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Looking very good! So it seems to be good hygiene basically - regular water changes and vacuuming up mulm and debris?

@mrhoyo just checking on you - how goes the war against the BGA?

I don’t know, so I’m watching this thread carefully because I’ve got some background BGA in my low tech Betta tank too, which is a similar age to your tank. I don’t think the BGA will retreat faced by Blue Exit but it might stop spreading allowing you to remove what there is - what are you...

For low tech what it says on the bottle is normally fine.

Agree that Nitrate is too low. @jaypeecee - hi Jay, what's your target ppm for phosphate & nitrogen to give the BBA a headache? Seem to recall in another thread you were hypothesising that the ratio of the two was in some way important?

Ugh. Does that Brush or siphon off? Are your Ottos eating it? I’d be wary of not feeding too long because if your plants get into ill health it gets worse... We should start by looking at flow and lighting: How much flow do you have in the tank - is the water slowly rolling around? Also is...

Since florescent lightbulb output declines over time the new bulbs will put out more light than the old ones, so if your plan is to "go slow" for a few months, I would not replace them unless as @jaypeecee says, with dimmable LED ones. I am not sure if LED replacements for T5s are dimmable or not.

Cryptocoryne Balansae or Crispatulata should do the trick. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Tank looks nice and the crypts are doing well. That drop checker is still blue green - you really want to get to a mid or better still lime green. The key is a stable and consistent green throughout the light cycle. How many bps, how it is diffused and how soon CO2 needs to come on to achieve...

The English translation of her 2019 German version is now available for €69.95 here. Apparently she had to self publish the English version, which is a shame. If you would like a copy the process seems to be you email her your address, she sends you an invoice which you pay (PayPal or bank...

The melting was most likely too much light/not enough CO2 unless your tissue cultures got abused in transit (maybe too hot?). 25 watts on a 60l isn’t crazy but it is high light. I’d back down on the light slightly - maybe try 50 or 60% (you can slowly sneak it up again once all is well)...

Best way I ever heard that explained on here @Witcher

No you've not misunderstood, but I've a feeling it will be too much without CO2 for some plants. @buttons has a nice low tech journal where he runs his 33w Twinstar 600e at 50%. You've got the more powerful version... I'm not the person to ask for CO2 as I am not in the UK. The ideal is a...

Oh you’ve got Manchester water! It’s pretty good actually, kept fish in it for over 10 years as a kid. No pesky calc stains and there are tons of SE Asian and South American fish that positively prefer it. If you really need to it’s easy enough to remineralise (easier than getting it minerals...

Looking good. Based on the graph, looks like you are where we would expect for 7 days 🙂 The ammonia value is so low because of all those water changes you did, else it would be higher. Test again in 7 days and you should have some nitrites instead of ammonia. I am surprised you have no nitrates...

No matter how bright, 8 hours light is good, but most people start out with 6 hours at first. Some people do a sunset/sunrise period at just 10% to extend the lighting period. Re. the “right amount of light” my understanding is it works like this: Now each plant needs different PAR values to...

Planting sounds sensible to me and the choice of fish is very nice. For lighting I’m pretty sure 44 watts LED on a 60cm tank without CO2 is too much unless you dim. For reference I’m running a 15w light on a 25cm tank at 25% power. Would your Mrs allow a soda siphon in the house? You could...

My understanding is 15w of LED is “high light” for a 30cm (e.g. the ADA Aquasky 301, ONF flat nano). Therefore 8w would be “medium light” - a sweet spot: you can probably grow Tropica easy and medium plants with CO2 but it’s not so bright that the slightest error ends in disaster. My reference...

On test kits I think people are at crossed purposes. If your question is “I want to know if I have the right ratio of Potassium to Magnesium?” or some other complex piece of dosing arcana then the answer is that test kits may not serve your needs as you won’t get the accuracy you need. If you...

I’ve not tried Tropica powder but the normal Tropica substrate on first filling does give off a sooty black dust that lightly clouds the water. I polished it out with some filter floss in the filter. Floss came out black the next day. Just waft, shake or lightly brush the plants to dislodge.

But... but... but... Chocolate Gourami are pussy cat fish! Good luck growing Vallisneria with Excel. The time I had it in tank takeover mode I started dosing liquid carbon (to boost my foreground) and it retreated, got outcompeted by crypts and vanished.

Obvious but worth checking: this is with a newly cleaned and set up drop checker with 4DKH fluid and the correct GH test fluid? I’ve had surface film form in my drop checker before now, which slows down the change.

I add it after the water change, no need to put it in the bucket, add directly to the tank - go to the Easylife website for correct dose because they have different doses for different things + lots of info on it. It works well, I've given up on Purigen and just use this, less hassle.

Your tank is similar size to mine and sound advice there from Clive and Andy. Especially on the light - see in my journal the mess I got into running just 78w over 200l. I'm growing Cyperus Helfrei and Posgostemon Stellata under 78w in a 50cm deep tank - you don't need more light than that...

I posted this link before some time ago, but for newer readers it is great source for gourami biotype, inspiration for my tank (although I'm now losing disipline and leaning towards tetras and rams...). http://www.greenchapter.com/article.php?catid=3&id=21

Clarke, Is this all that you have in your filter (excuse me, picture nabbed from your filter review): If so I would fill one of the sponge trays with a couple of litres of sintered glass filter media for some serious filtration area. Effisubstrat Pro, or the JBL equivalent. It will take a...

Be careful, dosing nutrients is not the same as having a filthy tank, they are chemicals, not organic like fish mulm. James does not have a single algae in his gallery where he says "dose less". For my 25L tank I was very resistant to dosing macros, I even dosed micros to excess until my...

I would kill the midday burst, 25w may well be enough for what you are trying to do. It will drop CO2 demand in the tank to what the EasyCarbo can supply and that should get rid of the staghorn. For that size tank I would dose 2.5ml of TPN+ and 2.5ml EasyCarbo daily, you can mix them up in the...

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/allinone.htm Now with EI you are shooting for more or less 20ppm NO3 and K, 3ppm PO4, 10ppm Mg. So if you do very frequent water changes you will start to fall short of this. I was doing 90% changes twice a week but only dosing 3 ppm NO3/day via TPN+ so my...

Keep us posted Sam, very very interested to know how you get on because I too, am Always Learning...

55w power consumption?! Seems more effective to get a Koralia 2 - moves 2300lph, 34 UK pounds uses only 4.5w. Put the reactor on your filter - it will reduce flow slightly but it won't matter - filtration will still be as effective as before and compared to the flow from the powerhead...

Sam, Hang in there. My cryptocoryne parvula looks exactly like this too: This weekend I wanted to take a baseball bat to my tank. I did a 90% water change, snipped off a million algae coated leaves and next morning I had milky water - bacterial bloom or Aqauasoil particles, I can't say...

Your dosing, proportionally, is more or less exactly what I am doing in my new ADA Aqauasoil tank, also running for 3 weeks now. I share your ammonia pain - ammonia was 1.5mg/l on day 14, 0.25mg/l on day 17. I'm doing 90% water changes twice weekly but I'd do more often if I had time. It...

Actually, I think a video of Clive explaining EI to someone would be priceless. :D And unboxing video reviews of things like filters could be quite cool too - but a lot of work.

Is this for a revamp of the forum or for your book George? How is the book coming along, you are halfway though your stint out there now, so half done?

It was just wrong was it? Dan? What did you do with those horse faced loaches? To confirm they are still alive and well you'd better be able to supply a photo of them together with today's newpaper - and no photoshopping! They may be an ugly counterpoint to your Iwagumi but they are still...

Uh oh - its only 30cm high, I was hoping for 45! :shock: Well in that case could you just tell everyone the truth : 1cm per litre or they will die :?: Caveat: I am sometimes too honest for my own good. :wink:

You did better than I could have mate - to hide your dissapointment on receiving a 5" horse faced loach for your Iwagumi - that's a class act, even if it was your boss :? I feel for you - I make that over 120cm of fish circus in what must be an 80L tank! :shock:

Could be - if you think the CO2 and dosing is up to scratch as discussed in this thread then you now you need to be patient - improvement often only shows in new growth and it can take 2 or 3 weeks to see the benefits...!

:lol: :lol: :lol: If only mate, if only... Actually, its not so bad. 500ml = 15 Euros in Germany (where everything aquarium except arcadia lights converts from pounds to euros 1:1), lasts me 6 months and I don't have to faff with powders. If you don't mind the German and know someone who...

You could try dosing the easycarbo as per the heavily planted tank dose on the label, which is double your dose I think. You say leaves are going yellow - is the new growth coming and is it healthy and green? If your plants are new and were grown emersed then it may be normal for the older...

Lee, please could you link to those rules - I looked on the AGA website but could not find. Also I noticed George is not able to post final shots of his 80cm because he plans to enter them into a competition. However, he has been able to post a dozen blog entries re. its development on PFK...

Actually, not quite so obvious, I think there is some pan European Dutch vrs. American stuff going on. Here in Switzerland you can't get Seachem products at all where as EasyCarbo is in every LFS I've visited so far - EasyLife must be cleaning up!

Sorry, a little off topic I know, but is it safe to fly with KNO3? My mother is flying out at easter and I was planning to ask her to bring an Aqua Essentials parcel with KNO3 in it - will she be picked out by some sniffer dog or sensors and have some awkward explaining to do? Am I better to...

Bienvenue! I think you are the guy with a nice journal on the AE forum who changes his aquascape every month or so? If so then this is the right place for you to be! C'est sure que votre Anglais est beaucoup mieux que la plus part de notre Francais, la mien inclus! :lol:

I read that thread too, that's why I'm asking about dimmers - PJAN is my inspiration in all matters, in fact I'm currently building my own ADA look stand according to his instructions. Your web shops seem to be all in Dutch, does anyone sell your dimmer in another language?

Jaap - can you point me at this? I like the idea of dimmable lights but don't want to buy a whole aquarium computer for 175 EUR to control them when all I need is lighting timer with a built in dimmer switch. Also if you have any interesting posts somewhere that explain your experiments with...

Was your quote float glass or optical quality? If you use float glass watch out for the blue colouration - I believe that the thicker your glass the more noticeable this is. At 20mm it would be twice as noticeable as at 10mm and maybe quite a shock if you are used to acrylic which is superbly...

I'm going high tech soon too, looks like I'm in good company so I'll jump in with my question. This sounds like far too much trouble - isn't it easier to have an external reactor off the filter? I know you don't get the CO2 mist but so long as there is no algae and the plants are growing ok...

I run my 25L with a HOB filter that only has a fistful of ceramic noodles and a good sized pinch of filter wool but it does turn over 250L/hour. I have about 30 guppy fry sized 1 to 2cm and no problems. I think half a dozen fish would be fine...

http://www.cau-aqua.net/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1 I get the impression it's better in Mandarin (check out the study section). No particular requirements for translation, but good to know we have a Chinese specialist along with all the other specialists on this site!

So we come to you if we want stuff translating off the CAU site?

My Narrow Java fern was 11 days in the post from Malaysia pressed flat in a zip lock plastic bag in an ordinary paper envelope. Its growing but regular readers know the trouble I had getting it going. They did send a generous portion, 20 leaves as promised mind you.

For 2 months I've been dosing EasyLife CarbonPro (another brand of Excel) and growing 2 different types of Vallais without problems - they are going great guns and putting out daughter plants. Sometimes I double dose and I've seen no ill effects.

So this fluid filter medium will be like a one off dose of a CEC substrate? As mentioned in this thread: http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=550 Chemistry never was my subject but I could really use an Aquarists Chemistry textbook these days...

I use it daiy so I'm happy to try spot dosing and report back - do I just spray from the syringe onto the affected area to spot dose?

Even in the gallery it looks 4' - the narrow leaf java fern tricks the eye, I was assuming it was something much bigger... Could be a prizewinner whatever you call it and "ripples on the river" is nice...

It just goes to show, presentation is everything! Well, we've all seen Tom's masterpiece before, of course, but Planter, this is the first time I've seen yours and it really resonates with me - I was clicking straight into the gallery to see more. I love the river of sand running under your...

As helpful as ever ceg4048. Availability in Switzerland is not a problem, especially the German brands, of course. My LFS is very big on JBL for example. I'm now discussing with my wife - she wants a laquered high gloss black or white finish stand (apparently quite trendy these days) to...

I find the journal section most inspirational of all sections. I can really learn from other people's experiences. Just put your original plan, a step by step with photos and then updates every so often as things grow in. Rest assured, people will ask all sorts of questions if not included...

Thank you again ceg4048, you really are very helpful. I live in an apartment - no idea if the hot water is softened - you had me reaching for the test kit. But no, it comes out of either tap GH 9, KH 8, PH 7.8, so water changes with a python are doable. Especially since as per your advice I...

Thank you for that reply ceg4048. Just googled python and now I understand. How can you be sure to get the temperature right? I presume you add dechlorinator to the tank before you refill, enough for the whole tank? Actully the mundane pruning and cleaning tasks you describe I find quite...

Is it all in Japanese or is there text in English?

You took the question off the tip of my tongue Maximum Bob. The bit I particularly like is "children can even drink out of the bottle". What is it and what does it do?

Do we know if the ingredients are the same? Can anyone tell us the biology/chemistry involved?

Yes, I've been using it for 2.5 weeks in my little 25L with 13w light, without CO2 but with the Easylife ferts. The 0.5ml dose means the bottle will last me 18 months so its cost effective and minimal fuss. When I add it the plants release tiny oxygen bubbles you can hardly see. My pigmy...

Hello, I'm back into fishkeeping after 20 years and its all got so much more exciting since I was a kid... I've been running a little 25L pilot planted guppy tank for the last two months dosing Easy-Life ferts weekly and liquid carbon daily. Everything is growing nicely, my wife approves of my...