429 dutch

[Flaviu Zapartan]

I will start a new journal for my new dutch project. I hope I can adequately add photos directly from my phone.
Intro.
130x60x55cm tank 429l 10mm optiwhite glass, rimmles
White cabinet dyi.
80 liters of substrate 64 scapers soil, rest aquaponics peables in bags for stabilazing soil.
Filtration - a lot:
Eheim 2080 with 12l substrat pro
Jbl 1901 with pumice
Jbl 1501 as a prefilter for the previous one with half sponge and half pumice
3 sun-sun 603a prefilters canisters (prefilters for eheim and co2 reactor)
8x54w blau fixture with mixed t4 bulbs.
3x7kg co2 tubes, so i wont get out of co2 , ph controler curently set at 5,5 but i dont remember how was it set 3 month ago.
2kh 2-3gh tap water (but no magnesium)
Ferts are now 40g mgso4 each time i do a 50% water change (weekly, but some times, 2 changes a week)
macro so i can maintain 10ppm no3, >15ppm K, >1ppm po4
micro different sources fe between 0,6-0,8 ppm
Sorry for the poar quality pictures!

 

[Flaviu Zapartan]

 

[Flaviu Zapartan]

And day one after i planted and the water cleared out! my strategy was to go with a big plant mass (from my small dutch 85 liters and from friends)

 

[Flaviu Zapartan]

It was a very bumpy ride for the last 3 months. First of all my red plants lost their color beacause i started with a low light regime (4 bulbs 6 hours 30cm from the water surface), now all my 8 bulbs are running for 2 fotoperiods of 7 hours but not at the same time. First i start 4 bulbs then after a hour other 4 bulbs so full blast is only for 5 hours a day, at 20 cm from the water). Then i had some deficits, some problems with the plants. It was much harder to find the right co2 injection rate so i had few small bba spot on some plants. One of the bigest problem was the KH. I had a kh of 2 for my tap water source, however in the tank KH kept rising to 4. First i put the blame on the aquaponic pebles, i removed all the bags and i added new scapers soil 12 liters. It was a PITA proces. Lot of trimings ware required to keep it in shape. My toninas ware very bad beacause of high KH. Lately i removed all my substrat pro (12 liters) from my eheim filter and i replaced with siphorax, micromec and pummice. After that my KH dosent rise so much. It's soon to tell but i think my kh issue is gone now, toninas and syngonanthus are recovering. Had some issues with the co2 lost and how it was spread in the tank. Now i have 2 internal diffuzers. I hope it will recover soon after all this workups!

 

[Flaviu Zapartan]

Here are some pictures taken at the beggining of the month:
Click for better resolution.

 

[Angus]

Nice eriocaulon flaviu, the tank looks super!

 

[rjcox0071]

Wow nice tank. What lights you got in there?

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

 

[Flaviu Zapartan]

I have a blau fixture. Mixed bulbs combination not such lumen heavy but rather for plant growth and plant color reflection.

 

[Flaviu Zapartan]

Happy moment. Arrival of pantanal Click for better rezolution.

 

[Flaviu Zapartan]

1. My retarded sae love to eat my pantanal. I have to catch them and give away. I kind of destabilized when i change the filter media. Now i have white water

 

[Flaviu Zapartan]

How can i avoid growing nesaea crassicaulis so curly. You can see ammania gracilis has a normal shape leaves. I dont think is a calcium related issue since i have 9-10 gh. Co2 due to overcrowed maybe? But i have no other signs with other co2 lovers plant... when i saw this plant in other tank, Tom Barr,s for instance, i never notice this issue. My ludwigia peruensis has now a curly growth also. Is there the posibility of sulfur toxicity? (I add planty mgso4, k2so4). O am happy with the tank overall! Now my kh is 2 finaly!

 

[Flaviu Zapartan]

This is how it looks now.

 

[MJF90]

Great colours!

 

[Tim Harrison]

Looking great

 

[DanielC03]

How can i avoid growing nesaea crassicaulis so curly.

How did you correct it?

 

[Flaviu Zapartan]

How did you correct it?

I dident corect it entirely. Only partialy. I think i had a little disturbance by dosing gh boster, even if it was a tiny quantity (from gh 8 to gh 9). Now after 2 water changes looks better. But it could be lot of other factors. To many traces ? To big biomass ? (Now i dose less micro and i have less plants)
Maybe by dosing gh booster i had changed one limiting factor (Liebig`s law) and i activeted another 1 that manifest by curling the plants? Dunno... i am happy is better now. Unfortunaty this kind of disturbance occur often in my tanks because i fool around with ferts alot. I allways try to improve and test new things...

 

[Flaviu Zapartan]

New light. Better reflection on purple planta.

 

[Flaviu Zapartan]

Click pictures for details pls! sorry for my bad phone camera.
I noticed some small spots of bbs on some plants so i added more co2. ph target now is 5,4 it was 5,6 until now. The problem is after i rise the co2 level some plants show me some deficit. What you think it is? I guess iron since i use DTPA maybe the new ph is too low for this kind of iron. Other micro? Have i activated some other limiting factor by the Liebig's law? i dont think is a macro since i have nutritive soil 100liters and my macro are: 15-20 no3, 2 po4, 6-8 mg, k over 45 via JBL test.

Prior to this i had some pale interveins, leaves which i thought it was Mg deficit. I add 30-40 mg epson salt at each water change because i have 1ppm Mg in my tap water.
I am happy with the plant growt and look. Only pantanal is in poar sape and growth.

What you think of this?

 

[Aqua360]

superb colouration!

 

[TheAquascaper]

Great colours in there