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flygja's tank: Forest Clearing

flygja

Member
Joined
12 Mar 2008
Messages
1,260
Location
Penang, Malaysia
Hey guys. I hope that non-UKers are allowed to post their tanks? :lol:

Anyway, here's what my tank currently looks like. I trimmed the stems about a week ago. Yesterday I removed about 1 inch of glosso from the glass as it was building up and creating spawning areas for green slimy algae.

DSC02039.jpg


Here are the specs
36" x 18" x 18" tank with cabinet and hood
DIY 4x 36W PLL Philips lighting with reflectors 8 hours per day
Eheim 2215 + Fluval 105
Pressuried CO2 injected via reactor at 1-2 bps
ADA Aquasoil

Flora:
Rotala sp Green
Rotala Rotundifolia
Hemianthus Micranthemoides
Microsorum Pteropus "Narrow"
Blyxa Japonica
Anubias Nana
Glossostigma Elatinoides
Pogostemon Helferi
Spiky moss

Fauna:
White Cloud Mountains from my cousin that just won't quit
Bloodfin tetras
Harlequin rasboras
Siamese algae eaters
Golden algae eater
Otos
Corydoras sterbai
Yamato shrimps
1 lonely RCS that got caught by accident while I was trying to catch Yamatos at the LFS :lol:

Dosing:
Started EI about a month ago, currently dosing about 1/2 the recommended ppms. I use Seachem Iron and Trace as well. Any idea how much Trace I should be using? I dose about 24ml per week at the moment.

I'm having problems with some GSA. I don't mind them on glass as I can easily scrape them off. But they appear on my glosso too in patches. Any ideas? I tried boosting PO4 by dosing 4x the weekly amount but it doesn't seem to help much.
 
Re: flygja's tank: Forest Edge

What a lovely looking tank......keep up the good work
 
Re: flygja's tank: Forest Edge

Its looks a little 'busy' to the eye. A little as if undecided whether to go Jungle or nature style which IMO is a good thing but very lush and certainly great plant growth. Reminds me of one of George Farmer's works :)

Keep us updated

Oh and welcome to UKAPS 8)

AC
 
Re: flygja's tank: Forest Edge

chump54 said:
looks great. are you going to let the glosso grow back to the glass?

I will let it grow back to the glass, and then remove them again once the start climbing up the glass. If you look closely, its already almost an inch thick at the moment, so I'm not sure how its gonna look later...

SuperColey1 said:
Its looks a little 'busy' to the eye. A little as if undecided whether to go Jungle or nature style which IMO is a good thing but very lush and certainly great plant growth. Reminds me of one of George Farmer's works :)

Keep us updated

Oh and welcome to UKAPS 8)

AC

Thanks for the welcome. I was actually a frequent AE forum lurker till UKAPS started up. I agree with you... kinda looks busy at the moment. I think the moss is spoiling it a bit. Planning to remove even more of the moss when I get some time.

I started this scape when I was inspired by George's triangle scape actually!
 
Thanks Vito!

aaronnorth, looks like Mr Farmer there really impressed everyone with this crazy skills eh? :D
 
Flygja, you have a really nice tank there.
flygja said:
I use Seachem Iron and Trace as well. Any idea how much Trace I should be using? I dose about 24ml per week at the moment.
Check out James's site, he just uploaded this page on trace concentrations, you'll find the Seachem concentrations there and you'll be able to compare your dosage to some other traces... You can also modify my calculator to determine how much you should add. Hope this helps.
 
Keymaker... wow... it's gonna take a while to wrap my head around that. Does it assume dry dosing instead of diluting in a solution? I dilute my EI salts for easy dosing, 3 teaspoons to 100ml of water for KNO3, KH2PO4 and K2SO4. I dose 24ml of KNO3, 6ml KH2PO4 and 21ml K2SO4 per week. From my earlier calculations, that puts it in the middle of the EI range. Thanks.
 
flygja said:
Does it assume dry dosing instead of diluting in a solution?
You mean the excel chart? It doesn't matter, works with both. It was mainly planned to work diluted ferts though. You just need to add the amount of dry powders added to a certain amount of water, and the dosing quantities in ml.

flygja said:
I dilute my EI salts for easy dosing, 3 teaspoons to 100ml of water for KNO3, KH2PO4 and K2SO4. I dose 24ml of KNO3, 6ml KH2PO4 and 21ml K2SO4 per week. From my earlier calculations, that puts it in the middle of the EI range. Thanks.
Just enter 100ml to the DI Water (last row in the second box), play a little with the grams for the 3 powders until you see approx. 3 tspoons next to the values and enter 24 to the "dosing amount" - erase every other value and you will be able to double check your earlier calculations. Don't forget to enter tank details and water change regime.
 
The "dosing amount" section is for a weekly dose instead of daily dose? I see that the Iron content is also calculated from the Trace Mix, I dose my Iron using Seachem Flourish Iron. Is there a way to modify the chart? Too bad we don't have a trace mix like equivalent in Malaysia. Anyone from the UK wanna volunteer to try and ship me dodgy chemical powders? :D

Also, in the "dose days" section, does a "yes" for dose mean that I'm dosing macros + traces? If I dose macros and traces on alternate days, then the chart should be modified to show yes-no-yes-no... right?

Sorry guys, I haven't gotten my Bachelor of Science (Chemistry) like you guys :oops:

I've got updated pics of my tank after a minor rescape, was too lazy to download them off my camera last night..
 
SuperColey1 said:
AE ship worldwide if you want to get traces from there. May be high cost but if you get plenty you can sell to people within your area to make back the extra cost. Is £8.50 shipping to Malaysia for 250g of trace. so with 250g of trace costing £11.99 that makes £20.49 :)

http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/index.p ... &chapter=0

AC

Thanks, will definitely keep that in mind, seeing as how the exchange rate has dropped almost 30% within the last 6 months! :) Gotta go check what are the customs stuff involved first too.
 
Here are some updated pictures. First of all, a full tank shot
DSC02300.jpg


I removed all the moss on the branch behind and repositioned it to try and create a more dramatic effect. From this shot, you can see that I also removed a bunch of Blyxa at the front just slightly off centre. I'm thinking of getting the Pogostemon Helferi to fill up this portion instead. I have planted 3 small plants of it there. Glosso is starting to fill the front again.

DSC02295.jpg

View from the side shows another portion of Blyxa that I have removed. That thing just grows and grows even in the shade! I also added some smaller rocks there to try and create a better sense of depth when viewed from the front. Currently have some pathetic Hemianthus micranthemoides growing there. I'm giving it one more chance to grow before I dump it for something else.

DSC02304.jpg

Trimmed the stems as well. Still learning how to trim stems to make them nice and bushy.

DSC02292.jpg

Detail of left side. I'm thinking of getting rid of a load of moss so the driftwood shows better, but still have no clue how to go about it at the moment. Trim or remove completely? Also, I think the Blyxa on the far left looks a bit out of place, any suggestions for a replacement?

And finishing off with some vanity shots :lol:
DSC02302.jpg


DSC02307.jpg
 
The tank looks really great. Clean and fresh. Nice work!

About the excel: the dosing amount is simply the amount of nutrients you add with each separate dose. You can do that daily or every second day. You just specify how much you want to dose, and you write "yes" to the day when you want to do it.

The problem comes with the alternate dosing though. If you want to dose micro and macro on alternate days, you will have to add another column next to the "Dose today" column. This way you could have Dose Micro Today and Dose Macro Today and you can put "YES - NO" in the same row. I might change the chart to let you do this later.

If you want to add iron from the Seachem product and want to leave the possibility to dose a trace elements mix too, just zero out all the g/l values in the Trace Element Mix box for now, and add a row for the Seachem Iron in the "Mix it" box. Let's say in cell B23 you put Seachem Flourish Iron. In E23 you put 10g (it says here it contains 10000mg in 1000ml) and to the dose you put 5ml.

You can then modify cell E43
from: =(($G$16*$E$16*C43/1000)/$E$22)*1000
to: =(($G$16*$E$16*C43/1000)/$E$22)*1000 + (G23*E23/E22)*1000

I did not check this calculation, I hope it's right. What you need to do is to calculate how much (mg.) Fe you have added with one dose of Flourish Iron.

And then of course you will have to modify the Iron column on the right to use the Yes an No-s from the new column...

Something like this:
screencapturexj7.jpg
 
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