NA 120cm - Asian Dreams-IAPLC # 251

[Ian Holdich]

Brilliant!

That is all...

 

[Deano3]

Simply amazing tank Ian lovely colour and them fish are stunning, so clean and crisp and love the music of the vid really goes well keep up good work,


Thanks Dean

 

[Iain Sutherland]

Absolutely stunning pal. The light makes it looks so crisp and clean. Beautiful mate really worth the few zillion pennies.
How do you stop any reflection on the glass. Im seriously struggling with it and its ruining any photos I take or hd vids. Ive covered the lights with towels and allsorts

cheers al, with a little luck ill shake the BBA off which is just annoying and trim out the damaged leaves next water change to tidy it all up a bit. Looking this morning and there is nice new green tips on the moss which had a heavy trim a few days back as most of the sand was covered.... i was a bit too savage in spots
I turned the light to 100% to film the video and wow, burnt my retina's! Tank was pearling like mad after about 2 minutes.

No tricks buddy, just film at night with all other lights off. I know what you mean though as my last tank was the same even at night... could always see myself and the white canon logo on the camera. Maybe the type of glass makes a difference. For final shots on barb island i wore black clothes and put some electrical tape over the canon logo which helped a lot, also putting a board between the light and tank to stop spill. Dont seem to be an issue with this tank though even with day shooting???

Stunning tank just have to get me one of them lights they look amazing

thanks. the light is amazing but dont kid yourself, the same can be achieved with far less exuberant lighting.

Epic mate, still looking stunning even after the issues.....back on it again now though, the futura is looking awesome!

Thanks ady, im hoping it will be back on track soon. BBA is such a PITA to deal with though, especially in moss. Im going to try dropping the flow right down and see what happens because as usual its the high flow areas worst effected. Watch this space... could get far worse quickly

Fantastic little video Iain... The light sure does show the colours off on the fish, tank looks awesome too.

hey gary, appreciate the comments as always. Its nice to know the video is received well and i plan to do many more as now i have imovie cracked its a total doddle putting them together.
Adjusting the futura is a bit of a revelation really, its finding the balance of colour to make the fish and plants pop that is proving a challenge. It is very noticable in the snakeskins as they were quite dull under the TMC's.

I had also noticed that co2 was reaching pretty high levels in the last 45 minutes or so of it being on so thought id try managing it in a different way.... instead of reducing co2 injection or turning it off earlier i had the light intensity slowly increase by 20% during the last 90 minutes and it worked a treat.
As co2 is such an unknown entity and a pain to manage in larger tanks IME as its tends to build up due to higher injection rates, its great to have another means of controlling it.

Brilliant!
That is all...

cheers Ian, you taught me everything i know

Simply amazing tank Ian lovely colour and them fish are stunning, so clean and crisp and love the music of the vid really goes well keep up good work,
Thanks Dean

Thankyou dean, now i can start getting mine sorted ill have a bit more time to try and help you sort your 'stubborn' tank out. That thing is bizarre lol

 

[Iain Sutherland]

Complacency, algae and demotivation...

Self inflicted disaster has stuck, asiain dreams is in an algae ridden mess.
Work has continued to be manic meaning that i havent really been home when the lights have been on and when i was all that time has been spent playing with the 60 (which is doing awesome
So it seems that somehow the co2 connection on the AM1000 reactor has broken, probably a week or more ago meaning no co2 going into the tank and increased lighting from the futura.
So rookie mistake of being complacent and not looking over the tank most days, turning the lights on today to do a wc and i see the bits of BBA that needed dealing with have spread like wild fire across the tank.
As BBA is such a PITA this is just about the worst thing that could happen, couple with that the fact the moss is riddled makes this a day from hell.
To give a little perspective of how bad it is, i cant see any part of the tank unaffected, fluffy edges to every leaf.

Now i could get totally frustrated by this, dwell on it and end up breaking the tank down which at this moment in time is how i feel, however too much time has been invested into this tank to let it go.

In the spirit of learning etc i will persevere until resolved. The hardest part is that i still dont have much spare time and in order to get this back on track i need time which i will have to find.

Moving forward...
today i completed a big water change, cut out a fair bit of leaves effected, spot dosed the bucephalandras and cyperus and swopped to an inline atomiser until i can sort the reactor.
Lights have been turned off until i get a plan clear in my head. As im not home of an evening until next week i cant see a full co2 cycle until then, i think tomorrow i will have to swop the light cycle over for a morning one as dont want to put the livestock at risk from gassing, then i can can start moving forward.

I hope to be able to add photos as i go along this process, albeit phone pics, so maybe someone can learn from my mistakes.

the plan: WC every 3 days, would do more if i could but dont have the time (i have to make the RO water each change and 150ltrs is time consuming in its self) dosing 40ml LC daily (spot dosed) which i avidly tried to avoid using in this tank, filters cleaned along with pipes and a general scrub of all the tank, lights raised a little and intensity dropped to 30% once i get them on again.
I also think ill cut almost all the bolbitus out as it recovers quite quickly and will strip out more cyperus next WC.

Will also take a chance and get 2 SAE's, i just hope they dont start tearing the moss apart or worse... eating it. that would spell the end of this tank.

All in all, this is likely not a very interesting post for most but i guess im kinda thinking out load here as i get my head around this disappointment. Just another reminder of how easy it is for high techs to go wrong and how quickly it happens.

Chin up, push on and learn.

 

[Edvet]

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I have BBA problems too, they started without obvious reasons and it's easy to get disheartened. Keep fighting!

 

[Ady34]

Bummer mate
Frustrating isnt the word but im sure youll be able to recover it. IME Crossochelius dont eat moss, i always have one in my tank and it doesnt bother with it. They may not eat existing tufts of bba, that will be manual removal, but they will prevent more growth as they munch the very beginnings i think

Gum shield in and prepare for round one.....
Cheerio,
Ady

 

[Alastair]

Ahhh no mate. Bad news sorry to hear that...... im sure youll manage to get on top of it. Too much hard works gone into this beauty.

Deep breath mate, follow George and do a few ooooomph pressups and try not to get disheartened mate.....
Much love fingers crossed.

Ps agree with ady when I kept siamensis they never bothered eatinf moss

 

[aliclarke86]

Ahh this sucks but if it makes you feel any better I'm in the same boat. Working retail over the Christmas period was non stop!! Add a 6 month old beagle and it doesn't leave much time. So BBA ALL OVER! I have decided to persevere so that I can learn from my actions and hopefully save a few quid!!

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[Rob P]

All in all, this is likely not a very interesting post for most but i guess im kinda thinking out load here as i get my head around this disappointment

I think you're wrong, I think (unfortunately at your expense) it offers some (want to word this carefully...) 'insight' to the less experienced among us who can at least see that even people with vast skill and experience can have troubles. Just like when you see George posting about cyano in his latest tank (I mean, where the hell did that go so quickly?!).

Don't get me wrong, I am not for one minute wishing bad luck at your expense and wishing this kind of thing on better scapers, but what will be even more helpful is seeing how you win the battle, as although you guys can get into trouble, you always seem to get out of it quickly, relatively unscathed and stronger than ever.

I'm sure you'll come out of these troubles shining and restore your beautiful tank, very best of luck

 

[Iain Sutherland]

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I have BBA problems too, they started without obvious reasons and it's easy to get disheartened. Keep fighting!

Im fighting... its just annoying that i know this wouldnt have happened if it wasnt for my job. Im enjoying my new role but its tough to find time for tanks, especially a 4ft one along with having some sort of life. There is something to be said for 60's, maintenance is a doddle, i can water change in 10 minutes.

As much as i hate to think it i may have to consider making the 120 a low tech 'biotope ish' species tank for a while if work carries on the way it is, which is something ive wanted to do for a while anyway. Wont be making any dramatic decisions for a while though. Ive got some algae ass to kick first.

Bummer mate
Frustrating isnt the word but im sure youll be able to recover it. IME Crossochelius dont eat moss, i always have one in my tank and it doesnt bother with it. They may not eat existing tufts of bba, that will be manual removal, but they will prevent more growth as they munch the very beginnings i think
Gum shield in and prepare for round one.....
Cheerio,
Ady

thanks for the confidence ady, good to know about the SAE's, head out tomorrow if i can and find the smallest ones i can.
Ding ding!!

Ahhh no mate. Bad news sorry to hear that...... im sure youll manage to get on top of it. Too much hard works gone into this beauty.
Deep breath mate, follow George and do a few ooooomph pressups and try not to get disheartened mate.....
Much love fingers crossed.
Ps agree with ady when I kept siamensis they never bothered eatinf moss

yeah bad luck, i guess i was due some, its not like i hear you complaining and youve had your share a few times over mate.
Deep breath indeed and will need more than a few oooomph's!!

Ahh this sucks but if it makes you feel any better I'm in the same boat. Working retail over the Christmas period was non stop!! Add a 6 month old beagle and it doesn't leave much time. So BBA ALL OVER! I have decided to persevere so that I can learn from my actions and hopefully save a few quid!!
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good luck with your fight ali, ill race ya

Don't get me wrong, I am not for one minute wishing bad luck at your expense and wishing this kind of thing on better scapers, but what will be even more helpful is seeing how you win the battle, as although you guys can get into trouble, you always seem to get out of it quickly, relatively unscathed and stronger than ever.

i understand Rob and no one would think you are wishing that on anyone. In the vain of mike (aka greenink) some of the best journals are the ones that tell a story beginning to end with all the drama inbetween.
I hope i can add a little bit to that, although it will be more than likely sporadic and involve poor images from a phone



I hope i can get out of it quickly, but not betting on it! Moss and BBA are just a nightmare mix as one of the easiest ways of removing existing tufts is LC which also kills moss
In order to get it out off the moss i will just have to hope the water column dosing of LC is high enough to kill the BBA so the SAE's and few remaining amanos can deal with it... and some very close trimming.

Now a question to all you smart cookies... i seem to remember reading that BBA is less prolific at certain temps and that raising/ lowering the temp helps win the battle..... any ideas or did i dream that??

 

[Brian Murphy]

Sorry to hear of your plight mate, algae is an aquascapers nemisis but also makes us better aquascapers. On a happier note though, the video was stunning, what I wouldn't give to see my tank pearling away with decent flow and beautiful fish happy in their home. I'm off to rob the corner shop again, 10 more robberies until I can afford a Giesemann futura lol

 

[tim]

Feel your pain Iain, I've been fighting bba in my 90 for a year on and off mostly due to the up and down hours as a chef and co2 issues, I'm loving my nanos at the mo can fit them in, even before or after a 16 hour shift . You know you can knock this back into shape mate, you had bba in barb island an look how that turned out, this is already another winner

 

[flygja]

You just described the three letters of my middle name Hang in there. I'm sure you will beat it. I've been fighting BBA and GSA nonstop for about 4 months now. Many times I thought about just rescaping it, but figured its just gonna keep happening if I do. Learning process is more valuable than *anything* in this hobby.

 

[greenink]

Have put one tiny Siamese Algae Eater in my tank and BBA is much better after just 24 hours. Amazing. Why oh why did I not try this before!

 

[Andy D]

Sorry to hear this Iain and I hope you get it all sorted out!

 

[martinmjr62]

Iain,sorry to here the bad news. lifestyles, work and everything else that we all juggle with,don't make this hobby easy sometimes and things like this certainly don't help either.You can and will beat this
Cheers
Martin

 

[Iain Sutherland]

Sorry to hear of your plight mate, algae is an aquascapers nemisis but also makes us better aquascapers. On a happier note though, the video was stunning, what I wouldn't give to see my tank pearling away with decent flow and beautiful fish happy in their home. I'm off to rob the corner shop again, 10 more robberies until I can afford a Giesemann futura lol

thanks brian, with a little luck ill get the tank back to a good place and get some more videos, perseverance.

Feel your pain Iain, I've been fighting bba in my 90 for a year on and off mostly due to the up and down hours as a chef and co2 issues, I'm loving my nanos at the mo can fit them in, even before or after a 16 hour shift . You know you can knock this back into shape mate, you had bba in barb island an look how that turned out, this is already another winner

hey tim, bba seems to be the only algae i seem to suffer with. I thought Barb Island had taught me enough to avoid it and on the whole i think it had, equipment error and ignorance this time round.

You just described the three letters of my middle name Hang in there. I'm sure you will beat it. I've been fighting BBA and GSA nonstop for about 4 months now. Many times I thought about just rescaping it, but figured its just gonna keep happening if I do. Learning process is more valuable than *anything* in this hobby.

thanks for the support, best to stick at it and learn something. BBA sucks though as even when you have fixed the problem it wont go away by itself.

Have put one tiny Siamese Algae Eater in my tank and BBA is much better after just 24 hours. Amazing. Why oh why did I not try this before!

Hey mike how are you? i had them once before and just remember they were massively greedy add grew grew really fast. Add with that how hard it is to catch them especially in a scape with a good amount of wood......

Sorry to hear this Iain and I hope you get it all sorted out!

trying mate

Iain,sorry to here the bad news. lifestyles, work and everything else that we all juggle with,don't make this hobby easy sometimes and things like this certainly don't help either.You can and will beat this
Cheers
Martin

cheers for the support martin

 

[Iain Sutherland]

morning all, time for an update. A little run down of what been happening...

Day 1 and 2
lights have been off for the last 2 days and no feedings, during which time i was dosing 40ml LC twice a day (11am and 11pm) I know this may seem a little odd but ill explain my thinking... when the 60 was neglected it had bba, staghorn and thread algae so i removed all livestock and dosed 20ml twice a day with the lights off. As LC is supposedly only active for 2 hours or so my thinking being you could even do this every 3 or 4 hours, airing on the side of caution for livestock twice a day should be good. 40ml is overdosed but not to crazy. this seemed to work in a few days for the 60 so why not try it on something a little bigger..

Currenly lighting cycle is low, peaking at 40% on red/white and green/white, all blues, warm white and purple peak at 35%. The increase is slow and steady with dimming quickly immediately after the peak.


furura BBA cycle by iainsutherland24, on Flickr

while doing this i have looked over the whole co2 system checking for leaks etc... as it turns out i also had a duff check valve (pics to follow) which had stopping almost all co2 unless at a silly bubble count, this has been replaced and all now seems well.

Ive moved the light cycle to start at 10am (co2 at 7) as of today, its a bit of trial and error as a new method of injection with the inline and will take a couple of days to dial in.
Im running quite high surface movement as when BBA is dying off it causes a lot of organic waste and scum, eheim skim is running 15 mins every hour also.

Day 3
ive come down this morning to find a deep blue DC, not what i was hoping for but hey, having learnt in the past not to panic and whack the co2 up then gas the fish later i will hold fire, wait at least 2 hours into the light period then adjust a small amount and see what happens tomorrow.

Looking today with the lights on after a couple of days it seems the BBA on spot dosed bucephalandras is going pink and it certainly isnt as black in the moss which looks positive. However the cyperus is another thing... even though it was spot dosed out of water during WC it shows the least progress. Will give it a day or two more and see what happens but my current thinking is that as this is at surface levlel no doubt it also has the most changable co2 levels, add to that its close proximity to the light it could be a scrap to move it.

Also have a new Hanna PH meter turn up yesterday but missed the postie, good timing as will very very handly the next few days.

Adios

 

[Ady34]

I know youve beaten bba before in Barb Island Iain, but just as a little inspiration for light at the end of the tunnel here's Tony Swinney fighting the same battle and winning in 'Peacocks Crypt'!

From this:

Re: Tonsers 200L Optiwhite

Well, its been a while Life has been getting in the way of aquatics in general, and journal updating in particular, but things are getting back on track now, so I thought I'd update this one

Having been away for 5 weeks at the start of the year, the tank was rather neglected in terms on maintenance, with just the automated water changes taking place. A such it had got rather overgrown, the E Tennelus in particular had gone rampant ! Unfortunately the BBA has also gone rampant, so that is the main issue to resolve. We've been discussing it on my discus tank thread, as I have it in there too . The BBA discussion is here:

320l Discus tank, becoming planted ! | UK Aquatic Plant Society

I did a quick trim on the stems, and pulled a load of E Tennelus runners out as soon as I got back from my trip, then this weekend I spent alot of time clearing things out. This was the tank before I started on Saturday morning...

and a close up of the disgusting gravel...

and the Flying Foxes which have been drafted in to devour the BBA...

and by Sunday evening, this was the tank. I've removed all the crypt parva and e ennelus leaves with BBA on, aswell as some of the mosses with it. I vacummed all of the Aquasail whihc had drifted out onto the sand, and removed most of the graded gravels which seemed particularly prone to BBA. I also trimmed the stems back a bit, and added some more peacock moss on the main branch - this stuff grows really nicely in this tank

The BBA on the redmoor branches is really tough to remove - I plucked it and that worked abit. I shaved it with an old razor and that worked on the smoother branches, and I dosed it with Excel which should help, but there are alot of cherry shrimp in there so I dont want to overdose it too much.

I'm going to perservere with the Excel on the BBA everyday. I might still try a blackout too. In terms of stopping the BBA coming back, I've upped the CO2 a little so the DC is on the yellow side of limey coloured, and I've added a couple of Koralias too to make sure the flow is good.

Updates more regularly from now on, I promise !

Tony

.....To this:

Re: Tonys 'Peacocks Crypt' - 200L

A long overdue update (again ! )

The mosses had all outgrown their holdings and were floating up off the roots, so they have all come out for now. I'm growing some new stuff, but I'm quite liking the 'lighter' look of the tank right now so may not use it in here.

The Balansae has done really well ( it had good provenence being from Graemes 'Bones of the Earth' 8) ), and has taken over as the focal point in the tank. I love this plant as it moves around so much in the flow, so the tank is always changing. The Bolbitis is doing OK, but grows incredibly slowly in here so when theres an algae attack (theres a bit of BBA in there right now (again)) the leaves suffer.

Anyhows a couple of pics from this morning. I may be stripping this down soon as I have a new cabinet arriving for it, and will have a new light to hang above it too 8) , but I'll be sad to see it go But excited to do something new

Tony

 

[Iain Sutherland]

Thanks Ady, it's nice to see how BBA should be dealt with, fine job tony did with it to.
Looking at Tony's images mine definitely isn't quite that bad and most should be manageable, difficult bit will be the mosses.

Popped out to try and find some SAE's but no luck, just 2 giants at MA. Hopefully have some coming in early doors next week.

Just to add to the woes it seems the up inline I pop on also has a leak around the barb... Will swop it for another tomorrow.

So co2 has been on since 7, doc is now dark green which is no good. Upped the bubble count a little and see what happens tomorrow. Will also run ph tests..

Faulty check valve

Going pink

Cyprus, nice to see the blyxa aubertii going red though under the new lights...

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