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Liseys Rio 125

Yeah most died, I had to cut them off anyway. TBH they have these little tuber type things that are at the top of the roots just below the stems so I think it would be fine.

RIght so I completely ripped out everything and started again. Did a 75% waterchange. Realised HC is a b@$%h! I couldn't find much roots compared to all the leaves so I tried planting it but it kept floating... So I improvised, as you'll see! Planted all the plants John sent me, now most of the plants from online suppliers are gone. The only ones remaining are the Bacopa caroliana and Marseila crenata from Greenline, Vallis torta from Java and Crypto wenditii from both.

Full tank shot
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Left
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Middle
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Right
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Planting Guide
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1) Limnophila aquatica - from John (Tropica origin)
2) Cryptocoryne wenditii - From Java/Greenline (variety not specified)
3) Marseila crenata - From Greenline. this is dotted around the back of the P. helferi but its so small its hard to see.
4) Pogostemon helferi - From John (Tropica origin). I really love this plant and there was so much I planted it very densely. When it starts taking off I will thin it out.
5) HC - from JamesC. yeah I just plonked it in the corner and weighed it down with substrate until it takes hold. eventually when the P. helferi is thinner I will plant HC around it.
6) Bacopa monneri - from P@H (Tropica)
7) Eleocharis parvula - from MA and AE (Tropica) all the stuff from Java and Greenline was a bit brown, it was picking up a tiny bit, but I was worried about the decay.
8 ) Blyxa? - from JamesC this stuff looks really good!
9) Nymphaea Zenkeri Lotus - from MA (Tropica). this has been sending out loads of leaves.
10) Bacopa Caroliana - from Greenline
11) Hygrophila siamensis corymbosa 53B - P@H (Tropica)
12) Cryptocoryne undulata (maybe broad leaves) - from P@H (tropica)
13) "African tiger lotus" - from Java. this was looking iffy but has sent out a new leaf nd roots so I thought I'd give it a go.
14) Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig' - from John (Tropica). This maybe bunched over at the moment I think it will grow up quickly.
15) Vallis torta - from Java

Thanks for reading this :D hope you like the changes

Edit:- forgot that frogbit aka Limnobium laevigatum is floating on the surface though growing slowly
 
Looking good :) I like the Pogostemon helferi, never tried that plant but it does look very good.
Now you have to wait before you do any more changes to allow it to grow in and then decide if you want to move stuff about ;)
Congrats on the hard work :) and keep us posted with more photos :)
 
Cheers guys :D

CO2 has crept up to yellow, but I've stopped dosing excel as the vallis is not happy, nor is the P. helferi. Does anyone know if its sensitive? The blyxa is melting, and the hygro siamensis has damage to the leaves. Not sure whats going on!
Apart from the P. helferi everything else seems to have grown. I can see the P. helferi sending roots out though.
 
Hi Lisa,
P. helferi, like most carpet plants are slow to establish. Blyxa is also a very slow plant to adapt. They usually recover within a couple weeks to a month. You are dosing NPK and micros right? The conversion from emersed to submerged growth is traumatic so there is normally some loss of plant material because those emersed leaves no longer serve the plant as efficiently. As new submerged growth appears the plant will become healthier. If you are seeing root growth then there is no need for concern. I'm not a Vallis guy but I've read reports of Vallis recuperating from normal excel dosing after some loss, but not liking overdoses.

Cheers,
 
Thanks cegipedia :D The blyxa and P. helferi has new growth now :) took some pics but am supposed to be doing my coursework which is due in at 8:45am tomorrow :twisted: so will get back to that now.
 
Hi Lisey, i really like the redo, all those plants have given it a new dimension, when it really gets going you will be busy pruning i can assure you good work, regards john.
 
Two words - Algae City!!!

Forgot my waterchange at the weekend as I was too busy livin' it up like. Left dosing in my fiances hands... All I know is I came back and he's fiddled with my CO2 naughty boy...
Now I have long brown stringy algae, maaaaasses of coursework! I know I need to do manual removal, daily waterchanges and excel dosing. Stick to my dosing regimently not just pinch of everything. Bought some more flying foxes and amano shrimps as the CO2 was pretty stable before, was hoping I could move across some. My small tank is just that, and bursting at the dam seams.

Must.... resist....urge....to....add.....new.....flying.....foxes....nerites.....and.....shrimps....
 
Looking good lisa :) Will look even better when you get some growth and height in there :) Wish mine was looking this good!

How are you finding the PC lights? If its any use, I have that Arcadia I-bar spare if you want to trade it or something, PM me if you think it'd be useful :)
 
Lisa_Perry75 said:
Two words - Algae City!!!

Forgot my waterchange at the weekend as I was too busy livin' it up like. Left dosing in my fiances hands... All I know is I came back and he's fiddled with my CO2 naughty boy...
Now I have long brown stringy algae, maaaaasses of coursework! I know I need to do manual removal, daily waterchanges and excel dosing. Stick to my dosing regimently not just pinch of everything. Bought some more flying foxes and amano shrimps as the CO2 was pretty stable before, was hoping I could move across some. My small tank is just that, and bursting at the dam seams.

Must.... resist....urge....to....add.....new.....flying.....foxes....nerites.....and.....shrimps....

Lisa,
Crank open the needle valve of your CO2 regulator and leave it there. Slap anyone who touches it. The minute you add fish your situation will become dire because you will be forced to limit CO2. Right now you have the ability to fix your problem by providing unlimited CO2.

DON'T.....BLOW......YOUR.....OPPORTUNITY.....ADD.....MORE.....CO2...

Cheers,
 
Had issues making a stock solution so thought I would report my findings. I used both chemical formulae and proper names for people who struggle with the naming system. I try to make this as easy to follow as possible but if you don't get it or if I've done something wrong please feel free to comment on this.

From Tom Barrs website he says we should aim for the following 'concentrations' of the following per week:-
NO3 (Nitrate from KNO3) range 5-30ppm
K+ (Pottasium from K2SO4) range 10-30ppm
PO4 (Phosphate from KH2PO4) range 1.0-3.0 ppm
And from Cegipedias (the name will stick dammit) Dry salt dosing article Mg (Magnesium from MgSO4) 10 ppm

I assumed the top end of each mentioned Fert, and also assumed K was only provided from K2SO4) so this meant adding the following per week:-

NO3 - 30ppm
K - 30ppm
PO4 - 3.0 ppm
Mg - 10 ppm

After some research I found ppm means mg/kg or mg/litre in this case as 1 litre = 1 kg.

So the amount you would have to add per week per one litre of water is:-
NO3 - 30 mg (or 0.03g)
K - 30 mg (or 0.03g)
PO4 - 3.0 mg (or 0.003g)
Mg - 10 mg (or 0.01g)

Now I thought making up 10 weeks worth of solution is an easy amount to work with so here is how much I would need for 10 weeks for one litre still. I have now changed to GRAMS as opposed to milligrams. Okay so how much you need to add is just these amounts X by the amount of litres in your tank.
NO3 - 0.3g
K - 0.3g
PO4 - 0.03g
Mg - 0.1g

In my case this is 125 litres so I would need this much:-
NO3 - 37.5g
K - 37.5g
PO4 - 3.75g
Mg - 12.5g

Now how much to dissolve all this in? I think 500mls may not be enough to make everything dissolve, but I shall try on Monday and report back.

So to work out how much you need to add per dose, well, there are 3 doses per week and 10 weeks of doses so divide the amount you dissolve the traces in (maybe 500) by 30 = 16.6 mls. As I'm sure its not possible for the average person to measure to this accuracy I would add 17 mls.

I hope this info helps someone else and hasn't been too difficult to follow.
 
Thats ok, I am the same like, how much is 1/16th like? I know the whole Estimative thing means I don't need to worry too much but I prefer to measure just one thing (the mls every other day)... It's going to save me a little bit of time, but the thing is it'll make me more likely to do it... Which is why I would do this :D
 
Lisa,
It seems to me the idea is to simplify life instead of making it more complicated. I've had a review of your data and I find that there are several assumptions and calculations that have fallen off the rails a bit. In the dry dosing article a calculation was presented for a 4 week supply of solution using a 600ml solution of water to be dosed in a 20 USgallon tank. All you needed to do was to multiply the dosages by 3/2 because you have a 30USG tank. If you then wanted to make a 10 week supply instead of a 4 week supply then make a second adjustment by multiplying by 10/4. If you are making up a 10 week supply then you no longer have to worry about what 1/16th teaspoon is because the volumes are now larger so I don't see a need to start measuring grams.

Additionally, to assume that K is only provided by K2SO4 is not only incorrect, but completely wasteful as it unnecessarily adds another powder which you don't need at all. Dosing KNO3 provides more than enough K. On top of that you are also dosing KH2PO4 which also adds K so there is absolutely no reason at all to buy K2SO4. I can only guess that you may have access to some other nitrate or phosphate source that is something other than potassium nitrate or potassium phosphate. This is the only conceivable reason for using K2SO4 as your potassium source.

This assumption perhaps leads to the next misstep in that each salt contains two components - the metal cation as well as the anion therefore you cannot simply add 30mg of KNO3 to a liter of water to generate 30ppm of NO3. Some of that 30mg of powder is K, not NO3 so you have to add more than 30mg of the powder to the water to get 30ppm of NO3. In fact you have to multiply by the ratio of the molecular weights of K and NO3. Therefore in order to get 30ppm of NO3 in 1 liter of water by adding KNO3 you need to add 57mg of KNO3 to 1 liter of water, not 30mg. Likewise, in order to get 3ppm PO4 concentration in 1 liter of water using KH2PO4 you need to add 11mg of KH2PO4 not 3mg.

This is the main problem with doing calculations in mg. You have to take into account the atomic and molecular weights. This makes life much more complicated and confusing. Now, probably you could have gotten by with the numbers that you were using but it would be due to sheer luck. If you did have deficiency problems (PO4 deficiency would have been a real possibility) you would never realize it and that would complicate life even more. That's why I laid it all out in the dosing article. Lets redo the calculation using the baseline numbers in the article. I'm using a target NO3 concentration of 20ppm not 30ppm as you have. There is no need to use 30ppm unless you see deficiency.

A 20USG tank gets 3X per week [3/16 teaspoon KNO3] + [1/16 teaspoon KH2PO4] + [½ teaspoon MgSO4]
Your tank is 1.5 times bigger so just multiply by 3/2 and round to the easiest fraction:
A 30USG tank would get 3X per week [3/8 teaspoon KNO3] + [3/32 teaspoon KH2PO4] + [3/4 teaspoon MgSO4]
For a one weeks supply multiply by 3:
1 1/8 teaspoon KNO3 + 9/32 teaspoon KH2PO4 + 2 1/4 teaspoon MgSO4
For a ten week supply just multiply by 10.
11 teaspoon KNO3 + 3 teaspoon KH2PO4 + 21 teaspoon MgSO4
Again, I just rounded or truncated the fractions to get nice easy numbers. It's no big deal. So what is difficult about measuring out 11 teaspoons? Isn't that easier than jumping through hoops with mental gymnastics?

Also why use weird water volumes so that your dosing turns into a visit to fractional hell? 16.6ml? :wideyed: Why not just use a multiple of 30 since a ten week supply is 30 doses? Use 900ml instead of 1000ml so that each dosage is 30ml. if you have trouble dissolving, then just use 1800ml of water so that each dose is 60ml. If it's easier to dose 50ml then use 50ml*30 = 1500ml of water.


Cheers,
 
Clive, you really deserve the nick cegipaedia. You left me in awe everytime I see your posting. Totally agreed with clive in terms of the dosing method but considering that the fact that lisa you are doing a busy course,there might be an alternative of dosing less frequently and just dumping a week worth of fert into the tank. Any comment on that?

I'm personally doing EI daily dosing everyday and I find that I tend to forget which day is it or what I need to dose. I've tried mixing the fert together but I didn't managed to get hold of any of the ingredient per James recommendation so I just mixed it and left it in a container. It's been over 2 month now and I don't see any mould or sediment in the mixture. Using chuck calculator I worked out that I should be adding 5 mls per day but if I know I'm going to be busy for a few days I'll add 30-40mls and then do my water change weekly. Anyone tried it this way?

Oh lisa, are those stone still in the tank because I'm not sure if I can see them once the P. helferi is covering the foreground. Maybe you need a boulder!

PS. If your p. helferi starts growing, can I have some to start my own colony? desperate for some in my new scape!
 
Ceg - Cheers for the in-depth reply I had a feeling I may have to take molecular weights into consideration. And I bought some K2SO4 so I thought I might as well use it. I don't tend to work in USG or teaspoons, I'd prefer to work in grams and litres. Yeah 900mls is probably a better bet.

Dan - Lol yeah it has started grow (albeit with a bit too much brown stringy algae on it) when I sort out the algae problem I'll send you some.
 
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