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Lockdown EA Aquascaper 900

Richard40

Member
Joined
14 Jan 2020
Messages
321
Location
Manchester
So almost two weeks ago my Aqua One Nano 80 burst at the seal and as a result 130 litres of water, soil, fish, shrimp evacuated the tank onto my laminate dining room floor. Everyone’s aquarium nightmare 😐😢
Yes it happened to me. So, rather than dwell on it and stress about it I went about bringing forward purchasing an EA Aquascaper 900 which I was going to buy after my wedding next summer. After a 7 hour clean up, I convinced the missus and 3 days later I had one sat in my back room. Pic attached.
I ordered all my hardscape and plants from Aquarium Gardens and yesterday for the whole day went about planning, laying and planting.

So the details

The Tank

EA Aquascaper 900 with black gloss cabinet

Filter & Heater

Oase Biomaster Thermo 600

Pre filter
Changed the pre filter sponges to coarse sponges. Drilled more holes in the plastic pipe to allow more flow.

A medium blue sponge is at the bottom of the canister.
Media is Biohome Ultimate which has two trays above the medium sponge. The second to last tray with a bag of Seachem Purigen 100ml. The top tray is a fine filter sponge which I changed as the current one is the orange coarse sponge (Why this is I don't know).

Heater is the Biomaster heater 300 watts. Currently running at 22 degrees.

Filter output

EA Aquascaper lily pipes 16/22
Twinstar nano sterliser to help prevent algae growth

Light

Twinstar 900S running for 6 hours for the first two weeks and 8 hours after.

Currently at 50% intensity and ramping up every 5 days once moving to 8 hours a day.

Using the Twinstar dimmer I'm ramping up half an hour each side of it turning on or off.

L000 15.45
L050 16.15
L050 10.15
L000 10.45


CO2

CO2 art regulator with solenoid and bubble counter. CO2 art inline diffuser.

2kg fire extinguisher

Hanna PH probe to test the PH from CO2 on to lights off.


Water & water changes

Tap water which is soft.
Use a hose pipe to drain the tank to 25%. Once at 25% removed, I use an Oase 1000 pump which pumps water from a bucket in my kitchen sink (primed) straight back into the tank to do large water changes.
Currently changing 70% of the tanks water daily which I will do for a week.

Substrate

Used Tropica soil from my Aqua One. I sieved this and washed out any roots or dirty water before adding. I also topped with 9 more litres of fresh soil on top.

ADA La Plata sand

Fertiliser

Will be using EI salts from www.aquariumplantfood.co.uk and overdosing slightly when I start tomorrow.

Plants

Microsorum trident on wood
Anubias Petite
Anubias Pangalino
Bucephalandra Red and wavy Green
Cryptocoryne Balansae
Crytocoryne Lucens
Crytocoryne Willissii
Crytocoryne Wendtii Tropica
Monte Carlo
Rotala sp. green
Limnophila Hippuiroides
Mini Christmas moss

Clean up crew

I will be putting 15 amano shrimp and 20 red crystal shrimp in the tank to start with
20 clithon corona snails
6 ottocinclus

Hardscape

Dark seiryu stone
River wood
Dennerle Plantahunter natural Rio Xingu gravel


That's it, so I'll try and keep this updated. Had an issue straight away when performing a large water change with the wood falling and thus releasing a soil leach from the old soil making the water cloudy. I also needed to plug the gaps at the front with some more rock as the soil was escaping onto the sand. It's still not perfect on the pictures, it will just need siphoning out and fresh sand laying.


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Looking good! Looking forward to see how it evolves.

The thin sponge on the last tray of the oase biomaster is finer than the blue, at least in my filter. (And yes, also orange!)
 
@Richard40 looking good, and looking forward to how it develops. Never had a full tank burst on me, but had a near miss once when a new 200l started cracking as I was filling it. Burst must be a nightmare.
 
Burst must be a nightmare.
Yes it’s not the most pleasant. Luckily I was home due to lockdown otherwise I’d have come home to dead fish and shrimp and my laminate floor would have been ruined. Fortunately I only lost about 10 fish and couple of amano’s. I managed to save them first into a bucket and then quickly grab as many towels to soak up the water. When you store towels in your cupboards from years ago and wonder why you never throw them it’s because of these days 🤣🤣🤣.
 
What a nightmare sorry to hear about the tank. That is some great hardware stunning tank and equipment looking forward to following this. Aquascaper 900 is a great tank i think,maybe one day i will get one

Best of luck and keep us updated.

Dean

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk
 
Hi, so the plants are growing in. It’s been a week since planting. I have ordered more plants to fill in some gaps but noticed a few leaves showing some deficiency as they are turning yellow. I’ve attached pics.
The tank has had 50-60% water changes for a week. Using EI ferts, micro and macro alternative days.
Light is on for 6 hours @ 60%.
 

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The ones that are turning yellow are all crypts. Nothing to worry about its normal the emersed grown leaves will all go this way evetually. It's the new growth you will need to keep an eye on for deficiances not the old emersed growth .
You can remove the bad leaves if you want.
 
So I’ve planted some more plants today, some more crypts, Hydrocotyle Vertilicata, Staurogyne Repens.
Have trimmed the crypts right down to prevent melt so won’t take any pics until they have re grown in.
My Anubias seem to be really struggling, they are at the front and I wedged their roots in between rocks, but they seem to be melting and rotting. Should I not plant Anubias in this way? The bucephalandra is the same but doing fine. Reflection not great in this sunshine.
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Anubias seem to be really struggling, they are at the front and I wedged their roots in between rocks, but they seem to be melting and rotting. Should I not plant Anubias in this way?
They unfortunately do this sometime. I have had several new plants do this recently and over the years and it is extremely frustrating and nobody seems to know why. I suspect something in transit temperature related but that is purely speculation. Your only hope is to remove all dead leaves and rhizome. Cut back to any good structure and re plant. You may be lucky and save some of the plant.
 
Yeh they have nearly all done this now. Glad to hear it’s not something I’ve not done. They aren’t in direct light either.
Most other plants growing in well especially the Rotala Green.
 

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Update on the tank, I added 20 snails (not Clithon Corona, even though I ordered CC) as cant get them anywhere at a reasonable price. I ordered them off Kew Aquatics but they are just an assortment of Nerite snails so will have to do for now.

Had to trim more of the Willissii as the leaves had started to turn yellow.

Was using my in tank diffuser for CO2 as had to wait for the new CO2 art diffuser to come back in stock and then fit it. This was fitted yesterday. So far so good. Drop checker turning a nice lime green colour at lights on and staying lime green when lights off. I’ve noticed the pressure on my fire extinguisher has gone below 300, so I’m taking that to be refilled on Monday for a fiver. 👍🏻

Lighting wise I was following AG method of 6 hours for the first 2 weeks and 8 hours after. However, as I’ve just planted more plants this last week, I’ve postponed moving to 8 hours for another week to allow the new plants to bed in. The same with the intensity. I was moving that up 10% every 5 days. Again, I don’t want to put plants in on 70% straight away so I’ve delayed at 60% for another 5 days.

Water changes I’m meant to be moving to once every 3 days, but sticking with another week of once every second day, purely because of the new plants planted this week. Bought some 16/22mm long pipe which now drains faster than my hosepipe straight to my garden making these far easier. My amino shrimp go mental during a water change, racing about all over the place, then they settle down.

I have put some root tabs into the soil which I purchased this week, these are Aquario Neo root tabs St.long.

My skimmer is doing my head in, I find it so annoying that EA don’t sell these seperately if you break one and therefore I ordered one from eBay. The part that skims and inserts into the main part I don’t think is thick enough so any decent amount of flow and if bobs up and down and sometimes submerges itself and the filter makes noises as if it’s struggling. As a result I’ve had to turn the flow down to stop this before I can afford a new EA set. I need the skimmer as the tank is in a room where I have bifolds and therefore I do get particles floating on top and also I have 4 cats which some cat hairs do manage to again find their way to the surface.

EA come on sort it out and sell these separately so if someone breaks them in the future they aren’t forking out £60! As if it’s not expensive as it is!!!! 👎🏻

I have no ammonia or nitrite and a small amount of nitrates in the tank when tested this week and at the moment zero algae. I’m still dosing Seachem stability everyday until the bottle runs out, then I’ll be dosing Seachem Pristine again until the bottle runs out.

I’m cleaning the pre filter on my Oase 600 every two weeks and the main part every 4 weeks. Glasswork and pipes I’m cleaning every 3 weeks.

I’ve also fitted some JBL double tap connectors to help with maintenance and disconnecting pipes and glasswork to be cleaned.

First fish have been ordered from Apisto Aquatics, waiting a full 4 weeks until they go in. They will then stay in the tank for 2 weeks, then I will move my saved fish from my disaster from the 60P in there.
 

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All sounds good.
Maybe try and sell the other single inlet lily pipe in the sales section once the new set arrives to recoup some funds? I guess it’s frustrating that you can’t buy glass inlets and outlets seperately but sods law would dictate that if you bought singly, you would break the other the next day :banghead:
Will look forward to the fish introduction.
Cheerio,
 
Update on the tank, I added 20 snails (not Clithon Corona, even though I ordered CC) as cant get them anywhere at a reasonable price. I ordered them off Kew Aquatics but they are just an assortment of Nerite snails so will have to do for now.

I know your pain. I've been waiting for ages for places to get them back in stock, nowhere seems to have Clithon Corona in. I had a couple of zebra Nerites in my old tank but they were prolific egg layers and I'd heard the CC were less so.
 
Exactly why I wanted them. I’ve got some zebra Nerites in my 60P and they are prolific like you say. Might have to sell these locally and wait for Pro shrimp to start selling again.
 
Seeing if Kew Aquatics on Band can contact the supplier and see why I wasn’t sent the correct snail.
How many do people think is a good amount for my size tank? I feel like I’ve too many and the tank aesthetically doesn’t look as nice when you’ve got snails all over the glass 🤔
 
Looking at those snails, I’d request a refund - and let Kew deal with any return shipping if they want them back
When you online order, you expect what was ordered, or a substitution request - especially when these snails don’t have the same algae habits (though they are fine glass and wood cleaners and will do some plant work)

20 Cc snails would be the minimum for the 900, but they are much smaller (and cuter ;)) and very much lack the “thousand white eggs” habit

If most of the Anubias have melted - especially if there is ANY rhizome deterioration (it will feel a bit soft before the real squishiness sets in, you need to cut away all softened areas + ~1cm healthy tissue and hope that saves the rest (use a very sharp, thin razor or similar cutting edge as you want to minimize any physical damage to the rhizome) - I’d request replacements
I’ve always thought of most Anubias sp. as being extremely resilient until shipments began arriving and melting :eek: within a couple days to couple weeks
(Supplier immediately credited or replaced plants, but this was an intermittent issue for some months)
Looking online there was much discussion about “melting Anubias” (through Europe) several years ago, while no real cause was determined (at the time), many suspected some sort of virus, as when a new plant melted shortly after arrival, established Anubias in the tank were subsequently lost in following weeks

I’d wait on dosing the Seachem Pristine, as it’s a “sludge” bacteria blend :D
 
My Anubias seem to be really struggling, they are at the front and I wedged their roots in between rocks, but they seem to be melting and rotting.

I suspect something in transit temperature related but that is purely speculation.

This is called Anubias Rot (creative naming 😆) or rhizome rot, and is something that is commonly experienced by people all over the world with this plant.

I had a real issue with it a few years ago, and I did some research (not a lot of definitive info out there) and I have successfully cured it, 3 times. When I say cured it, I mean 100 percent gone, never returning. The only times I have seen it again is on newly bought and untreated Anubias plants. The method however, is not strictly above board, however it works, so I’m going to tell you anyway, at risk of being publicly lynched, because I know how annoying and expensive this can become.

The answer is to treat with antibiotics. As I didn’t know the offending bacteria, I scavenged an anti biotic effective against every category of bacteria ( gram positive, gram negative, anaerobes etc etc ) and I nuked the Anubias in a small 8litre hospital tank. I also added pannacure dog wormer as well, because some of my research suggested it could also be some kind of nematode causing the problem as well.

Anyway, the result was, that one of those agents, was effective at killing whatever it is that causes this. On the affected plants, with progressively rotting rhizomes, the rot was completely stopped in its tracks. The cured survivors are still in my tank alive, well and rot free after 2 years
 
Well, you can’t in the UK as antibiotics are prescription only. Only way to do it is to scavenge around friends and family, asking if they have any untaken left overs from previous treatments with antibiotics. That’s what I did, and I amassed quite a lot of different types. You’d be surprised if you ask around, how many people don’t finish antibiotic courses and have the leftovers kicking around in their medical drawer. If you do it you need to research the different types, and try to get one of all of the different classes to add, that way you are creating a broad spectrum treatment. As I said, no one actually knows what type of bacteria causes it. The pannacure wormer is somewhat easier to buy. Think I bought mine online
 
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