There's been lots of changes mostly in response to catastrophe, just had no enthusiasm to take pictures and share the progress. Watching a tank go from thriving to meltdown after rinsing and reusing the Fluval Stratum in the main tank was heart wrenching, the unipac substrate (supposed neutral) that went into replace it also shoved out KH until it reached 9, this was after me deciding to change routine to add some KH to bring it up to 4 (knowing that it depletes in a system that doesn't add any except at water change). The extra KH decision was to get more precise readings from the pH controller rather than just get used to it working in an imprecise range due to low conductivity, (climbing KH gives you no warning in the absence of fish when your drop checker is Yellow that CO₂ is through the roof and climbing in tandem with KH).
The stem plants and crypts just couldn't cope with the changing conditions, the buce didn't do much as they were in a state of decline anyway at this point (the tank gut was to concentrate on helping the Buce thrive). Any plants that survived this (apart from the Buce as they came from there to get a good cleaning from BBA build up, they were now glued to bogwood and immovable) went into the shrimp tank which was getting more light than the main tank after I turned the lights down (from 55% in 200% down to 20% of 200%, gone from using 35% and 20% on both emitters loops using ND1500 tile to one emitter loop and 20%) the light drop in the main tank came day before I tested KH and found it close to 12+.
Crypts rescued into the shrimp tank are thriving again (took a while to recover), S.Repens although recovered is in a state of suspended animation due to the low light, D.Diandra growing better than I saw it in the main tank under CO₂ and EI. The shrimp tank gets no added ferts, maybe a drop of trace once or twice a month, all other ferts are produced by the ever increasing amounts of cherry shrimp and ever decreasing numbers of CRS (no idea as to cause of loss of the entirety of my hybrid Crystals, I have 4 left in the tank and they are all CRS tiger toothed markings, all the CBS are gone, think it was an introduced pathogen that has wiped them out (started in the Anubia walled tank and continued once CBS offspring and CRS offspring were transferred to the other shrimp tank), got one Crystal breeding cycle in that tank then they just went one after the other, Rilli and Cherry shrimp continued to multiply healthily along with the snails, to where ive just added a Dwarf Puffer as I am sick of picking 50+ snails out a week. Thought there might be a water quality issue but the tank thrives with Cyclopia and Ostracods. Thought it may be a Planarian issue but turned out not to be the case, I have zero worms in the substrate after two healthy doses of Fenbendazole (I think I underdosed first time) Crystal deaths didn't abate, the 4 left I think are the strongest Genetically (one is an original offspring of my first brood, the other three were the last cycle bred in the shrimp tank, all hybrids wiped out. The tank is sponge filtered, water column wobbles more than it flows. Fissidens on the mesh in the shrimp tank is still growing but not at the rate it did when under CO₂. Anubias saved from walled tank have been free floated in the shrimp tank along with C.Balansae and a bunch of Lilaeopsis, the Alternanthera that was stem tops cut from my windowsill box grow in the shrimp tank, it's very reddy brown, nice growth still living.
Can't get anything to thrive in the main tank except for a couple of Motleyana Buce, some Java Fern and the Monoselenium that is growing on my Bogwood (quadrupled in size and then some, even emerged growth was taken and submerged and that's still thriving). Some Fissidens I chucked in there all shredded up and squished into the Bogwood is sprouting up in a few places.
The Buces are suffering (growing, melting, growing and meting again) and I don't know what to do to turn things around, it partly coincided with a 50% wipeout of the Anubias in the walled tank (partly due to declining light levels from emerged leaf growth), roots going brown and mushy, but they were already suffering decaying stems before they were transferred to the Anubia walled tank just before I did the main tank gut, it was around the same time I noticed a smattering of very tiny nematodes on the glass in a cluster, there was no substrate in this tank at that time due to me clearing out everything after the hybrids crystal shrimp were dying like flies, tried to rescue them by transferring remaining hybrids to other shrimp tank, they survived for one more round of breeding and then they just disappeared one by one. All the fish that were in the main tank ended up in the Walled tank before the main tank was gutted, the walled tank was repurposed to try and get the emperors to breed without the glow lights present, the male emperor just bullied the female to the point I thought she was not going to make it as he wouldn't let her feed when I added food, just chased her back behind the Anubias, putting the glowlights in there with the emperors just gave the male some other fish to play the territory game with. Catastrophic Anubia melt coincided with the extra bioload (there was a larger bio load in there when it was just shrimp).
All the fish ended up in the tank I was going to use for the Buddha mask I made which I noted in a post previously above and they remain there today.
Tank gut (done because BBA was getting out of hand), the Buces were placed into the shrimp tank, same parameters as the main tank, nearly, just no CO₂ and no EI, light much lower, needed a way for them to be picked clean, can't just go removing affected leaves or none will be left.
I had to kill the BBA with fire first before the shrimps would touch it, not really fire just a squirt of H₂O₂.
Here's the tank empty waiting for it to be rescaped.
Here's it all back in the tank, Buces glued to Bogwood, Fluval Stratum rinsed of fine silted debris.
Here's the shrimp tank and the main tank side by side shot to show apparent brightness after gut.
Replanted the S.Repens tops, Anubia on the left of the Bogwood not looking too good.
Here's a top down view.
Here's the extent of the Monoselenium attached to my Bogwood at the time the KH was climbing, Anubia looks sickly, the flowering Buces were bought from MA and I think are Motleyana variety, they look pretty now but will be a different story in a week or two.
The Dropchecker was this colour.
This is the last pic of the tank taken as the lights were on the ramp down so it's really high ISO and very noisy, quite happy they way the look of the Buce Rescue tank turned out, shame it all went to s***.
Here's what the Anubia walled tank looked like, with the fish in it, would have just been the Emperors but as I said the Male couldn't handle being in a relationship and hassled the female near to death (her fins were bitten ragged). Looks nice but the tips of the lower leaves are browning (not really seen in pic), despite me giving ferts, the lower leaves and roots (in the lower shaded portions of the tank) are about to go full blown Autumnal.
This is what the growth above the waterline looks like in this tank.
I constructed this to allow above waterline growth but keep the humidity up in the tank, see the liverwort growing up the side of the wall, this is the same plant as what is attached to my Bogwood in the main tank, except it's growing out of water. Gutter guard and cable ties do come in handy, the black walls are made of HobbyCraft FabFoam pieces, the black splodges on the corner stabilising brackets are Sugru to allow a grippy fit for some Perspex that sits on top keeping moisture in, there is a slight gap when it's on to allow some evaporation.
Group shot before calamity!
It's at this point I'm suspecting that things are not well with the tank, there are two dropcheckers in the tank, should have near yellow but it's not, it's green, this tells me I'm not getting enough CO₂ into the tank (haven't checked the KH yet, no reason to suspect it's anything but wonky CO₂ but really what's happening is that the KH is rising and my injection rate isn't keeping up).
You'll note that I've got a small atomiser in tank and I'm keeping an eye on the lower Dropchecker, you may also have noticed that my inlet configuration has changed from the O-Jet to having a spray bar stuck on the end, I've changed from using the pH controller to off gassing with air to controlling the CO₂ solenoid directly (before CO₂ was on for the whole injection period, solenoid only tripped twice in 24hrs, it's now working at an increased rate at one to two injection periods per hour).
So I went investigating in the cabinet and discover the Inline in this state!
You can see in the next pic that I've discovered the source of my issues and my attempt to rectify it.
Say goodbye to the Hyperactive substrate! Hello glass bottom!
You'll also note that the Anubia has completely removed itself from the Bogwood and has left the tank (I just sucked up the debris).
In the next pic, which is taken a while after suffering with a glass bottom and the Bucephalandras still not recovering (light is still down at 20% using only one emitter ring on the TMC 1500ND), I thought maybe too much light is being reflected around like a mirror box so I put in some Unipac Gravel mixed with some Dennerle black shrimp sand, read it was all supposed to be neutral but the Unipac isn't, I'll not find this out until later when I decide to do a water change after 8 weeks of reduced ferts (suspecting ferts doing in the Buce), there are signs of new growth after the leaves had stopped melting (haven't shown Buce melt yet because by the time it came after discovering the above issues I was well fed up)
This next picture is very recent, look at the devestation wrought on the Buce on the front Bogwood in comparison to after it had all been planted up. Java Fern looks great though, the Motleyana Buces are recovering enough that one decided to flower, the others just keeping putting out new growth only for it to melt.
Note the DIY surface skimmer in the background made out of PVC pipe and a Nano aquarium pump inverted and cable tied together with half a Marigold glove, looks like crap but it's working, I did this because surface scum was an issue changing from the lily outlet and 24/7 airstone to a spraybar, like not just a little problem but a really bad one, last thing you want with having KH and CO₂ climbing is for it to be trapped under a crust preventing it leaving and preventing O₂ coming in from the atmosphere).
Can you see the growth in the non-CO₂ non EI shrimp tank after 4 months, no algae in there (except one tiny tuft of BBA on the sponge filter except it's verdant green and not the usual black type I have everywhere else).
In this pic you can clearly see the Buces are suffering, the algae covered leaves cannot be removed as each plant has one of them and this keeps the plant going when the new growth melts, grows, melts, grows and melts again, the one on the left has just melted after recovering nicely for a while.
At this point I've changed out my ferts to all in one after discovering a dosing pump failure (or I forgot to turn it back on after suspecting nitrates were my Buce issues and then forgetting I had done so, depression will do that to a person). Anyway the Buce new growth all promptly melted the day after I put the Macro back on, the Micro was already running at a reduced dose (1/5 EI). Totally frustrating!
But look at the Monoselenium, look where it's at now!
The Motleyana recovered and flowered!
This is what a stem of Didiplis Diandra did when it was taken from the shrimp tank and put in the main tank to see what a soft stem would do in the main tank under the current conditions.
The above growth is after one week, in gravel at 1/5 EI and under a 1500ND tile set to 70% (one emitter set, which is still brighter than it's ever been). That's gravel growth, it's just erupted at the roots. What did it do up top?
Split in two is what it did and within one day, it's also going red which is what I've never been able to do before. It's staying green and single stemmed in the shrimp tank, see here behind Thomas the Tank Engine (he is just a little puffer after all!).
He's going to have to get fat on Cyclopia and Ostrocods before he can fit a snail in his gob, he's not interested in the eggs on the glass and he's about half the size of the largest shrimp in the tank so he better keep on his toes and not let them mug him! Shrimp fry are going to have to get good at hiding out in the mosses!
There you go, that's the update, probably forgot to mention loads of other things but so much has happened it's all a bit of a blur.
Enjoy the post!