• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Rivers Edge

I never got back to updating this thread, tank was look amazing then I moved house.

Everything went in a temp tank and is on life support.

Finally got bits for a new cabinet and tank ordered so will update here as I bring it back to life.
 
Build started on new system to finally get the temp tank gone.

Can't wait to have rivers edge back running.

Overall the system went exacly as I hoped, there's a few little tweaks to this one from the one in the rental house, mostly just aesthetics.

Pipework size for the Ehiem Pro 4+ bigger this time, larger volume system, a cheeky twist with the flow (river tank uni directional flow), less diverse planting, waterfall return and purging all the java moss!

20220504_121602.jpg
 
Bit of painting on the back and both ends today.
20220505_181744.jpg


Holes made in top of stand and outside wall for waste drain.

20220505_181749.jpg



Gave a trim and tidy up of the stuff in the holding tank, ditched quite a lot of the stuff that isn't coming across.
20220505_190150.jpg


Few bits under here too, the little tank is going to be for growing out some dwarf hair grass ready.

20220505_181809.jpg


Pretty sure now I've ordered everything I need for the build.


Can't wait to see this up and running now, it's been too long.
 
Little bit of progress today.

Few deliveries. Potted the hairgrass to grow out a bit until things are ready.

20220506_144048.jpg


All dosing lines and electrics sorted, light brackets in. Fake ivy in place to cover everything.

20220506_195454.jpg


Tonight's plan, make some mock up's of the rock walls.

20220506_195516.jpg
 
More progress today, drilled the holes in the bottom. Nerve wracking at best.

20220507_135729.jpg


Worked on the design for the upper and lower step downs

20220507_112433.jpg

20220507_113413.jpg


Then setup my temperature sensors for the home controller
20220507_135623.jpg


Waiting for a delivery of acrylic, pipework, pebbles, maxijet pumps and some hose.
 
received_544402253756412.jpeg



Well the last 2 days have been massive progress.

Almost unexpectedly everything turned up yesterday to get it all finished.

Pipework went without dramas, acrylic, expanding foam, Rockwood, substrate etc in today.

I've popped a canister on to polish the water (with a little carbon too) and tomorrow we'll see where we're at.

Tempted to move everything over by the weekend

20220510_192315.jpg
received_1011262729511881.jpeg
received_1396731974122327.jpeg
 
So everything is in and settling down nicely.

Few little jobs to do but the biggest focus now is just to leave it alone to settle and grow out.

Dosing unit has had a little service, containers cleaned, lines primed and all setup.
I used a dose for each channel much lower than I last did before moving last July.
I'll do a full water test on Monday then again in 3 wks and see where we are at.

Water is still a little foggy, but should settle out fine in a couple of days

20220512_171000.jpg
20220512_171006.jpg
20220512_171015.jpg
20220512_171022.jpg
20220512_171028.jpg
 
so today was mostly about chilling and doing the little bits round the house ready to go offshore.

I decided to start my parameter diary again from scratch, i had a look at the readings and comments, all the memories came flooding back of the old tank in my hobby room.

So we're at a starting point of knowing our parameters anyway, ammo/nit are bang on, but the water is way too soft.

I'll be honest it's expected as I didn't actually buffer the system when filling it, and the temp tank wasn't buffered or monitored in any way for a long time.
My tap water TDS is only 35 here so it's a lovely soft water area.

My current GH is 5 (target 8) and my KH is 0 (Target 6).

So I'm going to dial in a small amount of Bicarb to dose slowly, and set some manual doses to do a slow drip WC over the next 48 hours, try to change out 30/40% of the tank.

One scoop of my buffer in the topup tank gives 200(205) TDS, GH of 7 and KH of 3.

With set regular changes (4lt per day) once I get the bigger tank in, I should be able to tweak the bicarb dosing to maintain a fairly consistent value.
 
Hi all,
My tap water TDS is only 35 here so it's a lovely soft water area.

My current GH is 5 (target 8) and my KH is 0 (Target 6).

So I'm going to dial in a small amount of Bicarb to dose slowly, and set some manual doses to do a slow drip WC over the next 48 hours, try to change out 30/40% of the tank.

One scoop of my buffer in the topup tank gives 200(205) TDS, GH of 7 and KH of 3. ........ I should be able to tweak the bicarb dosing to maintain a fairly consistent value.
Why do you want so much dGH and dKH?

cheers Darrel
 
this was based on the recommendations for the shrimp.

Using these as target values previously gave me a really healthy colony.
 
Brought my levels up to 6dGH and 3dkh over 24 hours with a mix of water changes, a little buffer into the tank and a little bicarb into the tank.

WC setup to last 22 days, bicarb dosing setup to 15ml per day, concentration is 20ml (4tsp) bicarb per lt.

Also worked out my water volume after displacement and non filled height, including the canister filter at 170lt.
This will be handy for any form of dosing etc

We'll see where we are at in 3 weeks.

Everything happy, added 6 amano and 1 bamboo shrimp.


Really happy with progress at this point.

20220517_150250.jpg

20220517_150322.jpg


20220517_150329.jpg
 
so my first 3 week trip away was a successful in that nothing melted, nothing died.

We had a little issue, with the weir was letting water under the plastic, meaning it was forcing water up through the sand behind the waterfall. No water was coming over the waterfall.

There was a dusting of sand everywhere, and the water was cloudy.

I used milliput to close up the gaps and got everything back working as before.

The tanks settled down again, water clear and parameters have been stable throughout.

I've added a 45x45x45 tank as a larger WC resevior now, and used the 30x30x30 tank in my kitchen (using the lid from the 45) as a closed emmersed setup.

Plan is to try to grow out some mosses in the kitchen, then move them onto the waterfall over time.

287390615_5566293033433707_8074587714449223018_n.jpg
 
Tank testing done today. No surprises and everything seems stable.

GH and KH both up to 6 which is somewhere I'm happy with.

New water change tank arrived last week so I've got 80Lt + of volume there.

I've set it to add 2.5it per day, which is roughly 8/10% WC per week after evaporation.

I'll maybe up the volume of changes while I'm home, but this covers me for my month away comfortably while giving the stability combined with the dosing.

The JBL mineralizer gives 6dGH and 3dKH.

My Biracb solution, at a 30 ml per day dose adds about 1dKH per week.
Net result at this point including evaporation should see a slow climb to the target of 8/10.
I'll monitor and see if that's where we go.

I'll have to keep in mind when increasing WC's I'd expect to see this value drop.


Either that or i reduce the target to 3dKH.

I do wonder if the recommended 8/20 for the shrimp is to ensure there is enough when the aquarist doesn't check for a while, but with actual dosing and monitoring then 3 might be plenty enough for the inverts.

I'll have to have a think about it.
 
Back
Top