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Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (NEW PICS July 09)

Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

Just remember - if it was easy it wouldn't be so satisfying!

We've all been through it, so don't worry. Excellent work and the fact that the carpet was doing well shows your on the right track.
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

Daily dosing with Excel or EasyCarbo can fend off algae, so may be worth a go. Try and use a syringe if you can get one and squirt it at the worst affected bits. Turn the filter off a few minutes before doing this and then back on a few minutes after to give the stuff longer contact time.
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

beeky said:
Daily dosing with Excel or EasyCarbo can fend off algae, so may be worth a go. Try and use a syringe if you can get one and squirt it at the worst affected bits. Turn the filter off a few minutes before doing this and then back on a few minutes after to give the stuff longer contact time.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip beeky im going to purchase some tomorrow.

I now removed the black bags, alot of the algae had vanished, I suspect its down to the shrimp and I also have two snails in there wich I need to identify but the blackout seemed to work a treat, I did a major tidy up of the tank and remoced as much algae as I could that was attached to the plants, also cut away many dead leaves of glosso and plucked some dead Hairgrass, the HC looks ok belive it or not, no signs of ill health, hopefully now Ive turned the lights back on and begun dosing EI the plants will become a more lush green again.

No pics today, the tanks isn't looking very attractive anyway, I will hopefully will be buying some otto's on sunday, one of my LFS sells them for £2 each or 6 for £10 seems cheap.

Anyway thanks again for all your help and advice.

Vito.
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

Hey guys, Just added 6 otto's so hopefully they will halp with my algae control, I gave the tank a bit of a clean, removed the dying glosso and tried removing some algae on the HC with a toothbrush, just hope now with the co2 back and daily dosing the green will come back, I hate the looks of yellow leaves... any way I have a question about surface movement, I originally had the outlet under the water level with the holes angles downward but I noticed a cloudy build up, so now one half of the inlet is facing down and the other half is facing up causing a ripple effect, will this drive off my co2? also I don't want to OD the co2 because of the otto's, 3 shrimps have died, I suspected it was too much co2 but i am monitoring it very closely now.ill try to post some pictures soon.

Thanks guys!

Vito
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

How are things going now?

I think the people who use spray bars have them just underneath the surface with the holes pointing straight forward at the front glass. This carries the CO2 rich water down the front glass to the carpet plants and then back along the substrate. Keep the water surface with a slight ripple but nothing more.
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

Hey guys, I thought it was about time for an update.

As I have explained in my previous posts I had suffered an algae breakout due to co2 running out while I was away and everything was covered, so I was forced to blackout witch helped dramatically although many of the glosso plants had died off so I had to remove a large amount it and after a good manual removal of all the algae I got the co2 up and running and I am also spot dosing roughly 3ml easycarbo to remove the hair algae I couldn't get off the HC, its really helped and all the plants seem to be alot healthier, algae is nearly vanished so big thanks to all the guys that recommended dosing easycarbo/excell, works a treat!

So I am stocking the tank slowly, as you know I have dozen shrimp, 2 of which are carrying big bunch of eggs and 6 otto's. 2 of them died, I'm pretty confident it was down to co2 poisoning because I didn't have any o2 running into the tank, I know have one on a timer running when lights go out and the fish and shrimp seem alot more active. I have an abundance of snails which I remove daily... My next purchase will be the main body of fish, originally I was going to get some rummy's but I went to MA @ St.albans and saw some green tetras and I absolutely love the blue colour they have, I dunno how many I can have but I big shoal would look awesome, if any one knows anything about these little guys leme know, good and bad...

Well that's it guys here is the latest pics...

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Vito.
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

very nice setup, rock placement is great. Its good to see what fellow Rio users do with their tanks, such a great diversity in them. Hows it going after another month, any updates?
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

Themuleous said:
Nice 🙂 really like the rocks on the left, not sure about the ones on the right though, perhaps more variation, i.e. a few smaller ones are well? or replace a large one with a small one?

Sam
Click to expand...

I agree with you mate, my vision has quite panned out yet, I was hopping for some much taller growth from the hairgrass at the back...

Well I suppose an update is due, so here goes... 😀

Well there has been a few ups and downs over the past month, as mentioned in the previous update I had many snails and I got fed up of picking them out so I bought 2 Botia striata (kindly recomended buy guys on this forum), they have solved the problem but caused another, if you notice in the pics to follow there is a empty pach on the fromt left corner of the tank I suspect its those two digging for food uprooting my precious HC.. :!:

Ive also had slight problems with staghorn algae, its spread over the weeks mainly on the rocks but some on the plants, I've been told its mainly down to poor co2 and although my glosso grows really well as you will see from the photos the HC isn't growing as well as I hope so this week I have started spot dosing 3-4ml easycarbo on each stem and pach of HC and any algae infested rock or plant. The Hairgrass is ok although its filled out so much since I planted I wanted it for a backround plant and wanted a tall grass effect against the back wall but thats not going to plan, the tallets strands are behind the left section of rocks, everywhere else is 2" tall and there is darkening of the leaves which is probably due to not enough co2 aswell.

Any way, I went to my LSF yesterday, to buy some filter floss when my eye caught an nice bunch of red eye tetra, I couldn't resist so I purchased 7 and they are awesome, I am waitning for a bach of green neons to be deliverd next week and I will be getting about 12-15 maybe more in future... anyway that whats been going on, any advice, critisizm or whatever is welcomed.

Pics Taken 9:45PM tonight
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In this pic you can see some of the leaves of HC are brown, hopefully upping the co2 will get the HC to grow.
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Well thats enought pics, the plants seem to appear much healtheir in the photos but my cammera isn't very good so you can see the detail and the algea damage but as I have said upping the co2 and dosing easycarbo with a bit of patience, hopefully it will pan out.

one last thing I was thinking of moving the spray bar to the right wall by the intake for a better flow around the tanks what do you guys think?

Until the next update,

Vito
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

How much NO3 you adding? I always find HC N hungry. I would do what ever you can to maximise the flow around the tank, in particular the flow over the plants. I learnt that lesson when I lost £50 worth of HC due to poor flow in the tank, doh!

Sam
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

Themuleous said:
How much NO3 you adding? I always find HC N hungry. I would do what ever you can to maximise the flow around the tank, in particular the flow over the plants. I learnt that lesson when I lost £50 worth of HC due to poor flow in the tank, doh!

Sam
Click to expand...

This is my dosing regeim,

1/4 tsp KNO3 3x a week - Thursday, Saturday, Monday
1/16 tsp KH2PO4 3x a week - Friday, Sunday, Tuesday
1/16 tsp traces 3x a week - Thursday, Saturday, Monday

Wednesday no ferts.

Thurday 50% water change.

I just sprinkle the dry ferts next to the spray bar, is it more effective to dilute them in some tank water first and then add them??

Vito
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

i think i get jeliuos to easy 😛
great start
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

Hey guys Ive noticed that many of my glosso leaves seem to have bites take out of them, I currently have 4 otto's, 2 zebra loach and 6 Red eye tetra, I just can seem to catch them eating it but the loaches do dig down into the glosso, probably to get some foo trapped in there I dunno.... if its down to the ottos, I leave a generous portion of cucumber in there for a few days and then leave a day with no food and then chuck in another cucumber the next day... the tetras I feed once a day a couple of sprinkles of flake food.

Any Ideas?

Vito
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

Ok I think its time for a well overdue update on the tank.
I did a slight re scape seeing as I moved house and I wasn't keen on what I had so I stripped everything and slightly rearranged the rocks and that was back in January, I'm not that keen at the moment the way the tank looks but I am just going to leave it to grow and see what happens because I haven't the time for a re scape, I have just done a water change and have repositioned the co2 diffuser on the left under the outlet because my HC is very slow growing and I'm experimenting with the co2 which is causing me BBA, and my 2 SAE's don't seem to touch it... I have seen on many tanks people have their diffusers at the front or the back, until now I had it under the inlet but I have seen far more successful growth on others tanks and the diffuser never seems to be placed under the inlet so thats why I changed. I'm upping the co2 as well, I'm trying to get the monster growth and alot of HC coverage
If any one has any advice on the co2 diffuser positioning or feedback, it would be good to know.
Im also considering reducing my filter media to increase flow, I have a TT1200 Top basket while floss+black spnge, next has bio balls, next one has one sponge covering eheim substrate pro last layer is another sponge with the ceramic tube things, have I got too much media what should I remove?

Any way here are the pics!

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any feedback welcome
Vito
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

I think this has some great potential!
the rocks at first, looked a bit all over the place, but the plant choice and placing actually suits it.
Get the hc and hairgrass spreading and it will look like a nice meadow.
Noticed some brush algae on the rocks... would maybe crank up the co2 slightly and keep it steady. what ferts you using and how much?
what about water changes?
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

jay said:
I think this has some great potential!
the rocks at first, looked a bit all over the place, but the plant choice and placing actually suits it.
Get the hc and hairgrass spreading and it will look like a nice meadow.
Noticed some brush algae on the rocks... would maybe crank up the co2 slightly and keep it steady. what ferts you using and how much?
what about water changes?
Click to expand...

Yeah the bush algea I belive if because i keep tampering with the co2, or so i have read. I use dry ferts, 1/4 tsp KNO3, 1/16 tsp KH2PO4 ,1/16 tsp traces as recomended on James Planted tanks site, the ferts are from gardens direct. I think im going double the dosage due to upping the co2, I do a 50% change weekly, yesterday I did a 70% along with a filter clean. what are your thoughts/experiance on diffuser location?

vito
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

SteveUK said:
You want it to be placed somewhere where your filter flow will keep the bubbles in the water column for longer 🙂
Click to expand...

Yeah as you can see if have it inders the left of the outlet pipe, im going to be experiments over the next month placing it in diffrent locations each week and recording the growth...
 
Re: Vito's first planted tank - Juwel Rio 125 (Finally!!!)

Well I cranked up the co2 to around 3 maybe 4 bps and ive uped the fert dosage, yesterday my fish seemed unusually relaxed and all out in the open, usually they hide as soon as I come to the tank anyway I woke up this morning to dose the ferts only to find all my green neons dead, and tangle in the plants along with some ottos i think, I didnt have time this morning to remove them so I'll be doing that this evening. I angled the spraybar slightly downward which minimized water agitation so that+high co2 must of killed them, but if all my livestock is gone by the time I get home im going to run a plant only tank for a while... hopefully my shrimp make it.
 
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