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Bridge O'er Blackened Water (to Clearwater)
- Thread starter Courtneybst
- Start date
Courtneybst
Member
Change of Plan
I was planning to do a full 3 week dark start with the fresh soil to make for a smooth start but life and nature had other plans!
I was taking plants from the holding bucket several days ago to visualise where they would go and a cherry shrimp managed to stow away on some Microsorum and ended up escaping into the cycling tank. The temperature is about 4 degrees different, all the water parameters are different and not the mention the 5+ppm of ammonia and yet somehow this sucker survived (and still is!). This made me think...if a shrimp can survive then plants should be fine?!
Well we'll find out soon since I packed out the tank with plants and got the process going. I did a 95% water change, planted it to high hell and threw in some floaters for good measure. It's nice to see some green in there, shall we place bets on them melting into oblivion? 😅
I never really know where to go with lighting so I've started with 45% intensity for 6 hours and see how we go. So far I've got:
Micranthemum tweediei
Littorella uniflora
Cryptocoryne parva
Cryptocoryne albida 'Brown'
Eriocaulon cinerum
Microsorum sp. 'Needle Leaf'
Phyllanthus fluitans
Planning to add some Susswassertang and Anubias once things are more settled.
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Courtneybst
Member
Eyes Peeled
I made an interesting observation yesterday which was a reminder that knowledge in this hobby can always be refreshed and buffed.
I knew using the fresh aquasoil would kick out some ammonia and so I planned to dark start the tank for 3 weeks whilst I focused on my 120P.
At this point the lone shrimp was living in there grazing away having a grand old time, yet the ammonia or ammonium was still reading high. I couldn't understand why... I was using mature filter media, plants from an existing setup and floating plants and still getting a reading so I assumed it was down to the pH and low KH.
I was pushing some floating plants around and I noticed the water was quite chilly. Tested it and it was 15c! On a nice day the water sits at 18-20 but I forgot we're in winter during an energy crisis and so the room is much colder than usual. I decided to put a heater on and set it to 22c. Within an hour of doing so, the Monte Carlo started pearling. Later in the day I thought; if respiration is very clearly taking place, some ammonia must be getting absorbed? Low and behold the ammonia was now 0 in just a matter of hours. The penny dropped that the cold temperatures must have been significantly slowing or stalling the metabolic processes and all it needed was a bit of toastiness and instant cycle.
I'll leave it a little while still but I think this means the shrimp can go back!
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That is pretty awesome. I noticed a similar observation. I know it makes absolute sense: The heater in my ADA 60F died and the water was down to 15-16C. I had a small tank (7-8 gal 60F) with 12 Asian rummynose, 1 otoconculus and some shrimp + 2 sae from an older fully cycled 60p with its cycled filter. However, the fish started slowly dying due to parasites and in general, weren't showing any interest in food. Despite lower light levels, I was still getting tons of stag horn algae and BBA. When I realized the submersible heater was completely dead, I replaced it with an inline hydor heater and set the tank to 70F. The tank has steadily made a full recovery, plants are growing much better, staghorn is not growing as much anymore and the algae-ridden rocks have been cleaned completely (thanks to H2O2 and algae eaters). Only after this experience I realized that It makes absolute sense that plants and animals have an optimum temperature range and perhaps I was far too low for the plants to effectively grow and metabolize the inputs, and perhaps some ammonia spikes were being created by the organic matter (fish food etc) which led to the boom in staghorn.
Courtneybst
Member
I don't know why this didn't occur to me either lol, but now we'll know for next time!
How is the tank now?
It's doing really well (imo)..thanks!. I think it has reached a good balance. I posted the entire journal yesterday. See the 60F link in my sig below.
Courtneybst
Member
Sustained
Just a little update on the shrimp tank. The shrimp were driving me nuts by pulling out the Monte Carlo and every day I'd be throwing bits out or trying to replant them. It seems that they were eating the roots or something on the roots. I eventually gave up and replaced it with Eleocharis acicularis 'mini', which has been much more resilient to their antics.
I also added Vallisneria nana in the background which I'm hoping will grow in thickly and then I can remove the Microsorum. I love how thin it is, it really reminds me of Cyperus helferi but thinner! Hopefully it doesn't mind the soft water too much.
Interestingly, the lights are running at 80% and the tank seems to be ok with it, even gets direct sunlight when we actually have sunlight... Having an army of shrimp definitely helps with any potential algae though.
I have however noticed a bit of a 'hot spot' where the hairgrass is growing really dense (directly under the centre of the light), and the sides are thin. It reminded me that I had a similar issue when I ran this light on my old shrimp tank. It seems it's more suited to tanks up to 30cm in my opinion, if even plant growth is a concern. So I'm going to try using a candy bar style light from Twinstar and see how it goes.
I'm starting to see lots of babies popping up now! Red Crystals, Black Crystals and Cherry shrimp alike. The tank is buzzing with activity and I love it. Personally, I find it much more enjoyable than the previous botanical setup. I can see the shrimp, monitor their health, feed them better and they are actively breeding so what more can I ask for.
I'm also really enjoying the simplicity of this setup. Just a light, heater and small hang on the back filter. No pipework, no CO2, no elaborate dosing machines - just a cute little tank.
(I had a little play with the editing imagining if the rocks looked grey. It would be pretty cool!)
Beautiful little tank 😃
Id love to know how you get on with the Vallisneria, theres so much conflicting advice out there on whether or not it does ok in soft water. Like a lot of people say it wont but then theres always a few that have experience to the contrary 🤔 Id like to try some in my tank if I could keep it under control
I know I did for sure.
But the effortlessness of a low tech tank just cannot be beat. Its really so much more relaxing to keep. Low tech is absolutely not an inferior method even if it could seem that way sometimes.
I recently set up a quarantine tank, no frills just a light bulb, a hob filter and a load of plant cuttings. I find myself spending a lot of time sitting with it, just because of the serenity. With the high tech tank when I try to relax with it, theres always "oh I should clean that, or oh I need to fix this". So yeah heres a letter of recommendation for the many qualities of low tech.
Id love to know how you get on with the Vallisneria, theres so much conflicting advice out there on whether or not it does ok in soft water. Like a lot of people say it wont but then theres always a few that have experience to the contrary 🤔 Id like to try some in my tank if I could keep it under control
This part really doesnt get enough recognition in the hobby imo. A lot of people who run low tech are looking over at the CO2 injected "pastures" and thinking "oh, how green it looks, I wish I had that".
I know I did for sure.
But the effortlessness of a low tech tank just cannot be beat. Its really so much more relaxing to keep. Low tech is absolutely not an inferior method even if it could seem that way sometimes.
I recently set up a quarantine tank, no frills just a light bulb, a hob filter and a load of plant cuttings. I find myself spending a lot of time sitting with it, just because of the serenity. With the high tech tank when I try to relax with it, theres always "oh I should clean that, or oh I need to fix this". So yeah heres a letter of recommendation for the many qualities of low tech.
Courtneybst
Member
Thanks very much!
I'll let you know for sure. It's been in there a few weeks and it hasn't died! It's a bit hard to see it properly because the Microsorum is in the way. Maybe I should remove the Microsorum so it has room and light to grow better, especially once the new light comes. Do you think that's a good idea?
Also if it helps the TDS is about 180, KH 0, GH 5-6. Sometimes just saying 'soft water' is not helpful 😂.
It's true. With a bit more thought and preparation you can absolutely make a beautiful low energy tank that rivals any high energy setup.
I have had low energy tanks with hard water in the past and it can still look beautiful but does still create it's own challenges. Definitely doable though! Only my smaller tanks are low energy because I'm already on the back foot with crappy tap water. But when the tank volume is so small I can easily use RO and I have to say it makes a marked difference.
Honestly, if I had 'soft water' coming out of my tap, ALL my tanks would be low energy.
This.
Courtneybst
Member
I changed the lights on this tank to a Twinstar 450C III to get better light spread for the plants.
This is the first time I've ever used a Twinstar light and I can't tell if I'm overly accustomed to the coolness of Chihiros lights or these lights are overly warm. It's even changed the way my blue wall looks! Are they all like this? Or does the colour temperature vary by model? This photo is straight out of the camera with no edits (it's also an old camera so there's very little, if any, computational edits going on). It's interesting because they don't appear warm over other tanks I've seen in photos and videos, unless they're being edited.
Regardless, the plants appear to prefer it in the first few days as there's some light pearling action which wasn't happening before. It's also shone a light on the health of my plants and I wonder if their colour was being artificially 'greened' by the Chihiros. They look a little bit pale but we'll see how they look after being under the twinstar for a while.
I've also moved the filter and heater to accommodate the light and create a slightly cleaner look. I like the Chihiros but I also quite like the boxy look the twinstar provides. It reminds me of my Edible Scape...
Wookii
Member
It’s been my experience that an overly yellow cast is always a feature of lights using white LED’s, some worse than others depending on how many warm white LED’s they have vs cool white.
Courtneybst
Member
It says that it's using 30 white LED and 30 RGB which is quite a high white ratio, which explains it. Doesn't say whether it's warm or cool though.
