• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

3 feet tank now planted and scaped! Day 59

Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

daniel19831123 said:
hmmm I think looking at the other picture, it is a dragon stone. This piece is only tiny and the rest of the stone that came with this one was actually a lot bigger with similar structure to the one that was posted on the ebay link. Think it's time for me to work out and carry those stone back here with me. :(

Lol. Either way is nice stone :thumbup:
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

ok so I went out and carry a 15kg worth of what I thought is Dragon stone back with me on a 30 minutes journey on the bus!

Chucked the whole thing into the tank and will test the water tomorrow to see if it affects the water chemistry. So far these are the stone that I've picked and they've been placed in the aquarium with no particular arrangement. Pardon the mess in the tank as it's still going through fishless cycling at the moment
IMG_0080.jpg

A closer shot
IMG_0081.jpg
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

Dragon stone definitely will impact the parameters. Did a test a few months ago with a small piece in a cup of RO. About 50% increase in TDS over 12 hours then seemed to settle down. Another 10% increase over the next 6 at which point I decided it wasn't going in my shrimp nano. But it's a big tank and it'll depend what you put in there. Not those PRLs I assume :lol:
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

took me an hour to hand pick those out of a pile of rubble. tested the water after the stone has been in there for 8 hours as I was curious and the result :
pH 7.0
kH 0
gH 3

I couldn't believe my own eyes..... guessed i'll need to bedosing calcium here...
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

daniel19831123 said:
The halide lamp :) First time ever using halide lamp. Can anybody recommend what distance should I suspend the light over the tank? It's only a 150W + 2 x 24W T5HO. Currently it's at 30cm height. I can move the light stand higher if I want to but I'll need to drill holes onto the pipe. ]
Crikey how high is your ceiling!!
I would just use the T5s to start with & perhaps consider a one hour MH blast after a few months...maybe.
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

hotweldfire said:
Dragon stone definitely will impact the parameters. Did a test a few months ago with a small piece in a cup of RO. About 50% increase in TDS over 12 hours then seemed to settle down. Another 10% increase over the next 6 at which point I decided it wasn't going in my shrimp nano. But it's a big tank and it'll depend what you put in there. Not those PRLs I assume :lol:


TDS = total dissolved solids correct?

Did you have it settle out in the end? I'm wondering what it will do to my very soft water.
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

foxfish said:
daniel19831123 said:
The halide lamp :) First time ever using halide lamp. Can anybody recommend what distance should I suspend the light over the tank? It's only a 150W + 2 x 24W T5HO. Currently it's at 30cm height. I can move the light stand higher if I want to but I'll need to drill holes onto the pipe. ]
Crikey how high is your ceiling!!
I would just use the T5s to start with & perhaps consider a one hour MH blast after a few months...maybe.

My ceiling is rougly 10-11 feet height. :) Not too tall. Just enough for a typical asian guy to walk through the door lol.
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

JohnC said:
hotweldfire said:
Dragon stone definitely will impact the parameters. Did a test a few months ago with a small piece in a cup of RO. About 50% increase in TDS over 12 hours then seemed to settle down. Another 10% increase over the next 6 at which point I decided it wasn't going in my shrimp nano. But it's a big tank and it'll depend what you put in there. Not those PRLs I assume :lol:


TDS = total dissolved solids correct?

Did you have it settle out in the end? I'm wondering what it will do to my very soft water.

Correct.

I didn't actually let it settle out in the end. Just stopped testing and didn't add it to the tank.

To be fair though it was in a glass that was 70% rock and 30% water. There was also bound to be some dust on the dragon rock despite scrubbing and rinsing. So a TDS rise was inevitable. But my test was to check whether or not it was totally inert or not. It's not. But that doesn't mean it's unsafe. Have a fair bit of it in my main tank and don't worry about it. Just didn't want to put it in a small body of water is all. Others have without problems though.
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

But dragon stone is suppose to be inert isn't it?

From aquaessentials website quoted "A soft rock with incredible grooves and crevases created by mother nature. Often longer than they are wide they can be placed easily within a substrate.
•Colours vary with shades of brown
•Minimal effect on pH
•Easy to place
•Gives immediate impact to any aquarium
"
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

dragon stone will affect the ph, that is why i did not buy any. my water hardness and ph are high enough.
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

daniel19831123 said:
My ceiling is rougly 10-11 feet height. :) Not too tall. Just enough for a typical asian guy to walk through the door lol.

hahaha, your right were slowly catching up(height wise) just a few more centuries... also i think those rocks will just disintegrate if you scrub the debris off...
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

So tested the water again today and the result remained unchanged.
Ph 7.0
Kh 0-1
Gh 3 ish
I also tested the tap water and the ph was 7.6! The rest of the parameter was the same Considering there is no active Ingredient In my tank to lower the ph, can anyone shed some light as to why the ph is lower in my tank? I thought normally the tap water ph is always on the lower side? Now all I need is a Tds meter to complete my test.
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

daniel19831123 said:
So tested the water again today and the result remained unchanged.
Ph 7.0
Kh 0-1
Gh 3 ish
I also tested the tap water and the ph was 7.6! The rest of the parameter was the same Considering there is no active Ingredient In my tank to lower the ph, can anyone shed some light as to why the ph is lower in my tank? I thought normally the tap water ph is always on the lower side? Now all I need is a Tds meter to complete my test.


I've had a few discussions with peeps on here recently about Edinburgh Tap water and Ph. I had thought that our tap water was around PH 7.2 from historic testing but Tom had recent readings of over 8. The discussion went that there were Sodium based compounds being added to the water by the water boards to control lead release from old pipes in town. This would inflate the ph of the water without making it noticeably harder. Then once added to a tank the Ph would rapidly drop to a more "natural" level as there was no buffering hardening agent.

It could be something like that, especially since you also have very soft water. Or possibly something to do with other stuff in the tap water effecting the ph test (i don't trust any test kits anymore tbh and own none).

Best Regards,
John
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

kH from my understanding only includes the calculation of bicarbonates aka the buffer and not the calcium, is it not? i.e. you can calcium chloride to supplement your micro but it will not affect your kH. If that's the case, do I need to still supplement bicarbonate and calcium to my water? Maybe just a few crushed coral to the roots area prior to putting the substrate?
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

My gh/kh were about 1 or 2 last time i checked (a long time ago). I don't think it has caused me any issues over the years.

I have, however, started adding magnesium sulphates to my dosing schedule as my original trace mix has a low ratio of it and I got in the habit. I think this makes up for the low GH of my water.

Here is a snipped from Tom Barr (quoted from the aqua essentials site)

Some interesting notes by Tom Barr regarding Mg: Magnesium was shown to be an essential nutrient for plant growth in 1839 by Carl Sprengel. Chlorophyll is essential for photosynthesis, the process by which green leaves synthesize carbohydrate, fats, proteins, etc. in the presence of sunlight. Iron is to hemoglobin as is magnesium to chlorophyll, the "blood" pigment of plants.

Magnesium plays an important role in the formation of carbohydrates, fats and vitamins, activates the formation of the polypeptide chain from amino acids and also aids in a number of physiological and biochemical functions including phosphate transport. Magnesium is also known to be essential for many energy reactions constantly taking place in plant cells and as an activator of several enzymes.

Magnesium is far more important to in terms of plant health and growth than many aquarist may realize, but plants do not need large amounts to grow well. Often with imbalances in the GH, generally the GH is all calcium, we will see evidence of magnesium deficiencies. Ca, K and Mg are often blamed for many unknown plant related problems, but CO2 and NO3 should be addressed with some absolution prior to dosing more Mg or Ca etc.

My logic runs that if my water has low GH/KH and thereby buffering to ph drops from say adding CO2. I'm better adding in the magnesium to my fert routine not just for the plants but also to steady up the GH/KH.

I can't say it has directly worked, but I've been very happy with my plant growth in the last year of adding 7ppm once a week on the water change.

Best Regards,
John
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

Ok first of all sorry for the late reply and the lack of progress. I've been busy with family matters and the celebration of chinese new year here in Singapore. Went back to Malaysia for a few days and the whole project came to a halt.

The tank is now up and running using fishless cycling method but surprisingly my nitrite measured 0 after 2 weeks! I still haven't got a kit to measure ammonia so I'll continue with the cycling for another 2 weeks before adding any live stock to the tank.

So here it goes. After purchasing the stone and sand previously, I went out and got 2 strips of 2 inches wide acrylic sheet. However, due to the ever excitement of the event, I forgot to lay it out in the process of laying the substrate and the result was somewhat unsatisfactory (I went ahead with all the ADA substrate and after pouring the power sand that I realised the acrylic sheet was missing from action!).
Penac W and P on the base
IMG_0083.jpg

IMG_0084.jpg

Then the tourmaline
IMG_0085.jpg

Then power sand
IMG_0086.jpg

Then the last minute salvaging process trying to separate the sand from the substrate!
IMG_0087.jpg

The final result was ok but could have been better if the divider was there in the beginning. And it's hard to separate the substrate without showing too much of the divider! So I decided the overpour the boundary to create a more natural look.
IMG_0088.jpg

Then I took hours to place the rock. This is when my partner decided to interfere with my process. mind you my partner is an artist and a fashion designer. The process of debating where the rock should be place went on for longer than I can recall. I was saying that it looks more natural this way but he was saying it's boring and wanted a flamboyant angle of rock placement.... Irrespective of the stability of the structure! Well in the end, I won the debate and was allow to place the rock as I see please. This is the final hardscape :)
IMG_0089.jpg
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

Plants arrived this evening from aquaspotworld and the quality was good in comparison to what the LFS was selling. I was more than happy to pay the premium for these plants. Still a distance to go before catching up with tropica and aquerfleur IMHO. Unfortunately out of the list of plants that i've ordered, they've ran out of Ludwigia inclinata var verticillata Pantanal. But i guessed that will have to do now as I'm having too many plants to plant!

The plant list is as follows
1. Utricularia Graminifolia
2. Staurogyne
3. Limnophila Hippuroides
4. HC
5. Crypt. Undulata Red
6. Crypt parva
7. Hydrocotyle verticillata
8. Blyxa Japonica

picture will be posted later. :)
 
Re: New 3 feet ADA mimic tank setup. (Pic heavy)

3 pots of HC split up
IMG_0090.jpg

6 pot of pogostemon helferi in a plastic bag. Doesn't look a lot really
IMG_0091.jpg

Open up the bag. Now it looks a bit better
IMG_0095.jpg

When you split it up... Tada
IMG_0096.jpg

3 pots of blyxa japonica
IMG_0097.jpg

3 massive pot of crypt. undulata red
IMG_0092.jpg

When you split one of the pot up, this is what you get
IMG_0093.jpg

This isn't even the biggest pot. The smallest pot gave me 6 big plants and the biggest pot gave me 20 big plants with countless of plantlets!
One pot of limnophila hippuroides. 10 stems wrapped in rockwool.
IMG_0098.jpg

Now this is aa headache... I wanted hydrocotyle verticillata and was under the impression that it's a small foreground plant.... this is what I got.
IMG_0100.jpg

This monster measured about 6 inches tall!
3 packet of loose UG
IMG_0101.jpg

3 pots of loose staurogyne
IMG_0102.jpg


all plants were cleaned and trimmed and planted at random. No preplanning or what so ever. This is the final scape from the front.
IMG_0104.jpg

From the top
IMG_0103.jpg


After finishing with the planting, I started filling the water up and to my horror, my tank look like a swamp! Never happened to me before when I was using ADA amazonia.... Is it because of the other additive? Is it because I move the power sand after it was placed down to allow the divider to be placed? Is it a faulty product? Well it's too late to ponder on the thousands of possibility so I'll have to let it be...
IMG_0110.jpg

IMG_0109.jpg

IMG_0108.jpg

IMG_0107.jpg

IMG_0105.jpg


Well I've filled it up and see what happened overnight. will be running high CO2 for the next few weeks with the 150W MH at 30cm height. Hopefully things will be alright... I will also be changing the water every 2-3 days to avoid algae growth. Sounds like its going to be hard work for a few weeks...Sigh.
 
Re: 3 feet tank now planted and scaped! Update!

Hi Daniel
Great job with the planting :thumbup: ....the smaller lighter coloured stone to the right is clashing with the others. I would remove it...... or place somewhere more inconspicuous.
That would give you more of a colour balance....just my thoughts no offence intended.
Regards
hoggie
 
Back
Top