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River/stream Iwagumi - 90P

Like most of Europe we're dealing with heatwaves here in Denmark, so tanks a bit hotter than I would like. Despite that, tank is doing great. I think the heat triggered some green dust algea to take off on the hardscape, but other than that the tank is very clean.
Stil dosing 1 ml Tropica Specialized daily and have added 100 Simulans to the tank. They seem to be very active and are all over the tank, fortunately they are pretty easily startled and then school tightly and directional, but that I'll save for a proper photo session.
All in all the bright blue stripes against the green is very pretty to watch even with GDA on hardscape
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Looking great, I always liked a bit of green on the rocks on these type of scapes, makes the whole thing look more natural, looks great with the little fish too 🙂 well done
Noticed my tank was running at 29C the other day too! 😳
 
Wow that schooling on bottom picture is great and i agree i like the green algae on rocks for the more natural look, like the adjustments tank is looking great.

Dean

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Looking really good! The adjustment you made seems to make the largest rock stand out more in a good way.

Any plans to post a video of this in YouTube? I remember seeing a video of your previous 90P scape there.


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Have removed a full bucket of helanthium tenellum in the background as it was getting too aggressive. Replaced with some regular tall eleocharis acicularis for better background height. Also HC is carpeting surprisingly well in cosmetic sand, fortunately its easy to cut off large pieces by simply slicing off with a knife
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First post here but I've already seen many of your tanks, really good job congratulation !
I would like to know how do you manage your CO2 with your lean dosing method, I imagine consumption should be lower than EI tanks? Which method do you use to set your CO2 (bubbles rate, drop checker, pH drop...)?
Thx
 
Looking great, I like the changes.
I've grown HC in sand and it does just fine.
 
Alexv95 said:
First post here but I've already seen many of your tanks, really good job congratulation !
I would like to know how do you manage your CO2 with your lean dosing method, I imagine consumption should be lower than EI tanks? Which method do you use to set your CO2 (bubbles rate, drop checker, pH drop...)?
Thx
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Thank you, and welcome 😃

I usually run a drop checker for the first couple of weeks. Once sufficient diffusion is established, I remove the checker and makes sure to use a quality steady CO2 regulater to avoid fluctuations. Also, after some time you develop and eye for deficiencies in the plants, be it fertilizer or Co2.
HC is a good indicator for CO2, too little and new growth very quickly becomes stunted or tends to develop smaller leaves with more space in between. That way a lot of plants can be used as much more accurate indicators for tank balance rather than drop checkers, test kits or even fertilization regiments. It's one of those realizations that led me to start a super lean liquid dosing - I trust my plant growth more than any test kit or desired values the forums try to tell you to chase.
Admittedly it takes some trial and error to get this experience over time 🙂
 
Hi all,
Shinobi said:
That way a lot of plants can be used as much more accurate indicators for tank balance rather than drop checkers, test kits or even fertilization regiments. It's one of those realizations that led me to start a super lean liquid dosing - I trust my plant growth more than any test kit or desired values the forums try to tell you to chase.
Click to expand...
I couldn't agree more, the <"plants can't lie">, we just have to persuade people that it is a viable (actually the best) approach.
Shinobi said:
Admittedly it takes some trial and error to get this experience over time.
Click to expand...
And I suppose that is probably the issue for many people, and they are still more willing to believe in the results <"from their water testing"> rather than in what their plants tell them.

I think that some of it is based on the constant advice to <"test, test, test"> and I can see that water testing might seem somehow <"more scientific"> and then you have the whole theatre element of the actual testing and the illusion that it gives that you are in control, but really is that, an illusion.

<"Watching the plants works">.

cheers Darrel
 
Thanks you Shinobi and dw1305.
Currently, even if I'm new here, I already have planted tank. Not to say that I know every things (it would be boring 🙂) but I read a lot here (and elsewhere), I tested different methods, I like to compare, to understand... I already use the duckweed index (thanks to you Darrel) and I learnt a lot here.
In the previous version of my tank, I had good results with rich dosing regimen but CO2 was therefore very high. CO2 is expensive here in France and I'm also lazy to fill my bottle so often.
Rebuilding my tank with new tropica aquasoil, I would like to take the chance to test lean dosing method.

I completely agree with you that plants tell us everything. I have also had bad experiences with aquarium testing. As you said, learning is not always easy and you take some error before behing skilled.

But from my experience, I also noticed that a good method could be essential, having a starting point helped a lot. For example for CO2, using the pH drop method with a pH monitoring curve helped me to quickly find the optimal rate for my plants, whereas without this knowledge I tried for a long time without success .

For the lean dosing method, I noticed that ADA has a relatively constant bubble rate for these tanks according to their volume, with probably adjustments considering plant health. That's why I wanted to know if you had a starting point or a reference bubble rate you should identified with your skill for this type of tank ? (Maybe after adjustment regarding plants health you tend to finaly reach a similar bubble rate or CO2 level for all your tanks?)
Thx for the drop checker, what color are you aiming for? Lime green? Or darker green is ok?
 
I usually advise against using someone else's 'bubbles per minute' as a precise reference. It may vary largely depending on bubble counters and diffusers. For example: I'm currently at 2 BPM with a Co2art atomizer, but with a Neo diffuser it takes about 5 BPM to reach same levels. I guess the take away here would be to use a atomizer if you want to be economical with your Co2.
ADA can pretty easily recommend a certain amount of Co2 or fertilizer, since all their tanks run with the same equipment and substrate, that's why its usually referred to as the "ADA system".
As for my initial adjustments; I try and aim for Light/limegreen by the end of photoperiod, usually starting Co2 2 hours before lights and ending 1 hour before.
I also like to 'de-gas' the water over night, slightly raising lilly pipes for aeration 🙂
 
ADA ferts dosing is pretty non-specific actually, they recommend that you start with 1 ml per 20 L per day but then say dose 2-3x as much as needed. It would be more helpful if they gave specific dose amounts of their website features like they do for CO2.
 
Hey Shinobi,

first of all great tank and I love the classic Nature Aquarium style. I was wondering about your water parameters - are you using tap water or reverse osmosis?

Thanks for the info!
 
Thx Shinobi it helps a lot.
About ADA fert, I have a book with many ADA's tanks and they give specific doses amount for each tank. They are almost the same, according to the plants inside. Only the tanks with a lot of stem plants received macro.
However they do not say anything about the possible sticks used to fertilize the soil.
 
Hi all,
Alexv95 said:
About ADA fert, I have a book with many ADA's tanks and they give specific doses amount for each tank. They are almost the same, according to the plants inside. Only the tanks with a lot of stem plants received macro.
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The ADA fertilisers are <"incredibly dilute">, which is why they can have slightly nebulous dosing instructions even though the macro contains urea etc.

@Hanuman's post in <"DIY ADA Ferts"> may be of interest.

In one way I'm like @Shinobi (but not in other ways, I'm <"a lazy aquarist, with no sense of aesthetics">), because I like to run my tanks with <"low nutrient levels"> but I'm not bothered <"where the ions come from">, an <"ion is an ion is an ion">.
dw1305 said:
....... even though I don't measure NO3 levels I'm confident that my tanks have low nitrate levels, because I have low conductivity (about 120 microS & NO3- is an ion) water
Click to expand...
cheers Darrel
 
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