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Tank1

Greenfinger2 said:
Hi Karla, Don't worry it will grow back ;) Looking fab love the pearling :thumbup:
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Thank you Roy,
I hope so, it seems to be recovering, I am still playing with light levels a lot trying to find a comfortable amount.
I have the Arcadia stretch Led but I think it is too dim, growth slows visibly, the cfl fitting I have seems ok, but I do still have some diatoms.
Not sure what to do.
 
I have a bit more pearling now.
I have fitted my very old up inline atomiser on. I thought it was blocked but I just run a pipe cleaner through it and now I have a very milky white water.
Plants seem to like this. I hope now that with these much higher co2 levels I can see some decent growth and that the diatoms die back.
 
Well, it is a shame but the ongoing issues I am having with Diatoms have near but killed this attempt completely. This would be the third time for me that Diatoms have destroyed my plants.
I will continue for now, but I will be increasing the light considerably. I have for the last 10 days or so been running just the arcadia led unit but the growth rate of diatoms is suffocating the tank and livestock is not an option as tank is very small and co2 is very high.
For the sake of experiment only, now I will pump a lot of light into the tank for a period of 6 hours. 60 watts of cfl daylight bulbs.
Let us see what happens.

The only plant that is growing well is the R macranda.
o55frTy.jpg


Closer picture of affected leaves.
iU62IPx.jpg
 
Well, I was very surprised.
Today there was a big improvement of the plants.
The very high light was only on for 3 days and the diatoms I cleaned off did not grow back so quickly. Also there was a lot more growth.
I have given everything a good prune to remove as much of the affected leaves as I could so it looks a bit sparse at the moment.
I have also added some otto catfishes today, Hopefully the co2 wont be too much for them.
Another improvement I think is moving the inline diffuser to the filter intake, this allowed me to reduce amount of co2 slightly and also I could not see the tank for co2 mist before.
Pearling is still very good, this is after about 20 minutes of lights on, now switched back to 2 11w cfl bulbs.
F5AmGAk.jpg
 
I hope, dare I say it, that the diatoms are finally in retreat.
I have had to make some changes and throw away a lot of plants in the process. This is my first attempt at co2 tank in a few years so it is like I have to learn from scratch.
A few things I think I would do differently in future,
Start with a fresh substrate, this one is old and seems to release lot of nasty.
I tried to start with lots of co2 and fertiliser, no livestock, I think this was ultimately detrimental.
My external filter had not been used for at least 2 years so obviously it was not working properly, no filter bacteria.
I am trying a bit less of everything, less light less fertiliser and safe levels of co2.
It is looking a lot cleaner, so the struggle can continue.
New plants: More Hc the old went completely black with diatoms. Rotala sp green to replace the Hemianthus which was infested by bga on its lower half. I did not think I would get bga dosing so much NO3.
Ultimately this tank will be too small for these fish though so I wont be able to keep them forever which is a shame, I might risk shrimp again in the future though.
omVXxDA.jpg
 
Hi Karla so I guess you did not take the route of upping lights as per your post on 23/⁴? Did you reach to any conclusions?
 
Christos Ioannou said:
Hi Karla so I guess you did not take the route of upping lights as per your post on 23/⁴? Did you reach to any conclusions?
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Hi Christos,
Yes I did try it, but only for 3 days. I thought there was a reduction in diatoms on the second day but an increase in bga by the third.
I am forever trying different things that mostly fail, but it satisfies my curiosity, I would not be so reckless with fishes in the tank though hence the conservative settings now.
Thanks
 
What are you dosing karla? Bga is telling you youre not dosing enough Nitrates. Brown dust algae is telling you something isnt right with your co2. Most probably there isnt a stable concentration of it.
Good luck.
Are you familiar with thebarrreport.com? If not I highly highly recommend it.
 
Jose said:
What are you dosing karla? Bga is telling you youre not dosing enough Nitrates. Brown dust algae is telling you something isnt right with your co2. Most probably there isnt a stable concentration of it.
Good luck.
Are you familiar with thebarrreport.com? If not I highly highly recommend it.
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Hi jose, its not co2 trust me, unless too much causes it. It is just new tank syndrome, it will take at least 3 months before I can do anything worthwhile with this setup and mature the filter. Its fine I can wait.


josepinto said:
If you'r dosing 20-30ppm of no3 maybe your problem is not enough no3 but few k or po4 that makes that your no3 cant be uptaked by plant. When k is not dosed correctly, no3 and po4 isnt uptaked. Diatoms ate normal in new setups. Dont push light to much and improve co2 and flow distribution. Cheers
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Again not unless high concentrations cause problems as well. I was dosing 30 ppm no3, 6 ppm po4, 10 ppm mg daily, not weekly. Light although high at times, was mostly low, no point lowering further.

Thanks for all your advice, I am just going to continue with this until it stabilises, lower light, lower co2 and lower levels of fertiliser. Even if I were to start again I would no doubt have the same problems, so I might as well get this filter up and running and see then.
 
Hi, Thanks Jose and Luckyjim :)
New plants, S repens. The Hc kept going black so in the bin and try something new. Never tried this before.
Also, as there are new plants, the light goes down again for a while.
dWDVVAD.jpg
 
R u running a different light on your latest picture? What light is that? Also, is it really 3 days difference between your last images? Things look really good, well done!!!
 
Christos Ioannou said:
R u running a different light on your latest picture? What light is that? Also, is it really 3 days difference between your last images? Things look really good, well done!!!
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Thanks Christos,
The previous Picture was taken on Tuesday. So 4 days.
The light is different, its a box with two 11W spiral cfl bulbs. The led unit is pretty to look at but I have not seen any growth with it.
The light has been ramped up in the last few days from 11W led to 2x11Wcfl today. Its hard to say if this is high light or moderate.
The s repens has settled in very well, I will always buy in-vitro plants where possible now they work very well. The Rotala sp green is growing but adapting to the conditions slowly, it was not in-vitro.
 
Its comming together at last for you karla!
Super pictures
 
Jay1 said:
Its comming together at last for you karla!
Super pictures
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Thanks Jay,
Its taken nearly 2 months for the tank and filter to settle in, hopefully its stable now.
 
karla said:
The light has been ramped up in the last few days from 11W led to 2x11Wcfl today. Its hard to say if this is high light or moderate.
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I would guess its on high light ground. But you seem to have got the hang of it. Looks real nice. Whats the photoperiod Karla?
 
Jose said:
I would guess its on high light ground. But you seem to have got the hang of it. Looks real nice. Whats the photoperiod Karla?
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Its fairly long photo period 7 Hours. I still think the light intensity can go up a little, just not quite yet.
 
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