Thailandia Sunset

[Hanuman]

This journal is retro-active as this specific tank is several years old. Yet I realized that having pics and discussions in one place might be a good idea. Not sure why I didn't do this before. I'll provide some basic technical info. If you want to know something specific then please shoot, I'll be happy to answer.

Current Hardware:
Tank: 90x45x45 (cm)
Light: Chihiros WRGB (1st generation)
Filter: Aquael Ultramax 2000
CO2: 9kg Catalina B20 cylinder + Home-cooked CO2 reactor (Rex Grigg type)
Peristaltic pump: Kamoer X1 PRO2 WiFi
O2 extra supply: Chihiros New Doctor
Skimmer: SunSun JY-03
In-tank pump: Eheim CompactON 300
Stand: Custom made out of rubber wood.

Current fona, flora:
Substrate: Mastersoil Next (Jun Company Limited)
Fish: Silver flying fox, Garra flavatra, Ottocinclus, blue neons, rasborras
Shrimps: Amanos and mixed color cherries.
Plants: Mostly buceps (Theia 9, Black velvet (large and mini), Green Wavy, Browni ghost 2011 and a few others), Anubias nana petite, Eriocaulon ratnagicirum, Eriocaulon Quinquangulare, Cryptocoryne parva mini, Ludwigia pantanal, Blyxa japonica, Syngonanthus macrocaulon and Myriophyllum tuberculatum. I have had many other plants in this tank but they come and go according to my mood and desires.

Now a selection of pics from the early beginnings up until this very day:

Guy in blue shirt is called Ittipong, a well establish Aquascaper in Thailand and is the one that made the scape for me at that time. So credits go to him. From there on I took care of the baby. Please pay close attention to the stand and its shittyness. I did change that a few weeks later obviously.






The tank at its peak before I started experimenting with new plants and slowly toying around.

These were the plants in that tank at that time:


Chihiros light power supply went nuts and light looked green. I had to change the supply.


Most plants had been removed but scape remained largely the same. This was temporary until I figured what to do:


We can call this v2 of the tank/scape.

Which became this:

and this:


Which then became this mess. (Excuse the white markings. Couldn't find the original picture).


This is v2.1 reboot. Mostly the same but removed a large chunk for the back left corner. Added some new plants and shuffled some.


Switched to black background.




The downfall.


Reboot. V3.


90% of all hardscape removed.Got tired of wood and that's where I realized I am more interested in plants than making an "aquascape" with features right and left.




This very day. Excuse the reflexions. E. quins. are places awkwardly. Been selling many plants lately and had to replant where-ever I could

 

[plantnoobdude]

those quinquangulare!!!😵

 

[Hanuman]

those quinquangulare!!!😵

Big mamas aren't they?

 

[PARAGUAY]

Certainly got good plant growth and loving those red crypts. Brilliant title for a journal btw🙂

 

[Hanuman]

This guy (or girl) jumped 2 weeks ago from the tank after being startled. He hid for the entire 2 weeks nowhere to be seen. This morning he came out, probably hunger. He does have some weird hump now at the back of his head. This said, he/she is out and about to regain his dominant/dominatrix status he/she once had.

 

[Hanuman]

Tank is no longer a virgin. It has been front end loaded for the first time in its life. And that's how it shall be from now on. This time I dried dosed but for next week I am preparing a concentrated solution to avoid having to weigh salts each week. I will probably have to use a share of Potassium Sulfate + Potassium Chloride when targeting K to avoid solubility issues or use Potassium Chloride alone. Not decided yet. Remin salts will obviously not be added to the concentrated Macro solution but dried dosed instead.



Trace juice was prepared and is ready for action. No precipitation observed so far. I halved Ascorbic acid compared to what we suggest in the IFC Calculator.


Traces were prepared according to below values using serial dilution for Cu, Mo and Ni. You can see the stock solutions and syringes in above picture. This recipe is the one I was using last year before I switched to using APT. This trace recipe was created by the trusted and respected member @X3NiTH.



And to sum everything up, @GreggZ, because I was lazy in doing a new layout I shamelessly used your excel layout to gather all data in one table. All in metric, OF COURSE. Can't handle gallons. Burns my eyes.

Edit: screenshot above was re-uploaded. There was an error in the Macro list. I wrote K2CO3 instead of KCL

 

[John q]

Lol, looks like a scene from Trainspotting.



Going to have to start calling you Mother superior 😄

 

[GreggZ]

And to sum everything up, @GreggZ, because I was lazy in doing a new layout I shamelessly used your excel layout to gather all data in one table. All in metric, OF COURSE. Can't handle gallons. Burns my eyes.
View attachment 185151

No problem I have been sharing this spreadsheet for years. If anyone wants it just PM me. And looking forward to seeing how things go with the front end loading.

 

[Hanuman]

Lol, looks like a scene from Trainspotting.

And this?

 

[John q]

Breaking Bad springs to mind.

Maybe I was a tad premature with the name Mother superior... Arise Walter White..

 

[ElleDee]

What is the dark purple rosette plant in version 2 of the tank left of center and then on the right further back?

 

[plantnoobdude]

What is the dark purple rosette plant in version 2 of the tank left of center and then on the right further back?

looks like echinodorus aflame purple knight!

 

[Hufsa]

Great to have a journal from you @Hanuman 😃😃
So many fancy plants.
Have you had success growing light hungry stuff in those hanging cups? If so I might need to try it..

 

[Hanuman]

Great to have a journal from you @Hanuman 😃😃
So many fancy plants.
Have you had success growing light hungry stuff in those hanging cups? If so I might need to try it..

Yes, those cups have enabled me to make quite some money 😅 since my light at substrate level is most probably ~100 PAR or below. Not certain, just a guesstimate but mostly because I can't grow fast enough certain plants like blood vomit. Cups just help me grow some stuff faster like E. Quin for example. It also allow me to stress those plants to the point where they start creating offsprings for propagation.
Now obviously if the point is to have a nice scape those cups are just painful to see.

What is the dark purple rosette plant in version 2 of the tank left of center and then on the right further back?

looks like echinodorus aflame purple knight!

That is correct. I liked the plant early on then disliked the shape it took. Leaves kind of curl.

 

[Hanuman]

3 Ladies made their entry in the bachelor's pad.

• Proserpinaca palustris - far left still partially in their emersed form
• Rotala wallichii - ~ center
• Rotala bossii - far right - although not obvious on the picture, the stem is triple the size in thickness compared to Rotala wallichii.

 

[Hanuman]

When I do DIY ferts I always keep ~100ml of the concoction in a small clear bottle that I put on a shelve in my store room. I get in there everyday so I can see it everyday. If for some reason I start seeing cloudiness or deposits at the bottom, that's a reminder that it is time for a new batch. This trace batch is only 5 days old so it's still pretty clear, which is a good sign I didn't screw things up. Wife wanted to pose behind the bottle, so she got her shot.

 

[Hanuman]

As I said above I would prepare a concentrated solution to front end load the macros, so I did.

We can see two things here:
1. the yellow color which was given by KNO3 at the very beginning of the mixing;
2. the foam.

Well I was not immediately concerned by this until I enquired with our trusty @X3NiTH
1. the yellow is in fact due to impurities and more specifically to the fact that the Potassium Nitrate I have is most probably urea derived. I had never considered this as I always thought that KNO3 was yellow for some reason. But in fact it is not. It should be white. You can see the yellowish tint of the KNO3 I have.

So I was advised to test for ammonia, which I did:

Positive result we have!! The ammonia content is actually not that high but still there. I mixed 4gr of KNO3 to 100 ml of water, so that mixture is rather concentrated yet the ammonia reading is not completely off the charts.
I did the same test with some newly purchased completely white KNO3. No ammonia detected:


2. As for the foam, it is actually the phosphate reacting. It actually adhered to the beaker's glass pretty strongly. I had to scrub it off with some scotch bright pad. No real precipitate formed so I decided to keep the mixture. Fish are fine, plants are fine.

I'll be posting some pictures later this week after 2 weeks of front end loading and give some feedback..

 

[Hanuman]

This is something that has been bothering me for the past couple of months since I just can't find the reason. I have this Syngonanthus macrocaulon that grows just fine until at a certain height it will starts melting from the top. To this day I still can't figure out what is going on and why this is happening. Anyone can shed some light on this?

 

[Simon Cole]

I have this Syngonanthus macrocaulon that grows just fine until at a certain height it will starts melting from the top. To this day I still can't figure out what is going on and why this is happening. Anyone can shed some light on this?

I hold the belief that certain plants suffer from photoinhibition when they reach a certain height (trophic zone) and receive higher light intensity.

 

[Hanuman]

I hold the belief that certain plants suffer from photoinhibition when they reach a certain height (trophic zone) and receive higher light intensity.

That is instinctively what I thought but I have seen the plant being grown in a lot of tanks with high light and this doesn't seem to happen in those tanks. What does go along that theory though is that the heads that are most affected are the one which are closer to the light and directly under. The ones at the back seems to be less subjected to this melting.