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Green Pekoe Pond - 40 litres

Problems.

After reducing my CO2 to acclimatise the fish more comfortably, I’ve had a few problems. Algae has reared its head once again after being dormant for over a month. I now have black brush algae, diatoms, green hairy stuff and green dust - not much, but its there. The HC has taken a real bruising and parts of it are looking terrible.

Interestingly, none of these problems showed up for over a week (nearly two) after reducing CO2 injection apart from the Staurogyne where the leaves curled downwards very quickly, it later turned yellow and developing holes. I knew it was going to be bad when a oily film developed on the surface… at that point the HC started to melt, lose leaves and become ‘leggy’… and the tank didn’t smell right.

The Staurogyne is now showing signs of lots of nice new growth but it showed the first signs of damage. The HC is starting to grow again but has one or two parts I fear will not come back to health. The stems weren’t damaged apart from algae developing on some of the older leaves.

Plan of action so far:
  • Reduced lighting by raising light
  • Injection rate back to pre-crash level
  • lots of water changes
  • manually remove algae

I think I’ve caught things before they've completely crashed but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Things are already looking better over the past week

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Hi Alexander, yes, night aeration removed it nicely by the morning and at the end of the lighting period I soaked up as much as I could with kitchen towels. Luckily the amount is tiny now - hopefully indicating the plants have stopped degrading. Just hoping I don't have an outbraek of Cyanobacteria as a result of all the pollution being released. I always try to keep the surface of the water as clean as possible to help gas exchange... goodness knows what will happen if the filter doesn't get a good supply of oxygen while this is going on - I don't think I've got much room for manoeuvre at the moment!
Cheers,
Paul
 
Mats A said:
Hope you get the hang on it. It's a nice looking tank
Click to expand...

Hi Mats, It's kind of going Ok(ish)... all the plants are nice and healthy apart from the HC - never recovered from its shock with the CO2 reduction. Started to plant up with hairgrass and probably a couple of other carpeting plants... trying an experiment in harsh pruning of HC in the front to see if it has any effect, otherwise its going to be grubbed out and replaced.

Pic this morning:

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Cheers
 
Weekly update:
Things are slowly looking up but I think I've months yet until things are back to health. Surviving HC is looking a lot better and now pealing away - it pretty much completely stopped when it was ill. I’ve planted some mini hairgrass and Marsilea hirsute in with the HC and I’m hoping this will eventually replace or at least dominate the carpet. I think HC is lovely but its a real PITA to keep nice. I do however have the remains of some stubborn algae (staghorn), hopefully this will disappear with the usual maintenance schedule plus cutting away whatever I can. Oily film has gone and I've added a couple of rocks.

The damselflies had an early eviction today and are now down the local pond. Good luck to them!

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Noticed you changed filter - did you find the 2213 insufficient for flow? I'm struggling to get good flow around my 35l with it now that the plants are growing in, but could just be the way I have it set up.
 
Hi Claire, My old eheim had a really noisy pump head and tried everything to get it to run quietly. I had the opportunity to buy a nearly new 2071 very cheap - pretty large peice of kit with tonnes of flow even with my existing 12/16 pipework, best of all, completely silent! Don't know what the throughput is but doesn't seem over the top. There's a widget on it to reduce output but the hose reducers seem to do a good job at that.... Have to say, my flow setup is pretty unsophisticated - no lily pipes, I just bash it high up against the far side glass to produce a nice wide, smooth stream downwards towards the substrate and then along the bottom. Works for me.
 
Weekly update:
Things are starting to turn around. The tank's health seems to be getting better weekly. Some algae issues - staghorn has got into the HC along with some long hair algae, to be honest, I don't mind a little... as long as it doesn't get out of hand. Mini hairgrass is going into turbo mode.

My little emerged twig is getting quite varied with a little HC clipping taking root.

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Hi Alexander, yes, it's pogo erectus - It's a fast grower and reaches the surface in no time, I don't know the plants maximum height but get the feeling it could end up on the large side if not pruned regularly. I keep forgetting to replant the clippings to get a really dense bunch going but it branches nicely. Wouldn't mind seeing one of the stems grow out of the surface to see if it give me a flower one day.
 
Thanks Tim, cheers for the encouragement! I have to say, I'm determined to get this one to pull through and back to health. I think its turned a courner and on the mend - boy I've learned a lot through this tank getting ill and stopping it going into a complete crash like previous editions. It was all my fault for fiddling around with the CO2 and If there's one thing to take away from it all, it's to keep things absolutely stable.

The little twig is starting to become my favourite thing also - love to start a second tank with lots of emersed areas or a little island with some interesting marsh/bog plants
 
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I have the same size tank and was wondering which light would be best TMC MiniLed 400 or TMC Grobeam 600...I see you have the grobeam...are you satisfied with it or would you have considered the mini led 400?

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Do you have both a grobeam 600 strip and a grobeam 1500 ultima tile?

Isnt it too much?

Mr. Teapot said:
I forgot to amend the equipment list I'm running on version 2:

Tank: 45cm, 40ish litres
Light: Grobeam strip (5hrs, 50% power) Grobeam 1500 Ultima, 100% power, 7hrs, approx. 40cm above surface (with lampshade!)
CO2: Disposable 600g welding bottles, Up inline diffuser on filter intake outflow
Filter: Eheim Classic 2213 Eheim 2017 (Flow greatly reduced with 12/16 hose reducers)
Ferts: Aqua Essentials Neutro+ APF all in one
Substrate: Amazonia plus 50% inert black gravel (because I ran out of the expensive stuff)
Click to expand...


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Hi there, 'just' the 1500on the tank. I know it goes against advice on here but I found the higher power tile much better for my tank. I decided to replicate the lighting on a healthy tank of simular size. (I think it was one from Viktor Lantos). I also made sure the light was hanging the same distance from the surface.... Hanging height makes a huge difference.
 
Was the grobeam 600 not adequate?

Mr. Teapot said:
Hi there, 'just' the 1500on the tank. I know it goes against advice on here but I found the higher power tile much better for my tank. I decided to replicate the lighting on a healthy tank of simular size. (I think it was one from Viktor Lantos). I also made sure the light was hanging the same distance from the surface.... Hanging height makes a huge difference.
Click to expand...


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Anecdotally, I had nearly no growth when in dry-start, with a single 600. I think other people have had success though - I guess the difficult thing to get one's head around is that every tank is different and some things work in different set-ups. It's interesting with my first dry-start, as the only limiting factor was the light level. Therefor don't think it's too much of an assumption to conclude, if I had close to zero growth over three weeks with a 600, I didn't have enough light... With the caveat that I'm no expert in planted tanks!
 
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