Tales of patience / laziness

[Chris Jackson]

Ok, I'd like to hear your tales of how leaving things be and lettings things settle have allowed your scape to recover from algae dramas or whatever... I personally think this is a huge aspect to successfully keeping planted tanks.

For instance in my current scape I got a lot of BBA in the high flow areas of the tank not long after I had a CO2 blip where I ran out and then couldnt establish a steady level. A new job then meant I had far less time to fiddle about with my tank. So I left it as was with a stable bubble rate and went to work.... no new BBA and old growth trimmed away over the last few weekends is leaving things fresh and green. Constantly tweaking and fiddling with things is fun but I'm not so sure it's always helpful...

Tales please

 

[Sarpijk]

I totally agree with being patient and not fiddling too much with the tank. I 've come to learn this the hard way. Uprooting plants and making too many changes is a sure way to disaster for me. I have lately started to making only but a few changes to my aquascape and my tank seems healthier.

I am sure most of us have witnessed a healthy tank after being away on holiday.

 

[pepedopolous]

I set up a 60 litre cube with pressurised CO2 in my classroom over the summer. I left it unplanted for a couple weeks, planted it and then left the country for 10 days! The temperatures were really hot (38 degrees) which can't have helped. The plants looked pretty bad or melted...

Now school has started again and I do weekly water changes and when I remember to, dose really dilute macro and micro ferts, probably a tenth of EI levels. I don't have time to really look after it but the plants are looking better and better despite the neglect. I have mosses, mini hairgrass, lush Rotala colorata, mini Bacopa, and Hygrophila polysperma and Ludwigia repens which had melted in my home aquarium. The only plants that are ropey are some Staurogyne and Java fern which came from a propagator. I think it's only a matter of time before they recover too.

P

 

[flygja]

I did have a tank once that had chronic green water for some weeks. So you may be thinking, green water, no biggie. Unfortunately my wedding was coming up and there would be actual people in my apartment at the time. No amount of water changes helped. In the end I just had to leave it. I think no one wanted to offend me by asking what was up with the tank. I left it there for another 2 weeks and suddenly one day after work, the green water was miraculously clear. Didn't do anything apart from fertilise as usual. Magic.

Patience I've never had, laziness I have in abundance.

 

[Chris Jackson]

Ah yes maybe tales of laziness might be more apt... I suspect that most of my patience may have been laziness in drag