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First Planted Trigon 190 fun n games at day 21

Carpman

Carpman

Member
Joined
5 Sep 2016
Messages
329
Location
London
Forgive me, I debated doing a journal at the begginning of my journey but shied away from it for fear of failure and embarrassement, I'll try and recoil all as I try and bring you up to date.

After we completed decorating our front room our current 60ltr community tank didn't really have a anywhere it could go but we did have a vacant corner, my friend has a corner tank for his Plecos and thought that would fit the bill perfectly. So the seed was planted if you pardon the pun, lets get holiday out of the way and I'll start looking on return. So I rushed in head on after finishing our holiday and bought a used Juwel Trigon 190, (Big thanks to everyone that has got them lovely pictures of their tanks on the internet ;) ) before really know anything about a planted tanks.
Now my journey has started, I have a tank what else do I need after brief research on web I need good pump, Co2, aquascaping stuff trees, rocks and soil, time to start shopping and make some purchases with my lack of knowledge.

Eheim 4+ pro 350. Didn't know about the 10x capacity for flow at the time.
Dragon stone about 20kgs
Tree, saw it on ebay and thought that would look nice.
ADA soil and powder, selected after research on best soils for planted tank.
Art Co2 kit
2kg fire extinguisher
I have the what I think is the necessary supplies!

Time to google other folks planted tanks for ideas not as many Trigon 190 I wander why during this search I find out there is a tank genre/style uh-oh but I like them all ! Decision time, I favoured the natural style.


My first was to step is play with the rocks, tree and garden soil for my own design so I set about putting a couple of mdf boards together and draw rough tank shape. That didn’t work because you can’t build up the soil, ok add some wood the around the rear.

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Still not happy, need to be able to move this about to check views and I can’t leave it in the garden. Time for a re-think I’ll have to build a proper mock tank, I have plenty of wood and some old sheets of acrylic.

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Since the mock tank is built I could now gauge how much soil I needed as I was not confident in the amount I had bought (18ltrs of soil + 4ltrs of powder) with this in mind, I used 2 buckets each with 9ltrs in.

Here are a few of the different layouts I tried. To get the full effect, I used some old sand I had left over from my other tank.

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Still playing after seeing some terraced tanks, I came up with this one but not totally happy feeling it could be better

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So, I continued to play, this has proved to be harder than it looks or should that be harder than the pro’s make it look. After messing around for about 4 wks. I finally settled on this 1 and the Boss lady likes it.

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Minus the rock on the far left or the centre rear.

During all the above aqua scaping / design (messing around), I set about setting up the tank for trial running. I expected this to be complicated as I have never used any of this kit before but to my surprise it was very straight forward and not complex at all. The hardest thing about setting up was keeping everything tidy and working out where everything would go in the unit it's not the biggest space in the world.

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The redmoor root has proved to be a pain because of its size, the only place big enough for it to be totally submerged for soaking was in the tank and it took 3 weeks before it reached neutral buoyancy. Please excuse pic using night light, forgot to take 1 during daylight hours. Oh, yeah during the soaking period I did the fishless cycling saving time further down the road.

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Now we are getting to the serious stuff the Plants, because this is my first go at a proper planted tank I used the Tropica website to choose easy to care for plants.

The foreground would be -
Monte Carlo
Staurogyne repens
Alternanthera reineckii mini to break up the green.
Anubias golden nana for a splash of added colour in the rocks.

The middle –
Hellanthium tenellum green replaced with Juncus repens
Microsorum pteropus aka java fern
Sagittaria subulata
Cryptocoryne wendtii tropica
Hottonia palustris. on order

Around the rear-
Echinodorus cordifolius fluitans replaced with barthii
Limnophila hippuridoides still to order
Echinodorus rose
Nymphoides hydrophylla taiwan

For the tree, I used Java and Christmas mosses.

The above list was chosen for their texture and colour apart from 2/3 they have low Co2 and Lighting demand. This brings me nicely onto my next issue that came up which is lighting.


As a newbie. I have read about the lighting strength, my current system 2 x 28w T5’s (NO’s I think the HO’s are the 54w version) from what I can gather this puts me in the low light category especially as tank is 60cm deep. I hope to have boosted this to low/medium by adding 2 reflectors. In all honesty, I still do not know the strength of my system.

The pictures below show the difference between not using reflectors 1 and using 2

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As mention this tank was bought used so forgive the condition, if I get this trial run/ first attempt right then this will be replaced with a new tank in time. I would love to know what the prior owner used to clean it with though (scouring pad or something similar).
Those of you who have more experience than me (most of you if not all) will notice the bba, I'm bad from what I have read this was caused by me because 10 days ago I turned off the Co2 and lighting didn't see the point of it being on, trials were done... When I drain tank down for the planting I will remove the wood and give it a good scrubbing, I will also be attaching some form of weight to steady it in the tank (if you brush it with you hand it moves quite freely)
 
It’s time to order the plants. I’m ordering from Aquarium Gardens with a few exceptions they had nearly all my plants in stock a few were replaced with something similar (by me), I ordered last Thurs to be delivered Friday. My plan was to plant them Saturday but that didn't happen because I decided it would be easier to do it when everyone was in bed so I did it early hours Saturday thinking it would only take a few hours' boy was I wrong I started at 00:30 and finished at dare I say it 07:00 while the tank was filling I dosed off a few times waking up and thinking phew it didn't over flow, after it had filled rather than take photos I went to bed. The photos below were taken on the Sunday the last photo shows movement at front and rear

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Since planting, my photo period is 5hrs Co2 comes on/off 1hr before the lights approx 2bps, feeding with 2mls of TNC complete daily, the Echinodorus Rose keeps floating up, the Staurogyne Repens and Alternanthera Reineckii ''Mini' are growing nicely.
I have noticed that the bba starting to creep back in the same location as before, 50% water change done Tues.
Currently not happy with the mid ground its gives me the impression of a jungle/mess. Placed order tonight for the missing plants Limnophila Hippuridoides and Hottonia palustris so will drain tank down again this weekend to plant them and try and tidy things up a bit.
 
Found out today that my order from Greenmachine is out of stock so I will have to wait another week before receiving my plants. I have googled and looked every where trying to source them, their like flipping gold dust.
 
I know their are folks here that have played around with the flow in Trigon 190/350's. I think the flow is going to be an issue for me, I can see minimal plant movement on left side of tank beneath the spray bar. I have ordered a Hydor nano evolution 2200 in the hope to correct this giving me an extra 2200lph therefore putiing me in excess of the 10x flow. My thoughts on position would to place it between end of spray and front corner of the tank keeping flow in the same direction or on opposite side (mid point) pointing at about 45°.
My question is this best position for the nano ?
 
Hi

I added an extra spray bar and arranged like so

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/attachments/2016-11-11-17-31-36-jpg.92304/
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I have checked carefully and I think I have movement everywhere

John B
 
Day 7 Signs of growth.

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Had a tidy up and kept some room for the awaited plants. I may have inadvertantly shot myself in the foot though, the tank was cycled prior to planting. Before planting I drained tank down to a minimum (5%) then refilling as norm, 50% change during the week and again on Sat I drained it down again for more palnting, tidy up and to finish the aquascaping.
Will I have to re-cycling the tank ?
 
REDSTEVEO said:
Not if your filters have been running with warm cycled tank water in order for the de-nitrifying bacteria to build up in the filter media.

Cracking job on the planting and layout, if that's your first go at it well done to you!

Steve
Click to expand...
Thanks @REDSTEVEO this is my first time.
Unfortunatley the only cycled water was what was left in tank and filter, it was refilled from shower with warm water and dechlorinated in the tank.
 
REDSTEVEO said:
As long as you have no plans to fill it full of fish and food in one go the filter will soon catch up again, it'll be fine.;)
Click to expand...
No fish going in for 2 weeks to allow plants 3 weeks to get established. I am thinking about adding some (10) shrimp this weekend to combat some bba.

I must remember not to drain tank anymore slap my wrist if i do, 50% from now on
 
95% water change on friday, This evenings test results taken about 1hrs after photo period
Amonia 0
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from the Tap No³ 40, No² 0.25, pH 7.4, KH 8°d, GH >14°d
My Nitrate is continually at the 50 mark
All the rest seem to drop and Co² do these look right ?
 
Nitrate continually at the 50 mark tells me the filter is not matured enough yet. It's a balancing act at first. If you have no livestock in the tank and no food going in, the pollution level is extremely low, so nice clean water, but no nitrite for the bacteria in the filter to feed off either. So Nitrate levels stay where they are.

Draining the tank and replacing with fresh water also does not give the filter time to generate bacteria.
KH and GH could be a few degrees higher, Co2 between 15 and 30 mg/l all looks fine to me.

Steve
 
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