Olympus is Calling.

[Zeus.]

Got home to an Email

quote
A delivery will be made to you on 17/09/2019 by APC Overnight on behalf of BCUK AQUATICS LTD.

The delivery deadline is set for 16:00.

If you have a query regarding this email, please contact BCUK AQUATICS LTD
Unguote

Not bad service at all.

I did flash the firmware for the controller and did a factory reset and still it had issues, then overnight it started to work again 🙄

 

[Edvet]

😕

 

[Zeus.]

New Controller arrived today at 9.00am 😀 Top marks to BCUK and Maxspect for after sales service IMO

Just need to do all the settings again bit of a PITA but worth it

 

[Costa]

Curious if the respective Jebao wavemaker would have broken down so soon after purchase 🙂

 

[Hanuman]

Curious if the respective Jebao wavemaker would have broken down so soon after purchase 🙂

Get it and tell us

 

[Zeus.]

Curious if the respective Jebao wavemaker would have broken down so soon after purchase 🙂

Maybe not but 'if' it did what would of the after sales been like 😉 and at the end of the day it did start working fine again I just happen to have two controllers now 😀

 

[Zeus.]

Thought a little update was due seeing its been 3 years since I started the DSM.

Liquid Cardon (LC) has been stopped for two reasons
1. Ran out of LC and have been reducing the LC dose for some time.
2. Wanted to use the LC auto dosser for dossing Fe EDDHA

I have been dosing Fe DTPA in my custom trace mix and with it being light sensitive I've also been dosing Fe EDDHA manually, so the plan is to dose the Fe EDDHA only via one auto doser and dose the trace mix without the Fe DTPA. Im dosing the Fe EDDHA so the water keeps a very light pink tinge to the water and I will be watching my Pogostemon helferi as it does seem very Fe sensitive in my tank see pic below as I've played around with different Fe ppm doses


So when the Pogostemon helferi stays green the tanks weekly Fe ppm dose is enough.

The carpet looks great but close up its full of Ricca Moss the dark variant. I think it stays that colour if it doesn't get enough light


Its a PITA to keep under control and many hours have been spent controlling it, carpet could do with a trim

Bolbitis Heuelotii is doing well in places and taking over a bit but looking good mainly and others its turning black on the leaf tips as if burn think it may be due to my hard water ( @ceg4048 might tell me off for blaming hard water)





Hygrophila pinnatifida my real nemesis is still getting pinholes in old leaves and melting - but growing well otherwise if that makes sense looking fine again from a little distance




Cryptocoryne parva has grown back well after cutting well back to the substrate.


Blyxa Japonica is just about hanging on but not thriving.

Microsorum pteropus 'Trident' is doing well if not too well as its right up to the glass in places and with it being so bushy it hard to get the dying leaves- think a hard trim is coming soon


Fissidens fontanus is in need of a hard trim also

Anubias nana has taken over the hardscape and thinking off stripping most of it off and starting again with the best bits as its quite layered/deep in places

Hydrocotyle verticillata does very well in tank and gets a hard trim back quite regularly.

Pearl weed is just rammed into a large space till it just holds and when it starts to take over i rip it all out and ram another small section beck in


Amano population seems to be slowly decreasing so will get another batch soon, RCS doing well.

Also added half a dozen MTS to complement the snail population and air the substrate a bit 😉

Putting off most of trimming till after Xmas and also will take some time on top of the routine maintenance

Caught this little guy hiding whilst doing a WC a bit back- shame its slightly out of focus😳



But never seem to find enough time to do some things

Selection of other tank shots as well below. 😉

 

[Guest]

Looking good 😎

 

[Edvet]

Somehow i feel a real hard trim would be beneficial.

 

[Andrew Butler]

I think this shows an aquarium that lasts (3 years) can look brilliant and not conform with the competition style aquariums many people try to achieve. A 'normal' planted aquarium that's a pleasure to just watch.

 

[Dadofthree]

Hi Zeus.hope your well mate i think it looks a mess you should be ashamed of yourself letting it grow so much it needs a massive trim and send all the left over bits to me ha ha

 

[MossMan]

Really lovely tank. how do people go about remembering all the plant names? I have to try and learn what I have so that I can get more from this hobby - but really struggle with remembering whats what! Anyhows, love the tank!

 

[Zeus.]

Have been struggling with Hygrophila pinnatifida, Blyxa Japonica and Ceratopteris thalictroides with the plants not doing very well at all and getting worse, Bolbitis Heuelotii having old parts of leaves going black and hard and carpet struggling a bit after a big trim Hm............ is it my hard water !!!!!! But plants was telling me something and it was getting worse 😉





So had been thinking about Nickel for a while! had already checked my water report from the supplier and it quoted 0.020mg/L Ni. which should be enough, but the report was 2018. So got some Nickel II Sulphate Hexahydrate ordered had a pm with @X3NiTH ran though the maths etc sorted out the dose then ran though my DIY Trace dose mix. I had started doing my own trace DIY mix some time back as I was getting an Fe deficiency so started using Fe DTPA and Fe EDDHA and made up the rest with various compounds from Solufeed and from the net. Thats where the mistake/error was made on my part

The salts from solufeed was quoted in percentages eg Fe 13% EDDHA so to work out the mg/L add say 10g to one Litre of water results in 1.3g Fe. per litre so concentrate solution was 1300 mg/L Fe. or 1300ppm Fe. which is correct.

The ERROR came from the other salts eg Boric acid (aka ant killer) and Molybdenum Ammonium Heptamolybdate which would supply the nutrients Boron (B.) and Molybdenum (Mo.) which was both pure so 100%, so both pure and theres my error pure compounds not pure elements only been using the mix about a year 🙄🙄🙄
Take it things got slowly worse as the AS reserve of these elements runs out and so does and root tabs that may have been supplying the elements. Plus different plants will have different threshold levels which they can cope with OFC

So checked my maths

Molybdenum Ammonium Heptamolybdate -
(NH4)6Mo7O24 · 4H2O
Relative Molecular Mass (RMM) - 1236 g/mol
Molybdenum (Mo.) mass (in compound) 672 or 54.37% of RMM of compound/salt

Boric Acid
H3BO3
Relative Molecular Mass (RMM) - 61.9 g/mol
Boron Mass (in compound) -10.8 or 17.44% of RMM of compound/salt

Nickel II Sulphate Hexahydrate
NiSO4. 6H2O
Relative Molecular Mass (RMM):262.85 g/mol
Nickel (Ni) mass 58.9 or 22.3% of RMM of compound/salt

Worked out/checked the dilution ratios to tank volume to target weekly ppm (mg/L)

So the Mo. dose was 45% below my target dose, However my Boron was 17% was target dose🙄

So happy chappy ATM as I have stumbled across an error which can account for the symptoms of the plants. Increased my Fe EDDHA only last week also.

Gave the tank the daily B. dose at WC extra this week

Tempted to add some root tabs, however I would rather wait and see if the 'new' micro mix does the job as plants should start to improve.

Wait and see...................

 

[Ady34]

Will be interesting to see the results in a few weeks. I always seem to struggle with that vibrancy and strength within plants, I have never been completely happy but don’t have the brainpower to tackle it so end up sticking with slightly substandard health and growth and also easy plants too. I need to experiment more with fertilisers really to try and pinpoint the problems.
Hopefully the maths in your case will make the difference.....

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Worked out/checked the dilution ratios to tank volume to target weekly ppm (mg/L). So the Mo. dose was 45% below my target dose, However my Boron was 17% was target dose

I had started doing my own trace DIY mix some time back as I was getting an Fe deficiency so started using Fe DTPA and Fe EDDHA and made up the rest with various compounds from Solufeed and from the net.

That is interesting, and spectacularly chlorotic .

<"What about manganese"> (Mn)? It isn't plant mobile and its deficiency causes chlorosis in hard water. Very high Fe:Mn ratios can also effect Mn++ ion uptake.

Molybdenum (Mo) definitely isn't mobile within the plant either, but (in soils) deficiencies tend to occur in acid conditions. I'm not aware of having ever seen molybdenum deficiency, but even if I have I would have assumed it was an iron (Fe) issue.

Boron (B) deficiency occurs in new leaves in most plants (B is mobile in a few plants) but mainly under alkaline conditions. I don't think it causes chlorosis however.

cheers Darrel

 

[Zeus.]

Will be interesting to see the results in a few weeks

Yes it will be

I was using the same Micro mix on both my tanks but with this one I have been adding Fe EDDHA only recently and just adding Fe DTPA to the Micro mix for my 50L. It was Friday I realised my Boo Boo so added some extra Boron straight away to both tanks and sorted the micro mix out later, My in 50L the plants do seem to have had a sudden improvement in their colour along with the Fe DTPA 0.6 ppm Fe. weekly dose.
There does also seem a slight improvement in 500l too but that does only get a weekly dose of Fe EDDHA of 0.35 ppm Fe. as it can get quite pink
Or could be emperor's new clothes syndrome 🙄

That is interesting, and spectacularly chlorotic .

Yes Blyxa Japonica has been getting slowly worse since I put it in the big tank, it was in the 50L for some time where it was OK at the time but not amazing

<"What about manganese"> (Mn)?

been adding 16.8 grams Solufeed Mn 13 EDTA ( 2.184g Mn.) to 100ml RO water to make concentrate 21840 mg/L Mn. Then adding 10ml of concentrate ( 218.4 mg Mn.) to 1000ml dosing bottle 218.4mg/L Mn. Then dosing a 500L tank 100ml (21.8mg Mn.) x3 a week to yield 0.131 ppm Mn. ( 21.8mg / 500L x 3) and 0.35ppm Fe. weekly

 

[Zeus.]

Early days but the tank didn't seem to have the slightest hint of pink at all on monday which was the day it gets its dose of Fe EDDHA and some off the Anubis looked like it was also Fe deficient also !!!

So my thoughts are that the low dose of Mo.& B. was limiting plant growth and the demand for Fe. was low , know that the Mo. and B. levels are better the tanks requirement of Fe. has increased - hence no pink tinge. Gave it some extra Fe on monday and increased the Fe EDDHA auto dose amount to suit and today the tank water has a slight pink tinge again 😉

 

[Kevin2016]

Unbelievable how you're carpet grows. I have lilaeopsis novae-zelandiae (easier one) but my carpet doesn't grow that fast/well.
Probably the DSM method works very well 🙂

 

[Zeus.]

Three week update on possible Boron and Molybdenum deficiency.

Winners and losers as off earlier this week

Pogostemon helferi has never looked better in the tank (not the best pic)


But Hygrophila pinnatifida worse than ever.


So got me thinking about Ca:Mg ratios I had been reading a bit about for some time but not paying full attention Magnesium in tap water

So basically (full details in linked thread) Jumped on the Ca:Mg ratio wagon increased [Mg] to 4:1 so had 33ppm Mg then read more and jumped off the Ca:Mg wagon. Triple 50% WC today to bring [Mg] to below 10ppm.

I had made an error in calculating the Mg I was adding and was dosing the tank about 5ppm Mg per week for quite some time, So think I converted a Fe deficiency into a Mg deficiency which took its time to show as the tank slowly lost its [Mg] as my tap water has 5ppm Mg so was getting 2.5ppm Mg with every 50% water change then only adding 3ppm Mg with macros 🙄

Hygrophila pinnatifida today after WCs looks worse than ever



So got some top grade Hygrophila pinnatifida coming from @Konrad Michalski as mine looks like it has passed an easy recovery

 

[Konrad Michalski]

Where did you get those from? It would be really hard to destroy them like that if they were from submersed growth. Unless you treated them with liquid carbon.