Natural Aquarium attempt - 16/06/2015 (pics)

[Jaap]

Day 26!

No changes regarding setup of tank...still dosing massive amounts of co2...my 3kg co2 tank run out in 25 days so I had to fill it up yesterday...plants were without co2 for 2 hours.



I guess plants look a bit greener...

My Eleocharis parvula leafs some of them are wavy....dont know why...any ideas? Its difficult to see it but a few leaves took a zigzag shape...





Thanks

 

[ceg4048]

I guess plants look a bit greener...

Yeah, I guess they look like they're not dying anymore either.

That spraybar looks a little low. How far is it from the surface and can it be raised?

Cheers,

 

[Jaap]

Yeah, I guess they look like they're not dying anymore either.

That spraybar looks a little low. How far is it from the surface and can it be raised?

Cheers,

Its around 5cm from surface...it can be raised yes...whats the benefits of raising it?

 

[mr. luke]

With the spraybar higher up you will get a better circular flow.
When it is lower down more of the water will be pushed upwards when it hits the glass.

 

[Jaap]

Day 32!

It had been a month and it is the first time in my 17 years of tank keeping that I have no algae!

Some of the plants look healthy but others dont.

Stayrogen Repens are bouncing back


Eleocharis Parvula could have been a bit greener and growth is very minimal


Mintecarlo are spreading at a slow steady rate


Christmas Moss is not growing at all and remains pretty much good looking


Java Moss remains the same....pale and dead


Wheeping Moss doesnt grow and gets dirty...it looks a bit darker as well


Hemianthous Microtrichoides grows new leaves but old leaves disintegrate


Hydrocotile Tripartia grows a few new leaves and seems to be bouncing back


Overall health of tank is mediocre but it is steady


CO2 is full on to the point where the reactor cannot completely dissolve it. Lights remain at 55cm above substrate and at 30% intensity. Distribution is the same and looks good. Nutrients are dosed as before according to EI plus alittle bit extra just to be sure. No plants are melting at the moment.

Any comments or suggestions are more than welcome.

 

[mr. luke]

Your weeping moss looks like fissidens to me.
Id advise not increasing the light until you have a lot more plant mass.

 

[Omegatron]

Your weeping moss looks like fissidens to me.
Id advise not increasing the light until you have a lot more plant mass.

+ 1 on weeping moss. Its fissidens


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[Iain Sutherland]

going in the right direction Jaap. now you need to be patient, easy to start getting excited and go backwards. Id suggest that if you can add some more plant mass, they should take quite well now the major issues are sorted. If you would like some monte carlo i will be trimming my nano in the coming days... FOC pm me. A few pots of rotala rotundifolia work work quite well, undemanding and fast growing.

 

[Jaap]

going in the right direction Jaap. now you need to be patient, easy to start getting excited and go backwards. Id suggest that if you can add some more plant mass, they should take quite well now the major issues are sorted. If you would like some monte carlo i will be trimming my nano in the coming days... FOC pm me. A few pots of rotala rotundifolia work work quite well, undemanding and fast growing.

I will add more plants as you suggested...how does that help?

 

[viktorlantos]

Quick comments from me as i got a PM. better to share it here than do there as then noone learn from it 🙂 Hope you do not mind.

Manado soil..... meanwhile we've seen tons of great tank with this soil this act differently than many clay soil (in general the japanese ones).
Hardening the water. Really muddy and poweder structure so i guess roots can have problems with this.

I do not see you used substrate fertilizers. This is something which is really undervalued and we frequently read EI solve everything.
Many plants took off easier the nutrients from soil than from water column. This is clearly visible when you run multiple tanks.
Manado is without any fertilizers. So this is a problem, and because of this you should not save on substrate fertilizers. Also you need to keep up with regular fertilizers and renew the substrate with bottom sticks after 4-6 months or so when the nutrients run out from the soil.

Many carpeting plant runs much better with a good substrate. Parvula is absolutelly one of them. But you have Monte Carlo too which can be better.

Some of your plants are light demanding like:
parvula, monte carlo, trypartita, hemianthus micranthemoides. these needs more light.

so on one hand you do not have algae which is good. on the other, the tank after 30 days looks like on day 1 which is not good.
i would increase the light and fight for the balance. or would rethink the plant selection and use shade lovers.

 

[Jaap]

Day 35!

I am very disappointed. Nothing seems to work out but i am determined!

I increased co2 injection and raised the spray bar as suggested. Will increase excel dose to 10ml daily instead of 5ml.

Lets hope this will improve the situation a bit....I need a small win right about now!



Thanks

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

Main photo looks very dark for me, I'm not sure whether it's really dark (for your plants) or this is just photo. I think you could increase the light level, but add some floating plants and ceratophyllum to help keep the balance and avoid algae invasion.

Also, may I suggest you to add night aeration? It helps to reduce oil film in my tank and plants looks brighter.

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[Jaap]

Main photo looks very dark for me, I'm not sure whether it's really dark (for your plants) or this is just photo. I think you could increase the light level, but add some floating plants and ceratophyllum to help keep the balance and avoid algae invasion.

Also, may I suggest you to add night aeration? It helps to reduce oil film in my tank and plants looks brighter.

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How does aeration make plants look brighter?

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

Well, I guess without the film on surface everything in the tank becomes healthier, and more light comes into water. Night aeration is highly recomended by ADA as well.

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[parotet]

How does aeration make plants look brighter?

Everything in your tank consumes oxygen (well I think I am not wrong if I say that we have in our tanks highly demanding oxygen organisms, including these bacteria in which you rely to keep your water column clean and safe)... Aireation/surface agitation means injecting o2 in the water column and tank husbandry helps reducing biological oxygen demand. Have a look to surface aireation threads (balance between co2 and o2, spraybars), there is great info there. Don't forget also to read Darrel's post about aireation... Brilliant stuff (http://plecoplanet.com/?page_id=829.

Jordi

 

[Jaap]

Ok I will try to do this....If I turn it on all night does it have to be full power aeration or just a few bubbles from the air-stone are enough? Just to avoid turbulence...

Everything in your tank consumes oxygen (well I think I am not wrong if I say that we have in our tanks highly demanding oxygen organisms, including these bacteria in which you rely to keep your water column clean and safe)... Aireation/surface agitation means injecting o2 in the water column and tank husbandry helps reducing biological oxygen demand. Have a look to surface aireation threads (balance between co2 and o2, spraybars), there is great info there. Don't forget also to read Darrel's post about aireation... Brilliant stuff (http://plecoplanet.com/?page_id=829.

Jordi

Main photo looks very dark for me, I'm not sure whether it's really dark (for your plants) or this is just photo. I think you could increase the light level, but add some floating plants and ceratophyllum to help keep the balance and avoid algae invasion.

Also, may I suggest you to add night aeration? It helps to reduce oil film in my tank and plants looks brighter.

Sent via Tapatalk

 

[parotet]

Ok I will try to do this....If I turn it on all night does it have to be full power aeration or just a few bubbles from the air-stone are enough? Just to avoid turbulence...

Forget about air stones... can you see the oxygen bubles reaching the surface? Well, that is exactly what you do not want. Air stones do not dissolve oxygen in the water in a very efficient way. Place your spraybar a few cm below the water surface and you will see gentle ripples. This is a much more efficient way to dissolve oxygen (you increase the exchange gas surface) and a good way to break the film (metabolic by-products/waste). By night you can try to have more rippling if you want, but when the CO2 is on you want only a gentle rippling to avoid excessive co2 loss (if you want to make your life easier, let the spraybar in a position where you can see always a gentle ripling, it should be enough)

Look at Amano's and Barr's tanks (as an example of successful and well-known aquascapers..., but have also a look to some journals here), they make sure that they have high levels of oxygen (along with high CO2 levels). Amano always outlines that lily pipes have to be raised by night, Barr uses overflows and sumps which ensure high oxygen contents on water. Spaybar users do what explained above to also meet this objective... Use the search engine (keywords: sparybar, gas exchange, ph readings, etc.) and look for threads in which all this is much better explained. Really good information.

Jordi

 

[Jaap]

You mentioned Tom Bar using sumps and overflows.....doesn't that lower CO2 significantly?

Forget about air stones... can you see the oxygen bubles reaching the surface? Well, that is exactly what you do not want. Air stones do not dissolve oxygen in the water in a very efficient way. Place your spraybar a few cm below the water surface and you will see gentle ripples. This is a much more efficient way to dissolve oxygen (you increase the exchange gas surface) and a good way to break the film (metabolic by-products/waste). By night you can try to have more rippling if you want, but when the CO2 is on you want only a gentle rippling to avoid excessive co2 loss (if you want to make your life easier, let the spraybar in a position where you can see always a gentle ripling, it should be enough)

Look at Amano's and Barr's tanks (as an example of successful and well-known aquascapers..., but have also a look to some journals here), they make sure that they have high levels of oxygen (along with high CO2 levels). Amano always outlines that lily pipes have to be raised by night, Barr uses overflows and sumps which ensure high oxygen contents on water. Spaybar users do what explained above to also meet this objective... Use the search engine (keywords: sparybar, gas exchange, ph readings, etc.) and look for threads in which all this is much better explained. Really good information.

Jordi

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

Well, I use air stone because I'm lazy to change position of the outflow every night and morning. Also those bursting bubbles on the surface definitely break the oil film in my observations.

 

[parotet]

You mentioned Tom Bar using sumps and overflows.....doesn't that lower CO2 significantly?

In the recommended threads to be read it is explained that co2 dissolution is independent of o2 dissolution. You need high concentrations of both gases.

Jordi