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Keetchy's rescaped, 1st Iwagumi tank (Page 7)

Ok.....I come to you guys again for some ideas. I'm now starting to think I shouldn't have replaced the rotala green with the Zosterifolia. It's just too light in weight and gets pushed over towards the Pogo Erectus too much with the flow of water.

So...... what would you guys stick in its place? Nothing that will overpower the Pogo Erectus but still something that will grow as tall as the Pogo Erectus. Oh and not a red plant as I have Alternathera Pink to the other side of the Pogo

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Hi Mark, good luck with your reactor, it should work OK :) but you will never really know what is going on inside that “black” vessel and the bioballs might restrict flow considerably .
It might work better without any balls but the danger with this type of reactor is a build up of gas, at least with a clear vessel you can see what is happening inside and adjust the flow accordingly.
Also it looks like you have used silicon on the inlet an outlet pipes? Do the pipes have threaded ends?
I don’t mean to be negative I just don’t want to see a disaster happening.
 
Hi Mark, good luck with your reactor, it should work OK :) but you will never really know what is going on inside that “black” vessel and the bioballs might restrict flow considerably .
It might work better without any balls but the danger with this type of reactor is a build up of gas, at least with a clear vessel you can see what is happening inside and adjust the flow accordingly.
Also it looks like you have used silicon on the inlet an outlet pipes? Do the pipes have threaded ends?
I don’t mean to be negative I just don’t want to see a disaster happening.

Hey. All comments are welcomed bud. If something is done wrongly I'd like to know so it's all good mate.

Good thing is it is easy to split the chamber apart to get inside so I can try it with the Bio balls at first and if the flow is reduced too much, I can take them out after. Are we thinking of the same bio balls cause the ones I'm buying i cant see reducing flow too much as they're hollow and have lots of cut out slots in them. Without the balls, wont the C02 fail to fully dissolve into the water?

And its resin I used to glue all the pipes in place. No threaded pipes, the inlet and outlet pipes are 20mm plastic conduit

As for the build up of gas, I can always make it a daily task to just open up that bleed valve to release any trapped air
 
Well the Diatoms really arent making it easy for me to achieve a gorgeous looking tank :mad: It loves to attach itself to the MC. Need to find out what's causing them to appear so frequently so I can put a stop to it

 
What your water change regime at the moment mate diatomes have always been my bug bear there a royal PITA
 
What your water change regime at the moment mate diatomes have always been my bug bear there a royal PITA
Indeed mate. Tank has only been running 6 weeks so in hoping it'll be a lot less irritating as the plants start growing more.

I do a weekly change of 50% - 75% and sometimes I will do 2 in a space of 7 days, depends how my shifts fall on that week. I scrub the glass and rocks first, then trim anything that needs trimming, net out any big bits of debris or off cuts of plant, then I siphon the water out.
 
Try and get between the glass and the substrate with a credit card and try and do 2 or 3 water changes till they ease off do you have a Turkey baster to blow any debris from the substrate in to the water column or waft your hand across the bottom.to lift stuff out are your lights up full yet
 
Try and get between the glass and the substrate with a credit card and try and do 2 or 3 water changes till they ease off do you have a Turkey baster to blow any debris from the substrate in to the water column or waft your hand across the bottom.to lift stuff out are your lights up full yet
Got it already covered bud. Lol. I have an Eheim glass scraper that has a thin blade that can reach down inbetween the glass and the substrate. And I use a turkey blaster to blast debris out from places I cant get to with the hose.
As for my lights, they dont have an intensity setting on them so they're either on or off. So they have been on full power since day one. Started off at 5 hours then increased it to 8 over the weeks. Have been on for 8 hours a day for about 3 weeks now
 
Maybe lower the light time 8hrs 100% does sound a lot to me but I dont know how strong your light is so.maybe not
 
So DIY reactor all plumbed in and tested.



Was all fine for 5 mins with no leaks and only a minimal amount of noise, not enough to annoy me. Pop to shops for 10 mins to come back to the carpet behind the tank drenched. Water leaking out of where the filter pipe goes into the reactor. So I'm giving up on reactors and plumbed back to standard setup



Have now ordered a Bazooka in tank diffuser from AG
 
Tanking looking nice.mate hows the diatomes doing now
Thanks J. Cant really comment on the Diatoms yet as I been messing about with flow since the reactor was installed. Now I'm back to full flow again I'll keep an eye on it and let you know in a week or so. Will wipe all the MC down in the next couple of days and then see his quick it comes back.

Looking good Keetch.
Cheers Harris. All this wasted time trying to get a bubble free tank with reactors, I should have just gone straight with the Bazooka, the microbubbles are no way near a big enough con to outweigh the pros of having one.
 
Well it was only a matter of time I guess. Diatoms I can handle but now GSA has arrived :thumbdown:

I have knocked an hour off the lighting and am going to add a bit more Phosphate into my Ei mix tomorrow. Not too much though cause I've read too much Phosphate will then feed BBA

 
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