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My first ever aquarium. Juwel Rio 180l

Wow Very excited!! (easily please when it comes to my first tank)

I, thanks to a member of UKAPS.org have finally got a FE with a TMC regulator and solenoid. I quickly ordered a digital timer switch same type that I have used for the lights (and has worked faultlessly for 9 months now) and plugged it all.
I now have the timer switch on the CO2 coming on 2 hours before lights on and turning off 1hr after lights off.

Am delighted to see a constant bubble rate (phew)

At the time I have increased the lights on period from 5hrs to 6hrs.

I am determined to get rid of this dark green algae, and hopefully the steady CO2 supply can now be ruled out.
I am trimming the leaves and some of the blades of grass etc (very tricky). Wondering if its better just to uproot the whole carpet.
So its down to flow and lights.

I have put a second magical orb filled with indicator fluid and am now measuring the colours around the tank each day to see if I am getting much change in colour at the same time of day.

Over the weeks I have noticed when hoovering the tank with the syphon, the Hemianthus callitrichoides ''Cuba'' seems to be loosing its anchoring to the substrate and in some cases is coming away. Great for some some of the Red cherry shrimp to hide in but causes holey patches in the carpet. Not sure what to do about that?
 
In the continuing fight against a bit of algae, I nipped out bought a replacement Anubias Nana.

Bleached a scrubbed the stone that the old algae riddle Anubias was on, rinsed in boiling water and then soaked in a seachem prime bath.

I also added 3 SAE's to help the clean up crew fight the cause. That was a bit of a decision because I understand and got shown they grow quite large compared to the rest of the tank life. So we shall see eh!!!

Then gave the Elocharis sp. mini and the Hemianthus a good close shave to try and erradicate the areas of algae. Boy what a nightmare that is cleaning it all out. I stood there swished the net around trying catch the bits, takes ages. Hope the fish enjoyed all the movement.

Will now monitor the algae situation.

I am seeing the newly put in Rotala Wallichii leaves slightly melting so have up'd the CO2 just a smidgen. Wonder if this is just the plant getting used the new environment?

Roland
 
Thanks oldbloke.
I completely value the input and discussions on this forum and my journal.

I find the community really helpful. I do occasionally keep an eye on some others but I always post on here.

I feel a donation might be appropriate soon to pay back some of the great advice I have received.
R
 
Oh what a week.
Watching some of the new advanced plants slowly melting. 🙁.

Took delivery of some Pink Ramshorns some Black MTS snails and some black worms. Lovely.

Took a trip to the London Aquatic Center on Great Portland Street to stare at the sights. Nearly bought some fancy wood but resisted as it would look odd me turning up to a corp meeting in the city with some wood under my arm. Nice plants there too as well as some cool grade CRS.

Took delivery of a new fancy glass diffuser with a twirly bubble counter inside and promptly broke it within 3 secs of trying to attach the CO2 pipe to it. 🙁

Rushed out and bought a TMC diffuser (which did not break) and a new Hydor 3200lpr power thingy in a moment of weakness.

Diffuser fitted. Its bloody huge and unsightly. Certainly not in the spirit of minimalist look. But I am hoping that it sorts out flow and ultimately the algae battle.

Now need a bubble counter as my first diffuser was one of the cheap plastic funnel ones with built bubble counter.

Running out of power sockets. Jeez

Roland


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
@Frothhelmet, Yes it was cool to see them, but did not really appreciate what I had seen until I got home and looked them up. :facepalm:

Update this week.

Algae
I have seen a definite turnaround in the tank in my fight against algae, which in the latter weeks had been causing despair.

The algae on the plants is dissipating significantly. Or more to the point, I have trimmed leaves and the carpeting plants, but the algae appears not be growing further on any plants. I have proved this by replacing the Anubias that was attached to a rock with a new Anubias and cleaning the rock. No visible algae is growing on the Anubias for 3-4 weeks now.

Other plants that were affected were the HC and the Elocharis. What I am seeing there are new blades are growing without algae. There are still existing blades and HC with the algae on but it is difficult to trim it all off, and then capture all the floating bits and thus that decaying and causing more issues.

Loose HC
Another issue is that the HC due to the algae outbreak (I am guessing) has weakened and is not anchored to the substrate securely any more and thus during my water changes when I am using the syphon to hoover up stuff from the substrate I hoover up clumps of HC. Some of it is algaefied and some are new shoots, but not much is secure. So I am half tempted to gently take out all of the HC and buy some new portions or another carpet plant (any suggestions) and start again to get a good firm fix to the substrate.

Its all about the CO2, Flow, Light and food
However the big positive is that I conclude it REALLY IS down to flow and CO2 and confidence (oh and light but I was not worried about that because it was set to 5hrs, and EI am not worried about). Having switched to a FE setup with solenoid which has provided a stabilised and constant level of CO2 to the water column each day. And despite the ugliness, the Hydor 3200 power thingy appears to be helping the flow and getting the CO2 injected water flowed around to the appropriate parts of the tank.

A couple other things I did.
  1. Switched normal flake/granule fish food from Tetra Prima to New Life Spectrum Community Fish (as someone on the forum had suggested it was good and helped with better colour, not sure that is because it says so on the pot). Noticed the granules drop much quicker that the Prima which float for a good 10-20 secs before slowly dropping. The New life drop instantly.
  2. DUN DUN DAH I bought a test kit, boy trying to find a the appropriate posh ones in the mini suitcases is impossible. Ok so why did I do it considering a certain well respected admin told me not to both and use my eyes. Well I noticed a couple of strands of what could be Hairy/Thread Algae on 1 plant. Very minor (I just grabbed it out with some tweezers) but looking at the algae guide one possible cause was ammonia spikes. So I blasted £35 on a API test Kit and I now conclude I should have listened to Clive and not bother. All tests showed no presence ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. Plus it was a test kit that only did 5 test where as others for a couple more quid did 7 (including water hardness). But that is all they had in the LFS and online I could not find the kit form from anywhere trust worthy. So yes I have just wasted £35 and confirming what I was already guessing. I will now continue to believe in myself (and Clive and other admins) and use the force!!!
Next actions this week
  • Continue with twice weekly water changes (1 x 50% and 1 x 25%)
  • Increase light levels from 6hrs to 7hrs to see if I can save the Rotala Wallichii
  • Make a decision on the carpeting plants. To either restart the carpet with just 1 plant or still have 2 carpet types and rip out the problematic HC and start a new carpet.
  • Oh and prep for the house move. Current thinking is drain water down to a minimum, Fish in a bucket, rocks that can be removed are removed. Slide tank on to a plank of wood and then put into a van and whiz round to new house. The luxury I have is that I have a 2 week overlap of getting into the new place and moving out. And the property is 3min drive from old house.

Over and out.
R
PS I now want some posh shrimp!! 😉
 
Does anyone realize that for £35, an entire case of Ogio Pinot Grigio can be had at Tesco...with change left over? This is a great Summer wine when chilled. Very refreshing, especially with white fish or chicken.
IDShot_150x300.jpg


What a shocking criminal waste of 35 quid. Unbelievable....
Was it that guy at the LFS who invited you to throw your money away...the same guy who advised you to stop adding nutrients?

Remove the filamentous algae by have and continue improvements to CO2 and flow distribution.

RolyMo said:
Increase light levels from 6hrs to 7hrs to see if I can save the Rotala Wallichii
Click to expand...
Again, this sounds like an LFS solution. We should know by now that plant health problems are rarely solved by pummeling them with more light. R. wallichii only cares about CO2.

Cheers,
 
Test kit or wine.....difficult decision...not too sure the plants and fish will like Ogio Pinot Grigio, so I will have to have it instead.
 
When you put it like that @ceg4048 it does bring clarity to the situation on test kits. Its just that I get asked every so often what are the levels in my tank and I have no clue and can only respond by saying "fish look happy, plants are getting better and my glass orb of wonder shows lime green at lights on". One shop (the one that has nice quality fish) wont sell me fish/shrimp unless I divvy up a water sample and it is tested. I think that in general its a nice practice and stops noobs like me buying fish straight after buying a tank set up etc. But I can imagine the test can be prone to error and you have a sorry punter, who has travelled 30mins to the shop, jam jar in hand, hoping to get some nice fish to come away empty handed because the jam jar was contaminated and gave a false reading.

So in the end I added to that day's expenditure and downed a bottle of white wine and lamented over the waste of £35 for some test tubes and funny little bottles containing unknown testing liquids!

I will increase the CO2 slightly and keep the light period to 6hrs.
Thanks for the illustrative lesson.
R
 
Hi Roly,
When people ask you what your levels are, just give them numbers that they like to hear and carry on. For people who don't know better their policy is fine, but you know better. If they need sample, just give them some declorinated tap water, or even some distilled water mixed with tap. Then get the fish they are selling.

It's child's play to defeat those traps.

Cheers,
 
Phew
I did it. I moved the fish tank from old house to new. I am praying that there has been no long term damage.

The process.
  1. I syphoned off most of the tank water
  2. Tried to catch as many fish and shrimp as possible into a bucket.
  3. However went out of the room and came back to see a SAE lying on the floor, motionless. Quickly and gentle picked it and put it back in the bucket, where it moved and then sank to the bottom. I then put clingfilm over the backet.
  4. Rocks and bogwood were taken out.
  5. A friend and I then lifted the tank on the cabinet base out of the house to the back off a car which had the seats taken out (family car thingy).
  6. The lifted the tank off the base and slid it into the boot. Perfect fit for a Zafira.
  7. Reverse the process at the other end.
  8. Tank water was pretty murky when we arrived at the other end.
  9. I then proceeded to add water and declor, added the bucket of fish and left to clear.

I have come back to the new house this morning, and the water is clear and there appear to be no casualties.
Amazed

However I have just run out of CO2 on my first FE and now I need to find a replacement before my old emergency CO2 cannister with not solenoid and time runs out.
Always doing something.
R
 
Did the SAE make it?
Pleased it went relitively trouble free for you, flamin c02...😡
 
Roland,

Hey man hows it going, Ive really enjoyed looking at your journal for the last few days, been a big eye opener for me.
Im reasonably new to planted tropical aquariums too (just over a year) and have really struggled to keep healthy looking plants, but over the last few months and since i came across this forum ive really learned a great deal, still not enough though for all my plants to be super healthy.

Its inspired me to write my own journal which im now in the process of. It will all be sort generalised for the last year and kept up to date as of today using yours as inspiration.

I think youve done really well with your tank seeing as its your first and id like to see a few more photos!!

keep up the good work.

Regards

Darren
 
Thanks for the post Darren
My tank is by no means the masterpiece that others have on this forum.

I have slowed on the posts recently because of the house move. But am now settling in, have a new ISP who is not as fast as my last house (feels like I am going back in time). So will update on the observations.

I did do a 75-80% water change today the first since the move where I emptied out 95% of the water. Interesting observation was that the tank was in pretty good nick. Most algae had dissipated (including the recent hair algae).
Sand had clearly moved about when moving the tank. this had uncovered some of the substrate underneath. Covered this back up.

The Rotala Wallichii is completely knackered and leafless so have pulled that out. I think that was a lesson on putting in an advanced plant and not providing sufficient CO2 and flow. This I believe is rectified, so I will be keep a monitor on everything else before getting some more advanced plants.

Just over a week since the move and no more casulties.

Birthday soon, so I am thinking a presents family can purchase.
After a year of doing water changes by the bucket, one feels a good present might be a pump to pump water from the sink to the tank and vice versa.

Also keen to get some wood, although the thought of soaking it in boiling water for 3 months is not appealling. Dragon stone perhaps?
Will post some more pictures soon.
R
 
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