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45 cm cube iwagumi, my first tank :)

Some areas of my MC are growing really well, other's are dying off. I think this is dependent on which pots the MC came from or how I planted/separated some of the MC.

What do I do with the plants that are dying or die completely? This was the easiest photo to take, but behind the large rock it is much more severe. Some patches there are very much dead.

2zio49j.jpg


I'm not concerned because a lot of the tank is growing strongly, but just wondering what i do with all the decaying plant matter. Do i trim them down and let the roots shoot out fresh growth? Or do I just leave them to rot?
 
Jack Reilly said:
Some areas of my MC are growing really well, other's are dying off. I think this is dependent on which pots the MC came from or how I planted/separated some of the MC.

What do I do with the plants that are dying or die completely? This was the easiest photo to take, but behind the large rock it is much more severe. Some patches there are very much dead.

2zio49j.jpg


I'm not concerned because a lot of the tank is growing strongly, but just wondering what i do with all the decaying plant matter. Do i trim them down and let the roots shoot out fresh growth? Or do I just leave them to rot?
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Monte Carlo in my experience seems to transition much better as single strands rather than clumps, I have no idea why. Just make sure to remove the dead bits so you don't end up with extra ammonia, which will lead to algae.
 
Yes you're right, I noticed the single strands are flourishing while the clumps are dying. The bigger the clumps the more catastrophic the die off.

I have removed the clumps or strands that are completely dead, but there are many that are half dead. The stalk looks dead but have bright green shoots at the tip. What do I do with those? I'll try to take a photo because it's hard to explain.
 
Does anyone know of this is a problem, having my Inflow high? These lily pipes were bought for a smaller tank so I'm not sure if they're okay on this tank.
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Well I can partly answer my own question, realized i can't do any 25% water changes with the filter on because of how high the Intake is. And if I turn the filter off I'm guessing the intake will drain once water line is lower than the intake which means I'll have to prime it again which is a pain.
 
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Jack Reilly said:
And if I turn the filter off I'm guessing the intake will drain once water line is lower than the intake
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It should only drain a bit in the tank, when you refill the tank this should mostly refill ... just turn filter back on & all should be fine (at least this seems to work fine with my Eheim Pro's)
If you forget to turn the filter off when the water level drops too low, you can fill the canister with air - this generally requires a bit of effort to resolve :banghead:


Jack Reilly said:
just wondering what i do with all the decaying plant matter.
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The advantages of shrimp/snails added at tank start up ;) (they do the fiddly bits)
Trim/brush/siphon away what you can (though depending on soil used, you may need to be very careful not to release plant completely from the substrate), where there's new shoots at the ends, you can "bury" the melty bits in the substrate (I expect this has resolved by now).

Nice hardscape :)
 
alto said:
The advantages of shrimp/snails added at tank start up ;) (they do the fiddly bits)
Trim/brush/siphon away what you can (though depending on soil used, you may need to be very careful not to release plant completely from the substrate), where there's new shoots at the ends, you can "bury" the melty bits in the substrate (I expect this has resolved by now).

Nice hardscape :)
Click to expand...

HI alto,
Unfortunately this was a brand new filter and tank so the cycle is taking a long time, so I couldn't add any clean up crews. I did try to remove some of the decaying matter but as you said it's tricky with the substrate. I couldn't get much of it out.

Now I'm having some algae issues but not very good at identifying them. I've tried to remove them but don't want to mess with the tank too much when the cycle is almost complete.
 
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Your pipes are fine. In the past I've even used an outtake as an intake.

Before doing a wc turn off the filter and close the intake tap - that will stop any water draining from the intake pipe and stop air going into the filter once it's switched on again.
 
I thought they were diatoms but glad you confirmed it. Hoping the other one isn't hair algae.

I have another question, I got a drop checker and some commercial 4dkh solution. It starts off blue and slowly turns yellow during the day when the co2 is on. The problem is once it's yellow it never changes back to any other colour. Even after sixteen hours of no co2 being run it's still yellow. Any ideas why?

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MrHidley said:
I'd also check there isn't any surface scum blocking the drop checker.
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Thank you, that was the problem. There was a bubble just above the solution and there was a bit of liquid above the bubble. It created an airlock which must have been the issue. I popped it and now it's working fine.
 
Hello!

Few months in and growth has been pretty slow (think the light is pretty weak). MC finally filled in and added some ambulia at the back so the inhabitants have a place to hide. Got some golden tetras, ottos and glass shrimp in there.

Inhabitants have been happy and healthy for a month, some of the shrimp are carrying eggs now.

I had severe diatoms and had to hack away at a lot of the plants to remove it as they were dying due to having the light blocked out. I tried the toothbrush twirling trick but the carpet was coming out along with the diatoms! So I hacked it up instead so it could get some light. Eventually the ottos and shrimp finished the rest.

Since then I have had BGA that just wont go away :(

I remove it all and then a few days later its back. I've cut lighting back to 6hrs and c02 seems okay (on 3 hours before lights on now and off 1 hour before lights off). I'm dosing cal aqua shine and chrome, and seachem nitrogen and phosphorus according to directions. Nitrates were always 0ppm (maybe cause of purigen?) so I figured perhaps this was cause of BGA, so upped dosing of nitrogen until nitrates were showing.

Any advice on what to do?

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Why don't you remove purigen then?

BGA is actually cyano bacteria. It can be "cured" by some antibiotic. I can't translate to English the name of what is used in my country though.
 
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