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Zanguli's NA 90x45x50

we also see his moss's not doing well

You you're right on the moss. This is probably because the water temp is slightly higher than 25 celsius in some tanks and mosses not perform well in tanks where the decoration raise the hardness level and you change with soft water (fluctuations in water hardness). I've seen evidence of this many times in our gallery too.

I better to stay off :) Sorry guys that i spammed the journals. So many topics to talk about :)
 
I guys,
thanks for sharing all these infos !! reading all this is food for brain lol.
Viktor I had mosses in my previous scape and temperature was above 25 C° and never had problems to grow. Even when the tank was at 29C°.
Mate don't be sorry for that ! this have add great infos and value to this journal.

Trevor no problem, I will go to the pond and take to portions of HC and plant it, one will have a tab under it another nothing. and we will see hahaha.

just to let you know I have turned on 4 bulbs since 48 hours. Even Staurogyne was sprouting very small leaves !! When they were in my 20 G light was low but stauro was sprouting way bigger leaves, same for crypt.

thanks for the debate guys !!!
 
I members,

just a small update.

The tank is not doing very well !!! I have some CO2 issue (Clive please don't beat me up :p). After two week of 4 bulbs on and CO2 increased, I can see that I have some melting and poor health of certain plants.
Ph reading before lights on is good (CO2 timing), 1 point of ph drop in a hour and when lights turn on, drop is 1,4 point so this seems to be ok.
The only plants that are doing well are the one that are at the top of the hill, and the staurogyne that is near the top of the hill is growing slowly but with almost good size leaves and healthy. So all the plants that are closer to the lights are doing ok. They are also the only plants that are pearling.

I have change a bit the scape also, the top center rock have been took out because it was restricting too much flow at the back. I have added a vertical wood where I have place a big Microsorum narrow leaves, this plants is almost at the surface of the water, and it is pearling like mad (I know that pearling is not a ref, because it can occur in different condition, and even on plants that are not in good health).

I have added also some Rotala Rotundifolia, this plant is doing well in lowtech but in my high tech tank, the Rotala have melted after 5 days. The Rotala I have take was in submerge form. Do this informs us that there is a problem in the tank ?? But Hemiantus M that is more CO2 demanding than Rotala is doing fine !!! it is in the same line of flow but in a higher position (more near to the lights). How come a plante that is more demanding in CO2, is not have CO2 related issue and a plant that is less demanding is having CO2 issues. I am lost !!! Or maybe there is some thing eles ( I don't think so ) C02 C02 C02 C02 .............

By seeing the overall health of the thank I can tell that there is a CO2 related issue. But I don't want to reduce light this time (bim Clive slap me hahaha :D ).

I really don't know what to do guys :( !!!


Flow is good, all the plants are moving in the tank even the ones where flow is the weaker. CO2 bubbles are push allover the tank. I can't see one part of the tank where plant have not access to CO2 mist.

There is no update pic because the camera I was using had a problem to the Focus captor so we send it back to the factory they told us that it will take more than 4 weeks to repair it !!! At least the camera was under warranty so it will cost only 30 euros.

Guys I am a bit disappointed :( :( :( , but will never loose patience and will continue to battle.
Help and encouragement are welcome lol

Cheers
 
hey zanguli, sorry to hear you are having difficulties, it can be very disheartening.
As you have already identified, co2 and flow are likely your culprits so you know what needs to be done. Im interested to know why you dont want to reduce the light? It will save such a headache and then work back up to more light if thats what you want.
Personally i would be tempted to switch the flow around the other way so it is blowing towards the island and increase how long the co2 comes on before the lights. It might sound mad but i have mine come on 3 1/2 hours before the dim up process of the lights even starts. Fish are happy and have no co2 related issues worth speaking of.
My steel inlets create a reasonable amount of surface movement even with them as low as possible and tank filled to the brim so as such need a lot of co2 going in, im assuming yours behave in the same way...??

Im sure you will get on top of it and it will be back on track soon (sooner if you would reduce the light:rolleyes: )
all the best fella
 
hey zanguli, sorry to hear you are having difficulties, it can be very disheartening.
As you have already identified, co2 and flow are likely your culprits so you know what needs to be done. Im interested to know why you dont want to reduce the light? It will save such a headache and then work back up to more light if thats what you want.
Personally i would be tempted to switch the flow around the other way so it is blowing towards the island and increase how long the co2 comes on before the lights. It might sound mad but i have mine come on 3 1/2 hours before the dim up process of the lights even starts. Fish are happy and have no co2 related issues worth speaking of.
My steel inlets create a reasonable amount of surface movement even with them as low as possible and tank filled to the brim so as such need a lot of co2 going in, im assuming yours behave in the same way...??

Im sure you will get on top of it and it will be back on track soon (sooner if you would reduce the light:rolleyes: )
all the best fella

Hi Iain,

Thanks for you answer and support mate !!!
Why I don't want to reduce light ? This is because since a year I am using low light on my tanks, and really want to have more gardening work, and want to see my plants grows faster. that's why :p . I know that reducing my light would help and will give me less headache, but will I still stay in this low light with plant almost not rowing ? I really want to improve my skills and reach an other level of aquascpaing. Maybe I have to pass through all these headache and poor result, before reaching that level haha ???
My steel inlet don't behave like yours mate, I need to raise and point the outlet a bit up to have some surface agitation. I wanted the inlet to be in that position like that it helps flow for the carpeting plant that are in front of the hill, but they are not taking off :(

So maybe I will turn on the pre light CO2 injection timing to two hours, I really wanted to reduce my CO2 consumption because I need to save a bit $$$ lol. But for good halth of my tank I will increase it.
I will raise a bit CO2 injection rate also, because since a week we have very hot weather here. Tank is at 29C°, so CO2 is less soluble at these temp (maybe it's a part of my issue).
Maybe I can try also to raise a bit the flow power of he FX5, but I am afraid that if I do that, the plants will start rocking like a flag in a tropical storm, and too much pressure in flow is not good also.
Iain how can we explaine that only the plants that are near the light are doing well, and the other don't ? How come a plant that support lowtech life is not surviving in a hightech, compare to a Hightech plant like HM that is doing fine ??

So without changing lights guys what should you suggest ?

Mate thanks for supporting me, I will not quit that battle !! :mad: :mad:

Best regards
 
Hi all,
So after my post I went back home and decided to take back everything on a good road.
I have done a major cleaning.
For a better distribution and flow I have done some changes to help it. So power of FX5 have been up a bit, I have up a bit the position for better surface movement (better degassing when CO2 off), I had noticed that when I have flooded the tank all the sand that was between the rocks and the woods went down due to water, and so have kill flow in these area (a big part of the tank). So I have added a lot of sand to up the level of these area, and it have enhance a lot flow in these parts of the tank.
I have crank up the CO2 also.

Hope these changes will be efficient? We will se in two or three weeks. But I can tell that there is big improvement in distribution.

Cheers
 
Thanks guys for your support !
It seams to be a big filter for that tank but ...
Tank is 200 L, FX5 rate on the paper is 3400 L/H, but in reality the rate with media inside and position under the tank is around 2400 L. This is just a bit more than 10 time volume of the tank.
But I am not using full power of it. Maybe with a larger hose diameter, than the one I am using could work, because of less velocity in flow.


Let's time do his part of the work and see.

Cheers guys
 
Ok, I see then it's bigger than I thought, when I saw the 90mm length I was thinking back to my own standard commercial size 900m tank which is just over 90L. Just reading over your thread again and wondering why some of your plants are not doing well. Difficult to be believe there is a CO2/flow issue given the general volume of circulation in the tank. The rocks are really great looking, out of interest did you first do the vinegar test on them to check they are not perhaps doing something to the water ?
 
Ok, I see then it's bigger than I thought, when I saw the 90mm length I was thinking back to my own standard commercial size 900m tank which is just over 90L. Just reading over your thread again and wondering why some of your plants are not doing well. Difficult to be believe there is a CO2/flow issue given the general volume of circulation in the tank. The rocks are really great looking, out of interest did you first do the vinegar test on them to check they are not perhaps doing something to the water ?

Hi Trevor,
the rocks are beautiful, but the substrate is not giving enough contrast to enhance the colors of the rocks :( . But I will use it in my next low tech, with Aquasoil amazonia, the black color of AS will enhance a lot the colors of the rocks. I really need to set up that lowtech tank, but I really miss time these days.
For the rock, I have not done the vinegar test, but the scratch test and it was ok. Plus I have created a thread for these rocks, and by the shape and the hardness, plus the location from where the rocks comes, it can not be lime stone. I can add to that, that our master Darrel have gives the explanation and said that it will not alter the water chemistry.
New rocks. What do you think about it ? | UK Aquatic Plant Society

Cheers mate

Just a thought. Could it be there is something wrong with the quality of your CO2?
And 29 degrees might be tough on plants, that's Discus temperatures and that limits plant species usualy.

Hi Edvet,
I don't know if it CO2 is a bad quality, but what I can tell is that in every scpae I need to pump a lot of CO2 to have "good" result even with low light. So maybe it could be roght, I will create a thread for that. Thanks for the idea.
I have talk with Tom Barr about temperature issue on these plants, he and other persons told me they never had issue growing these plants from 25 to 30 C°. Of course with such temperature you need to pump more CO2 because, higher temperatures means less dissolution of CO2 in the water, same for O2.
So I have put a side these theorie. Even if in my journal there is a part of the debate on HC that is pointing temp (the Dr Barr says no.... so) hahaha.

thanks for your help guys cheers
 
I have often had problems with larger tanks of over 200lt!
Some times it can be so frustrating & very difficult to work out why nothing is going right!
I have just set up a 220lt tank for a friend, I convinced him there would be no issues if we just followed a basic formula but...there has been nothing but problems!!
We seem to be pumping in huge amounts of gas especially compared to my own 200l tank, we have a FX5, a full length spray bar & a DIY reactor but the tank just eats up C02.
I have set up dozens of tanks & never had problems like this before.... I am pretty sure it is a flow issue but we have tried several formats now.
So for the time being the lights have been halved until I can come up with a new spray bar with more smaller holes.
 
About temperatures, I live in the tropics too. Afternoon temps regularly go up to 31-34'C every day unless is raining or cloudy. I can attest that HC can grow is about 28'C. This is my tank which I successfully grew a nice thick HC carpet. It was cooled down using fans to around 28'C. Lighting was 12x 3W Cree XR-E LEDs and CO2 was probably 2 bps. Dosed EI with ADA Amazonia soil.

DSC09762.jpg


It lifted itself up in the end, not due to melting but short roots. You can see that in the photo below - no melt.
DSC09763.jpg


Lower temps are definitely better for plants though. I find that Java and Spiky moss are less temperature sensitive and can grow in 28'C, but Xmas moss will melt quickly above 27'C.
 
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