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Paul's 200L, "Punishment of Luxury"

can i make a suhhestion? perhaps an anubia or two in the cracks of the rocks just to aid the transition.
you might totally disagree here, but its worth a shout. Mark (saintly) uses the anubias to great effect.
 
Thanks TBRO - I'm not totally sure about the vallis either. If/when I go for glassware it could come out, but at the moment I need to learn basic aquarium maintenance before adding fragile glassware into the mix. You might not realise, but I've not kept so much as a goldfish before - this is my first ever aquarium, so everything is new to me.

Thanks George. Without UKAPS there's no chance whatever that I'd have got to where I am today - I've said it before and I'll say it again, UKAPS is an outstanding resource. I just hope the commercial operators out there recognise how valuable you are to them.

Hi Nick, thanks for the feedback. You might not see I've put a few bits of HC in cracks quite high up (Jim at TGM's suggestion - Thanks Jim). I know the standard approach is to soften the transition to big rockwork with midground plants, but I've consciously taken my HC right up the the big group with no transition in places, to see how it looks. My inspiration is the fells around me, as there are plenty of massive rock outcrops with tightly cropped grass running right up to their bases. In my naivety I wondered whether the transition-thing was a throwback to dutch style. Anyway, this is a learning tank, so one way or another I'm going to learn something!
 
DAY TWO

It's 9.30 and I've just done my first-ever water change. Piece of cake, thanks to London Dragon's simple water change system - thanks LD. The water already had a distinctly greenish tinge, although it wasn't murky, as the Oliver Knott fill-up had worked a treat. I used bubble-wrap instead of polythene sheet, and it floated gently to the top making it dead easy to lift out without chucking water everywhere. I misjudged the water temp going in to the tank just now, and lost 4 degrees C - I'm sure I'll get better at this, but if I had had livestock in there, would they have suffered?

Co2 is getting bashed in - the drop checker (JBL - Clive's idea - ugly, but easy to read, thanks Clive) was still green this morning before the water change.

I only had four floaters when I did the first fill, which I thought was pretty good. After a few attempts at replanting I gave up and chucked them. As I've gone for very heavy planting (thanks Mr Starkey and others) it shouldn't matter. There's a definite knack to planting with tweezers - with HC I soon realised I had to squeeze excess moisture out of the rockwool plug, then crimp the tweezer tips around it to make a compact missile that could be plunged into the substrate. There's a fair bit of rockwool showing on my first HC plugs, but I'm sure it'll disappear underneath the carpet.

Hydrocotyle was a bugger to separate from the rockwool - it looks like it's grown from seed, as there's no split in the wool to help extract the plant. I ended up wasting a fair bit, and what I did plant didn't seem to have much of a root structure. Still it'll be getting all the nutrients, Co2 and light it needs - I'm sure some will survive.

EI - I'm dosing manually as I haven't got the digital timer for the dosing pump yet. I'm not sure what daily water changes will do to EI, but I reckon I'm OK so long as I add a fresh daily dose after the water change but before the lights go on.

I'm also adding Nitrivec, as I've no mature media to kickstart my bacterial colony. I'm a bit dubious about bacteria in a bottle, but it's worth a try.
 
Nice one, Paul.

A 4C drop in total tank temperature is quite significant but doubtful that it would do long-term harm to any fish/inverts. Indeed, some species rely on a drop like that, typically caused by a large rainstorm, to trigger spawning.

The Nirtivic won't do any harm but it's not really necessary. The ammonia leeching from the Aqua Soil and plants growth will help mature the filter too.
 
paul.in.kendal said:
Hydrocotyle was a bugger to separate from the rockwool
Click to expand...

i dont even bother trying to separate stems from rockwool any more.root structures are not vital to the setteling in process.

just cut them off flush to the rock wool, or pull the whole thing out. i can separate 40 odd pots in about 5 minutes...and split into bunches.

way to go mate.
 
It's interesting, Mark, how knackering the planting was. I started with the HC, and that was a breeze - I thought "What's all the fuss about?". By the time I was finishing up with the Vallis I was shattered. But I'm sure I'll get quicker once I know how to handle the different plants. I tried planting the hairgrass in minute little tufts, but it was impossible, so I quickly switched to cutting it into four or five decent sized plugs, which made it much easier.

I'm a bit worried about any damage I might have done during planting, and whether I stripped off all the damaged parts beforehand, but time (and close observation) will tell. The worst was Pogostemon - it seemed very brittle and made a horrible crunching sound in the tweezers, no matter how gentle I was.

Just sitting here now waiting for the lights to come on! :lol: :lol:
 
DAY NINE

Right - everything seems to be going OK. I've had some green water - not resolved yet, but 2x50% water changes today and yesterday have certainly helped:

dscf0028h.jpg


I've brought the luminaire down a bit - now everything's pearling, not just the HC up on the rockwork:

dscf0019a.jpg


Growth - the hairgrass has been growing steadily from the outset, as has the rotala, limnophila and especially the staurogyne. Vallis growth is hard to judge, the HC up on rockwork grew as well as pearled, while the HC on the substrate seemed to be struggling - hopefully the more intense light well help that along. The pogostemon helferi has worried me most, with no sign of growth, yet dying outer leaves being shed. I'm hoping the revised lighting will help that too.

I've stopped dosing EI for the moment, until more vigorous growth kicks in.

Thanks for advice from a number of quarters, especially Graeme at TGM.
 
saintly said:
paul.in.kendal said:
I've stopped dosing EI for the moment, until more vigorous growth kicks in.
Click to expand...

interesting.
Click to expand...
I think paul is going down the ADA fert route of powersand special, AS then brighty K to start, same as with Andyhs kitchecn tank. Im trying the same thing and hopefully I wont balls it up :D (although I might as I replaced powersand with Aquacare and loads of root tabs so I'll see how it goes.)
 
stuworrall said:
saintly said:
paul.in.kendal said:
I've stopped dosing EI for the moment, until more vigorous growth kicks in.
Click to expand...

interesting.
Click to expand...
I think paul is going down the ADA fert route of powersand special, AS then brighty K to start, same as with Andyhs kitchecn tank. Im trying the same thing and hopefully I wont balls it up :D (although I might as I replaced powersand with Aquacare and loads of root tabs so I'll see how it goes.)
Click to expand...

Worked well for me.....just doing the same on my second tank.

ADA Amazonia, ADA Powersand special and dosing just Brighty K for approx 6 weeks and regular water changes at least 3 per week. I also used a mature filter. Then at 6 weeks started adding step one.

Cant take credit for it, its all Graeme Edwards master plan. :thumbup:
 
Paul, forgot to say love the tank! Really like the rock work! Keep the journal up. :thumbup:
 
Worked well for me.....just doing the same on my second tank.
Click to expand...

using the same method all the time with succes. the only exception is i do this in the first 2 weeks only. then step 1 is comes in daily. after the 2nd week when Amano starts to add in the Amano shrimps too. So that might be important an important step to take care of the initial algae attacks.

there was a step by step guide in one of the aquajournal. i found it to you guys and made a capture:
This was the Aqua Journal 162.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorlantos/4146845882/
tagged with some info
 
I'll not be using Brighty K, but adding potassium in powder form (Fluidsensor) in its place. See Clive's comments on this here. But all credit (notwithstanding Garuf's prediction of algal carnage!) goes to Graeme for this approach.

But if this all goes pear-shaped, it's nobody's fault but my own. :wideyed:

andyh said:
Paul, forgot to say love the tank! Really like the rock work!
Click to expand...
Thanks Andy. I don't think I've commented on your kitchen tank (with zero previous experience I don't have much constructive to say), but I've got to tell you it's simply stunning - that photo including the view out the window captures the delights of planted aquaria in the home better than anything I've seen anywhere.

As an aside - I invited my significant other to watch the tank as I switched on the MH for a moment yesterday - as it started to glitter and glow I could see she finally 'got it' - I'm really chuffed.

We've been moving furniture around in the bedroom (no, this isn't a euphemism for something saucier) and I commented that a north-facing tank-sized gap has become available, expecting a "No more tanks!" comment - and she said nowt. So this could be progress...
 
Hmmm, you could well get lucky since the ADA ferts range are essential a very very lean EI... As long as you're more observant with having less room for error you should be fine.
 
andyh said:
Cant take credit for it, its all Graeme Edwards master plan. :thumbup:
Click to expand...

Thanks mate :thumbup:

paul.in.kendal said:
I'll not be using Brighty K, but adding potassium in powder form (Fluidsensor) in its place. See Clive's comments on this here. But all credit (notwithstanding Garuf's prediction of algal carnage!) goes to Graeme for this approach.
Click to expand...

I hope it works for you Paul. :thumbup:
 
DAY ELEVEN

I'm a bit concerned about - algae.

While some plants are growing healthily and vigorously (esp. Staurogyne, Rotala rotundifolia), others are not.

Some clumps of HC look fine:
dscf0003uk.jpg


But about 40 -50% is looking most unhappy - looks like filamentous algae to me:

dscf0005y.jpg


and here (you an see it on the hairgrass here, too):

dscf0004y.jpg


Even the Hydrocotyle verticillata, which is growing well, has thread algae:

dscf0001no.jpg


Should I be trying to remove the algae, spot-dosing with easycarbo, binning the worst affected - any or all of these? Am I right to assume at this early stage in a moderately lit set-up with plentiful CO2 and good flow this is down to the ammonia spike from the Aquasoil?

Yours

Fretful of Kendal
 
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