• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

New Decade, New Decadence...

Picking up the pace now. Tank has noticeably shifted up a gear this week:

1614102175604.jpeg

1614102204181.jpeg

1614102232050.jpeg

1614102274993.jpeg

1614102313547.jpeg

1614102343320.jpeg

Bit more reassuring to go for big trims when everything is growing more readily.

Another month of thumb and finger nail pruning to bush everything out then can begin teasing the colour out of the stems.

A lot of the Yellow Sakura Shrimp are no longer berried:

1614103517717.jpeg

Begun to see a ton of babies about the tank so their colony is on the up and up which is also a plus:

1614103972354.jpeg

Most importantly the Green Neons appear happy in this setup so far:

1614105198927.jpeg

Of the four setups they have been with us, think this one will offer the best home. Get there in the end.
 
Top-notch!

How do you ensure that there is not a lot a detritus build up in the dwarf hairgrass carpet? Do you take any special care while vacuuming the substrate?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Just gently waft a hand over the carpet as the tank is draining at weekly water change @Vijay_06 .

It’s also about using a wide diameter of piping for draining, it gives good/fast draw towards the siphon so all the crud gets sucked up. This tank is drained with 16/22mm tubing and an eheim shepherds hook inlet. Waft the whole tank to put everything into suspension, then drain. Across the year this amounts to a lot of removal without the need to vacuum the carpet.
 
3 months:

1614974920179.jpeg

Background stems being left until the current fert mix in the auto doser runs out, cut the stems into shape, nitrate restrict the water column and enjoy some colour up.
 
Just regular Christmas Moss from Tropica @EA James . The back of the wood on the left has dabs of Riccardia on it but it’s yet to take off in any meaningful way compared to the Christmas moss, give it time.
 
Looking great Geoffrey. I think the colours look great already IMO!
Geoffrey Rea said:
cut the stems into shape, nitrate restrict the water column and enjoy some colour up.
Click to expand...

This is something I’m looking into at the minute myself. I’m currently dosing EI equivalent with TNC complete, and was thinking of making up some Dry fertiliser with reduced nitrates, to maybe patch into my current fertilisation schedule perhaps 1 week out of every 3 or 4. The idea being that the plants have full EI most of the time, with short breaks of low nitrate to colour the red plants up... But I’m not sure how long the plants will take to respond to the low nitrate periods, and then how long the reddening effect will last. What do you think to this strategy?

Also, would you mix up with no nitrate, or just very low nitrate?
 
aquascape1987 said:
Also, would you mix up with no nitrate, or just very low nitrate?
Click to expand...

What are you trying to achieve? What outcome are you after longer term @aquascape1987 ?

The tank in the above picture currently gets 5ppm of nitrate per week. There’s potentially plenty in the soil and powersand for soil located plants. However, the epiphytes suffer without this water column based 5ppm once in a while. If what you are after is colouration like in the above post you could just lower the dosing.

For example, that could be a bottle of TNC Lite to use alongside TNC Complete. Maybe Monday to Friday TNC Lite and then TNC Complete at the weekends.

Going all in... Once nitrate is entirely omitted from the water column fertilisation several plants will react reasonably rapidly:

- H’ra gets very red from the new growth as does Aragauia.

- Pinnatifida will go very red on its runners and the leaves turn orange but remain large. Pruning the leaves back heavily at this point brings very compact, red leaves.

- The Macrandra will defend itself and grow more red.

- The Arcuata will get orange and have needle sharp leaves that are shorter than it’s green, softer growth.

You can keep going with this for quite a while but sooner or later the epiphytes in the tank will require more comprehensive water column fertilisation. This is the trouble with planting a mixed bag then doing this process, there’s always something demanding your attention.

You’re also usually looking at starting this process in a setup that’s been running a few months to lean out the soil. You’ll note that at startup a lot of the soil space was filled with lava rock, this was to limit the total amount of soil used to two bags. Not much in a 1200 and gives less soil to lean out.

This process isn’t for everyone and even seems to annoy some folks. If you don’t like limiting growth then you definitely won’t like bonsai... This is all for aesthetic merit rather than plant health.
 
Geoffrey Rea said:
What are you trying to achieve? What outcome are you after longer term @aquascape1987 ?
Click to expand...

I suppose what I’m trying to achieve long term is a good balance between aesthetics and plant health. Ideally if I could strike a good balance between limiting nitrates every so often to get the reds and oranges to colour up, without upsetting the rest of the plants too much. That’s why I was considering alternate full fat and then low nitrate dosing.

Im also growing a mixed bag, with rotala green, macandra, H’ra, limno.. Aromatica, ludwigia senegalensis, didiplis Diandra, together with HC Cuba and Glossotigma.


Geoffrey Rea said:
For example, that could be a bottle of TNC Lite to use alongside TNC Complete. Maybe Monday to Friday TNC Lite and then TNC Complete at the weekends.
Click to expand...
I’ll have a think on the use of TNC lite, although I have a lot of dry ferts here, from a previous EI attempt. I didn’t realise that it would be this way around with the ratio of lite to full fat. I thought it might be more like, a week on lite and then 2 or three on full... Do you not think that this would get the desired result?

it’s going to be a while for me anyway before I start playing around and reducing anything as the scape has only been planted about 3 weeks. So plenty of time to ponder on this.

My next challenge is to do a bit of research on trimming methods to get those lovely lush bushes with the stems, something I’ve never mastered thus far, even though I’ve grown healthy stems.
 
aquascape1987 said:
I suppose what I’m trying to achieve long term is a good balance between aesthetics and plant health.
Click to expand...

Above all else, excellent Co2 application. If that’s not in place then meddling with fert regimes is off the table. In the time spent working in an aquascaping store with customers, would estimate nearly 90% of the tanks shown to us had suboptimal Co2 application. This goes for myself as well @aquascape1987 , constantly checking to see if a tanks Co2 is where it should be. It’s rare that it can’t be improved is the point. The difference to a tank between this being spot on and anything else is dramatic in and of itself.
 
Cheers for the advice Geoffrey. Lots of food for thought and lots of great inspiration here for me in this thread as well 😁.


Geoffrey Rea said:
constantly checking to see if a tanks Co2 is where it should be. It’s rare that it can’t be improved is the point.
Click to expand...

And there was me thinking I was paranoid, still pH profiling and tweaking 3 weeks after set up. 🙄 Now I have external validation, and can tell the other half with conviction that the hourly pilgrimage to the tank, pH meter in hand ,is, in fact, completely necessary 😂
 
Last edited:
Cheers @Jayefc1 it’s getting there, just waiting for a few things to gain height and running the stems through trimming cycles. Good to see you back on here bud, was wondering how you were getting on.

Paulus said:
Still using the 2 eheim filters on this tank?
And what do you use for the CO2? Dont see a inline diffusor or anything else.
Click to expand...

Hi @Paulus

Yep, trusty Eheim Pro3e 600T and Pro4 600 still doing the filtering business admirably. There’s an inline diffuser on the Pro3e.
 
Paulus said:
Any specific inline diffuser or brand?
Click to expand...

Co2 Art inline diffuser @Paulus .

It gives a fine mist around the tank so worth considering that before dropping your reactor if you prefer clear water.


Jayefc1 said:
@Geoffrey Rea imalways on mate just lurking in the shadows how are you and the family?
So how many trims have the stems had so far won't take long for them.to colour up and Bush right out mate
Click to expand...

Trucking along here @Jayefc1 and trust all is well there. Lurking allowed around here 😆

Running the trimming in amalgamative fashion at the moment. So each trim cutting the top third and just poking them back in amongst the other stems rather than into soil. This is working out nicely for Rotala green, macrandra, palustris and H’ra. Large bushes of each species. Growth of the erectus and arcuata is much slower though so just leaving them be plonked in the soil. Been through about three cycles so far.

1615989617522.jpeg

There’ll be a decent wedge of helferi soon to close up the cavern a bit and mask the wood, took an age to get going but it’s on the move now. After a few colourful weeks will hit the reset and go full replant into the soil with the bunches, return to mid-lean dosing of the water column.

Glad to hear the nitrate descending is working for you, it worked really well on the last scape in this 1200 too. Your tank looks fab Jay 😍
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top