A reflection - putting it all into one scape

[Wookii]

4,6,8

So the 4dKH solution is darker than the 6dKH?

Could be a flow pitfall in front left as well.

You are at a slight disadvantage with flow given the only outlet is the weir at the surface, so CO2 rich water enters and exits at the surface, rather than a canister filter inlet which typically draws water down to the substrate level.

If your filter outlet is front right, its really no a great position for the drop checkers and they are presumably getting hit bit a direct stream of CO2 bubbles. I'd be putting them in the rear right or front right corners near the substrate.

 

[JoshP12]

So the 4dKH solution is darker than the 6dKH?



You are at a slight disadvantage with flow given the only outlet is the weir at the surface, so CO2 rich water enters and exits at the surface, rather than a canister filter inlet which typically draws water down to the substrate level.

If your filter outlet is front right, its really no a great position for the drop checkers and they are presumably getting hit bit a direct stream of CO2 bubbles. I'd be putting them in the rear right or front right corners near the substrate.

You’re bang on - is hard to explain but with 3x power heads and the outlet, we have this draw towards the front (half goes over the weir and half re circulated).

I’m not nearly as concerned as you are about it lol. Not a slight - I’m looking at the tank and have corporate knowledge of it and you are at a disadvantage trying to make sense of my sometimes incomprehensible, disjoint jot notes.

The drop checker did its job - I’m in the ball park I need to be. Rest is watching the plants imo.

 

[Wookii]

You’re bang on - is hard to explain but with 3x power heads and the outlet, we have this draw towards the front (half goes over the weir and half re circulated).

I’m not nearly as concerned as you are about it lol. Not a slight - I’m looking at the tank and have corporate knowledge of it and you are at a disadvantage trying to make sense of my sometimes incomprehensible, disjoint jot notes.

The drop checker did its job - I’m in the ball park I need to be. Rest is watching the plants imo.

Ah right, I didn't see you mention three powerheads. and can't see them in the images - was just trying to ensure you got accurate results from your drop checkers of your minimum CO2 levels, rather than being skewed by CO2 bubbles flowing directly into them.

 

[JoshP12]

Ah right, I didn't see you mention three powerheads. and can't see them in the images - was just trying to ensure you got accurate results from your drop checkers of your minimum CO2 levels, rather than being skewed by CO2 bubbles flowing directly into them.

Appreciate it. I’ll get some better shots this evening to show flow pattern.

 

[JoshP12]

@Wookii got the shot (was during water change - filter output is directly on top of the top power head (can’t see it because of water level) and it’s a cheap sun sun 2x Venturi split outlet … wanted to use it instead of something much better just to stay thrifty - had it already as it came with the canister).


And some updates:

Beginning to uncurl:




Co2 ~ max 70, and probably somewhere in the 50 to be honest. Will leave it and it will probably settle to the perfect level when tank grows in.

My doser continues to go off sometimes before I changed the water (lol user error - preset time from night before) … it really isn’t a huge deal, with young substrate it can handle some error on my end.

Macrandras are just looking stunning to me - I am very happy with the coloration and leaf shape so close to substrate … let’s see what some congestion does to them.

Pearling increasing every day.



Can’t quite see the tendrils I mentioned in the photo - and they are receding since I increased co2. But I wanted to give a shot of the MC (this plant for all cups was the most neglected, had the most jelly, and taken the longest to take). But we see some green and pearling in certain locations of the tank.



And then literally right beside it:

 

[John q]

Beginning to uncurl:

I commented when it wasn't looking to good, so only fair I say something now. Looking much better 👍
Any thoughts why you were getting the curling.

 

[JoshP12]

I commented when it wasn't looking to good, so only fair I say something now. Looking much better 👍
Any thoughts why you were getting the curling.

Haha thanks!

Only thing I did was turn down co2 … to reasonable levels and water is a reasonable pH now. I’ll do a pH profile today 🙂. Drop checker colours are there and I did a dilution from some water in a water bottle claiming to have 200 something ppm of carbonates - so … all that to say it’s all guess work but I’ll get it done today.

Not sure that a low pH from tannins etc and not co2 would cause the same effect but I’ve experienced it with several plant varieties that easing off the gas just a little loosens ‘em up.

Whole tank looks better actually. And growth rates increased! But again it’s kind of a red herring since roots, bacteria, etc … not the same tank as it was at 20h photo.

A really neat observation on the co2 is that this same injection rate did not yield so much co2 in the water when I ran a different structure to the tank (spray bar and filter vs weir and power heads).

I mean you have to take my word on that (or ignore it) but that’s based on my memory from previous versions of the tank and injection rate.

 

[JoshP12]

Check this too @John q

@ 3:47


Auto doser goes off 7:40 while I am out …. 50 mL full dose.

8:58


Potassium does regulate photosynthetic enzymes … possible it was getting tired, had the K now, perked up …

The problem is every time I do that, I’m burning my substrate for a bit more food for the plant … and that means I’m losing time on having to worry about what I dose in the water column to prevent getting ugly plants. @Freshflora this is what I meant in my post on your journal mate.

Then I’ll have to smell manure substrate again and do daily waters for a month lol.

 

[JoshP12]

Might sound crazy, given what I did on start up with the soil, but once Monte Carlo begins to grow, I need to be putting root tabs in that soil (better get making them) because once it covers the soil, I won’t be able to. Then the clock starts.

I didn’t plan properly for the Rotala side (there isn’t enough soil on top of the paint bags filled with soil to put root tabs in) — so I’ll need to top the rotalas in a few months, add an inch of fresh soil, re plant, do dailies for a week or so and then go from there.


Starting to dream about livestock.

 

[JoshP12]

Been diligently spraying the lights with electronic dust off and noticed much less flickering and the channels on one of the lights are all lit up usually.

Tilted them a bit more angled into the water so as not to loose any light from beam spread over the corner of the tank.

Think that’s it.

Definitely crystal shrimp going in - just not sure which.

 

[JoshP12]

First, everything is going to work and you are compensating in some way to make it work (and the compensation is how long you have until you have to pay more attention or overall aquarium health).

Here is my current thinking to yield highest probability of success.

Substrate: as rich as you can get! Garden soil - doped with slow release pellets - capped with aqua soil (to help with anchoring/planting and so when you uproot it’s “clean”). Make sure iron and micros are in there.

Lights: buy one with good spectrum + intensity — 100% from the get go 10h.

Temp: set it and forget it (swings if you want) - 23-26 celcius is good.

Filtration: classic recommendation 10x over, some sponges, minimal “media” … just a flow maker.

Flow/distribution: there isn’t an optimal pattern - depends on dimensions of tank. Low velocity, high turnover is the key.

Surface agitation/gas exchange: you need it. Doesn’t matter how you do it but it needs to be done.

Surface: should be clean to promote gas exchange… skimmer or weir probably a good idea.

Water change: daily at start up for a month until cycled, then ease off to every 2 days, then 3, … until desired frequency for tank + utilize: daily and ween when you root tab, or issues occurs etc

I think that’s everything right? Haha joking the most controversial to follow.

Ferts and co2 and water:

You need to start somewhere: tap water will dictate.

Macronutrients:
Nitrate, kh, GH, phosphate tend to be loosely linked in tap water. Kh and GH much more tightly linked. GH tends to be majority Ca.

So, we use Ca to begin the process.

Get Ca to mg at ~ 3:1. 150 Ca, get Mg to 50. Stick K in the middle for the ~ 3:2:1 Ca:Mg:K … 100 should do the trick.

Now, if your tap is 150 Ca, I mean good luck: your KH is high (making plant selection trickier and CO2 application more challenging) and this kind of GH really narrows fish selection ... --- probably better off going rain water + remineralizing with tap and salts or RO and remineralizing.

In any case, use Ca to dictate NO3 at ~ 5:1. So in this example, 30NO3 ... or EI. With 30 Ca, we go 6 NO3 .... with 15 Ca, we go 3 NO3 ... and I hope you start to see a trend here. Use NO3 to dictate PO4 at 2:1 .... so 30NO3, 15 PO4 and so on.

The trend is this: ADA dosing extremely lean NO3 ... tap water in Japan? Everyone in UK uses EI ... tap water in UK? EI works for half of the US ... tap water in the US ... Dennis Wong APT takes over the US and Canada ... tap water is closer to soft/moderate hard. And when his ferts don't work, the suggestion is to try the leaner version lol.

The Dutch never use their tap water lol ... they remineralize RO. Like I mentioned before Ca 30 under this schema is pretty safe for a reminalizeration target. Then you can pull of NO3 (and PO4) if you want to make the plant more petite.

All of the macros front loaded at water change. Can do partial dosage daily or periodically afterwards, if needed.

That covers Macro nutrients.

Micronutrients: any mix will do, concentrated solution if it's meant to be dosed in large batches, or roll your own at desired ratios. Iron proxy ~ .015 ppm daily. Go ahead and play with chelates EDDHA, DTPA, Gluconate, EDTA ... again a reason that a lot of US "prefer" DTPA ... and the other "a lot of US" prefer EDTA --- hardness of tap water. Us Canadians, we are just confused. Can always just dose more of EDTA ... be aware of compensating for performance with other things. Dosed daily ~ around lights on.

KH and CO2: If you have KH < 5-6 ish, you can probably get away with CO2 with lights given you have ample agitation. Probably safer to go 30 min before lights on just so no one gives you flack on your advice to them. Anything more, you need ramp up to about 2-3hours, if you go any more than this, you need to look at system efficiency. If you have lights at 100, your system will be efficient enough so you won't need more than 2-3 hours. Also, if you lights force a small ramp (such as mine and you put 30 minutes), then you definitely won't need any more time. And higher KH affects CO2 acquisition for the plant so you begin to narrow plant choices to more harder water varieties - especially if you want livestock.

The plants dance the prettiest when the pH is higher in the tail end of the photoperiod, but I think this is more of a finesse rather than a "grow pretty plants".

Soft water: co2 with lights - simply unneccesary to go before, especially under this schema.

Magic ppm for CO2: pH no lower than 5.5ish seems to be sound advice: and you don’t need to get there until about 30 min-45min into the photoperiod, depending … might be 46 minutes lol … it needs to be “on its way to peak” at lights on and soft water users are always on the way to peak due to low KH and carbonate equilibrium with co2.

Look at soft water users drop checkers ... most of them land around 6 pH. Hard water users simply don't have to worry about going this far ... you'll gas the tank before you get to that point. Free CO2 in the water column as a requirement is unique to the plant - standard drop checker advice is good I'd say for peak drop (noting all the issues with drop checkers and also with pH measurements). Using pH + Drop Checker within this schema - bingo.



I think thats it 🙂.

Any feedback on it?

 

[JoshP12]

In terms of pH profile ... had to leave today so wasn't around at lights on but end of day I'll share the pH probe tracking report. In the interim, pH hits around 5.7/8 within at most 45 minutes (since that's when I got home to check). Can't be much further down -- it's an estimate as bromothymol blue only goes to 6 (and probe doesn't read properly - error).

I wanted to also share some shots from previous iterations of the tank (I am not sure if I have shared all of them on the forum, but - more for me - this journal documents most of the process for me so I will add them).



















Should've trimmed that one away before the shot - darn lol:











I am very excited to have the new tank rolling ... looking at the swamp depressed me I think BAHAHAH.

Cheers,
Josh

 

[Hufsa]

Any feedback on it?

You know I have a lot of respect for you @JoshP12 so I say this with the utmost affection, but some of your earlier postings had a bit of a "mad man raving at the streetcorner" kind of vibe to them
And I think maybe people would have just glossed over them if you didnt then also BAM hit us with the photos of your plants.
With the combo its like "hot dang, alright, Im listening to what youre saying and I would like to hear more" 😁

So usually im with you most of the time (as long as I can understand what youre saying), and while im stubbornly following my own path as usual, theres no denying you got the plant growth to back up the words with.
This thread is a wonderfully wild ride and I think we're all here for it 🤠😎

Yeehaw!

 

[JoshP12]

You know I have a lot of respect for you @JoshP12 so I say this with the utmost affection, but some of your earlier postings had a bit of a "mad man raving at the streetcorner" kind of vibe to them

🙂. This hobby brings the crazy out of all of us!

And I think maybe people would have just glossed over them if you didnt then also BAM hit us with the photos of your plants.
With the combo its like "hot dang, alright, Im listening to what youre saying and I would like to hear more" 😁

The power of photos!

So usually im with you most of the time (as long as I can understand what youre saying), and while im stubbornly following my own path as usual, theres no denying you got the plant growth to back up the words with.
This thread is a wonderfully wild ride and I think we're all here for it 🤠😎

Yeehaw!

😊 glad I’m not alone lol.

Appreciate you sharing this.

 

[JoshP12]

@Hufsa to add to my madman vibe, I have to share what happened this AM.

I pass by the tank (it’s dark) and take a little look inside and the little Monte Carlo leaves are all closed up (super good sign imo as it means, they are starting to do what the rotalas did a week ago — they should explode soon) … anyways they looked so cute 😂😆.

I don’t what it is about this hobby …. It’s just so hard and maybe that’s why when something clicks for us, we just run with it. And we find these rabbit holes that force to re evaluate everything we know. And you can’t truly know anything so we get statements like in my experience or people destroy you- is why I like UKAPS.

I feel the issue is when we forget to check our bias, or slip into dogma where we feel we can’t be wrong.

And sorry @Hufsa now I’ve tagged you into a philosophical dialogue.

 

[KirstyF]

Any feedback on it?

With tap, the ratios are always skewed.

My tap contains 30plus ppm Nitrate. To maintain the ratios I’d have to increase Ca to 150ppm which would be…madness…right!

With tap, you are always limited to what you can add in as you can’t remove.

I’ll use approximate numbers for the sake of easy illustration but let’s say I have:

Ca 75ppm
This would mean needing:
K 50ppm
Mg 25ppm

But would also mean I would only need:
No3 15ppm

But my No3 is 30ppm
Which would mean needing:
Po4 15ppm

But the ratios are already broken.
So;
Ca 75ppm
No3 30ppm
Po4 15ppm
K 50ppm
Mg 25ppm
And we are already making EI look lean.

With all ratios in place and No3 driving we have:
Ca 150ppm
No3 30ppm
Po4 15ppm
K 100ppm
Mg 50ppm
And no sane person would willingly use this surely.

With RO and re-mineralising this becomes easy. Softer water and lower nitrates and it’s feasible but harder water and higher nitrates and it moves into the realms of crazy numbers.

So that’s puts a good chunk of the UK out so far as I understand!

So I guess that ultimately my questions are:
Why do ratios matter?
and
If you are restricted by tap, which rules do you break?

This is not a spurious question. I genuinely find the subject of great interest, but find limited answers on optimisation around hard water and would be interested in your take on it.

I accept in advance that ‘just use the EI method’ will be the feeling of many and that it has proven success, but that is not my question here, so if we can hold ourselves back from that response folks, that would be cool. 😊

 

[JoshP12]

With tap, the ratios are always skewed.

My tap contains 30plus ppm Nitrate. To maintain the ratios I’d have to increase Ca to 150ppm which would be…madness…right!

With tap, you are always limited to what you can add in as you can’t remove.

Thanks for these insights as the only hard water I have is at a friends well. I am in the city.

Edit: I’ve gone to about 10GH I think. Calcium was in the 60s? Will see if I wrote it or documented it somewhere.

I’ll use approximate numbers for the sake of easy illustration but let’s say I have:

Ca 75ppm
This would mean needing:
K 50ppm
Mg 25ppm

But would also mean I would only need:
No3 15ppm

But my No3 is 30ppm
Which would mean needing:
Po4 15ppm

But the ratios are already broken.
So;
Ca 75ppm
No3 30ppm
Po4 15ppm
K 50ppm
Mg 25ppm
And we are already making EI look lean.

With all ratios in place and No3 driving we have:
Ca 150ppm
No3 30ppm
Po4 15ppm
K 100ppm
Mg 50ppm
And no sane person would willingly use this surely.

I’d be happy to try it and is on my list! Also, @Geoffrey Rea or @Zeus. tap are near this I think?

I also think Clive did this already when he was pouring in booster. + the boosters basically follow these ratios closely anyways (close enough right?)?

With RO and re-mineralising this becomes easy. Softer water and lower nitrates and it’s feasible but harder water and higher nitrates and it moves into the realms of crazy numbers.

I think if we have this issue, we need to use nitrate as the proxy and scale up the GH. The benefit - I think - prettier plant forms.

So that’s puts a good chunk of the UK out so far as I understand!

So I guess that ultimately my questions are:
Why do ratios matter?
and
If you are restricted by tap, which rules do you break?

They don’t. You can break any. But the amount of time you have until you need to start adhering to some form of a guideline will be limited as your soil will begin to become unbalanced.

So the closer we Adhere, perhaps, we extend how long we can be careless on other things. I’ll think on this one.

This is not a spurious question. I genuinely find the subject of great interest, but find limited answers on optimisation around hard water and would be interested in your take on it.

I accept in advance that ‘just use the EI method’ will be the feeling of many and that it has proven success, but that is not my question here, so if we can hold ourselves back from that response folks, that would be cool. 😊

It will work for sure but in 6 months, the plants will begin to look odd and deformed. Don’t quote the six months but I think that’s the idea.

+ go inert and I really don’t think it will work well enough for what we like.

I have more thoughts but wanted to get this out!

Edit: the thought becomes that the increase in GH will moderate the intake of the N and P etc such that what is needed from the soil to “top off the skewed demand” is that much more balanced, so the soil will last longer before it can’t keep up.

Edit: @KirstyF Think I’m done adding edits. Last one: idea would be pick any targets you like in tap and if you nail co2, with fresh soil, the plants will likely grow without any issue. The question becomes how long will this be until you have issues and have to pay more attention to what you’re doing. In inert, it won’t work like that - you need to pay more attention from the get go.

And I would say this is not to “grow” plants - but to make them pretty. I don’t want stunted tips or deformed leaves or long internodes lol … not picky right?

 

[Zeus.]

My tap water was about -
Ca 130 ppm
Mg 5 ppm
Before I moved

 

[JoshP12]

2h into photoperiod today (I’m actually nervous for the co2 to turn off 😂):






All tendrils on the MC clump are receding if not completely gone.

Just shy of 2 hours in (obviously blue at lights on):


2h in: the numbers on probe are wrong but relative drop you can see.

 

[KirstyF]

My tap water was about -
Ca 130 ppm
Mg 5 ppm
Before I moved

And I thought my water was hard!!!

Interesting.
Whilst I have only been more recently experimenting with different stems. My experience so far has been that they have still grown better planted in what is now 11 month old aquasoil than they have in newer (lightly pre-used) aquasoil in pots. Yet you would expect less ‘top up’ to be available.

This was certainly the case with Cobomba and I now have Ludwigia White and Eusteralis Stellata in both mediums but only been in a couple of weeks so results remain to be seen.

I also have plants such as Crypts and Blyxa growing well in inert substrate where richer soil is often recommended; though I would have to say that whilst playing with Micros I was quickly able to induce a pretty good case of Chlorosis in both the Cobomba and the Blyxa by dropping to 0.1ppm Iron (weekly) Taking it back to 0.3ppm (50% DTPA/50% Gluconate) resolved the issue.

Anyhow, I won’t de-rail ur thread any further. 😊 Certainly watching this one with interest and it offers plenty of food for thought. 👍