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Journal of a Natural 16g tank

Thanks. Just discuss in length with clive about my plant in the middle of the tank and we agreed that it is actually limnophila aromatica rather than pogostemon stellatus. Just bought some Didiplis diandra and tonina fluviatilis. Maybe I will start adding RO water bought from tesco in the tank every now and again to bring the hardness down :p
 
I can't believe didiplis diandra ran out of stock and they just sent me some other plant to replace it without telling me prior to delivery. gutted :(

Tonina Fluviatilis arrived wonderful though. Bought 10 stem came in 20! No complan about that one. But have been reading a lot about this plant and a lot of people seemed to said it need to be grown in soft water and acid base substrate. I'm using potting soil so there is no doubt that there will be plenty of humus there thus ensuring it will be acidic. The problem is my water parameter... Sorry for being cheap but since I don't want spend any more money on measuring kits I decided to go with local water report and this is what I found

Hardness Level Hard No Standard Applies
Hardness Clark 16.45 No Standard Applies Degrees Clark
Hardness 94 No Standard Applies mgCa/l
Aluminium 6.5 200 µgAl/l
Chloride 25.44 250 mgCl/l
Chlorine 0.13 No Standard Applies mg/l
Coliform bacteria 0 0 no./100ml
Colour 0.67 20 mg/l Pt/Co
Conductivity 461.94 2500 µS/cm at 20°C
E.coli bacteria 0 0 no./100ml
Fluoride 0.04 1.5 mgF/l
Iron 7 200 µgFe/l
Manganese 1.5 50 µgMn/l
Nitrate 41.22 50 mgNO3/l
Odour 0 3 at 25°C Dilution Number
Pesticides 0 0.5 µg/l
pH 7.41 6.5 - 10.0 pH Value
Sodium 10.88 200 mgNa/l

Does anyone knows how to convert hardness in Clark into GH and KH? There is no mention of any carbonate content and magnesium content in the report as well... Would be glad if someone can help me out with this. Nitrate was scary as well.....
 
When in doubt look at Wikipedia ;) :D

1 Clark degree divided by 0.175 gives mg/l

One degree of General Hardness = 10mg/l

So 16.45 / 0.175 = 94 mg/l

Therefore 9.4 dGH. TO be honest I'm not sure about that as I was expecting higher levels.

Just looked at the reading under the reading in Clark degrees and it gives you mg/l!!! And the level is 94!!!!
 
Hmm maybe 9.4 is just the kH since the unit is in mgCa/L..... and my Gh will be higher.... Damn wasted 8 quid on plant that will die on me...... I've done everything wrong on this tank, hopefully this plant will grow out well and break all the myth that tonina need soft water to grow!
 
GH is mainly made up of Calcium and Magnesium

KH is the Carbonates in the water e.g. CO3

So you will have magnesium to add to get the General Hardness good point
 
eds said:
GH is mainly made up of Calcium and Magnesium

KH is the Carbonates in the water e.g. CO3

So you will have magnesium to add to get the General Hardness good point

Except the hardness in Clark degrees should include that...

It may be you have very little magnesium in your water and it is almost all Calcium
 
Either way I'm going to faced with 20 stem of melting dead toninas..... lol. Well lets see if praying hard will help this time. :p
 
a few picture of my recent addition from plants alive....

Tonina fluviatilis (you can see that it's a very very fragile plant.... arrived with lots and lots of bruises)

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Clive sent me this plant that was label by the thai seller as pogostemon stellatus aka eustralis stellatus.but the more I look at it the more it doesn't look like the plant it's meant to be. Clive agreed with that and thought it looks like limnophila aromatica. Does anyone have any of these plant from a reliable source such as tropica help me to identified this plants?

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So far haven't seen much melting from toninas but I think it'll be too early to say. Will give it another 2 week and see if it survive in my tank with a pH of 7 and kH of 9
 
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This is how the tank looks like now. Messy.... The limnophila (I think) hasn't grown as bushy as I would like them to grow. Bolbitis as usual has grown at a snail pace.... HC was a total failure.... Don't know why it doesn't seemed to grow much. Do is Downoi.The only thing that is growing really well is the sword, crypt balansae (can't see much of it... all hidden by limnophila) and lysimmachia nummularia. I've seen some growth with the toninas but the bottom leaves are melting.

I will just keep topping the plants and plant them and make a total jungle out of my tank. When the tank is totally full of plants I will uproot every single one and do a rescape! This project is going to take me a while.... :( Will be upgrading the lighting to either a 4x 24W or 3x24W in the future too
 
I don't really know how big this sword plant will grow to be honest. Looking at the size of the plants that clive had sent me, I was hoping it will be a max of 8 inches tall. I'm normally not a big fan of sword plants but this one looks really nice. Might rescape with it next time
 
I have trouble keeping track of everything. I think this might be a version of E. Parviforus (magdelensis?) The nominal is 4 inches and the max is 10 inches based on what I've read. It's limited to 5-6 inches in my tank but you can always chop it down to size :p

Cheers,
 
I've been having some staghorn algae in my tank recently.... Looking at james planted website, the cause of it could either be low CO2 or too much mulm and dirty filter in the tank. The latter sounds very possible as I don't disturbed the substrate when I water change and further more the tank hasn't had a water change for ages.

The question is, if I vaccuum the substrate, will the algae go away on it's own or will I have to physically remove it? It's mostly on old leaves.... Initially it was only on alternathers leaves, now it's found on my crypt and bolbitis....Even on the filter intake. Would it be alright if I just clean the filter and not vaccuum the substrate as most of my foreground plant come off very easily if I disturb them.
 
daniel19831123 said:
I've been having some staghorn algae in my tank recently.... Looking at james planted website, the cause of it could either be low CO2 or too much mulm and dirty filter in the tank. The latter sounds very possible as I don't disturbed the substrate when I water change and further more the tank hasn't had a water change for ages.

The question is, if I vaccuum the substrate, will the algae go away on it's own or will I have to physically remove it? It's mostly on old leaves.... Initially it was only on alternathers leaves, now it's found on my crypt and bolbitis....Even on the filter intake. Would it be alright if I just clean the filter and not vaccuum the substrate as most of my foreground plant come off very easily if I disturb them.

Personally I think it's very important to do both; clean the filter and syphon up all the mulm you can. I use a long straight plastic pipe that's only about 12mm to poke in amongst foreground plants without sucking up too many, but I just replant any bits I suck up after I've finished syphoning off water.

IMHO, you need to physically remove as much of the algae as you can too. If you can pull it off the least affected leaves and remove the worst affected leaves completely.
 
daniel19831123 said:
I've been having some staghorn algae in my tank recently.... Looking at james planted website, the cause of it could either be low CO2 or too much mulm and dirty filter in the tank. The latter sounds very possible as I don't disturbed the substrate when I water change and further more the tank hasn't had a water change for ages.

The question is, if I vaccuum the substrate, will the algae go away on it's own or will I have to physically remove it? It's mostly on old leaves.... Initially it was only on alternathers leaves, now it's found on my crypt and bolbitis....Even on the filter intake. Would it be alright if I just clean the filter and not vaccuum the substrate as most of my foreground plant come off very easily if I disturb them.

I'm with Ed - algae are too clever to go away with half measures. Algal strands produce algal spores, which turn into algal strands. There is no point only cleaning the mulm without removing the strands. Dan, I lost track - are you injecting CO2 now or are you only dosing excel/easycarbo?

Cheers,
 
daniel19831123 said:
I'm injecting CO2 at 1 bps

Have you got a drop checker to check the ppm? Depending on your bubble counter, size of tank, diffusion method 1bps could give a wide range of CO2 levels.

On my new tank I have a Boyu bubble counter near the CO2 reg and that is over 2 bps, but in the Spiro diffuser with the coil section I am having a bubble rate about 1.5 bps because of the different size of each bubble. So same CO2, quite different bubble rates. Only my drop checker with 4dKH water lets me know the CO2 is at 30ppm.
 
I don't have a drop checker but I kinda regulate the co2 based on the limnophila leaves. if I turn the CO2 down, the new leaves will grow in a distorted wrinkly manner and when I turn it up, it will grow normal leaves. My Co2 goes straight into my filter inlet so there is no obstruction such as those with a glass diffuser. Bubbling any faster than 3 bps the filter will be sending out loads of micro bubble so I tend to just play around with 1-2 bps. Maybe it's time to invest in a CO2 checker...
 
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