Black spray bar! Woo! 😍
Trimming took out a fair bit of plant mass, but a lot of what I removed was decaying because they're not satisfied with the Tropica ferts.
Im gonna switch to DIY ferts again as soon as I have made some new solutions. Ive tried dosing more of the Tropica, but it doesnt seem to help and the plants are really complaining.
The M. Guyana never says anything about anything as long as there is water in the tank, but even this one is looking thinner than usual and the older growth has been decaying a lot more than what is normal for it.
The Blyxa is still struggling with both immobile and mobile nutrient deficiency, which after removing the half dead leaves, leaves just those small sorry looking pale tufts. This one might die if it doesnt feel better soon, its growth has been stagnating more and more lately.
Crypts appear to be feeling better in coarser sand. They look to be recovering and im happy about that
I had some more issues with the black plumbing, my Plan A was to connect both spray bars to the Jebao pump. What I didnt account for was how hard this was to put together when working with extremely uncooperative "push fit" fittings. The pipes dont really fit the fittings at all, they can barely be seated into them. So ive been heating up the fittings to make them a bit wider. But it seems when they cool they shrink down a bit again. So getting it all assembled inside the tank was very hard, I couldnt do it. There are two(!) cross beams on this tank, so assembling the double spray bar manifold outside of the tank was not an option.
If I want to try this again then I need to widen the fittings another round 🥵
But I was fed up with that luminous grey bar in the middle of my view, so I just used the black bars the other way / plan B. So the Jebao is still running just the top spray bar, and the Ultramax is running the bottom spray bar.
The Ultramax IS having problems with air purging, but I found out why the flow seemed especially bad in the lower bar lately. Apparently this dum-dum removed the bottom spray bar for cleaning, removed the electrical tape that plugged up some of the holes because the glue was coming undone. And then just didnt plug those holes back up again. Too many holes = bad flow velocity. Stupid oversight, but at least my ego wont get too big 😁
Flow is better now with a new bar with fewer holes, but im still gonna take it out soon and plug up a few more holes. I wanna really get some ooomph through the flow in the lower back part of the tank. This water has to be pulled through a pretty thick (at times) mass of plants and around and under hardscape, so it needs to be strong enough.
The tank still has some cosmetic things that I want to improve on over time.
I cant really fill this tank all the way to the top, because at the top of the back pane (1), when the water level is at max, the silver inside of the aluminium frame of the tank is visible Its right on the back glass pane, so it cant be painted like the rest of the back wall. Its a real eyesore to me. Maybe the danes didnt think about it because they're often using 3d backgrounds inside the tank, which would hide this.
So im thinking of running a 5-10mm band of some kind of plastic wrap / surface coating all the way around the front of the tank glass right under the frame, so that I can conceal the front water line, but not have the silver stripe in the back visible.
The tank is also no longer level, I think the ancient floor has sagged a bit. So im thinking of draining most of the water out one day and releveling it again using the adjustable feet.
This tank is never gonna look completely sleek, because for some absolutely incomprehensible reason they decided to use GREY! silicone (3) to make the tank.
I dont know what kind of crack the danes at Akvastabil were smoking when they designed this tank
So the silicone lines in the back left and right are always gonna stand out against the black background like an eyesore.
One day I will replace this tank, and this time there wont be any compromises 😠 Black silicone, no frame to complicate everything, and no or very minimal crossbracing.
Left to do plumbing wise is making new black intake pipes (2), that should make the tank look even better.
I also wanna get a better, more minimal solution for the shrimp protection on the skimmer outlet and for the frogbit fences (4).
Im leaning towards replacing the current sand completely. Theres the question of the retained medication, but primarily I want something that is a bit better suited for the plants and isnt entirely reliant on snails to function ok.
Since that is gonna be a huge undertaking, and I dont want to do this kind of stuff very often,
I think a substrate with high CEC and some nutrients might make things a bit easier for me.
Ive been very stubbornly trying to get only sand to work, and I still think it can be done at least in some cases.
I think it depends on the plant species chosen, the water composition, and the properties of the substrate.
But ive started wondering if I should try to make things less difficult for myself. Its not that I dont want to learn new things, and I quite like doing something even if its difficult. But I think there is a balance to be struck between a lot of struggling and learning, and maybe struggling a little bit less but still learning an ok amount. Because if theres too much struggling then no learning is really happening, and too much struggle isnt very fun to do for a long period of time 🙂
So I should give myself permission to make things a little bit easier for myself, even if it means I might miss out a bit on the cutting edge of testing what can be done. Theres probably someone more qualified than me to test stuff out anyway
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