• 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

Journal Ottoloen Project

Thanks Darrel,

If you can raise the sponge filter, so the top of the air lift is at surface level you will get more flow and greater levels of oxygen, but it might sink the Duckweed.

My Duckweed is expendable I suppose so got to be worth a shot, my air pump isn't that powerful, in fact I'm not sure if it is powerful enough.

Have you got a conductivity meter? It won't tell you how much NH3/NH4+ you have, but it will give you a good idea of how quickly the nutrients from the Osmocote have gone into solution.

I have a TDS meter so I assume I could do similar with that and convert? As I'm not anticipating dosing the tank other than possibly some Magnesium initially, the gravel is inert and only using wood in the scape I think it's fair to assume that any rise in dissolved would mainly be from the Osmocote. I'll check to see if the Osmocote contains magnesium and if so leave it out for now then the TDS readings maybe have more credence.

That is quite a lot of Osmocote you've added, and if it all went into solution you would get a rise of ~1000 microS (1 milliS).

Wasn't sure mate, I couldn't work out what would be classed as a high dose with only the terrestrial advice to go off. I also wrongly assumed that Osmo was pretty safe as I read a while ago Osmo was recommended over other similar types of fertiliser which did have dodgy properties. There you go, that's what you get for not doing your research.

Regarding co2 injection, not sure how much of it I will get to dissolve considering I'm using an air driven sponge and little flow so one would assume most would gas off pretty quick. I have a FE and spare diffusers so injecting some for now can't harm any. The plant cuttings I will be using are coming from a co2 injected tank so probably will be beneficial for them, from what I understand of Rubisco the plants will have to spend a lot of energy converting from high co2 to none so may help them transition and give them more of a fighting chance from the off. I can always reduce it back gradually later and finally knock off.

I also have plenty of Almond and Oak leaves which I could throw in as well, these might lower PH slightly combined with the co2 and keep me just the acidic side of neutral. Jeez, this was meant to be a low maintenance affair :D Sounds like I'm going to have to baby sit it for a while. Got dropped on me, thought I had until end of Feb so was going to deal with it during Xmas hols but everything got pushed forward a month.
 
Last edited:
Hi all,
I'll check to see if the Osmocote contains magnesium
It may do, I don't know which formulation Scott's sell to gardeners. I think it might just be 15:9:12 (N: P2O5: K2O)? If it has magnesium present, it may be quoted as magnesium oxide (MgO), so (24.3/40.3 ~ 60% magnesium).
I have a TDS meter so I assume I could do similar with that and convert?
Yes, 650ppm TDS is 1000 microS.

cheers Darrel
 
No mention of Magnesium on the box Darrel.

NPK Fertiliser 14-13-13
Nitrogen (N) Total 14%
Nitric Nitrogen (N) 7.2%
Ammoniacal nitrogen (N) 6.8%
Phosphorus pentoxide (P2O5) soluble in neutral ammonium citrate and in water 13.0% (5.7%P)
Phosphorus pentoxide (P2O5) soluble in water 9.1% (4.0%P)
Pottasium Oxide (K2O) soluble in water 13.0% (10.8%K)

I'm sure that will mean something to someone ;)
 
I guess I need to get this planted and running as soon as possible, looks like tomorrow off work. I suppose it could be worse. On the bright side I forgot how nice the cat litter looks, I think it will really pop in a blackwater setup. I suppose I also have quite a nutrient rich substrate for a while as well :rolleyes:

Has anyone tried the Seachem Ammo Alert? Worth getting regards accuracy?
 
It has quite a lot of nitrogen, with a reasonable amount of ammonia, and is fairly balanced for potassium and phosphorus. I would expect that you would get a reasonably large ammonia spike when the tank was flooded.

Thanks buddy for clearing that up, looks like my hardscape wood isn't wanting wanting to float this morning so I'll get that in and head down to get as many plants as I can from my other setup. Looks like they have some work to do. I also have the option on fish move day to bring the canister filter up from the old setup once the fish have moved house which will all help.
 
That's my wood scrubbed and in, decided against against the fourth piece. I think it will make the tank easier to maintain and help with the flow. Also provides a free swimming space to the left hand side.

hardscape.jpg


Time to go get some plants.
 
Managed to get things planted up, used a lot of S.Repens as I had tons of it and I think it should fair well in this tank.

srepens.jpg

Tried to plant out as heavy as possible but aware that I couldn't reduce the biomass too much in the doner tank as the fish still need to live there. Hopefully the more plants I have the quicker I can get this thing cycled. Lots of duck weed, if there ever was a time I need a floater to suck out as much ammonia as possible this would be it going off my Osmocote over dose. Plants in.
planted.jpg


dw.jpg


Even managed to throw a cheeky portion of MC in, you never know your luck in a non co2 tank, can only try I suppose.

mc.jpg


Tucked a bit of Java fern in a nicely situated crevice in the wood.

java.jpg


Other than that, things went well. Quite an enjoyable afternoon. I'm really liking this tank already, I love the simplicity of it and hopefully the ease of maintenance. Hope I don't need to go down the co2 route with it. Some stats for my own reference to come back to are the tank holds exactly 50 ltrs. Only added a pinch of traces and 5ppm or 2.5 gram of Epsom salts as I think going off the Osmo that's all that should be short. TDS was as follows.

Tapwater 90ppm
Tankwater before magnesium and traces after initial setup was 116ppm (probably due to using a bucket of water from existing tank I brought the plants up in)
Tankwater after Mag and traces 122ppm

Going to light the tank for 6hrs per day and see how I get on, I'll also measure TDS daily and see how much of the Osmo is leaching into the column.
fts.jpg

Other than that we're up and running. Let the adventure begin.

fts2.jpg
 
Day1

Tank still looking cloudy but heater seems to have held out and no plants uprooted themselves. TDS of the tank today is 134ppm so a rise of 12ppm, nothing major there I guess. I put a large Almond leaf in yesterday to try and lower PH slightly although I doubt it will have much effect. I'm wondering whether some of the commercially available blackwater products may be of some use so I have some level of control? Haven't checked the PH yet as I've left my stuff at the other house, will pick it up today along with my spare co2 setup but to be fair I'm hoping to avoid co2 so the plants don't get addicted and I open up a can of worms.

What would the suggestion be regarding water changes? Never really went low tech with plants in, my instinct says change a little every day or should I let things settle in a bit?

No signs of growth yet :D:D:D
 
Can anyone ID some plants for me please so I can put my plant list together. I really should keep notes, I think one is some kind of Pennywort and the other possibly Ludwigia repens Rubin?

IMG_20170321_2313340.jpg
 
Day 3

Not a great deal going on as expected. Found a generic light dimmer with 5 settings which seems to work with my light but for now I don't see any reason to lower the lighting so will be leaving it on full power for the six hours. Hopefully keeping the light at full strength for now will encourage the "burning off" of any excess nutrients especially the Ammonia. PH is constantly sitting at 7.3, the Almond leaf I put in doesn't appear to have had any impact on the PH but I wasn't expecting much anyway. I'll have to address that again prior to any fish going in and whether or not Ammonia is going to be an issue at high PH.

Regarding leaching ammonia, been doing some TDS checks daily.

upload_2017-12-16_17-49-28.png


TDS Graph.jpg


Doesn't look like the Osmo is leaching far too much into the column @dw1305 at worst looks like about 10ppm of something going in. Assuming that 13% is ammonia based on if it is leaching at a uniform rate in line with the make up of Osmocote. Hopefully as the cycle develops more of this will be nitrite. Changed 30% of the water yesterday which appears to remove the build up. I'm hoping over the next week or so I can gradually level that line off and match the biomass up to the release. Looking at doing 30% changes every 3 days although I may up that as I get closer to fish moving house.

Other than that the water is clearing up nicely and the plants are starting to open out a bit, it's starting to look like an aquarium now.

Day3.jpg

Only other thing is I might have to get a glass lid cut for the tank and some clips. It's freezing over night in my office as I don't leave the heating on over night. Currently losing about 2ltrs of water per day through evaporation and coming in to my windows steamed up.

Thanks for reading.
 
OK, thanks buddy. I do keep the little plastic Tropica labels I get with these plants but I can't for the life of me find them right now but I think that stem plant is the only one I'm not sure of.
Nothing much to report today, cut off a Balansae leaf that was starting to melt, maybe the plants energy will be better off used for new growth. Had to be expected with crypts being moved, I tend to find they prefer being in a mature tank where they have been for a while. The DW had a few yellow and damaged leaves but they're been splashed and kcocked about a fair bit lately so also expected, I just pulled off the damaged ones.

Also added a couple of Oak leaves and a couple of Alder cones to go with my Almond leaf, water is starting to get a bit of a yellow tint but still no affect on the PH. Was fighting the urge for a bit of LC earlier but as that isn't going to help my PH problem and going off my previous tank the Balansae doesn't get on with it so if I have to would have to go down the gas route. Hopefully not though, I like things just as they are as long as carbon doesn't become limiting.
 
Day 7

Still nothing much to report here (I guess this is how this tank is going to go) Still monitoring the TDS in case there's a massive release from the Osmocote but nothing major as yet. Maintenance so far has been changing 30% water every three days which seems to be keeping me in the range of 120 to 140 TDS which is just slightly higher than the original setup values. Had to chop off some of the Balansae leaves that were dissolving but so far most plants seem fine. The pennywort and Balansae is just breaking the surface now so hopefully they can grab some co2 from the air and transport it down. The stems are also ditching a few leaves which I fish out before they foul the water. I don't think they are liking the new no co2 environment, hopefully in a couple more week they will have adapted.

Had some thoughts on the lighting, although this light was just a cheap generic led when I stepped back and looked at it I came to the conclusion that actually, its quite a bright light for what it is. It has 48 white and 12 blue leds, don't know what that means in par world but nevertheless decided to dial it down two settings just to be on the safe side at least until the plants are more accustomed to no co2. I guess light is light regardless of what you paid for it. Don't know if the lights were pushing the crypts too far with the dissolving or not. More likely just transport or new tank damage though. Few dead leaves on the DW which I've been removing, more than likely splash or transport damage as well, in the main they look ok though.

Day7.jpg


The botanicals are also doing their job, pre water change today the water was well stained. Wouldn't go as far as to say weak tea but certainly a hangover p1ss colour. That should be cutting out a fair bit of light as well. Managed to find a home for my neons so that should take a bit of pressure off moving fish with less to home in this tank, constantly aware the clock is ticking :eek:

Other than that, I added a Tetro crypto tab today while doing the change. It only contains traces, iron and potassium so should help back up the osmocote which is mainly NPK. My only other worry at this point is temp. Because of the low movement there seems to be hot and cold spots in the tank, especially the gravel when you feel the surface of the glass. Maybe I'll put my APS surface skimmer in there for a while but that goes against the low energy principle adding more electrical equipment. I suppose it is winter though and freezing in here most nights, I can always take it out later.

Day 7 TDS.jpg
 
Day 22

Little update on how things are going, managed to get a plant ID so I feel pretty confident on putting a plant list together. Looking at Tropica website the majority seem to be "easy" plants so hopefully they should do ok in this setup. Plants are as follow...

Hydrocotyle leucocephala
Cryptocoryne Balansae
Lobelia Cardinalis
Staurogyne Repens
Ludwigia Repens Rubin
Nymphaea stellata (TBC)
Echinodorus Reni (Will be coming over when old tank is shut down)
Monte Carlo
Limnobium laevigatum (TBC)
Java Fern


Up to press everything seems to be going ok, @dw1305 suspicions were correct in so far as I probably used too much Osmocote. I've been monitoring the TDS daily while changing 30% water every 3 days apart from this last week where I'm going six days without a change just to see how this pans out. The readings were as follows...

Day 21 TDS.png


From that it looks like the Osmo is releasing round about 8/10ppm per day if left alone. Taking into account topups with tap water albeit soft and botanicals leaching tannin and general genk and obviously the plants using some I think this is quite high. The million dollar question has to be how much of this is Ammonia and is the tank mature enough to deal with this before adding the fish? will it spike higher when the fish are added as I will be moving quite a lot of fish in one go? I guess on the plus side I have plenty of ferts, probably somewhere in the region equivalent of EI dosing if not more.

To try and counter this Day 15, once the dissolving of plants had stopped and I felt they were more accustomed to their new non co2 enriched environment I switched the lights back up to 100% and as of Day 21 added another half hour to the period to 7.5hrs in the hope that the plants themselves would do a bit more spade work and try and consume more of the excess. My worry being that with elevated nutrients and more lighting am I going to cross the co2 threshold and start having co2 related issues? I do see a lot of low tech people tend to do less par more hours but without knowing how bright my light is I'm guessing at the moment, Going to try bumping the light another half hour after a 50% wc this weekend and just see how far I can push.

Any thoughts or opinions on all the above greatly welcomed.

Coming back to the plants themselves, I have no algae and seeing signs of plants growth all round which I guess is the name of the game. Only bio mass can help me now but it's painfully slow without carbon supplements of any kind.

The Duck Weed seems to have taken the biggest hit overall which I didn't expect. The plant seems to have ditched most of its bigger leaves which went brown and I've spent most of my time picking these out to prevent them fouling the water. However, new growth and plantlets are growing but in a much smaller form. The plant seems to have re-invented itself as a smaller version of itself. I can only assume that's to do with lighting. They did get bashed about initially but now they have accumulated in one corner furthest away from the filter outlet and have a relatively peaceful time now. I tend to get a bit of mulm in the roots which I've been syphoning off and maybe they could be getting a bit cold on the surface, who know, but they are still alive and growing.

dw.jpg



The Balansae are so far being the strongest plant, a couple of the big original leaves survived the melt and lay on the surface, they seem to have managed to grab some atmospheric co2 and are now putting out new leaves. The Hydrocotyle leucocephala seems to be doing fine also, I was hoping this would breach the surface soon as well and maybe transport some co2 down to the lower plant but annoyingly just as it breaks the surface it gets in the way of the outflow and gets pushed back under water.

australis.jpg



The substrate based plants seem to be doing ok, no signs of any deficiencies. Hard to tell with Lobelia Cardinalis whether or not they are growing quite well or trying to uproot themselves. The stems look very thin to me.

lobelia cardinalis.jpg

Even the MC seems to be having a go right now which I am surprised about!

mc.jpg

New leaves on the nymph and java.

nymph new growth.jpg


java.jpg

The only plant that does seem to be acting a bit strange is the Ludwigia, it doesn't seem to want to stretch up towards the light and seems to be still curled up in the same fashion as when I planted it. It did seem to lose a lot of leaves initially but this has mainly stopped now.

stem.jpg


And finally FTS

fts.jpg


Going forward from here, looking to do a 50% change tomorrow, clean one of the sponges so I can start a 15/30 cycle on the two sponges and maybe crank that light up another half hour.

Thanks for reading.
 
Good shout mate, never thought of that. I could tuck the top behind the heater cable wire and it should stay on the surface :thumbup:
 
Now growing emersed, thanks @Edvet

emersed.jpg


Maybe I should see if I can cadge an ammonia test and nitrite of a friend who has them just to see what's going on. Don't want to shell out on tests just to use a couple. No doubt they will be out of date next time I use them. I generally don't bother and just give plenty of time but I need to move fish pretty soon on this one.
 
Back
Top