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Star Ship Planted Tank [Captain's] Log

Luke1939

Luke1939

Seedling
Joined
4 Mar 2015
Messages
18
Hi All
So am starting a new planted tank... New to this aspect of the hobby but have had fish in and out of my life since I was a little one !

I have a 400l (48x24x24) tank which is currently fishless cycling (due to disaster having to restart see introduction thread for full story)

So tank with current set up is as per below. All plants are I planted into terracotta sauces (tetra plant substrate) which has garden weed material over the top then sand over the top of this. Plants are growing Ok since photo taken the crinum seems to be doing very well. Mixed in some plastic plants . This tank is now to be fully stripped out and started from scratch.

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I just picked up a wonderful piece of wood that is disc like in nature and reminded me of the new gen Enterprise (I’m rather geek like…)
Gracefully curved on the top and lots of nooks, crannies and mini caves underneath. Also have 2 bags of ADA Malaya substrate,.Current plan is to mount the wood on acrylic column to give the illusion its floating - will post a pic later!

Other useful info Hydor Pro 600 canister, DIY LED lighting. I’m using 100% R/O remineralised with Tropic Marin powder ( my tap water is very hard, 50+PPM Nitrates and pH of around 8.4. classic London Water!) I have my own R/O unit .

Ok first thing I want to discuss I guess is the lighting . I built an LED system using strips of modules glued to wooden spars that rest on mounts on the tank these are linked to a controller that allows for 50 different programs. It was very cheap to set up! I can move move the wood back and forth to adjust where the light falls.

The white LEDs modules are 1.8 W 12,000 to 15000 kelvin . Which seemed like a good idea at the time…. Each strip has 10 modules for 18W – 72W total . I have 4 of these. The other strip is made up of Blue and Red and UV modules at 1.44W . On reading up it looks like I have set up a reef lighting system ….
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So I guess first question can I use this lighting system for a planted tank it’s a tricky one to work out ?!I I have a spare t5 90w unit from an old tank which i could use to supplement the lighting with
 
Wow that sound very bright. The kelvins you are more into the reef lighting but you will still grow plants. I imagine the reds make it look better than just blue and white, I have grown plants under all sorts of lights. I've had to make a temporary light until our sons replacement is in stock, there is new growth so must be ok, colour is white and blue so not the best colour to look at.
 
Is it OK to have those led's on wood? They will warm up a bit. Heat will stress the led's and reduce their lifetime.
 
Not ideal imak I'd say no based on me putting tempory one on coated mdf. Ideal lenths of extruded alloy stainless self tappers to fix them. The ally will help cool them also I'd be concearn about the water ingress and them becoming unstuck. The one I build will be ok they are very low power and sit on the glass lid. Also temporary.:)
 
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Ok good feedback for the heat thanks chaps - Something not considered before. In fact a lot of things not considered…..more I read the more I find I did not know!

The modules are attached using pin nails as well as sticky pads. Supported about an 1" above the cover glass. Time to pop to BnQ and have a look around for alternative options. Carpet fixing strips spring to mind?

The effect from the lights is very stark and colours do pop out - however I tried out the T5 unit last night along with LEDs and the tank immediately took on a warmer more natural feel . Maybe I should dim the LEDs down to X% and use in conjunction with the T5 unit ( 2 x 45W from an RIO 180 tank I have in the garage) I need to play around I guess and find a good balance.

On the substrate front I have gone for ADA Malaya. Figured would invest in a decent substrate. I have had to comprise on the base layer - the ADA power sand is just too expensive so went with JBL volcano (a fraction of the cost) on advice of LFS.
 
So you have a shower screen company need you? The strip that mounts to the bathroom wall you fit the doors to would be ideal, the company I worked for used to get loads of returns most were smashed up to remove glass then weighed in the alloy. Or pop to an extrusion place a lenth of alloy box would be cheaper and look better than carpet strips.:) if you were near gloucester I'd sort you some out for Nout. also yoy could try a window fitter/ manufacturer when they remove the old alloy double glazing it is skipped. Good luck.
 
Luke1939 said:
So I guess first question can I use this lighting system for a planted tank it’s a tricky one to work out ?!I I have a spare t5 90w unit from an old tank which i could use to supplement the lighting with
Click to expand...
Those 1.8W modules typically give about 60lm (if you are lucky) thus, your 50 modules gives -> 3000lumen.

Your tank is 48" wide, a typical 46" T5 tube is about 5000 lumen for 54W, thus your total light is approximately 3/5 of a single T5 output.

PARvsDistVariousBulbs2.jpg

Thus using this standard graph, looking at the T5HO+reflector line & 24" depth gives 40par, halving as no reflector -> 20par then 3/5ths -> 12par. All rough guestimates. But your light level from these LED's & having such a deep tank (nice !!) puts the light level on the border of extremely low to almost non existent :arghh:.

You will grow plants, just extremely slowly, probably no need for extra ferts or CO2 or liquid carbon as fish poo and fish food will provide sufficient nutrients.

So get that T5 out....:D
 
Well after skim reading most of what I don't understand Ian I think I'd skip the build hastle if it's little reward and use the T5 too.:D better colours also I agree on the growth since I stop using t5 my scissors are almost redundant.
 
The problem is we all get led astray with "cheap LED's", (I certainly have, with LED strips), they look good, appear bright, don't cost much etc.....BUT all the cheaper LED sources never give their actual lumens, are generally very poor light output and never state equivalence to T5 lighting. Easy to avoid this mistake, don't put the works "ebay", "china" & "led" in same sentence and you should be OK.

These people have done it right, right LED choice, nice packaging and quote lumens & T5 equivalence (120cm, your size a nice 5400 lumens).
http://www.aquatlantis.com/index.php?id=626&tbl=registos&crct=1

Main is here is £224.
http://www.allpondsolutions.co.uk/a...antis-easy-led-universal-lighting-freshwater/

But in the end its easy enough with a bit of work, you can calculate back to T5 equivalent lumens, so one can then use the above graph to work out how much effort one should put into maintaining their tank.

In your case you clearly know as witnessed by lack of scissor activity :D. Nice expression...thanks.
 
Thanks for the help Ian puts things clearly in perspective. Wow that is low! and the tank seems so bright to me when looking at it!

Well the LED were a cheap system to install and were fine for what I had planned at time so might as well use them and they are great for creating sunrise/set and moon light etc effects.

Ok looks like the T5 is to stay! Better replace the tubes and get a reflector as well. This T5 is just over 1M and a total of 90W/8333 lumins. Adding in the +/- 3000 lumens from the LEDS - gives me ball park 11,333 lumens bouncing around or 112W light in total. Is that a good estimate?

Sorry really stupid question - when working out the gallons –it’s UK and not US gallon right? I’m working on the basis the tank is 350l (after substrate etc) or 77UK

Assuming UK gallons - available light is 1.45 w/gallon puts me at the low to medium boundary?. This hopefully means the plants I have in mind annubis/crypts/java etc should be happy. the Crinium and bulbs may stuggle but one they grow taller might be ok They are in fact slowly growing now and looking healthy a good vibrant green. will post pics tonight!

The only a carpet I had planned was on the wood itself with an appropriate moss. Which will be mounted approx. 6” above the substrate. The wood is around 8” thick at its apex. So the top is only 12” +/- from the lights

Agian thanks guys really helps to talk to people !
 
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Luke1939 said:
it’s UK and not US gallon right?
Click to expand...
The original research on watts per gallons was done in US, so US gallons. Your 350l tanks is about 90US gallons giving just over 1W/Gal, so in the low light area.

Are you sure your T5 is 90W that is not a standard wattage ? Unless it is 2 x 45W tubes ?
 
It's the specific light unit that came with the rio 180 tank: 2 x 45 W tubes. Ok so have low light to work with at the substrate level. at least now I can plan accordingly . Luckily the plants I already have are happy in low light (except the crinium - as part of the aqauscaping process can raise the height for it perhaps) and dosing with excel is helping it seems

Thanks for the help - can scratch at least the lighting aspect of my research list!
 
Hi luke1939,
Maybe rather than the acrylic tower you could suspend the disc from some fishing line and hooks/clips to the rim? I'm a little concerned you'll knock the tower over doing maintenance. Can be quite thin as wood doesn't weigh much in water.
cheers phil
 
thank for the tip Phil! the wood itself weighs in at a hefty 7.5kg though so I'm not sure I can suspend it. Looking at 3 or 4 columns - kinda like wedding cake columns. Drill each one and insert a rod which can will be insterted into holes drilled in the wood.

I'll post a pic of the wood when I get home!
 
Hmm interesting re malaya substrate. Did not realise the pH dropped that low. Need to research better. 5.6 is a tad low for most fish !
 
Yes but look at the starting conditions ie tap water control is pH 7.6 & KH 2, I doubt that Malaya will drop the pH of harder water to the same degree but I would be sure to maintain regular water changes ... initially it's recommended to perform 50% daily water changes over the first couple of weeks with the ADA substrates, then taper off to alternate day, then every 3rd day, then weekly etc.

In a large tank, I might be inclined to try 25% daily etc water changes rather than that 50%.
I would check tap/RO vs tank pH at water change when doing more than 25%.

As you're using RO, why not re-mineralize with your tap water rather than the TM powder, especially during the daily water change period - I'm thinking of costs here, request a detailed tap water analysis & see if you really need to use the TM powder rather than just mixing back some tap.
The advantage of tap is that all buffering components are already in equilibrium & pH will be "stable"
Using powders, you can often measure pH drift while the buffers dissolve & equilibrate - whether this is relevant depends on your fish/invert sensitivity.

Re the Malaya pH 5.6, again that this is very soft water is relevant, fish can much more easily maintain stable blood pH against very soft acidic water vs harder waters ... as you're using RO water I assume that you're leaning towards soft water species which are often from decidedly low pH waters.
Fish can more readily tolerate acute low pH swings rather than acute high pH swings (sorry I can't recall study details).
 
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