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15 UK Gallon rescape journal

I have no clue as to the shrimp breed - they were sold to me as either apparently true amano shrimp or just as 'algae shrimp'. I also have one rainbow shrimp - this is a lovely dark tan colour with a light stripe down the back, about 1.5" long.
 
Planted the UG today:

normal_Final_planting_of_UG.jpg


Bring on the algae ;)
 
Fish are sensitive eh? Two days after moving my 4 pygmy cory into the new scape and they have significant fun producing eggs everywhere! That is with full EI dosing from day one too.....think one of my bororas maculata had its tail nipped somehow (maybe in the filter outlet tube gaps?), treating daily with SeaChem Paraguard (does pretty much everything) as I have found this superb previously - plant and filter safe etc etc. Seems to be improving at the moment.
 
Jaqno CO2 'Mixer' arrived today. Seems simple but well made which is contrary to what I have seen others say. The CO2 enters the cylinder as normal bubbles (suggesting this would work fine with DIY setups) and there is an angled cut in the filter intlet pipe which I am guessing causes the water in the cylinder to blow the CO2 bubbles around hence mixing them with the water which then exits through a normal shaped pipe. It should theoretically allow for 100% absorbtion of CO2 into the water providing you set your BPM correctly. Might need some additional filter tubing to connect this up without kinks, will have a look later this week.
 
I really like this setup, the green contrasts well with the gravel without looking artificial and the stones blend in nicely and yet still stand out.

Very nicely done!
 
Cheers - longer term I am hoping the UG will pretty much cover the gravel/sand - I'm also glad that I don't have the Interpet Daylight Plus tubes on this as the contrast between black/green is already slightly towards the flourescent!
 
The UG is taking forever to do anything. It has started sending out small numbers of runners but is not looking too good overall. No idea why, full EI dosing, green drop checker.....been planted for ages now. I'm giving it until after Christmas and if it hasn't improved I will look for some HC and try that.
 
My UG has plenty of ferts and CO2, but probably mediumish light by the way all the plants grow (33W over 24l), and it is a painfully slow grower.

At the moment it is chucking out runners and mixing with my Marsilea sp. The effect looks quite good, so I guess i`ll have to be patient. I want to hang on to what UG I have as I want to see how it responds in one of my high light tanks.

Dave.
 
Slow is the word! Not giving up on it but it really is taking aaaaggggeeessss :)
 
The UG is doing absolutely naff-all. Can't be short of anything, though I've just dropped to half-EI for this tank due to still low plant mass, been getting some long thread algae on the moss which I keep twisting off with a toothbrush every 3-4 days. I'll give it a week or two more than I'm ditching the UG to try some HC instead. If anyone has any spare let me know, happy to pay.

Strangely the P.helferi in my 11w/5.5 gallon tank is doing much better than that in my 2wpg/EI/CO2 15-gallon. Wierd.
 
I never had much success with UG when I tried it.

I don't think many folk have used it succesfully in aquascaping so far.

Oliver Knott is the only exception I know of, and Mr G from TFF a good while back.

I'll be meeting Oliver at Interzoo in Germany next year so will ask him, in my best German!

Even the UG in the ADA winner's tank looks crappy. I discussed this point with Troels Andersen from Tropica.

Any more pics, Chris?
 
I'll try to remember to take some more pictures. Having a good look last night shows the UG is sending runners out, some I'd not noticed before. A few more weeks should say either way I think. Still haven't rigged up the Jaqno either, just ordered some extra filter tubing so once that arrives I will have a go.
 
Picture from today (sorry, it's slanted!):

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Inside cabinet (Cheers for the inspiration George, still have to fit a Jaqno reactor in there somewhere too!):

normal_cabinet.jpg


The moss needs a good tidy, pulled loads from the left-branch last week. P.Helferi looking a bit sorry for itself, not sure why really, lots of new shoots coming through which look better. Vallis has filled in pretty well, loads of new shoots on this. Windelov has started to sprout some babies - never sure if this is good or bad!
 
Darn...finally got my Jaqno out to setup, went to twist the lid off and the water inlet fastening came off, seems perhaps it was over-tightened and cracked the threads. Having a go to fix it, should be possible to glue/fix it straight to the lid without the need for the screw-thread bit, doesn't seem any reason why they are threaded on anyhow.
 
And what a s*d to fill the Jaqno with water, in the end I submersed the thing in a bucket of treated tapwater then put the lid on, the only way I could work out how!

Oh, and PS, don't forget to turn the filter pipes to 'off' otherwise you start siphoning the tank water onto the carpet when the bucket gets full :)

Time will tell how efficient this thing is, I'm running on half the previous BPM just incase it is superb! Changed my drop checker fluid at the same time to make sure I know exactly where it puts things.
 
RE the Jaqno - I don't know whether this is expected but it seemed to take a while to reach a green drop checker (2 days). I was running back at 60bpm but I've now dropped this down to 30bpm as the drop checker did start to move towards yellow. It must be doing something OK as in 3 days of running there is little more CO2 in the top of the cannister than at the end of day 1.
 
Whilst the Jaqno at least works I can't comment on efficiency being better than I had before. Still needing ~60bpm to get my drop checker green so all I've managed is to get the last bit of equipment out of the tank (purely the glass filter pipes now).

Still got some thread/hair algae hanging around on the moss - doesn't seem to want to go away, I'm debating ripping the moss out at the moment, perhaps also removing the UG (which is doing little or nothing) and P.Helferi (and maybe the vallis) and carpeting the whole tank with HC. I like the concept of the wood/windelov fern as a central mound keeping the wood obvious instead of getting hidden by the moss so much. We'll see.
 
You might want to try a DIY Reactor? I could get 30ppm with less than 1 bps on my 180 litre tank and it was easy to go over that. Compared to my new tank with glass diffuser it was way more efficient. Changes on the drop checker only took a couple of hours too.

Shame the UG is taking so long. Like you say maybe try something else? The windelov certainly makes a really striking centrepiece and looks very healthy.

Maybe you could group the UG nearer together into one area and start another carpet in the rest of the floor space. When that takes off you could pull the UG up if it hasn't got any better?
 
Thing is that there is little CO2 gas build up in the Jaqno, it must be entering the water column pretty much 100%, otherwise the Jaqno would get full of CO2. Very wierd! Had wondered about keeping some UG in one area and some HC perhaps in another, let them go and see what happens. The UG is shooting runners etc but they are really not doing much, maybe they are looking a little healthier at the moment though...perhaps they prefer a more mature tank.
 
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