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Banff Mountain Springs

Hi all,
Would floating plants help? Something like Duck Weed?
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Yes they would, you can always corral them if you don't want them over certain parts of the scape.

Duckweed (Lemna minor) is an acquired taste and Phyllanthes (Red root floater) doesn't do well with a lot of flow, but Amazon Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum), Nile Cabbage (Pistia stratiotes) or Floating Fern (Salvinia spp.) would do.

PM me if you want some of all or any, I always have plenty spare.

cheers Darrel
 
Today ive added 3 more Ottos (making it 5) and 5 Amano Shrimp which will hopefully keep my brown hair algae down.

Im starting to notice that the brown hair algae looks minimal before bedtime but when I get up in the morning its taking over. What could this mean? Ive increased the time that the CO2 stays on after the photoperiod which is my assumption. I usually clean it up before the photoperiod, its fine during lights on but grows after dark??
 
Success! Algae has been completely banished, CO2 has been massively reduced since I realised that ambient light was my problem and that covering the tank during the day has fixed my problems. The fish are now happier, the shrimp are now happier and breeding again, and Im certainly happier!

Whats happened to the UKAPS image uploader by the way?

ha7uquny.jpg
 
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looking great mate love the wabi I need to do one 😉 so is there much ambient light from windows etc and how did you find out it was that just covering tank or leaving curtains shut ? just curious

cheers dean
 
Deano3 said:
looking great mate love the wabi I need to do one 😉 so is there much ambient light from windows etc and how did you find out it was that just covering tank or leaving curtains shut ? just curious

cheers dean
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Well I didnt think there was much ambient light, but after months of relentless brown algae I had tried everything, including constantly increasing CO2. I started to get worried when it got to the point that my fish were on the verge of being gassed every night so I knew the problem had to be something else. I did a three day black out which killed the algae but 4 days later it was back and growing again. So I decided to start covering the tank with a blanket outside of photoperiod hours. Very quickly I noticed that the algae wasnt growing and within a week the shrimp and Oto's had eaten it all. I then experimented by lowering the CO2 gradually which has made no difference to the success. I havnt had a speck of algae since! It was the ambient light all along!
 
I'm pretty sure Amano young need kept in saline water. I may be wrong.
 
AverageWhiteBloke said:
I'm pretty sure Amano young need kept in saline water. I may be wrong.
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Looks like you are quite right, breeding would require a sepate brackish tank so that I can separate the young from the adult. It would be such a shame not to breed them but the process of doing that sounds quite difficult.
 
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Little update as I havn't been attentive lately! Things went a little downhill whilst I was on holiday for a week. I turned everything off which caused my plants to start showing signs of dying off. My Micranthemoides at the front recovered well but my E. Acicularis at the back is a little black despite looking mostly healthy. I've had 3 female cherries have babies too so the tank is full of tiny specs of shrimp! I'll have to start selling them soon!

I'm getting to the point now where I'm considering rescaping. Neither of my two plants are what I wanted. The Micranthemoides I stupidly mistook for HC and my E Acicularis isn't growing anywhere near as tall as id hoped. Time for an island scape with wood and lots more plants I think. I'm struggling to reach perfection with Iwagumi.

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I have been reading your thread from page 1 and is funny to see the transition you have passed 🙂

My tank is almost like yours, its a 60x30x30, high tech as well but with low light from day 1 (its 1 year old now)

What i can saw from my experience is that indeed ambient light was part of the issue since if you can see the tank with lights out, its a bad sign and algae take over by it,
Other part of the problem was the lily pipe...unless you had those lilies that were curved to the surface, you werent getting enough agitation and that rised big issues due to low O2 (your plants were actually consuming O2 at some part due to the ambient light, worsening everything)

Now that you have this spray bar (a cool sparybar i must say) stick with it, and always aim it to the surface to cause agitation but not ripple, that will cause a natural exchange of gases!
You had all the signs of low O2 distress by your fauna.

Now, using a DC inst as accurate as some think, even Tom Barr (the one i follow constantly to inform myself) states that.
To measure your CO2 with relative precision, use the CO2/KH table and a Ph Meter properlly calibrated (Ph meter pens are okay)

Your light is more than good, but if you want all the corners to grow, you have to place it upper and power it up more, this way all the tank will be more evenly lighted up (maybe reconsider the ceiling hanging 🙂 )

HM inst the best plant to foreground our little tanks and the sooner you replace it, be happier you will be, HC inst as light dependant has people say, its really CO2 dependant so the good flow provided by the spraybar is imperative as well as stable regulated CO2.
I even had a HC carpet on my low light tank, the only issue i had was lots of Brown fillamentous algae on the beginning and no fauna 1 year ago, but it was carpeting nicely.

All of what im saying is due to experience on my tank and reading a lot from Tom Barr and using Estimate Index.

Btw, notice that your spray bar is positioned such that the flow gets broken by the stones on the back of the tank, and with the low light, there is no change plants grow nicely there.

I hope i helped you, i like your setup and tank, dont loose your way, things wont be as hard as before 😉
 
Hello Richard,

I found this journal by an 'accident' and just finished reading it from page one.

First I gotta say nice turnover with your tank 🙂

Did you swap the MM to HC or did you leave it like that?

Anyway your journal make me thinking as my tank is next to the window and even with blinds closed I have still plenty of ambient light going to the tank.

So I decided to to 3 days blackout during the Xmas holidays and after that I will start to covering the tank.

Hope this will help me too 🙂
 
Vazkez said:
Hello Richard,

I found this journal by an 'accident' and just finished reading it from page one.

First I gotta say nice turnover with your tank 🙂

Did you swap the MM to HC or did you leave it like that?

Anyway your journal make me thinking as my tank is next to the window and even with blinds closed I have still plenty of ambient light going to the tank.

So I decided to to 3 days blackout during the Xmas holidays and after that I will start to covering the tank.

Hope this will help me too 🙂
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Thanks for reading,

I didnt replace the MM with HC, I ended up rescaping completely but have used the MM in my new scape aswell but this time in a more suitable position.

I have now stopped covering the tank during the day and things were ok for a while but guess what...black algae is back! I may start covering it again.
 
My new tank gets a fair bit of ambient light :nailbiting: fingers crossed all goes well but I will keep your experience in mind. I hope your new scape goes well, you deserve it 😉.
 
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