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Lessons learned - ADA 45C

Just looked at how the 250 works. I would remove blue pad and white floss pad. Then attach open cell foam around the pipe that takes water to the filter. This is now your mechanical pre filter. No need to open the filter to clean it and more time between filter cleans. Buy some plastic pot scrubbers. In each basket pack a ring of them around the basket wall and insert a small bag of bio Rio or siporax in the middle. Pot scrubbers have great surface area but superior flow. This should increase flow for you nicely for £2

Myself and others use nothing but plastic pot scrubbers with excellent results and great flow. Ceg tried green plastic army figures and Lego with no detrimental effect and proved that bacteria aren't aware of the fancy media names and sales jargon. They will grow on anything. My 2217 is full of £4 of media :cool:
 
note this comment from ldcgroomer


You may want to measure actual flow rates

The 250 has a book rate of around 900l/h, with media it will obviously be less and thus way less than 10 x per hour. With the actual rate of the e1501 being 8-900l/h it's much closer to the 10x turn over.
 
Just looked at how the 250 works. I would remove blue pad and white floss pad. Then attach open cell foam around the pipe that takes water to the filter. This is now your mechanical pre filter. No need to open the filter to clean it and more time between filter cleans. Buy some plastic pot scrubbers. In each basket pack a ring of them around the basket wall and insert a small bag of bio Rio or siporax in the middle. Pot scrubbers have great surface area but superior flow. This should increase flow for you nicely for £2

Myself and others use nothing but plastic pot scrubbers with excellent results and great flow. Ceg tried green plastic army figures and Lego with no detrimental effect and proved that bacteria aren't aware of the fancy media names and sales jargon. They will grow on anything. My 2217 is full of £4 of media :cool:

Will give it a try, thanks. I'm reluctant to put any foam around the inlet though. I've spent a fortune on glass work and don't really want to cover it in a big lump of foam!
When you say plastic pot scrubbers, you mean the yellow foam sponges or the ones that look like wire wool? (but obviously made of plastic!)
 
Oh and some use stainless mesh on thier glass pipes as a prefilter. Much more Amanoesq. Try looking for stainless shrimp guards.
 
Will give that a go then. I'll take out the blue and white foam and put some in the first basket.

Typical that I got impatient and ordered the e1501 last night though! (Zooplus have them for £99!)
 
Tried removing some media from the 250, it's still not enough.

So, e1501 plumbed in tonight and that's much more like it! It's a big beast though. Need to tidy the cabinet a lot!

I've also ordered:
- switched 6 gang extension lead
- a shed load of cable ties and clips
- a pir sensor cabinet light
- all of my plants!

Slight issue with the part of the order from Aquarium Gardens, they were out of stock of some things they listed as in stock! So I have some arriving tomorrow and the rest on Thurssay. Aiming to plant Thursday evening.

Also lined up 40-50 crs and cbs to go in once Ive planted.
 
Looking forward to the planted update :D

an' I applaud the choice of CRS/CBS over Amanos (which I think just get too large for small scapes)
- remember to feed the shrimp (well) for a few days (unless you've got a good crop of nice tasty mold on your wood), you may also want to turn the flow down a bit while they recover from shipping/new tank changes ...
 
Lots of mould on the wood so should be fine!

Some plants arrived today and I've just placed them in the tank for now.
The microsorum narrow is much bigger than I expected and I've bought way too many too. Will see how that goes.

I'm going to clip some of the wood away to keep it off the glass and to give me better access.
 
Just finished planting!

The tank has now been filled with RO and is ready for me to add the 40odd crs/cbs I'm collecting on Saturday.

The water is still quite cloudy and I've had some aqua soil shift over the sand as I filled the tank. I'll remove this when I do a wc at the weekend.

Overall I'm pretty pleased. I want to add some moss to the gaps in the rocks and also to the redmoor.
Once the shrimp are in I'll add my ottos and some juvenile sae if I can find them.

Ive got a Microsorum Trident, narrow and petite left over. All are excellent, fully grown plants so I'm not sure what I'll do with them yet!

CO2 running 24/7 at the moment. Will review with time. Light set to 5.5 hours at the moment and I'll leave it there for a while. Curious to see how I cope with this much light!

Two quick dirty phone pics...

1FA51CF8-951A-4018-87E7-82A3B7B5C2A0_zpsz8iuz006.jpg


D18CC13D-7A6E-465F-89EA-4AEE9CC988AC_zpswzh4k2rh.jpg
 
I actually quite like the soil drifts ... except for the fact that they'll continue on their path to chaos ;) - if only they'd stay just as they are.

Tank looks great with the plants, I especially like the Hydrocotyle verticillata in there.
 
How old is your Ammonia Alert? colors seem faded - or just the photo ... these do have a limited shelf life in or out of the tank.

Nice shrimp :)
 
It's just the picture! It's maybe 6-7 months old tops. Still working as it changed fine when I set the tank up and the Amazonia was bedding in.

Pleased with the shrimp too. I've put around 60 crs/cbs in, 5 pinto, 5 tatitibee and 8 bees.
 
All seems to be going well. Although I've just lost a shrimp to the ADA inlet pipe :(

I'm still running CO2 24/7 and the Aquasky 451 for 6 hours. No issues yet but it's still early days.

A few points:
- need to shore up the substrate a bit more as its spilling out between the rocks still
- need to add some moss to some of the wood.
- need to clean the lily pipe and inlet already!
- need to think of a name for this journal!

A3958144-1CF4-4483-8386-9844C5EA487F_zpswasf6evn.jpg

E019ADE2-0CA0-44CE-AE24-C98F66248A5F_zps9pwjjk4k.jpg

2FDF4AF9-6121-44E7-9CC3-7D78A36EDBE7_zpszpmv2ec9.jpg
 
Update... Bit of a nightmare over the past 24 hours!

Tds pen arrived, measured tank... 280ppm when it's supposed to be RO!

First thing was to was give in and order my own RO filter. Bought an Osmotic 4 stage filter that should arrive tomorrow.

Called the shop I got the water from this morning and spoke to the owner. He was more apologetic than I thought possible and was pretty angry that it had happened.
They stayed open until late tonight so I could go and collect more which was appreciated.

Just done a big water change and its lowered the tds to 185 now.
Will do another tomorrow and get down to the 130 I'm after.
 
Another wc tonight and now down to a sensible 120. Panic over for now!

I've also started adding ferts now. 4 pumps of ADA Step 1 and 4 pumps of Brighty K.
 
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