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Joining the Aquascaper 900 club!

JackH

Member
Joined
15 Apr 2017
Messages
78
Location
Sheffield
The tank's set up and running now - so thought it time to start a journal!
After a lot of planning, saving and waiting our recent house move has meant that the fish can upgrade from their current 40litre cube to an AS900.

The tank arrived on Monday (two days after the plants - whoops), and had it's first water change this morning!

Kit list:
AS900
ONF Flat One (bought muchos reduced from Aquasabi - worked out cheaper than a twinstar!)
Eheim Pro 4 filter with steel inlet & outlet
CO2art inline diffuser connected to a 2kg FE
APS heater (did order an inline heater but it was DOA, so in the market for any inline heater recomendations anyone has!)

Hardscape is mini landscape rock and gnarled manzanita wood
Substrate/soil: JBL Volcano mineral, topped with a dennerle substrate starter and some tnc nutrient tabs. Topped with tropica soil.

Plant list:
Liliaopsis Novae-zelandiae
Marselia Crenata
Micranthenum Monte Carlo
Hemianthus Cuba
Hydrocotyle Verticilata
Blyxa Japonica
Juncus Repens
Crypt. Flamingo
Crypt. Petchii
Crypt. Undulatus Red
Crypt Wendtii Green
Crypt: Balansae
Rotala Pearl
Hydrophila Araguia
Nymphea Lotus
Rotala Orange Juice
Rotala Rotundifolia
Rotala Green
Rotala H'ra
Ludwigia Palustris
Hemianthus Micranthemoides
Cyperus Helferi
Limnophila Aromatica
Bolbitis Difformis
Bolbitis Heudolti
Microsorum Trident
Java fern
Anubias Petite
Anubias Bonsai
Anubias Coffeefolia
Buce. Wavy Green
Buce. Theia Green
Buce. Kedagang
Buce. Red
Buce. Mini needle leaf
Buce. Lamandau mini red
Fissidens fontanus

It's a long list but I wanted a good mix of colours and textures, and lots of them should hopefully blend together as they grow in.

Some photos of arrival and scaping:
IMG_20200907_120435.jpg IMG_20200907_201344.jpg

First filled (at 1am on tuesday!):
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As it is now after adding some epiphytes from the old tank during the morning water change (please excuse reflections and dodgy phone pictures, they've come out more yellow than in real life):
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CO2 has been on since it was first filled, and the drop drop checker is stubbornly remaining dark green. I lowered the filter outlet a bit more this morning to reduce surface agitation but it hasn't helped as much as I thought. Currently ~3bps, do I just need to up the bubbles? Lights are on 6hrs a day at 40% to start with.

Dosing a very imprecise amount of TNC complete - going to mix up some ei bottles over the weekend.

Thanks for looking!
 
Looking good.

bang up the co2 - go yellow. don’t worry about the count.

Itll help the plants used to life underwater. 👍

you’ll be able to turn it down and fine tune it in a few days.


Go back to plan A with a nice surface agitation. Check out Denis Wong’s videos on you tube on co2 (he’s done 2) they are very good.
 
Agree bang the co2 up , welcome to the 900 club its strange as so many people seem to have all at once mine will he getting set up next week so will he keeping eye on your mate but looking excellent and nice and heavily planted.

Dean

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk
 
Another A900 :) that is a huge plant list, you will have a final scape in a couple of months time with that amount of plants :)
Looking good so far :)
 
Quick day 20 update - everything is growing (just!)! Some of the buce were struggling but seem to be making a comeback, and the marselia crenata is still in the process of melting and then starting to grow. Have already given most of the stems and the juncus repens at least one trim. Shuffled about where the ludwigia palustris and nymphea lotus are too as they didn't work and were the part of the tank I planted circa 1am and had lost the will to live. Moved some shrimp over from the other tank and they're doing great. Beginning to see some green dust algae on the glass and some of the rocks, but nothing a cleanator can't cope with. Upped the lighting to 50% for 6 hours too and keeping to 50%+ water changes every other day. Used the last of my TNC Complete this morning so have mixed up some EI bottles to start with tomorrow.
Pictures (got a new phone arriving next week so the picture quality should hopefully improve...):
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Looking very nice and healthy, i have put my light to 50 percent after a week hopefully ok

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk
 
Oops, a month since the last update...
Not a massive amount has changed, everything's grown in more though! The Bucephelandra are still not looking brilliant but everything else is growing wonderfully- have added fish, so current stocking is 11 cardinal tetras, 1 betta called Kylo (from the old tank), 3 otos and six "burmese zebra rasboras" which are basically stripy celestial pearl danios as far as I can tell. I'd love to put up a picture of them but they're still not sure how they feel about the tank with the light on. They're starting to venture out more but not ever for long enough for a snap!
Have been dosing APFUK EI mix for the past few weeks, though not quite at full dosing levels. (for my own future reference: dosing between 15 & 20ml of micro and macro a day, about 30 mins apart. W/C regime is 50% every 2-3 days though looking to start stretching that out soon)
Below are some photos of how it's looking - the FTS is from 10 minutes ago, and the rest snapped at various points throughout last week. Stems had a moderate to vigerous trim yesterday so looking a bit scraggly. Thanks for looking!

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Tank is looking good I cannot wait to aquascape my 900 keep up the good work 🙂👍 few photos below on what I have for my setup just waiting for my 2 weeks off from work to make a start on it
 

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Agree bang the co2 up , welcome to the 900 club its strange as so many people seem to have all at once mine will he getting set up next week so will he keeping eye on your mate but looking excellent and nice and heavily planted.

Dean

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk
hey Deano3, I recently planted out a new tank and have had to reshuffle some plants, had some melting, previously introduced some gunk from my friends fish store, I have frogbit growing and Java ferns, moss, hornwort, more common plants, crypts. my question is, this early after planting, should I ramp up the co2? The lights are the fluvsl 3.0 on for 8 hours.
thanks!
 
hey Deano3, I recently planted out a new tank and have had to reshuffle some plants, had some melting, previously introduced some gunk from my friends fish store, I have frogbit growing and Java ferns, moss, hornwort, more common plants, crypts. my question is, this early after planting, should I ramp up the co2? The lights are the fluvsl 3.0 on for 8 hours.
thanks!
Not Deano3, but yes, definitely ramp the CO2 up. If they've been growing emmersed (out of water) they'll have had access to basically unlimited CO2 so as they tranistion to under water growing (immersed) giving them as much CO2 as possible will help.
Also 8 hours might be a bit long for an initial photoperiod, but will let other members speak to that as I mainly just make it up as I go. For reference I'm still only running a 6hr photoperiod on this tank
 
Tank is looking good I cannot wait to aquascape my 900 keep up the good work 🙂👍 few photos below on what I have for my setup just waiting for my 2 weeks off from work to make a start on it
Looks like a good start!
 
Totally agree with jack and the tank is looking excellent mate, what bubble rate you have is it uncountable? I just ran oit of co2 after 3 weeks

Dean

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk
 
Not Deano3, but yes, definitely ramp the CO2 up. If they've been growing emmersed (out of water) they'll have had access to basically unlimited CO2 so as they tranistion to under water growing (immersed) giving them as much CO2 as possible will help.
Also 8 hours might be a bit long for an initial photoperiod, but will let other members speak to that as I mainly just make it up as I go. For reference I'm still only running a 6hr photoperiod on this tank
sorry JackH! First time posting on the site. Thank you for the advice! I’ll drop down to 6 hours and see how it goes. Cheers, Luke
 
Totally agree with jack and the tank is looking excellent mate, what bubble rate you have is it uncountable? I just ran oit of co2 after 3 weeks

Dean

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk
It was pretty high - not quite uncountable but high, maybe 7/8bps? The fluid's all gone out of my bubblecounter so I can't check now 🤦‍♂️
Dropchecker is lime green by lights on and stays like that throughout so think I'm in a good place with it. Will doubtless need further fettling when I start whacking the brightness up on the onf above 50% to try getthing some red stems!
 
Woweee it's been a long time!
A chronological sequence of FTS's:
November
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December:
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Early Feb:
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Mid Feb (possibly my favourite):
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About 5 mins ago:
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The stems are currently recovering from a complete removal and replant, the foreground/mid a mess and needs a lot of remedial work with trimming and possibly just completely replanting and the whole tank is scattered with BBA - especially the epiphytes.
Todays waterchange also saw the first deep clean of the filter and pipework since the tank was set up (oops) - should help with the BBA abd CO2 distribution. The plan is to increase w/c frequency and also start liquid carbon in further anti algae action.

In other news an aquascaper in training arrived a few days after my last post which is my excuse as to the partial neglect this scape has suffered in the last 4 months!
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Hope you're all enjoying your scapes and keeping safe!
 
That mid Feb photo is absolutely stunning. One of the best wild/overgrown aquascapes I've seen.
 
Thanks @Libba & @Courtneybst !

So, saturday is waterchange day, and a bit of midground rearranging turned into something more drastic when I inadvertantly pulled up a load of matted together carpet. This wasn't actually a disaster as it was fairly bba infested!

In progress:
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Stem tops trimmed and ready to replant-
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Surveying the carnage (excuse reflections, sorry!):
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Refilled and fizzy (I've got a plant order coming this week so there will be more rearranging fairly soon - especially in the blyxa wing on the left!):
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Quick update - an exciting box of plants arrived from @Aquarium Gardens yesterday so in they went!
Plants added: Ranunculus inundatus, Schismatoglottis prietoil, Hygrophila pinnatifida, Eriocaulon cinereum, Christmas Moss Portion Vesicularia dubyana, Alternanthera Reineckii ''Mini'.
Did some more faffing and rearranging the front, and a full clean and clear on the java/trident fern and bolbitis. I'm really not wanting to do a full lift and replant on the carpet in the center, but a bit worried I'll have to to see off the bba!

Christmas moss attached onto the main bit of wood, with some small buces I found buried under the monster java fern:
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Pinitafida stuck strategically:
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Schismatoglottis prietoil. I've also stuck a little in the substrate to see how it gets on
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somewhat messy FTS:
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I'm really getting naffed off with the bba - I've upped CO2, ferts, water change frequency and dropped the lighting intensity a little so hoping that will start to see it off. The cyperus helferi at the back seems incapable of growing a leaf without the bloomin brown monster on it.
 

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Looks amazing! 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.
 
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