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Ed's Re-Scape 240l - "Reach" - 2 Months In

2 Month update.

Hi all!

Been a while since I last updated the thread as have been pretty busy!

Anyway, have been having some problems with Thread Algae, and through some discussion on various threads on here it was suggested that the cause could be down to poor flow, which is something I had never considered. This is because when I first set up the tank, I made sure the filter was the appropriate size for the tank, however with the External CO2 reactor, this flow rate was cut by at least half, therefore leaving me with insufficient flow!

So, bought another filter, a Rena XP4 which does 1700lph. This is now connected through the AM1000 and it is working very well. The reactor has been moved inside the cabinet and because its so close to the filter and the filter is much more powerful, there is no gas build up in the reactor which is fantastic!!! The XP3 has been moved to the right hand side of the tank and has been connected to a lush set of Lily Pipes which I bought on ebay from Hong Kong. Looks miles better than the horrid intake of the Rena XP's.

New Setup

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A bad picture of the lily pipe

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The Hairgrass is coming along but does not respond well to being trimmed. Thread algae often attaches itself to the weaker trimmed plants, so will just leave it now because at the back where I haven't trimmed as much, the Hairgrass looks much healthier and thicker.

LED strips have also been placed on the left hand side of the tank. The wood was blocking the light and the plants looked very weak, but have since picked up dramatically since the LED's have been moved there.

Time for some Tank Shots..

Pearling

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Full Tank Shot=

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Re: Ed's Re-Scape 240l - "Reach" - First Journal

Cheers Ed, Parvula grows much faster in clay substrates. So i've checked back your journal and this is exactly what i see there. In sand everything is slower and will takes more time to grow in or to have similar density.

You probably choosen potted parvula and as i see this was trimmed before planting. The parvula timmed leaf started to rot. ---- this is the reason why i am not following Tropica's guide here with this. Maybe your plant start quicker, but you hit the fresh tank with some rotted plants...

Tracking your journal seemed like you trimmed the plants multiple times. So probably the plant could not settle in as you hit it continously with trimming. It's ok to trim the carpet at the beginning sometime (i usually do that when the plant started to shoot out it's root system), but not needed to trim it for a while after that. Let it grow and spread.

Thread algae can be for multiple things. If you felt the water died because of the poor flow that is ok. But it is normal with fresh starter tanks and these kind of trimmed plants.

I would check the pH level in your tank to make sure it is not LOW. With CO2 reactor you dose more CO2 and the gas stays longer in the tank pushing down the pH level a lot. If you're pH level is too low (below 6.5) there's a chance to see some algae. So i would check that first to see this isn't the problem.

Be careful with the added in filter. If you get too much turnover and your carpet is not covered yet, you easily can get some brush algae becasue of the floating particles what the filter do on your substrate level.

Whatever algae comes this is ok til your tank is matured. If this would be a clay substrate the carpet would be covered already. So now things takes a bit more time - even the settling too.

But will be nice at the end 😀
 
Re: Ed's Re-Scape 240l - "Reach" - First Journal

Alastair said:
Loving the ottos pretending to be rummies. Once that hairgrass covers the substrate it will look even better a d that xp4 is a beast!!
What's the moss in the first pic by the way?
Click to expand...

Yeh, is quite funny when there are 10 of them joining in, Amanos occasionally like to get involved but they lack grace, just sort of charge through the shoal!!! :lol:

The moss is peacock moss, has started to become far less stringy and the leaves have bushed out since trimming it back. Always wanted alot of moss in the tank and I'm chuffed how this aspect has turned out!!

viktorlantos said:
... Parvula grows much faster in clay substrates. So I've checked back your journal and this is exactly what i see there. In sand everything is slower and will takes more time to grow in or to have similar density.

Thread algae can be for multiple things. If you felt the water died because of the poor flow that is ok. But it is normal with fresh starter tanks and these kind of trimmed plants.
Click to expand...

Cheers mate, had an feeling that the sand could have been a factor. I trimmed alot to begin with as well to try and get the thread/hair algae out, but now I've made a sort of rake out of wire mesh that does the job well.

I read that it is a problem in new tanks, but the tank before this was set up for over a year and I had serious issues with it still. So hopefully the added flow should help distribution of nutrients and CO2 which should make steps to eradicate it eventually!

:thumbup:
 
Re: Ed's Re-Scape 240l - "Reach" - First Journal

I loved your first scape and thought noooo whats he doing when you said you were getting rid, but now I stand corrected, looks great!. Will be keeping my eye on this to see how your HG develops
 
Re: Ed's Re-Scape 240l - "Reach" - First Journal

viktorlantos said:
Thread algae can be for multiple things. If you felt the water died because of the poor flow that is ok. But it is normal with fresh starter tanks and these kind of trimmed plants.

I would check the pH level in your tank to make sure it is not LOW. With CO2 reactor you dose more CO2 and the gas stays longer in the tank pushing down the pH level a lot. If you're pH level is too low (below 6.5) there's a chance to see some algae. So i would check that first to see this isn't the problem.
Click to expand...
I'll have to disagree with Viktor here. For all intents and purposes neither algae nor plants really care about pH. You can drive the pH to any value you want. The reason the plant turned brown and was difficult is the same reason for the thread algae - poor CO2 to the substrate. Filamentous algae only ever appear due to poor CO2 uptake and for no other reason. Having said that, the question of WHY the CO2 uptake is poor does have multiple answers. Flow, lighting, injection rate, distribution as well as species specific CO2 Compensation Point and uptake efficiency all play a role.

Cheers,
 
Re: Ed's Re-Scape 240l - "Reach" - First Journal

ceg4048 said:
viktorlantos said:
Having said that, the question of WHY the CO2 uptake is poor does have multiple answers. Flow, lighting, injection rate, distribution as well as species specific CO2 Compensation Point and uptake efficiency all play a role.

Cheers,
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

So what, having looked at my setup, do you think the issue is?
Cheers mate.
 
Re: Ed's Re-Scape 240l - "Reach" - First Journal

ceg4048 said:
viktorlantos said:
Thread algae can be for multiple things. If you felt the water died because of the poor flow that is ok. But it is normal with fresh starter tanks and these kind of trimmed plants.

I would check the pH level in your tank to make sure it is not LOW. With CO2 reactor you dose more CO2 and the gas stays longer in the tank pushing down the pH level a lot. If you're pH level is too low (below 6.5) there's a chance to see some algae. So i would check that first to see this isn't the problem.
Click to expand...
I'll have to disagree with Viktor here. For all intents and purposes neither algae nor plants really care about pH. You can drive the pH to any value you want. The reason the plant turned brown and was difficult is the same reason for the thread algae - poor CO2 to the substrate. Filamentous algae only ever appear due to poor CO2 uptake and for no other reason. Having said that, the question of WHY the CO2 uptake is poor does have multiple answers. Flow, lighting, injection rate, distribution as well as species specific CO2 Compensation Point and uptake efficiency all play a role.

Cheers,
Click to expand...

Yup they aren't. 2 things what we've seen and repeated many times. As soon as the pH level goes lower - and this happens with soft water changes or a bit more CO2 injection - this type of algae appear. We usually push back the pH to the normal level. And the algae disappear very shortly after that within 24/48hrs. Maybe a pH computer would avoid this and would control the CO2 in all day long until the pH normalize, but otherwise it's a pain in the ass to change the CO2 whenever pH is changing. We try to keep it on the same level all the time.

Other factor is the temperature. In some cases we droppped below 20 celsius (winter time open window for example because of the extreme humidity). The bio filtration power decreased and we've got hair algae.

I start to thinking about that the ideal pH level and temp is required to the balance and the good filtration (bio bacterial). And if this isn't working well you will get this kind of algae.

Additional info to our tanks. We're using soft water. Around 120TDS on our planted tanks. Active Soils. Diffusers, reactors are in use too. High light 1W/L or equal power HQI and LEDs 7hrs/day. No prob with CO2 injection for sure in average.

Just an interesting info. On ADA pH test kit it says similar thing. Ideal conditions are between 6.8-7 pH level. Below that you will get algae. I can't remember i've seen this on other pH tests kits. ADA tests / and descriptions are much more about planted tanks than regular fish tanks. So advices there is more closer to our daily routines. Like their COD test which helps to explain why you need to do regular maintenance on filters etc.

It's not a promo of a product it's kind of a different view on something about our hobby.
So maybe my earlier comment was not correct. But whenever i see hair algae nowadays i check water parameters first. TDS, pH and adjust that first before i would change lighting or would add any chemicals, algae eaters. None of them brings quicker result.
 
Re: Ed's Re-Scape 240l - "Reach" - First Journal

Yeah, but there is some other factor at play. I've not seen any correlation between low pH and algae, or between low pH and plant health. I don't think I can say that there is absolutely zero effect, but whatever effects there are will be overwhelmed by other, more potent factors. I don't doubt your observations Viktor, but of course, we often change several variables at the same time, or we do multiple things so it's often hard to determine just exactly what caused the effects we observed. Without know exactly how you tested this or all the things you did it's difficult to comment on it.

I can say though that my tanks are always below 6.5 though. They are typically drive to 6.0 or lower and I don't suffer any algal blooms as a result. In fact, if I'm delivering sufficiently high amounts of CO2 to drive the pH down low then the plants do better, not worse. That's because they care more about CO2 than than they do about pH. So whatever negative effects there are of low pH are more than compensated for by higher availability of CO2.

Here are some specimens at pH just above 5. This won't win any scaping contest of course, but the intent is to demonstrate how clean, healthy and unperturbed the plants are when CO2 and nutrient loading is excellent. That's why I think telling people to adhere to some "ideal" pH potentially causes more problems than it will solve, because there are different factors that result in a given pH.
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Here is L. ovalis in an RO tank held at pH 3.5. No thread algae at all.
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Naturally, if you add more CO2 then you increase metabolism and therefore create a higher demand for nutrients. So, high CO2 can expose the fact that the nutrient loading is less than optimal. So it's entirely possible in some cases to see a nutrient deficient related algae by adding more CO2, which then results in the illusion that the algae was caused by adding too much CO2.

edmills said:
So what, having looked at my setup, do you think the issue is?
Click to expand...
Well in my opinion, it is almost certainly a flow/distribution issue. Again, one has to play the cards of aesthetics against efficacy. Getting flow to the capret plants is always an issue when they are assaulted by high PAR. Your solution of adding higher flow may solve the problem. If not you may need to find a better way of distributing flow to the substrate.

Viktor is right in that it is not always in the best interest of the plant to trim incessantly. Plants grow and spread because of ease and availability of CO2 and nutrients, which allows them to produce food and to grow as a result of consuming that food. If you chop plants that are having difficulty in producing their food it will only make things worse.

Cheers,
 
Re: Ed's Re-Scape 240l - "Reach" - First Journal

viktorlantos said:
The parvula timmed leaf started to rot. ---- this is the reason why i am not following Tropica's guide here with this.
Click to expand...

I to agree. I don't tend to cut grass down from the start. Leaving it as it is seems to work better. Only when it starts to die off (after 4/5 days) then you can trim. It seems the plant uses stored energy within the leaf.

Great layout. pull this off and you've got a crackin tank indeed.
 
Re: Ed's Re-Scape 240l - "Reach" - First Journal

My PH was normally higher than I would have liked, 7.4, but on recent checks I haven't seen it drop below 6.5.

ceg4048 said:
Well in my opinion, it is almost certainly a flow/distribution issue. Again, one has to play the cards of aesthetics against efficacy. Getting flow to the capret plants is always an issue when they are assaulted by high PAR. Your solution of adding higher flow may solve the problem. If not you may need to find a better way of distributing flow to the substrate.

Viktor is right in that it is not always in the best interest of the plant to trim incessantly. Plants grow and spread because of ease and availability of CO2 and nutrients, which allows them to produce food and to grow as a result of consuming that food. If you chop plants that are having difficulty in producing their food it will only make things worse.

Cheers,
Click to expand...

This makes more sense as where the algae has attached itself to in the carpet, is the old trimmed plants that are not as healthy as the untrimmed ones.

I am still slightly stumped as the majority of my thread/hair algae has always been in the moss, and this is where it remains in force today. The algae itself is embedded on the wood and in turn on the moss which is beyond frustrating. Is their a course of action that I could take?

Many thanks
 
Re: Ed's Re-Scape 240l - "Reach" - First Journal

Mosses are algae magnet as they collect too much dirt and floating particles from your water. Keeping the mosses super healthy on the long term is the hardest i guess. If you miss the maintenance you quickly get affected by different aglae. Brush, Hair, Cladophora (on fissidens) etc.

So it's important to suck all the dirt out from the mosses and check if this collected below the moss too.

You can trim the mosses to keep it shorter as it's easier to clean. But it's important to hover these mosses at WCs to keep algae at the bay.
 
Re: Ed's Re-Scape 240l - "Reach" - First Journal

An easy way of keeping mosses detritus free is at each water change to use the largest pippette you can get your hands on and blowing water repeatedly into the moss while at the same time siphoning out the dislodged mulm, sporadic ultra hard trimming also helps no end. This method is particularly useful as it tends to not suck the moss off the stone as often happens early in a scape.
 
Re: Ed's Re-Scape 240l - "Reach" - First Journal

Yeh, I think I will make this a more regular event.

I cut the moss quite far back and it revealed that the main source of the hair algae, is not in the moss itself, but rather its growing on the wood?!?

I took a closer look at the wood that doesn't even has moss on it, and found that there were large patches of this hair algae. I understand why algae is present on plants, CO2 and Nutrient defficency, but how an earth do I remove it/ prevent it from growing on the wood???

Cheers
 
Unfortunately whilst away at university my xp4 stopped working and as a result there was no CO2 and a massive algae outbreak exploded in the tank. The tank was just too much work for my poor old Mum and so has been shut down and the critters re-homed.

I did take some pictures before I left but unfortunately they got lost somewhere, but my friend did take these on his iPhone. The glass is filthy and the quality isn't as good as it should be but I thought for those who are interested this is what it looked like at the end.



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Is this wood still available by any chance?

Tank looked amazing and just how I want my set up if I can find the wood for it.
 
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