similar will...

Are the aquael heaters any good? anyone? :wave:

Hernia's are no joke! hope you are ok and you get it sorted soon!

Need that FTS..... not even joking inject it into my veins... :lol:

Shrimp and extra large floss pre-filters on a sump man.... oh god the memories... drying shrimps jumping around...

Us londoners can only dream... i am very jealous. should imagine being in NL you will be fine, but could you maybe just take a couple buckets extra out the tank on filter cleaning day? i mean it makes sense to me to use "used" water for the environments sake, rather than using tap, and just...

The real issue for me and why i don't do rinsing in tap, is chloramine dosing because of pipe works in London, you can never trust thames water they will just use the stuff willy nilly, i sent an email to their "PR department" and they replied informing me it was fine to use aerated water as...

Wow.... tank like a technicolour dreamcoat... really makes my crypts look quite dull.... :lol:

Exciting! :D :thumbup:

My biggest questions are: Does the method require a nutrient rich substrate or leeching via this substrate into the water column, whichever you prefer as a mechanism. What are we to dose if not our 1kg bag of KNo3 and our csm+b? :lol: It's not handholding, I would just like a bit more...

I just squeeze out my sponges inside the canister tub, empty that and refill, then i do my waterchange afterwards to get rid of anything that kicks out of the filter. Not sure i would trust washing my filter sponges in thames water tap.

At an even sweeter price...! and i got the adapters so i can use it both ways round as it has a really nice bokeh for normal photography.

Thanks for the advice michael, really appreciated. :) i'm going to try an isolation hood on the lens when photgraphing through the glass when i get my carl zeiss fast fifty, i can't get the fish till i get my soft flash hahaha they are too fast.

Ok looking back i read this wrong michael LOL! i thought you meant how long is a nutrient rich substrate sustainable without dosing not how long is a inert substrate sustainable with EI. Happi did say other people have done lean with inert, i would like to see their work posted here. I have...

Works for me. :D

Three is grown emersed, it's either Helianthum quadricostatus or Helanthium "bolivianum" quadricostatus, the last one is indeed hard, part of me feels like it's an emersed stem plant.

About 6-12 months from experience with amazonia and not dosing anything at all in a low tech tank. Anecdotal of course, which i feel is very important to add as i'm not conducting studies with controls.

So i tested to make sure it's working, this snail is the result of about 30 some test shots with the crappy portrait/landscape lens that came with it and some extender tubes and a +3 diopter, still waiting on my reverse set up, time to learn! Plant is helianthum tenellum and the snail is a ramshorn.

You could definitely be right, hard to tell with the pic but does look like variegation, would also maybe expect to see some plantlets or flowering stems on Emersed grown cyperus.

Gonna be wrong here but here's a stab in the dark, Cyperus, Myriophyllum, sagittaria subulata/echinodorus quadricostatus, crypt parva/willisii, and i wanna say either rotala or heteranthera/some stargrass of some sort?

Love the congo's

I don't eat much red meat really i'm more of a seafood type of guy... garlic butter and lemon juice on whitefish, toro tuna sashimi, or just plain vinegar and cockles, i love that stuff.

Ill have to try it ive always just roasted them without soakin they are kind of chewy like mochi when you do them like that, i imagine soaking gives a better texture? Sent from my BV5500Plus using Tapatalk

Out of interest how much kwh are you using to heat the greenhouse to 8c outdoors? Sent from my BV5500Plus using Tapatalk

Canal biotope... Cut a pallet in half and mount with silicon, bit of fishing line, a safe, few knives and a bb gun. Sent from my BV5500Plus using Tapatalk

I cant stand brussels they are so bitter! Maybe as i get older i might like them as everyone i know that likes brussels is of a certain age, i always cook my foraged chestnuts in a dry cast iron skillet in the oven. Sent from my BV5500Plus using Tapatalk

Agreed! and there is quite the colony of something on the left hand side of the glass there... get the scraper out matty!

We need a closer photo i think!

Enhance! 🕵️‍♂️😅