plantbrain
Expert
- Joined
- 2 Aug 2007
- Messages
- 1,938
The initial plan:
I'll be making some changes, but for now, this is about all the motivation I have for today.
As is often the case, whenever you touch ADA AS, it mucks the tank up severely.
If you redo a tank and re level things, it's mud stew. While this requires several complete water changes, the upside is that your tank needed not be entirely dry.
This works well if you have a scape in mind already like this one. Not so well if you need/require a dry tank for rock base and build ups.
You can do it that way if you want, we did this with 220 gallon, but the filters where already mature.
We could have added some of the old ADA AS back into the bottom layer, which is basically what I did above, but never removed it.
If you remove it or have a chance, deep vacuum all the fines out of the ADA AS and leave behind the larger grains that are typical when you pour a new bag of soil in etc.
Then save that in a bucket and re use that part later.
I just went ahead and redid everything faster this way.
But you can do a few different methods to remove some of the fines and muck from the soil without having to toss 100% of it.
Redoing a mature tank like this or Gerry's has some really good points:
The NH4 is almost gone for the most part right away from leaching new ADA soil due to the aggressive filter. Combined with large water changes, typically 80% for 3-4x a week for 2-4 weeks, you really do not have much to fret about.
So the tank settles in much better generally than a new tank might. Few hiccups and the CO2, dosing and plants are all in great shape already from the previous scape. Much less work and trial and error.
I'll change a few of the minor wood branches/faux roots, then figure out a nice plant scheme with similar strong contrast.
Still pondering an African schooling fish for it, something that does not trash the finer plants.
I'll use a similar high color contrast scheme, not sure the plant species, some will be the same, some new changes also. Same general style.
I'll have more mosses in this display, that was the plan initially with the last one, but it never really went that direction.
I'll be making some changes, but for now, this is about all the motivation I have for today.
As is often the case, whenever you touch ADA AS, it mucks the tank up severely.
If you redo a tank and re level things, it's mud stew. While this requires several complete water changes, the upside is that your tank needed not be entirely dry.
This works well if you have a scape in mind already like this one. Not so well if you need/require a dry tank for rock base and build ups.
You can do it that way if you want, we did this with 220 gallon, but the filters where already mature.
We could have added some of the old ADA AS back into the bottom layer, which is basically what I did above, but never removed it.
If you remove it or have a chance, deep vacuum all the fines out of the ADA AS and leave behind the larger grains that are typical when you pour a new bag of soil in etc.
Then save that in a bucket and re use that part later.
I just went ahead and redid everything faster this way.
But you can do a few different methods to remove some of the fines and muck from the soil without having to toss 100% of it.
Redoing a mature tank like this or Gerry's has some really good points:
The NH4 is almost gone for the most part right away from leaching new ADA soil due to the aggressive filter. Combined with large water changes, typically 80% for 3-4x a week for 2-4 weeks, you really do not have much to fret about.
So the tank settles in much better generally than a new tank might. Few hiccups and the CO2, dosing and plants are all in great shape already from the previous scape. Much less work and trial and error.
I'll change a few of the minor wood branches/faux roots, then figure out a nice plant scheme with similar strong contrast.
Still pondering an African schooling fish for it, something that does not trash the finer plants.
I'll use a similar high color contrast scheme, not sure the plant species, some will be the same, some new changes also. Same general style.
I'll have more mosses in this display, that was the plan initially with the last one, but it never really went that direction.
look forward to seeing it clear
