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Joining the Aquascaper 900 club!

With all those new plants i would reduce light intensity down quite a bit. It would give you the best chance for the plants to adapt to under water life and start growing well and help with the BBA situation. The last thing you want to do is blast new plants with high light as you may end up with BBA on them and it will be a much bigger problem and disheartening.
The vast majority of plant mass in the tank is well established to underwater life & lighting is currently at 50% intensity. For context when I started the tank it started at 40%.
I think the main cause of the bba was poor maintenence - lack of vacuuming, no filter cleaning etc - now these are rectified I'm fairly confident it will go or at least reduce...fingers crossed!
 
Quick update:
Beginning to look a bit better - stems have had a few trims and are beginning to bush up and colour up. I'm setting myself the goal of having this scape looking how I want it to by mid May with a view to participating in the IAPLC (I'm under no illusions this is a technically pretty basic, somewhat overgrown nature scape, so if I make the top 2000 I'll be pleased...mainly using this as a deadline to motivate me to get the algae sorted...)
New plants are mostly doing well - Ranunculus and pinatifida in particular, wheras the AR mini pretty much all melted which was a bit suprising. The schismattoglotis is doing alright, though has shed quite a few leaves.
BBA is still present but doesn't seem to be effecting new growth thanks to the up in co2 & ferts - it's mainly having success on old anubias/buce leaves and in and around the more patchy bits of carpet/lileopsis. It's also firmly taken hold on bits of the hardscape. I've got some easy carbo on the way so will start dosing fairly heavily with that and hope that sees it off alongside an increased w/c regime (baby sleep pattern permitting!
Some snaps:
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Stems from above. The H'ra looks way more orange thanthis in person!
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Pearling ludwigia and rotala
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The pinnatifida is really taking off!

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FTS. I'm not overly happy with the left hand side but not quite sure what to do about it. I was expecting the blyxa to put on a fair bit more height than it has done so it all looks a bit flat until you hit the stems. Will have a mull and possibly move some taller crypts further forward to add a bit of variation -any thoughts? I think I've already got too many varieties of plants so don't think my normal plan of "add a new plant" is suitable here!

Hope you're all getting the chance to enjoy your tanks and a lot of chocolate over the bank holiday!
 

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Stunning tank and amazing colours well done hope I get colours like that

Sent from my SM-T595 using Tapatalk
 
Quick update. Been dosing easycarbo for a little under a week at quite a high dose (7.5ml/day)
Coopted a Calpol syringe to do spot dosing and it appears to be going well!
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Have also mixed up a new batch of ferts, this time missing out potassium nitrate and making it up with potassium phosphate in a bid to get more reds. Not tried this before so interested to see how it works. Mixed up a little bottle complete with nitrates to add in case the epiphytes start looking sad.

FTS following a light trim of the stems to tidy up a bit:
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The BBA looks reduced on the carpet simply due to the fact I've let the Monte Carlo grow over it 🙈
 
Noticed some not very healthy growth on the ludwigia and rotala this morning.
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Admittedly I haven't looked up how nutrient deficiencies manifest yet but I'm assuming this is a response to my swapping to a nitrate free ei ferts mix.
Have reverted back to a nitratey mix and will see if a few days of that helps or if something else is going on. Other plants are looking fine to me so I'd be a bit surprised if this is due to low nitrate. Anyone got any thoughts?
 
Quick update - bba seems to be on the run in the most part, though now weirdly seem to be getting some staghorn algae, which isn't one I've managed to grow before 😂
Gonna have to do some concentrated vacuuming to clear out any excess muck in those corners me thinks! 🤦
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Couple of quick shots from this evening. Have now shot and submitted an image for IAPLC. Frustratingly it's not (in my opinion) when the scapes been looking it's best, but I'm not going to have any more time to put into it so will be the best it will look before the deadline! Aim is to make the top 2,000....which might be ambitious!
 
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On holiday at the moment but just a quick one to share my IAPLC image and result: 1622 (19th in the UK...and congrats to @Ady34 & @Dorey who I spotted several hundred places above!)
Very pleased with the result given that the final photo is far from perfect and the tank wasn't looking it's best when I needed to get the photo done!
 
Congratulations, it’s a stunning scape and you should be very proud.
 
1 year old today!
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Have to be honest, this Scape got in a funk a while a go and hasn't in my view fully recovered - BBA and staghorn are proving persistent companions, and I'm finding the planting requires more careful attention to trimming and maintainence to not turn into a mess then I'm able to give it - a rescape is very much on the agenda, but will keep things ticking over in the meantime!
 
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