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New Decade, New Decadence...

A quick update given we’re on day seven and a quarter of the way there.

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Continued water changes with daily K and micros as previously discussed.
The inlet/outlet positions changed for a different flow/distribution pattern. Co2 is now heading back left to back right to give the stems a bump.

One deviation, some form of bacteria/fungus on one piece of wood.

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Have found it tends to progress faster with night time aeration early on so no aeration last night. Gently knocked off the wood and siphoned out at WC this morning. Bit of phyton git added after WC this morning and triple dose of glutaraldehyde a few hours before the photoperiod for day seven’s water change, put the brakes on that one. Will let it clear up then lift the lily pipes at night again.

Appear to be diatom free at this stage, they’re not going to fair well as a photoautotroph in lean water dosing and their twenty-four hour doubling rate is being hindered by daily WC’s. Plants should hopefully be matured enough after the 28 days to outcompete any undesirables and can begin a mid-lean fertilising regime with confidence.

Anyway, that’s it. All pretty boring at this stage and 21 more WC’s to go... yay!
 
Quick update. Trucking along:

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Stems have woke up:

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Also a good week of root development:

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Might be able to shift over to the final dosing regime in another week, will see what shape we’re in with another seven days of growth.
 
Hey @Karmicnull

At this point a little pump that doesn’t cause too much disturbance is ideal as the plants are still rooting themselves.

Using this at the moment:

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A little submersible pump and a 12mm eheim shepherds hook cut with a hacksaw to make it straight. Makes fill ups slow and controlled:

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Once things are settled in will go back to the usual method of refill. I use a 3000lph Eheim pump, 16/22mm piping and a spray bar pointing up the front glass:

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200 litre refill in 4-5 minutes, don’t take your eye off the ball if you do rapid refills for obvious reasons. Pic is from a quick WC on the old scape; sand out, clean glass and drain the tank with two eheim intakes at each front corner, refill and replace cosmetic sand. 25 -30 minutes total if barrel is pre-filled.


Do WC’s however it is easiest for you really. Some prefer mixer taps and hoses. I use the barrel as it allows the water to be dechlorinated and temperature checked prior to refill.
 
There is one more water change type I can add if the running of the spray bar too low risks upsetting the substrate. Partial simultaneous fill and drain.

Position the spraybar midway up the front glass.

If using a barrel it’s a fixed volume of water being pumped in at a fixed rate. Using the same hoses draining to the exact same height drop also gives you a fixed rate of draining.

The two tape marks on the tank represent two time markers:

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Start draining the tank... The upper tape signifies when to trigger the pump on whilst simultaneously draining. The lower tape mark signifies when to remove the draining and just let it refill. The pump runs dry a couple of mm’s off the maximum capacity every time.

If only doing a WC and short on time this is better than nothing and takes minutes. 220 litres out and in with a lot of detritus knocked off leaves and removed by the two draining pipes at the same time.

Good bang for your buck.
 
Marc at mdfish tanks seems a good way home made tubing with on off tap straight from tank to sink drain . Then straight from temperature set tap to tank and amount of dechlorinator at same time water entering sideways so no substrate disturbance. Think he needed it when he got 30ish plus tanks
 
Merry Christmas everyone!

Hopefully your morning is full of joy. Here Dad has already been directed to put ten badly instructed toys together, had the router out to amend a slightly lacking prefab Foosball table, driven the garage to pick up AAA batteries to avoid world war 3, cooked the traditional sausage rolls for breakfast Christmas morn and is now peeling spuds and veg to fuel the minions come lunch time.

But no days off for good behaviour, no early parole:

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The wife has a ‘REALLY!!! ON CHRISTMAS DAY?!?’ look plastered on her face 😂 😂 😂 Turns out the appropriate response is not, “but the blue barrel will be gone in another week...”

If looks could kill 😆

Reckon if it weren’t for the fact she’s looking forward to the Christmas Dinner being prepared by bugalugs here my end would have been upside down in the BBB this morning. Planning - yah!

Enjoy your day folks!
 
Geoffrey Rea said:
Merry Christmas everyone!

Hopefully your morning is full of joy. Here Dad has already been directed to put ten badly instructed toys together, had the router out to amend a slightly lacking prefab Foosball table, driven the garage to pick up AAA batteries to avoid world war 3, cooked the traditional sausage rolls for breakfast Christmas morn and is now peeling spuds and veg to fuel the minions come lunch time.

But no days off for good behaviour, no early parole:

View attachment 159387

The wife has a ‘REALLY!!! ON CHRISTMAS DAY?!?’ look plastered on her face Turns out the appropriate response is not, “but the blue barrel will be gone in another week...”

If looks could kill

Reckon if it weren’t for the fact she’s looking forward to the Christmas Dinner being prepared by bugalugs here my end would have been upside down in the BBB this morning. Planning - yah!

Enjoy your day folks!
Click to expand...
hope you had a great day the tank is really coming along nicely there and i love the dedication

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk
 
Cheers @Deano3 hope you had a great Christmas too!

Here... There’s obviously bitter BBB feelings bubbling up though...

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A packet of the old arch nemesis was left on the counter top opened, very suspicious 😒

She knows what she is doing, she knows....

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Day 28:

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Final daily water change of startup, switching to weekly from here on. Eheim Liberty HOB temporarily installed for Purigen, still a fair bit of tannins leaching from the wood. Can rotate several bags in the HOB until the tannins desist.

Did have one hiccup, noticed there was wholesale leaf melt just under a week ago. Checked the tap TDS and it had plummeted from the usual 450-500ppm to barely above 300ppm. Wouldn’t really be a shocker if the water company was scrubbing the water, there’s been severe flooding here. Drone shot of the River Great Ouse around the corner:

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Full macro EI added to the WC water to remedy and seemed to do the trick, tank corrected itself but lost a bit of colouration on the stems.

First month of growth has been okay though:

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Stock have settled in fine too and appear happy with the layout:

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And that’s startup done and dusted. Looking forward to getting to first trim and saying farewell to the big blue barrel.

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Happy New Year to everyone on UKAPS and hope you’re all enjoying your tanks wherever you may be!

😉
 
Just for posterity, one month proper:

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Hang on back with Purigen removed, Eheim skim replaced with the Vuppa, anubias moved to the right and some trident popped in under the bolbitis on the left.

Also have a fair few berried Yellow Sakura Shrimp so the clean up crew will be getting fresh troops soon:

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Hope everyone is staying safe and well through this new hard lockdown...

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Jayefc1 said:
Looking good for a month old mate just shows you get out what you put in quiet literally fresh water every day lol 😆
Click to expand...

It’s a hassle doing daily water changes for the first four weeks. It’s also not problem free, here’s a list of everything this tank has experienced in its first month in the order it has appeared:

  • fungus/bacteria that melted leaves
  • minor amount of filamentous diatoms
  • diatoms
  • wild TDS change in tap water source, potential fluctuations of tap water parameters day to day
  • green spot algae
  • green hair algae
  • hydra
  • staghorn
  • BBA

It’s not a problem that these things have occurred, just that at the one month mark after daily WC’s they’ve ceased or become an acceptable level of ‘problem’ to solve moving forward. Tank is growing well, producing lots of healthy new growth, so the remaining old growth that may have been affected can just be pinched out. Only thing I’ve done to abate all the above issues is push water through and pinch off leaves infrequently. Pretty mindless level of care.

Tank is pearling away tonight, clear water, loads of o2.... At this point that effort has worked out economical as I’m not having to spend month two fire fighting persistent issues. Going with the ramp down style of WC’s has led to more problematic startups here, just want an easier time these days.

After all that water.... Drop down to lean dosing and one water change per week, minor amounts of trimming and trust the system to get on.
 
I wish there is a ‘super like button’ 👍😃

Ive said a few times we make a rod for our own back with the 50% water change, daily gradually decreasing advice.
It is easy to remember so the trouble is people stick to it too bloody rigidly! 😂
 
Siege said:
I wish there is a ‘super like button’ 👍😃
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Figure it’s worth bleating on about @Siege as pushing water through for four weeks in heavily planted high tech works well.

It repeatedly performs better than cutting that removal period short during startup for arbitrary reasons and the common rationale for ramp down doesn’t make much sense, we see plenty of tanks go way off course in month one doing that, but admittedly not all. Much simpler than going on to investigate glutaraldehyde, hydrogen peroxide and clean up crew as a solution in month two though.
 
looks great Geoffrey brilliant growth, can i just ask so you think its a lot more beneficial to have high lights and daily water changes to get rid of them waste organics in the first month rather than lower lights and 50% for week 1 then every other day then every 3rd day then once a week ? so the plants whilst transitioning are still giving off them waste organics for at least 3-4 weeks ?

also when you do the daily changes is it literally a quick change or do you keep ontop of the glass and pipes and plants , i imagine if needed and just a bit a day ?

Dean
 
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