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"Dutch something or the other" 120 Gal

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The wet/dry sump maintains, consistently among 6 reps'(not just one single tank), 1-2 ppm's higher O2. Consider the average 100% at the temps I have are roughly 7 to maybe 7.6 ppm.
The canister filters never once hit those 100% maxima except during the latter parts of the day.

1 to 2 ppm higher is HUGE when you are only at 7 ppm.
That's 14 to 15% to over 28% higher O2.

Note, this difference is independent of time of day, it's stable and even no matter what time the reading was taken vs the same exact time using the canister.
There are few reasons for this: lower BOD, surface skimming reduces the film layer, thereby increasing Fick's 1st law of diffusion, likely by a large margin, stable rates of degassing and less CO2 build up.
If you have a "sealed cap" on the water's surface and you add even just a little bit more CO2, this can build up and not diffusion much out. If you did this with a wet/dry skimmed system, the CO2 can diffuse out better, thus reduce the chance of a build up to the point of toxic levels for livestock.

You will waste more gas, but you get more O2 and a healthier tank, better plant growth, higher ppm of CO2 that are more stable.

Say the surface film changes, and it gets thicker for some reason: maybe the temp increases or the plants did poorly for a week etc,and you get more scum.
Does this change the degassing and increases the build up in the water of CO2?
Yes.

Now you can go the other way, degas too much and never be able to add enough CO2.
Like Goldilocks, too much, just right and too little.

So you need to know which one you want and how/what will get you there.
Or you can simply add a few tiny tetras and take the photo shoot and not worry about the fish.

I rarely see the top 20 ADA scapes more than once and with the same fish. I rarely see much fish at all. Now I love plants, but I weigh fish keeping on equal terms.
 
Did a little trim and rearrangement for the red panantal, I might switch it with some other plant's location to get better color dynamics across the view.
Will add the Hydrocotyle later this week in the corner, I'd wanted some mini riccia and I have some, but it's more trouble and the pennywort does the job easily.
I'd add the White Anubius but it sort of gets lost and is such a $$$ plant, I am growing it out emergent.
 
Once you get riccia in a tank, you'll never get it out completely. I've had it re-emerging after a rescape even. I'd still like to try and all-riccia scape one day though. At least it can't infect other plants when there ain't any other plants.

Great tank as always. But I do wonder when you'll stop tinkering with it and let the stems get all bushy dutch style :) :)
 
Due to the shallow depth, the tank rarely is allowed to get too overgrown or bushy.

I wish the tank was maybe 22" tall, even 24"(60cm) tall really.

Then I could make the wall effects with the rows.

I have new tanks coming for when we move, so there might be a few like that on the table.

I get much taller than this tank, I'll have to go to 3/4" glass, roughly 19mm.

13 mm now.
 
I did a fair amount of trimming.
The Red mac looks nice after a good trim though.
Note the MC growing in pretty fast.
I hacked the mini butterfly in the back section, I may pull that plant into a row spot at some point.
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I am making a post pruning filter for this and some other tanks, basically a rigid hang on pair of U shaped hooks with a big old powerhead, then a 45cm x 10 cm filter cartridge with a carbon and 5 micron cheap disposable.
This should help after a few hours remove the fines from ADA AS.
 
A few more trims and another 2 weeks or so, it'll be looking decent. the MC will grow in pretty nicely by then, but not piled too much on itself.
I figured out a few ways to beat the UG back without having to trim it.
Red pantanal(likely 2 more times or more in the next 2 weeks) and the Tonina need trimmed. Red mac also next week sometime.
Background plants are starting to bounce back nicely after the last trim.
Top view:
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This is a pic right before the dimmer controller turns off the lights, you can see the Botia swimming.
I really like that function on the ATI lights.







Couch view. Note the difference in the downoi's growth if you scroll back three weeks ago.
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Tom, are you shooting with all the tubes on 100%? As I see the unit is 30-40cm above the water?
Still a lot of power if you use all the tubes with ATI.

If yo do so, do you dose more ferts to this tank? In your post above seems like CO2 is up to the light. Wondering if you choosen the super high light more CO2 more ferts route to produce plants trimming cycle quicker. :)
 
viktorlantos said:
Tom, are you shooting with all the tubes on 100%? As I see the unit is 30-40cm above the water?
Still a lot of power if you use all the tubes with ATI.

If yo do so, do you dose more ferts to this tank? In your post above seems like CO2 is up to the light. Wondering if you choosen the super high light more CO2 more ferts route to produce plants trimming cycle quicker. :)
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No, this is at the evening when the plants are pearling like mad, note, there is a lot of current in the tank.
At 100%, the lights wash out all the colors and the various bulbs on this tank can make some colors look weird, but mostly due to the pearling, 30 inches front back depth, but the light is only 18" wide, you get an intense amount of reflection from the pearling.
Add some trimming and mucking around in the sediment, well...........pics look hazy. In person, no one says this.

14-16", same as ADA with their Metal Halides pretty much for height above the tank. Some tanks might go to 30cm, others might be 45-50cm. Depends.

This tank is fairly standard EI with more PO4/traces. The high light is less for the rates of growth. I like to have a range of light and growth rates. This tank is the weedy high speed tank. I have a mid and then a low level tank and then a reef I'm starting again.
So one of each type. The plants are also a mix of fast and slower growers, or at least shorter growing plants. I plan on redoing the tank and taking all the plants out and redoing the hardscape well, but the same general idea. It'll take me a day or two, so the plants will be fine, but I'll let the tank fill out in this form for another 2-3 weeks, then maybe take a decent pic or video or both.

I dose 30ppm a week NO3, but I do this for most tanks, then about 10 ppm of PO4, then 2-3 ppm of Fe as CMS+DTPA Fe mix. K+ is likely in the 40+ PPM ranges.
Tap water is nice here: KH is about 20 ppm, GH is about 35 ppm. I add 1-2 degrees of GH with GH booster.
I dose this same amount to my 180 Gallon which uses about 30% less light and is another 6 inches deeper, so the light is about 50% less in that tank overall.
My Buce tank has only 1/3 of this, but that's pretty bright for a Buce tank, but no issues so far, a lot of shrimp and algae eaters, good consistent care is the key.
I flush the sump and sponge out once every 304 months.
CO2 is around 45-50 ppm.

I'll run a 5 micron water filter and large powerhead combo to polish the water coming up.
 
Edvet said:
What do you use to polish the water? I used to have a Vortex diatom filter but i broke it and it's hard to find those in europe.
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Use a water filter canister, say a 10cm x 50cm size water cartridge(5 micron carbon block etc or 5 to maybe 50 micron sediment) and just soem PVC pipe and attach a large powerhead to push the water through.
 
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