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ADA 60P Second attempt.. Update: on the road to recovery

JamieB

Member
Joined
27 Dec 2013
Messages
273
Hi all

After making a plan with the girlfriend to repurpose my 40CM cube tank into a proper planted, high tech tank, we ventured to The Green Machine to buy some ADA Aqua Soil during their 20% off sale. I saw a 60P and thought... Well.. 20% off... So I bought it, a 250T filter, 2 bags of aqua soil, the rocks, and a new plant... That was unexpected... And so here we are!

Aquarium: ADA 60P (60x30x36cm)
Filter: Eheim eXperience 250T with Eheim Substrat Pro and 3 foam pads
Light: Aquatlantis Easy LED 43CM, 8 hours
Substrate: ADA Amazonia AquaSoil topped with the powder
Stone: TGM Fossilised wood
Fertiliser: EI standard dosing

Flora:
Eleocharis acicularis 'Mini'
Cryptocoryne beckettii
Cryptocoryne wendtii
Fissidens fontanus
Alternanthera reineckii 'Mini'
Alternanthera reineckii 'Rosanervig'
Rotala rotundifolia
Ludwigia sp 'Mini Super Red'
Hydrocotyle tripartita

Fauna:
Bloodfin Tetra
Neon Tetra
Glowlight Tetra
Ember Tetra
Otocinclus
Red Cherry Shrimp
Amano Shrimp

Hopefully my pictures get better with practice.. Reflections and over exposure near the light is not something I know how to cope with..

The hardscape and most of the plant locations are entirely my girlfriends, she has an amazing eye for it and I'm really really happy with how it came out.

Initial layout:
etQ073C.jpg


Eleoocharis planted.. Adding in water and the rest:
iRLbPaH.jpg


I didn't get a picture once completed but here is 7 days later, growing in nicely:
12182751_10156168230105704_4405066165683375390_o.jpg


Looking from the right:
z1NKrZS.jpg


Looking from the left:
0ifIAPN.jpg


Close up of the Reineckii Rosanervig.. Beautiful plant, love the details it has:
k9B8r60.jpg


You can see some of the ADA soil has mixed with the powder, this was because my girlfriend was changing the water in the tank whilst I was away with work and whilst filling it up, let the water flow into the soil mixing it all up! She's been extremely helpful to change the water whilst I was away so I can't grumble and I should be able tidy it up a bit.

The next plan is to get some lily pipes to clear up the tank and make it neater and add Purigen into the filter to aid with keeping the water nice and clear and also an inline diffuser to get rid of the CO2 bubbles in the tank.

Any comments appreciated :)
 
Last edited:
OK, properly update the first post, would love to hear some feedback on it!

I'm also thinking of adding in some more fish, perhaps a pair of rams or some corydoras. Not really sure on what's best.. I am worried the rams may eat the shrimp!
 
Nice tank. I just think you want to put too much fish in there. 2-3 different species should be enough. It's better to have big shoal of one or two different species than have a fish soup, IMO.

About overexposure: try expocorrection down to -0.7 -1.0 it will make your photo darker but save you from over exposure.
 
Regarding the fish... They have been consolidated from other tanks including my first ever tank so although there is a few different types this is only temporary.

Number wise I only have 1 Glowlight and 3 Neon's, the rest of the school has died from age and these are the remaining ones I intend on keeping the Bloodfin and Oto numbers up at the moment.
 
I have noticed that a few plants, mainly the Reineckii mini have started to have a few holes appear in leaves. I guess this is a trace elements deficiency? I'm changing 50% of the water every day after dosing EI about 10 hours earlier so I guess I'm removing some of the ferts from the water column. Do you guys think I should overdose for now or just keep as I am? I will be reverting to a weekly water change in the next week-ish.
 
Rebel, would you think this is due to changing the water so frequently therefore lowering the amount in the tank or would you recommend upping the potassium now?
 
Rebel, would you think this is due to changing the water so frequently therefore lowering the amount in the tank or would you recommend upping the potassium now?

There is no harm in upping the K if you are using K2SO4 or K2PO4 to supply the K. Unfortunately your holes will not get better but new ones will stop appearing.

I suggest photographing one plant; adding the ferts; watching for 2 weeks.
 
Sorry forgot to answer your question on changing k level. I am unsure whether that may contribute.

Generally k is low even at the start so even ADA systems add it from the early days.
 
Nice tank, but I'd think about crypt at the left back corner. I'd change it to smaller species, to keep convex shape.
 
Rebel thanks for that I'll look into it as I need to make up a new mix of EI macro anyway.

Alex, I looked into these crypts when I had my 20l tank and they seemed about the smallest that I liked the look of. These are as high as they got in the old tank and they list as 15-20cm so I think it should be ok. Though I may be wrong? It is wendtii and beckettii back there.
 
Alex, I think I misunderstood, do you mean by convex to keep everything sort of in the middle so all the height is as far as.. say the rocks? It's an interesting idea and may well round off the layout but I'm not sure where I could move the crypts.. Am I understanding correctly?
 
Once the crypts are settled - good root growth - you might begin trimming the older/taller leafs, this may encourage new, shorter growth under the new tank conditions, depending on cultivars, both crypts can range from ~10cm to ...
If you feel comfortable with drastic, just cut back all the older leafs ;)

Tanks is looking very nice.

(what did you do with the 40cm?)
 
Fantastic. Thanks for that.

The 40cm has a betta in with some random plants for now.. just a low tech thing whilst I have the betta
 
Alex, I think I misunderstood, do you mean by convex to keep everything sort of in the middle so all the height is as far as.. say the rocks? It's an interesting idea and may well round off the layout but I'm not sure where I could move the crypts.. Am I understanding correctly?

JamieB, yes, I mean your initial hardscape is strongly suggested convex layout with tall plants behind/around center stones, and plants go down by height at the sides. That's why your crypt seems to break this initial impression. If you draw 2 diagonal lines from the top of the biggest rock down to sides (to the point where substrate lines are) you can see what I mean.
@alto is right about trimming though, but as far as I can see your crypt from big species, so maybe you have or can find around smaller sp. Usually strong light encourage crypts to lay their leaves on the substrate, so they looks not so big. But at the corners that would be problematic I guess.
Anyway, that's your tank, maybe you'll find other ways to make it nice and cool. There are many ways to achieve cool result. Don't take my words as strong criticism, please.
 
Alex I appreciate the information, definitely something to think about as now I understand what you mean I can have a think and see what can be done to keep that convex look to the tank without disturbing much. Thanks a lot for the advice.

I have been looking at a few photos today and comparing back and forth the last 3 weeks up to today and I truly cannot believe quite how the Eleocharis has taken to the tank.. It's amazing.. There are runners everywhere.. I'll update the picture on Saturday but there are so many runners right at the front of the tank... I've never had a carpet grow so well and so quickly.. I think I'll need to invest in some wave scissors and get it trimmed before long!

Really excited for the future of the tank.

One question I have is should my lily pipe be causing some movement at the water surface? I've played with it a bit and I can get it to form a vortex which seems to help keep the water clean of biofilm so perhaps this is how it should be set up? I had it lower and was getting a biofilm but of course this is a new tank so I do expect some to appear
 
Afaik, vortex with lily pipe - is the right thing. If you can find video from ada you can learn their idea to move every night the lily pipe outlet higher, half way above water surface in order to create air bubbles for night aeration. But this trick is noisy though.

Отправлено с моего Nexus 7 через Tapatalk
 
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