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Fidelia squid: Dutch Aquascape 55ltr

Hi Erwi

Hi Erwin,

Sorry to bang on about the ferts and BBA bit but the iron part is actually something I picked up in another artical. Please find link below:


I'll try upload photos today 😊

I see that the website is advocating the 'nutrient imbalance' = algae theory. I prefer not to add to the rich and colourful discussion of "nutrient imbalance theory" that can be found in this and other forums. :cool:

In planted tanks, you often have beard algae when there is an imbalance of micronutrients (trace elements, especially iron). If you already use an iron fertiliser, you ought to reduce the dosage. Measure the iron content of the water with a water test. It ought to be at around 0.05 to 0.1 mg/l.
 
Hi all,
I see that the website is advocating the 'nutrient imbalance' = algae theory. I prefer not to add to the rich and colourful discussion of "nutrient imbalance theory" that can be found in this and other forums.
Very wise.
......... In planted tanks, you often have beard algae when there is an imbalance of micronutrients (trace elements, especially iron). If you already use an iron fertiliser, you ought to reduce the dosage. Measure the iron content of the water with a water test. It ought to be at around 0.05 to 0.1 mg/l......
I'm not sure that is advice with any practical value, but does allow them to sell you an iron test.

cheers Darrel
 
I'm not sure that is advice with any practical value, but does allow them to sell you an iron test.
'you might want to consider switching to a less intensely chelated iron fertiliser like for example Aqua Rebell Spezial Flowgrow. Sometimes, adding iron exclusively (without the other trace elements) has been successful. For daily fertilisation we recommend our Aqua Rebell Mikro Spezial Eisen. Only add the standard iron fertiliser with trace elements only once per week, and sparingly.'

...and some extra fertiliser
 
Hi All,

So as promised here are some update photos from the last 3 weeks I as you will have read there has been a fair bit of trimming for health reasons as well as to propergate certain plants.

I have gathered 3 posts worth of photos to show stages of the changes over the past 3 weeks these will be broken down as follows:

Post 1: will be pre heavy trimming ( Week 1 )

Post 2: will be post heavy trimming and BBA removal (Week 2/3)

Post 3: will be about layout and plant health post BBA removal (current)

I hope to get all posted out tonight but if not, then expect them to come out intermitantly over the next couple of days :)
 
Post 1: pre heavy trimming ( Week 1 )

So as you know I planted this tank in an interesting way adding slow growers first and adding plants slowly to support me find the right plants for the composition. (new comers please read above for details)

Since fully planted, plants have been growing healthily and all had settled about 3 weeks ago. Most plants had been given some minor trimming but none had been cut back heavily, as till now they were still needing time to root.

The pictures attached are of the scape at this point, unfortunately during this time BBA had effected some plants, so you will see some evidence of this in these photos.
 

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Post 2: post heavy trimming and BBA removal

So as mentioned these are shots taken 1-2 weeks after a heavy trimming of specific plants and manual removal of all BBA.

During these 3 weeks I also:

Moved the plants into the final resting zones ensuring all plant types were grouped correctly.

Removed some of the Marsilea Hirsuta carpet as it was overly dominant and causing issues with flow, but this is likely to spread back over time.

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Post 3: layout and plant health post-BBA removal (current)

So this is a post just to show you some top shots showing the spacing of plants and how the tank is doing since previous weeks of trimming.

There is still a lot growing back to be done and I'm still managing the BBA but this will give a good idea of where I'm up to with the scape.

I have added specific shots of the Ammannia Pedicatella Golden as it is currently starting to get new growth on trimmed stems and to show trimming undertaken to lower areas which I wish to discuss further at a later date.

Enjoy and any questions or feedback is always grateful.
 

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thanks for the photos. the Ammannia Golden are going to grow quite large!
Hi Erwin,

Yes I'm hoping it will dominate the scape and I intend to keep its hieght even at the front.

With this scape I'd like to play with the idea that larger plants can inhabit the front not just as curtains. My hope is it will enhance the depth without cutting the scape in half.

In future I would like to do a larger tank using this idea. I am inspired by natural plant labyrinths and thinking how cool it would be to apply this idea to a dutch style.

I hope the above makes sense I will try sketch something out at some point so we can discuss further.
 
Also noticed that your Rotala Wallichii are growing tall and big, but colour is still green.... its a small tank and I'm sure you have plenty of light, so not sure why it isn't changing colour already.
 
Also noticed that your Rotala Wallichii are growing tall and big, but colour is still green.... its a small tank and I'm sure you have plenty of light, so not sure why it isn't changing colour already.
I know disappointed in that not sure why it hasn't started colouring up. Through it has had a bit of a difficult start in the tank I've had to do a cut to ground and replant tops twice due to poor health due to over planting it initially.
 
Hi All,

I hope you all had a good Christmas!!

So update on my beautiful BBA problem, it is persistent it is hairier and trimming out did not work.

I have decided to take the Tom Barr approach who does believe there are links to BBA increasing due to CO2 and nutrients when already settled in. He also believes flow impacted by plant density is a factor in this issue.

Tom as far as I understand from his posts believes the best way to naturally deal with BBA is to run your aquarium like a low tech tank with low lighting. He has said liquid carbon could be added, he doesn't but it can be used.

So as of today I will be lowering my lighting to 25% white only for 7hrs. I will be shutting off my co2 system and will dose nutrients once a week at lower limits. I will dose liquid carbon generally and through spot dosing method.

I will also be looking into cheap ways to get my flow sorted including relocating/changing specific plants and perchasing a cheap mini motor to support in water movement.

Once flow is better and BBA subsides I will take a very cautious approach to increasing all balancing factors.

Once at this stage I will post an intended schedule and will look for feedback. Till then any cheap recommendations on motors suited to nano aquariums would be greatly appreciated.
 
All the best. Assuming that you are doing the basic weekly WC and substrate cleaning, in all likelihood BBA is CO2 related - in particular CO2 stability.

I had a reasonably steady (+/- 0.1) 1.1pH drop with 1.5 bps on my diffuser.
But then, I cleaned the diffuser, I increased it to 2bps and the pH just overshot the 1.2pH target and kept dropping.
Due to this period of CO2 instability, some BBA appeared - I need to stabilise CO2 and then treat the BBA. I think I also managed to stunt one of my Wallichii stems due to CO2 being all over the place - Wallichii is a good indicator plant for anything wrong with CO2 :) I had better fix my CO2 quick before the other Wallichiis start to stunt.

Since its almost impossible on my regulator to adjust something between 1.5 and 2.0bps, it looks like I may have to back off and go back to 1.1pH drop. I also have to commit to cleaning the diffuser more regularly as I don't want dirty diffuser to cause CO2 instability.

I suspect nano Dutch tanks, because they have such a small amount of water, are also at risk of CO2 instability. A small adjustment of 0.5 bubble per second in a nano tank will have a bigger effect on CO2 vs 0.5 bubble per section in say, a 120cm tank.
 
All the best. Assuming that you are doing the basic weekly WC and substrate cleaning, in all likelihood BBA is CO2 related - in particular CO2 stability.

I had a reasonably steady (+/- 0.1) 1.1pH drop with 1.5 bps on my diffuser.
But then, I cleaned the diffuser, I increased it to 2bps and the pH just overshot the 1.2pH target and kept dropping.
Due to this period of CO2 instability, some BBA appeared - I need to stabilise CO2 and then treat the BBA. I think I also managed to stunt one of my Wallichii stems due to CO2 being all over the place - Wallichii is a good indicator plant for anything wrong with CO2 :) I had better fix my CO2 quick before the other Wallichiis start to stunt.

Since its almost impossible on my regulator to adjust something between 1.5 and 2.0bps, it looks like I may have to back off and go back to 1.1pH drop. I also have to commit to cleaning the diffuser more regularly as I don't want dirty diffuser to cause CO2 instability.

I suspect nano Dutch tanks, because they have such a small amount of water, are also at risk of CO2 instability. A small adjustment of 0.5 bubble per second in a nano tank will have a bigger effect on CO2 vs 0.5 bubble per section in say, a 120cm tank.
Yes control of CO2 is proving to be difficult given the tank size. Even with a steady bubble count the fluctuations are massive, due to the amount of plants and thier CO2 needs changing after trimming etc.

That is why I have to use the green aqua visual style of trying to balance the tank, because the tank needs are rarely uniform.

My hope is that I will be able in the future to identify what changes will be needed at different points in a monthly cycle/ after specific trims etc.

Personally the beauty of doing a dutch nano scape is the reward of keeping it in balance. It certainly keeps the hobby interesting and forces you to understand each of the plant requirements at all stages.
 
So I have to put my hands up to a little bit of cheating...

I was at my lfs this week to buy a new oase 300 pump for my sump to increase flow. Which btw is working excellently (I'll talk more about this in another post)

Whilst I was there I did as I always do and started looking at the plant stock as I have been toying with some changes before my BBA problem.

Whilst looking I found a very healthy Ammannia Golden which I could not resist... but as we all know once you decide on 1 plant you got to make that 3 plant special. So started rethinking some zones and I ended up leaving with far more than I intended.

Now I am always up for the algea challenge, but given plant health and me not being totally sold on specific plant choices.

I have rescaped a little bit...

I will be posting a few pics with further details on changes but thought I'd own up before. 😜

I did do a bit of heavy handed BBA killing whilst rescaping, which I would like to discuss first in the next post. As it was a technique I think would be interesting to discuss before revealing the changes, as I have not removed the most affected plants in the rescape.
 
So my heavy handed BBA killing during the rescape.

We have all heard of aggressive BBA removal by tank nuking, liquid carbon spot dosing, spray and painting.

Well I read a post a while back I read about liquid carbon dipping. I had discounted this technique prior as tbh, I did not want to go disturbing the scape ripping out plants to deal with the problem.

But since I had decided to rearrange the scape I figured now was the time to give it a try.

The technique is a simple one put liquid carbon in bowl add 2 parts water or more.

Put plants in liquid an let sit for 15mins then rinse and trim most effected leaves. (you don't have to trim as algea eaters will clear it once dead)

I did this on my badly affected slow growers (s repens and cardinalis) . I have woke up this morning to find zero BBA on still affected areas as my algea eaters have been hard at work all night.

I will continue my low light and CO2 adding liquid carbon regime for a week. But since there are new plants added I may inject a little co2 in the mornings to give them a little help in hand.

I will continue to update on treated plants to let you know how good a strategy this is. I believe it was a suggestion from the Barr report which was welcomed by all.

New plants update, plus zones map to follow soon!! Plus a large discussion on flow and dutch aquascapes, which I'm sure will be a much debated subject!!
 
So I will be getting round to the update etc. but wanted to share about a new plant addition to the scape due to my normal weakness at a lfs.

I have just added ludwigia white 😬 a plant that I hear is botha an angel and demon...

Any advice would be much appreciated, as I have planted it in a prominent position. So making it a success is now at the top of my priority list.
 
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