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Rescaping 64l customised rekord 600

Yeh the foreground really sets it off looking at your earlier picture,how often do you trim the foreground plants?All I can suggest for the BBA is clean off what you can with the usual methods and make sure flow is not getting inhibited ,maybe with your growth sucess is inadvertently inhibiting flow and co2 and ferts not maybe getting around as previously.Water changes increase maybe?
 
Thanks for the reply PARAGUAY.

I tend to trim it once it starts to obscure the crypt, might start trimming it more regulary if it will help, never thought of plant growth messing with flow, probably could increase water changes too, got a bit lazy lately, like once a month :S, I have started dosing liquid carbon alongside normal co2 also.

To be honest I am tempted to rescape soon, remove the carpet and use sand maybe just use the crypts, the hygro, the anubias and maybe the rotala and use some landscape rocks I have from my old tank and make a smaller area of plants in a better location for flow.
 
I didnt really understand the flow issue ,think I read something think I read something about it plants as well as hardscape can alter it .Maybe then allowing BBA to take hold obviously not a total answer
 
It does make sense now I think about it, it is a large mass where the flow goes.

Will cut it right down on monday when kids are back at school/nursery, need to get back into weekly water changes too, having the kids around has made any tank maintenance awkward.
 
So I just got finished rescaping this, gonna wait for the dust to settle and do a few water changes over the next few days to help with that and then il get some pics.

I have replaced wood with landscape rocks and replaced a carpet with sand.
 
Pics
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That last picture makes me realise how good glassware would look instead of the basic aps stuff, will have to add that to my list, also I cannot wait for the back left to grow in I trimmed them before re-placing to allow for new healthy growth to come through.

I still think it looks better in person though why dont they make smart phone camera's any good haha
 
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Thought I would post about what I am dosing and stuff now.

Daily I am dosing 2ml of liquid carbon and 2 pumps of tropica premium ferts.

Lighting period is 6hrs a day, co2 on 2hrs before lights on at 2bps and off 2hyr before lights off.

Another thing I did was reverse the light so that the background gets alot more than the foreground.
 
Weekly 50% water change done, removed the wood and trident (only kept it so the other half did not complain about wasting money) and moved some crypts to where the wood was and moved the rotala to behind the tallest part of the rocks, once the ludwigia starts to grow more and I get cuttings I am going to start packing that in to the left of the rotala's new home and the hygro can stay where it is in the corner.

I lost a danio during cleaning today also :( it jumped out of the back of the tank as I was wiping the front glass clean, got it out but too late :(
 
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On tuesday I cleaned all the filter hosing and replaced the filter pads, also had a play with outlet and diffuser.

Outlet is now at front right next to the inlet as it looked like a deadspot between the two of them before and I moved the diffuser to the side front left and it is alot better for flow so far today I could see my plants were pearling a bit for the first time.

Gonna wait until tuesday then trim and replant some stems, going to trim the hygro and take out the old parts of the plant and just plant the cuttings.
 
Getting a wierd pink algae along the sand and on the sloped rock, very strange.
 
Some algae tend to go pink when dosing liquid carbon.
 
Having a little struggle with bba, got rid of half of it and ran out of excel so doing 50% water changes twice a week now.
not convinced some of tetra's look healthy though, hoping the double water changes will help.

Also have some cherry shrimp in there, got 5 and already I have seen a baby.

I am going to completely rescape it after the school holidays are over.
 
richard brown said:
Having a little struggle with bba, got rid of half of it and ran out of excel so doing 50% water changes twice a week now.
not convinced some of tetra's look healthy though, hoping the double water changes will help.

Also have some cherry shrimp in there, got 5 and already I have seen a baby.

I am going to completely rescape it after the school holidays are over.
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Don't wish to knock your efforts, everything is improving but BBA generally won't go on its own even with increasingly water changes so it will still need scrubbed off or blasted with liquid carbon.


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AverageWhiteBloke said:
Don't wish to knock your efforts, everything is improving but BBA generally won't go on its own even with increasingly water changes so it will still need scrubbed off or blasted with liquid carbon.


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Oh I know, waiting to order some excel, meanwhile im scrubbing the rocks alot before each water change.
 
Nice one mate, just checking.

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Did a spot of diy, shortened the pipe for the Inlet so it sits higher up and added a pre filter sponge to it.

Made diy outlet by cutting most of the nozzle from my syphon to make a lilypipe type outlet just to see if it improves flowm, I never used that part anyway, was way too big for the tank.

Cleaned the filter out aswell (apart from the bio balls and ceramic rings), I removed 2 of the 3 floss pads that were in there to help improve flow also.

The new outlet is mainly an experiment to see if makes a smoother flow around the tank.l
 
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What kind of filtration do you have? BBA from my experience is also a result of poor filtration (as in mechanical, biological, chemical). Here are my recommendations:

1) Stop dosing for a week or two. Don't follow the bottle's instructions as dosing is tank dependent. You don't have much plant mass and the type of plants you chose aren't super nutrient-dependent. Dose on an as needed period or maybe 1/2 of what the bottle recommends. I would try dosing a little at a time to see the effects on the tank, monitoring for a week, and continuing to change.

2) Add more ceramic balls, scouring pads, hydroton, etc. to your filtration process. Better environment to handle ammonia = less algae.

3) Reduce light period by 1-2 hours or reduce lighting intensity. Remember if your plants dont need that much light, and you're blasting it - something will make use of the energy. If you can't do either or, add some salvinia or frogbit to your tank to block out some light.
 
Thanks for the reply Doubu.

by scouring pads do you mean the ones for doing dishes (unused of coarse)?

will reduce light period also and amount of fertilizer.

The reason for the pre filter and raising the inlet up is to (hopefully) improve filtation, better flow and the raised inlet should help keep debris suspended for longer, and the pre filter should stop as much debris getting into the filter, I plan on cleaning the pre filter twice a week.
 
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