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Thank you! I filmed it with a Fuji X-T3 mirrorless camera that I picked up a few weeks ago.

Well it's been over 5 months since an update. The tank has been through various high and low spots. All my rams died within a few months. I think one may have had a disease and infected the others, along with the apisto but I also think the cooler temps and conditions of an aquascape make it a...

This is all very interesting but have we any more info on how well the filter is performing? Anybody had it running for a few weeks and has any views? I currently run a Biomaster 600 but am thinking of switching to this filter when I rescape.

Whilst not super close there is a guy near M1 J27 who sells them for £10 each. I've had around 12 off him so far and all have been perfect. PM me if you want his details.

Looking great. You had any signs of BBA at all?

My Christmas moss grows really well but it has a tendency to break away and come unstuck when it grows. I've had to try and find a technique to trim it without ending up with bits all over the tank as I've found it establishing itself in my Eliocharis carpet. Do all mosses behave this way or are...

Plants looking very healthy. Is that Christmas moss?

I've heard that too. But then read that it's usually the softer 'orange' O rings rather than black. To be honest I don't see that there is that much difference. My inlet is directly next to my outlet and my outlet was previously firing out thousands of co2 bubbles. There was that many bubbles in...

Just thought I'd update this thread. After 3 days of firing the JBL inline directly into the inlet of my Biomaster there have been zero downsides. The co2 reaches higher levels quicker, there are almost no co2 bubbles in the tank and the filter doesn't 'burp' or hiss like I'd seen other...

So a full photoperiod just finished with the co2 directly into the inlet. No burping from the filter and no bubbles in the tank! Drop checker slightly more green/yellow than before. Need to keep an eye on it tomorrow as I may need to reduce the co2 timings before lights on. So far so good.

Looks great. Nice healthy plants. Any pictures of the hard scape before plants were added?

I’m in Gedling, 10 minutes away. I’d be happy to rehome a decent portion of them. Drop me a PM if interested.

Thanks for the replies everyone. It's certainly interesting to hear everyone's thoughts. I'm surprised there is a pre-manufactured device on the market aimed specifically at reducing or eliminating these pesky bubbles. At least one that doesn't restrict the flow too much. This morning I have...

That sounds interesting. I’ve been struggling to find much info on reactors. Most info I’ve read suggests they restrict flow too much and people end up going back to on take diffusers. Can you provide any more information? I’d be happy to pay a reasonable amount to have en effecient bubbleless...

Hi @Ady34 , thanks for the reply and completely I agree with everything you have said. My co2 looks pretty much the same as in your video. There are thousands of microbubbles all around the tank which is great for distribution but not nice for viewing. I only really enjoy the tank for the hour...

Afternoon, Recently I've been getting a bit disheartened with all the co2 bubbles in the tank. I originally started with an aquario in tank diffuser but have since swapped to a JBL in-line atomiser. I have done a PH profile previously and believe I have got the levels about right but the amount...

Picked up a few new tank additions at the weekend. First was a Twinstar Nano+. Don't care if it does anything or not, just fancied one. Second was 8 rummy nose tetras. These are awesome and wish I'd got them from the start. Such great swimmers! Lastly was this little stunner! Oddly, I bought...

I run a Biomaster 600 and have zero issues with it. Saying that the Aquael Ultramax does look very appealing for the extra flow, price and maintaining the pre-filter which looks a better design than the Oase. Only downside is no heater. I think someone really needs to buy an Ultramax and give...

I've been dosing The Aquascaper Complete Liquid @10ml/day from day one. Plant growth and health was previously was previously very good. I've since upped it to 15ml/day hoping it will improve things. I think the recommended dose is 20ml/day for a 200L high tech tank but I think that may be a bit...

The vallis was only added last week to replace the ludwigia that melted with the liquid carbon too. It was a bit of a nuisance stem to maintain anyway but did provide some nice contrast. I don't know much about the vallis but thought it looked interesting. I'll be interested to see how it...

Hi, I've posted this in my journal but thought I'd seperate this out for some answers. This anubius (petite?) has been in the tank from day one. For 4 out of 6 months is was really healthy and grew fast. The last couple of months it has slowed down somewhat. After cutting back my trident fern...

It's been a while since my last update. BBA really got on my nerves and I was getting ready for starting again with a new scape. However, I didn't want to be too hasty as I feel that there is still things to learn from this scape which will help me with the next one. BBA appears to have...

Well the greens look much less yellow and the red look more vivid so looks like an improvement to me so far. Probably better to take pics with the co2 off so the mist is less apparent. My tank looks so much better once the co2 goes off. Lovely scape btw.

Unfortunately it’s really difficult to judge from iPhone pics as the camera will adjust the white balance and not give a true representation. What’s your initial thoughts?

Chop chop. Reviews, pics, comparisons and videos

I’m no expert but I think they’re pretty much full size now. I noticed some in the local fish shop a few weeks ago and they were tiny.

I have a mature golden ram. Looks very similar. If you have a good number of shrimp it’s likely they will still outbread to rate at which they get eaten. My two rams and apistos like the have a pop at the smaller cherries, especially if out in the open. They don’t usually hassle the larger...

I've got a thermo 600 and have been pretty happy with it but this filter looks great on paper. Would be interesting to hear some proper views. 2000l/h sounds nice.

Looks a fantastic layout. I'm planing on going triangular on my next scape too. My battle with BBA appears to be improving but I've almost convinced myself to recsape in the new year anyway.

I haven't got many pictures of mine but here's a video of them hounding a poor shrimp.

I'm looking forward to see what you do next. I've given my scape a huge trim in a bid to remove as much BBA as I can. Like you, the large piece of bog-wood sheds an inordinate amount of organics. The amount of crap that comes out of the substrate around it is scary. Oddly I was a few Aquarium...

Thanks Alto, I feel I maintain the tank fairly well. I work at home on a Wednesday which I call 'Water Change Wednesdays'. I typically use the Phython to siphon out around 70% of the water, including vacuuming the substrate and carpet as well as removing the filter, cleaning the pre-filter...

Hi, thanks for the reply. I've added my comments below.

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to try a huge trim this week and cut back all the worst affected plants. There is just a small amount on virtually every plant in the tank so it's very difficult to spot dose. My trident ferns are removable though so will try and give them a blast out of the water.

Getting very disheartened with BBA now. It started out as a small tuft on a piece of the bog wood but after some co2 instability it slowly spread around the majority of my plants. I believe my co2 and flow has been quite stable now but things are not improving. I dosed 2.5x dose of TNC Liquid...

Interesting to read this. I am also struggling with BBA at the moment and it's very disheartening. If you have seen my tank you'll see I also have some huge pieces of bogwood that are always giving off loads of organics. The substrate around it takes endless hoovering and the plants constantly...

Hi Matt, I got them from Brookfields Garden Centre which is in Mapperley, Nottingham. They have a decent selection of fish there. Not many Chiclids but I did see a few of these Apistos left yesterday when I went to pickup some Aquascaper plant food.

Hi @ Konsa, Apologies for not replying sooner. I hadn't 'subscribed' to my thread and didn't notice your great response. I have had the rams about 12 weeks before I noticed any signs but I hadn't treated them for anything when I got them. The lump does look a bit like a cauliflower...

It's just a standard Hue Light-strip which are about £65. You could use a cheap one which are usually brighter but I like to have them controlled along with all the other lights in the house.

This weekend I decided to add a frosted white background and install some Philips Hue light strips behind the tank. I'm really pleased with the background as it reflects the white light and makes the whole tank look much brighter and cleaner rather than being able to see the sand colour wall...

Excellent. Many thanks for the explanation! I’ve just done a 70% water change and dosed 4ml (1ml pet 50l) onto a couple of the worst affected leaves. I had switched the filter on by this point though. I’ll try without in future.

I've read that it's the glutaraldehyde in the liquid carbon that kills off the BBA, but that you need to overdose (by 2/3 times) to really affect it. If I dose just the recommended amount of liquid carbon won't that increase my co2 levels too much if I keep injecting co2 at the same rate I...

The problem is there is a only a light amount of BBA but its on almost every leaf of every plant in the left side of the tank. If I spot it onto all of the BBA I fear it will gas the fish. I haven't put any of it in the tank before.

I've got a bottle of TNC Liquid Carbon that I bought with the tank - I was originally going without a proper co2 kit but that soon changed and I never used it. I heard you can use it for spot dosing but do you know how I would I use it to help remove BBA in my tank? Yes there are hundreds of...

Here's a little video update. A couple of weeks ago saw the addition of a pair of flame/fire red apistos. My gut told me not to add them due to aggression with the rams but oddly they all get on rather well considering there are 3 males rams, one make apisto and one female apisto. The male...

Any ideas what may cause this? I've read a bit about 'Hole in the Head' but this seems more of a lump than a hole. It was probably a month ago when I first noticed it but it appears to have worsened a bit over the last couple of days - hopefully unrelated but not long after adding two Apistos...

Like the look of this but would like to see a video of the 'nano mist'. I currently have a JBL Proflora and I've been quite happy with the mist so far. I'd much rather change out for something less likely to crack but don't want to pay for it until I've seen the bubble size.

Thanks. I just took the advice from here and lowered the light intensity for a couple of weeks. I also bought 6 ottos and manually cleaned the rocks with a toothbrush. I was already changing 70% of the water twice a week anyway. Things improved very quickly. Hope they do for you too.

So a few weeks on and things have stabilised nicely. I've given the right hand side a bit of a tidy by removing some of the thin leaf plants (no idea what they were called!). I've recently increased the lighting back to 100% fading to 70% over the photo period now the diatoms have disappeared...

I use the same guy. Nice and easy!

It’s what I have in my tank. I have no experience with any other soil but it working for me so far.

I have no idea why i’m here. I know nothing about ferts. I just liked the word Potash.

Tuesday night I got to work and made the changes noted above. I removed the stem plants on the back left, moved the lobelia and tripartita to the back and moved a large crypt from the right hand side to the back left to fill the space. Overall I think the makes the front and back left look much...

Just thought I'd update this thread. I went to the best LFS and they had a lot of Gouramis. The had some very healthy looking dwarfs, some not so healthy looks blues and some cross-bread mostly red with blue line at the top. I was very tempted with the standard ones but decided to go for the...

Hi Matt, thanks for the response. I completely agree about having too many species. Being inexperienced I had no idea how much some of the plants would grow and after planting originally I wanted to fill the gaps with as many plants as I could get my hands on. I'm not sure how many plants can be...

So week 12 and I appear to be just about over the diatoms and my plants seem to be responding well to the stable co2 levels. New additions are 3 pearl gouramis - 2 of which are very shy and spend most of the time hiding. I've added a Eleocharis carpet to the front. It looks a bit messy at the...

Yeah I think I've been put off the dwarfs. Can't be bothered with unnecessary health battles. The only thing about more tetras is they seem to lack a bit of personality. I've really enjoyed watching the rams as they seem like 'thinking fish'. I only really see two at a time and it just seems...

I've heard a bit about iridovirus. It seems almost too common. I've just been to a local shop to look at some DG and noticed one looking a bit worse for wear, breathing heavily at the bottom of the tank. They didn't seem like very active fish either. Seems a little risky to me as I certainly...

Thanks @alto - that’s a great response. DG behaviour sounds similar to the Rams with the dominant males. Initially I had 1 male and one female ram. The male didn’t like the female and bullied her - she died a few days later. After that I bought 3 more makes. One was from the same group as the...

Wouldn’t recommend either of my original suggestions then?

I’ll take a look at those. Thanks. I like cories and have been considering them for the bottom although I hear they like a sand substrate and I only have soil and plants. Ideally I’m after some colorfish fish that swim a little higher.

I’ve only been running mine for about a week. It does have a few big bubbles like yours but there are hundreds of smaller bubbles floating around the tank and my drop checker is going a lovely green/yellow. I added an extra O ring in the top to compress the diffuser a little more. Not sure if...

Hi guys, So I’m getting a little bored with the fish variety in my Aquascaper 900. My current stick list is as follows: 18 Cardinals Tetra 10 Black Phantom Tetras 2 Male Golden Rams 2 Male Blue Rams 6 Ottos I really enjoy watching the behaviour of the rams - especially the 2 larger golden...

Following on from another thread, the tank is currently in recovery mode. After a few too many changes my plants were suffering from co2 deficiency and diatoms. I've been doing water changes every other day and set the light to fade from 70-50% over the photo period, rather than being on 100%...

So I've turned the light down to fade from 70% to 50% over the photo period and done a water change every 2 days. Things are starting to look better already and the ottos I bought last week have been doing a good job. I've received my JBL inline diffuser but haven't fitted it as my drop...

I've often read that a Pleco will be no good for a planted a tank. They'll disturb the substrate, and knock/uproot the plants because they grow too big. I'd love to be told otherwise as I know a breeder of some amazing L Numbers. I think bristlenoses may be ok.

I have been using the small one supplied with the CO2Art regulator but it’s very hard to count. I did notice that bubbles entering the Neo Diffuser were at a much lower rate. My inline diffuser will be coming tomorrow which also has a built in bubble counter. I’ll see how that compares. Thanks.

Is this what I'd need for my Biomaster? https://www.amazon.co.uk/JBL-63339-High-Performance-16-Inline-CO2-Diffuser/dp/B01637H20E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1535635039&sr=8-2&keywords=inline+co2+diffuser

Thanks @Iain Sutherland. That's useful information. The only thing I cannot do is put the diffuser directly opposite the outlet as my 2 year old will almost certainly pull the pipes when I'm not looking. I can place it further to the back of the opposite side but when I tried that previously I...

I'm struggling to agree it's the filtration. Pretty much every Aquascaper 900 that either George Farmer or Aquarium Gardens have setup are running the exact same filter and Lilly Pipe set. They don't even use an additional powerhead which I added due to not wanting to place my diffuser opposite...

Thanks. That's what I suspected. The co2 has been rather difficult to get right. Below is a video from around a week ago. I found the amount of co2 bubbles a complete distraction for the tank and tried switching it's position to the back left. This resulted in poor distribution which I think...

Hi all, I just noticed there was another recent similar thread to this recently but I'd like your opinion on what may be going on in my tank. The tank is now 8/9 weeks old and up until last week all of my plants look healthy and I had no real signs of algae. I have constantly been moving the...

Which version are you running? I've changed nothing on my 600 apart from removing one blue sponge from a tray and added a 100g sachet of Purigen. With cleanish prefilters I'm finding the flow pretty decent in my Aquascaper 900. Are you running Lilly Pipes or the standard spray bar?

I started my tank with 100% brightness as my dimmer didn’t arrive in time and I was impatient. Just made sure the crank up the Co2. A few plants melted but seem to be recovering ok. My light schedule is now similar: 2:30pm 0% 3:00pm 100% 9:00pm 100% 9:30pm 0%

That’s exactly the same as the Hinterfeld one I picked up. Certainly makes the Twinstar what it should have been out of the box. Great bit of kit.

Thanks for the info. I'm going to let these settle in before adding any new additions. So far the phantoms haven't bothered the shrimp but they may in time. I guess it's nature and it's possible the shrimp can out breed them.

Unfortunately Mrs Golden Ram isn't doing very well. Yesterday I thought she must have jumped out and the dog may have eaten her as I couldn't find her for hours. She didn't show up when I did a 60% water change either. Eventually she came out from beneath a piece of bog wood looking very very...

I just went with ‘The Aquascaper - Complete Liquid Plant Food’. Expensive at £13ish for 500ml but I’m dosing 10ml a day so I don’t think it’s too bad considering the ease.

Thanks for the info. I've obviously only had them a couple of days so hopefully they don't start to fade due to the temperature. Any reason I shouldn't change my tank to 26/27 degrees? Will it affect the plants?

Thank you. Apparently the rams are happy at 25 degrees upwards. I run my tank at 25 degrees and they seem ok so far. I'm hoping the pants will grown in a bit to provide a few more shaded areas as I've heard they like some hiding spots to feel secure. Wharf is amazing. I couldn't believe how...

Hi, Thought I'd post this hear as I didn't get any responses from my Journal. I have an aquascaper 900 which is now about 6 weeks old. I've added some Caridnals 2 weeks ago who are doing well and 2 days ago I added 10 Black Phantom Tetras and 2 golden rams. Many people only seem to have two...

Looking good. Looks like you took inspiration from the 900 at aquarium garden with the scape. I’ve got the same equipment but I went with the Twinstar E. I’ve been struggling to find an online comparison of the two but beginning to wish I’d gone for the S from the start.

Yesterday I went for a visit to Wharf Aquatics in Pinxton who have a huge selection of tropical fish. They had some lovely male golden rams and I couldn't resist purchasing one. I didn't want two males so ended up with a female from another breeder. She isn't as attractive but figured I'd rather...

Just to chip in, I have an Aquascaper 900 with a Biomaster 600. I removed one of the blue sponges and threw some Purigen in there. Recently I added a Koralia Nano 1600 power-head. Flow seems perfect with this setup so far.

Are you running a surface skimmer? Mine shoots out air bubbles fairly often but my surface skimmer also draws a bit of air in so it's to be expected. I don't see it as an issue.

I'm using TP Link Smart Plugs for my C02, power head and lights. They are on offer at the moment for £20 on Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-Required-Control-Devices-Anywhere/dp/B07CKVZFGX/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1533550481&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=tp+link+smart+plug&psc=1 You...

I’ve got mine on at least 10bps to get my drop checker a nice bright green.

Substrate is Prodibio Aqua Growth Soil. Nothing else under it so I guess the support option would be doable. Perhaps a big unnecessary job really. I may attempt a carpet again in the future when the tank is more mature. Thanks for your comments. Good food for thought. I think I'll leave the...

Yesterday I decided to remove all of the Monte Carlo. The amano shrimp had ripped most of it up anyway and it was looking a bit messy. I've given that a good clean but it was interesting to see how many dead brown roots were under there. Personally I think it looks better without the carpeting...

As per Siege, no need to buy anything. Comes preattached.

I've added a few new additions this weekend. 32 RCS, 6 Cardinal Tetras and a few new plants. As you can see from the pictures I've lost the majprity of my Monte Carlo. The Eleocharis seems to be holding in there and the Hydrocotyle Verticillata is growing new shoots pretty well. I've added a...

Thanks. To me it seems that most of the leaves have the same problem. I have another one on the left of the tank which was planted at the same time but that one doesn't appear to have the same issue. I'll give it a little trim.

https://imgur.com/Vl1O6p6

Hi everyone, I'm new to aquariums and planted tanks and wondered if this trident fern looks normal or has an issue. The tank has been planted for 3 weeks and the fern does appear to growing but it's looked like this for the last 2 weeks. I'm running CO2 injection which I've recently increased...

Could anyone tell me what these 3 species are? They look amazing.

So last night was my first panic. I noticed a few plants appeared to be dying and most of my Monte Carlo was gone. On further inspection it seems that the Amano Shrimp have been uprooting the Monte Carlo. Perhaps I should have waited for it to take hold before adding the shrimp? The plants...

Hi, Many thanks for your detailed reply. I have annotated your comments below.

Great, thanks for the advice. I have been doing 50-70% water changes every 2 days so far. I have been doing the aquascaper plant food at 10ml per day which I believe is around half the recommended amount already. My drop checker has been going green but not a bright green. I think I'm about...

I actually have one of those dimmers which I ordered when I planned not to use CO2. I got bored of waiting for it to be delivered so set up the CO2 instead. My photo period is currently 6 hours which I had planned to increase to 8 hours once it was more established. Do you still think I should...

Hi guys, Decided to create an account on here as I'm sure I'll run into to problems soon and need your help.:) So recently my almost 3 year old decided he wanted some fish. I had two weeks paternity leave coming up so decided I would get a fish tank sorted whilst I was off. I spent a few days...