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Hi Flygja,

Ironically, no pun intended I added some iron in to see if it helped! This is barteri var nana so it will be interesting to see if it is a deficiency or just colouring!


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hi ross,

the new growth on the monte carlo looks very good! it should form a dense carpet very quickly now that conditions are good. leave your tank alone and see how everything else does, let all the plants acclimatize to the tanks conditions, if the carpet is growing then everything else should settle and catch up. I think that quite a few people struggle because they keep changing things, too often, rather than letting nature do its thing.
 
Hi Aaron,

Yes thats right, however i do believe it was adjusting the flow that was the main reason, however i can't be 100% sure as i adjusted the lighting and reduced the flow at the same time. I did have the lights up at 90% but i had issues with algae so dropping it to 75% has helped reduce the algae. I also do a 50% water change on Sunday as per EI but also on Wednesday.

I'm constantly learning as i go and as others have mentioned above only change one thing. If you adjust the flow you might get better performance (for want of a better word) from your CO2. If this doesn't help adjust your light or change the flow again. Give it a good five days to see if anything changes. Also i do think i should have planned what plants went where, as the hardscape can block the water.

One good thing that Ceg suggested earlier in this journal, is get some of your micro powders and sprinkle some in at the front of the tank so you can see where the powder goes. It might be that CO2 isn't getting to the plants and you can tell this by the powder. Do this on a water change day as i ended up putting quite a bit in! Also if you have no fish crank the CO2 up. My tank sounded like a just opened can of coke but i could also see what the bubbles were doing!

This may sound silly and i have no scientific proof of this, but by reducing the flow i think i am giving the CO2 more time in contact with the leaves. I wonder if the high flow was moving away any co2 bubbles that had settled under a leaf. From doing some reading it seems people are saying that the micro bubbles being in contact with the leaf is better than 100% co2 saturation in the water. However by reducing the flow i am allowing the CO2 to be in the filter for longer and therefore increasing saturatin so maybe i have the best of both worlds now?! :confused:

I should be dosing 16ml of macros and micros , however i was dosing 30ml as i as being lazy as i have one of those squeezy bottles that fills up the measurement cup at the top. I dropped this back to between 16ml and 20ml but that was a couple of weeks before i did the above.

I hope this helps!

Thanks

Ross
 
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Hi all,

So i have dropped the amount of CO2 i was pumping into the tank. I was getting a PH drop of 1.8 so have dialled it down a bit. I'm at home the next few days so i can monitor it and so can you http://pi.aquapi.co.uk/. I would like to add some livestock in the next few days/weeks and i know that this is excessive, i'm still aiming to get the 1 point PH drop.

Here is the annubias. I'm thinking deficiency.

an_16.jpg
 
Hi All,

I'm in the process of fine tuning the CO2, by that i mean reducing the amount i am injecting to a sensible level as i was getting a 1.8PH drop by lights on. I think i have found that i need to have 4 bubbles per second to get a 1 point PH drop. My water Ph is around 7.6 and my KH is around 14. With that in mind if you look at the graph below this means i need to be aiming for a ph of 7.2.

My question is, are these graphs reliable?

CO2 PH KH.gif

Thanks

Ross
 
Hi Ross

Don't forget that that table doesn't account for other things in the tank that affect pH and will underestimate the co2 concentration. I would aim for 7.1as a starting point and see how your fish/plants do. If you need to reduce the co2 then do it slowly so the plants have time to adapt.
Let the tank fill in a bit more before you add fish, the more plant mass you have the better IMO.
 
Thanks Andy!

So today i started at a ph of 7.57 and got all the way down to 6.19, but it takes and hour and 55 minutes to drop 1 ph point. So five minutes before light on. I'll look to decrease to two bubbles a second and see what this does. Fortunately i am at home tomorrow so i can monitor this.

I do need to get some more plants. I'm really not sure what to put in the middle under the branches. I'll have a look at what others have done but if you have any ideas then let me know!

Cheers

Ross
 
So i reduced the CO2 injection today whilst i was at home.

I measured by tank KH and this was 11.....although this was an API test kit so i wouldn't say this is gospel!

When my CO2 started the PH was: 7.76, at lights on this was: 6.96 and it got down to 6.58. However my Drop Checker never went green, it has been blue all day. I calibrated my PH probe a couple of days ago with a three point calibration and i can confirm my cheap PH pen measures the same PH as my probe.

I have changed the 4dkH just in case this was the issue and i have put a second drop checker in as well on the opposite side of the tank. I'm also dosing EasyCarbo at 2.0ml when i should be dosing 1.6ml.

So should i go on the PH or drop checker?! :confused:

Cheers

Ross
 
pH probe is always more accurate if its calibrated properly. But as Andy mentioned, it measures everything that can influence pH, including organic acids from decomposition, etc. To double check, get a sample of water at pH 6.58, shake it in a jar or leave for for an hour for CO2 to degass, then check pH again. That's your "true" pH drop. Don't know why your dropchecker isn't changing colours, is the bromo blue expired? Try checking it with some lemon/orange juice or vinegar and see.

Really glad to see your MC is spreading, you're well on your way to figuring out this kaboodle :cool: Could you share a bit more information about your aquarium monitor? I'm guessing it uses a raspberry pi? Can you share the setup?
 
Hi All,

Been extremley busy so will update this tomorrow, but the tank is OK. I have a Monte Carlo carpet which is positive and the rest of the plants appear to be doing well. Think i need to add a clean-up crew as am getting a small amount of algae...nothing serious though!

I'll also show you and explain the Pi setup as well!!

Thanks

Ross
 
Hi All,

So here it is at the moment. It is need of a bit of a prune but i've been really busy so not had the chance but i will do on Sunday.

P1000497.JPG


P1000498.JPG


P1000499.JPG


P1000501.JPG



As you can see some algae growing on the glass and on some of the Monte Carlo. I've not got a clean up crew in here so i plan to add some Cherry Shrimps (not sure on how many yet) and i have six Ottos in a quarantine tank that i have had for about two months. They are nice and fat as i have been giving them some cucumber every now and again. I'll add them in at somepoint next week when i can be at home to see if they are ok with the CO2.


Regarding the Raspberry Pi this is it at the moment!

P1000500.JPG


It is a Raspberry Pi 2 and it uses a waterproof thermometer for the tank readings....i'm going to add another at some point as it is easy to do. The white block at the bottom left is a thermometer and a humidity sensor. The plan for this was to put it in the cabinet so if something leaks the humidity would rise and i could be alerted.

The PH is monitored by an Atlas PH sensor and probe (that is the BNC connection).

Its quite basic. I have written a python script that runs every five minutes that logs all the values into a MySQL Database. I then have an apache web server that i am using to show the data on the website and this is programmed using PHP. On the Web page the PHP pulls the values from the SQL Database to create the graphs. The live information is pulled from the sensors using a PHP script that runs every two seconds and it goes and get live values. The pi and sensors cost about £75...the Atlas PH Circuit was £120 puls £15 for customs.

I plan on adding a conductivity sensor so i can get the TDS of the tank. However when i initially looked the PH and conductivity circuits can't easily work together...when i get some time i will find out why and see what i can do. I haven't touched this project for well over eleven months hencve why it isn't in a nice project box (To be honest i can't find a decent one for this!)

Any questions please just ask!

Thanks

Ross
 
I love the Raspberry Pi, such a versatile little piece of kit. Congrats on getting past your early struggles with the tank, really seems to be balancing out now.
 
Hi Mr Hidley,

Yeah it is a great piece of kit! I have another one running Kodi. It is awesome.

Hi Jaap, I'm running it at 80%


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