The End of The Beginning

[Lindy]

Looks a beautiful set up. I think it is right the way it is and have your inlet in the rear right corner and outlet front right. I also prefer the dark grey filter tubing as it doesn't look dirty in a week but you can still see when it needs a clean if you look carefully, but then I have stainless steel inlets and outlets.

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[rebel]

Beautiful indeed! The general rules about not touching the sides with hardscape don't apply in this case . Really liking it.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Thanks guys, unfortunately I had to push on with the setup and give up on scaping. I went to work Sunday and noticed the plants that were being kept in the temp holding tank were melting big style! Seems to have happened over night mainly affecting the Crypts, Stellata and s.repens. Not sure if this was a reaction to high dosing of LC or because the roots were exposed. Maybe even temp changes when moving stuff about.

Thought I best just get this show on the road so set the tank up. Took the plants that were least affected and removed any damaged leaves. Tank isn't as heavily planted as I would have liked but the remaining specimens look healthy enough. Had a bit of a school boy error with the setup, because I rushed into it and was messing about with the layout the night before the wood had dried out. You guessed it, got to the last couple of inch of water and up they came pulling most of the plants up with it Managed to get them weighted down with some stones on rubber band but bang went the vision of the scape. By time I had sorted it last night it was too cloudy to photograph but I'll get some shots later. Last I saw of it this morning things had cleared up and essentially I'm happy with the layout although the wood will need a bit of dialling in when it decides not to float. It's a work in progress anyway, even if it turned out exactly as I planned I probably would have shuffled some stuff about. My original layouts didn't take into a account the height of the gravel which was quite deep so I probably would have had to alter it anyway.

In the meantime the plants are in intensive care, hopefully I can get some flesh back on their bones. Just got the light at 25% for 5 hours and dosing EI already. Putting the recommended dose of LC in the morning because the tank gets some ambient light from a nearby patio door but don't want to be od'ing the LC just in case they're suffering from a hangover from the holding tank Expecting some die back though.

Regarding pipes. I had to use the green eheim ones I already had. The inlet and out let were in the best positions I could get with the length of tube I had. These might change if the flow isn't right. I was intending to hole cut the cabinet with a white plastic desk tidy but to be fair I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Things look a lot neater with the pipes out the back.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Best I can come up with for now. My phones away getting repaired and my spare is rubbish. Had to take this with the one on my laptop.

WIN_20160606_23_09_53_Pro by AWB70, on Flickr

Water is clearing up nicely and no signs of any plants deteriorating further, the Balansae looks like it took the worst hit. I've switched over the full co2 setup from my old tank which held about 50 or so ltrs more water than this one and had a lot more plants. Haven't bothered adjusting the bubble rate obviously just the timing to coincide with this tanks timing. Got some lager coloured DC's in the worst flow areas. Would worry me if there was fauna in there but while the cory cats away the plants can play I guess.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Nothing really to add at the moment, week 2 shot, Didn't do one for week one, as you can see with the pebble wedged in the roots that one piece refused to sink after I took the stones off on WC day Very annoying not to be able to see the scape as I intended it for the first time but the roots are pretty much whereabouts they will be going. Ripped a few plants up as well when it floated so I took a hissy fit and and left it, hopefully another week submerged will do it.

On the brighter side though while I was in P@H I spotted a healthy bunch of Lindernia rotundfolia, nice looking plant, reminds me of gooseberries. Added this to the front left side to cheer myself up. Got a bit of surface scum but I'm not worrying, it will go. The plants seem to have finished with melting at the moment and some signs of new growth. My co2 I turned down, on my previous setup I had a 3in1 bubble counter/check valve/diffuser but plugged straight into a glass diffuser here, put a bubble counter I had lying about on at the weekend and my co2 was full on! Turned it down a little so I could at least see separate bubbles (still too many to count per second) The DC is still yellow but I think I'll leave it like that for a while, don't want to be messing too much and encouraging BBA. It needs no encouragement to start with. I'll re-evaluate the situation when the plants are growing in more and using a bit of co2 prior to adding any fauna.

Full tank by AWB70, on Flickr

Was working on my list of Hardware and plants so I could post that up. Only one I'm not really sure about is the fore plant between the Lindernia rotundfolia and the Japonica. I have a better picture of it from my shrimp tank where it came from if anyone can ID please.

unknown plant by AWB70, on Flickr
Quick shot from the side. (Really need to get a camera)

side shot by AWB70, on Flickr

And the DC still looking good as well as the Balansae making a come back. Glad I saved some Balansae, I keep some of every species in my shrimp tank but after the melting disaster this was the last portion of it I had left.

Drop Checker by AWB70, on Flickr

Talking of the shrimp tank, things are looking quite healthy in there at the moment. I'm considering leaving the Panda cats in there as permanent residents. One looks a lot fuller bodied than the other and chances of them being a male and female, maybe spawn, worth a try, I haven't spawned anything and raised the young for about six years ago with my Kribs so might be an interesting little project. I also added some water lettuce in the main tank, hopefully it will soak up some of that spare ammonia and I can get some RCS in here within the next couple of weeks. My shrimp tank is at critical mass at the moment!

shrimp by AWB70, on Flickr

I also came across this picture courtesy of ADA Italy on Instagram, thought I'd post that up here as well as a bit of a mood room shot to remind me of what type of things I like and try and incorporate some of them into the scape. Might have mentioned this before but I'm useless at scaping, things either look good to me or they don't regardless of the ratio and focal point or what have you. Not exactly what I'm trying to achieve but something similar in that vein. One side heavily planted with an open area front left.

ada by AWB70, on Flickr

I have followed some jungle scaping rules by not putting plants with same leaf shape next to each other and in rows wherever possible. Other than that it's just a bit random.

Feel free to comment, any advice greatly appreciated.

 

[Wisey]

Plants all in the old tank as an holding pen. No point buying everything new. I probably will re-use most of the species except the crypt wendt. They grow like nuts with long roots. I tend to find that you pull one out and it rips up other plants from a distance from where it was.

I'm a little late to the game with this, but if you want to move plants with large root structures such as Crypts, you don't have to pull the whole root out and cause mayhem. For ease of replanting, you are likely to trim most of the root off anyway, so just ease the plant up so that enough root for replanting is exposed, trim at the substrate, lift out the plant to re-use with 4-5 cm of root on the bottom and leave the rest of the root in the substrate. It will die off in the substrate and just adds nutrients to your substrate.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Thanks Wisey, I've heard someone mention that before about an Amazon sword they were removing. My plants were moved to a bare bottomed tank for storage just until I set my new tank up. They're all back in now other than the wendtil which melted in the holding tank. I still have a couple of them in my shrimp tank if I need some in future. I’m a bit weird like that for some reason every time I buy a plant it doesn't matter if I don't really want that particular type in the scape I will always keep at least one specimen in on of my tanks in case I want one for future. At some point I'll have the finest collection of plants in the UK.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Wow, just been reading through this again and it seems like a lifetime ago now. I don't think I could have picked a worse time to be setting up a scape and doing my first journal busy at work and home improvements at home so haven't had time to keep up. I also don't own a camera and my phone broke, been using a crappy old thing until my contract was up so unfortunately no decent pics. I managed to get a few using my laptop cam and a phone I recently got and try and bring things up to date.

Been through the usual start up issues but this tank has been fairly kind to me on the algae front. Had some brown algae to start with which wiped off easily as well as cutting off affected leaves. Some pictures of the tank, hopefully in the correct timeline order.

Going back to June 20th 2016

June by AWB70, on Flickr


26th Aug 2016

Aug by AWB70, on Flickr

As you can see things are starting to grow in a bit better. Also haven't added any fish yet. The good thing is about not having any time you can be more patient. Added some RCS, didn't see any casualties so I guess the substrate had done it's job and fishless cycled the tank. A few week later added 9 Ember Tetra. Lost one pretty much the same day but all the rest were fine...then the problems began.

Sept 2 by AWB70, on Flickr

Again, apologies for the camera work. The adding of fish as well as some missing of water changes had a bit of a breakout of green filamentous algae of unknown type. Starting to get on top of it now.

oct by AWB70, on Flickr

The algae pretty much decimated the Rota and hairgrass. Currently taking out the Japonicas on the right hand side and replacing with what's left growing tips from the Rota.

Pics taken Saturday after a clip out.

corner view by AWB70, on Flickr

Had to change from an inline atomiser back to a glass diffuser. The inline was very effective but the Embers just didn't like it at all. They seemed to hang in the upper back corner where the mist was at its least, not gasping at all just staying away. As soon is it's knocked off they would start swimming normally again. Not to worry, I know I may be wasting some gas but I think the glass diffusers are quite aesthetically pleasing..even when they are not running.

ember tetra by AWB70, on Flickr

hairgrass algae by AWB70, on Flickr

Still battling with the hairgrass, been clipping it out and spraying direct with LC.

s.repens algae by AWB70, on Flickr

Also affecting around the bottom of S.repens. This is the areas I had to clear out.

side view by AWB70, on Flickr

Japonica always seems to try and float away.

fts december by AWB70, on Flickr

Light on 25% Setting for last hour.

light up a corner by AWB70, on Flickr

But on the plus side, lights up a corner nicely!

Any comments or help greatly appreciated.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Still battling with the same old algae. Not sure which type it is so I've attached a picture. It seems more prevalent in the flow of water at the front and been removing it manually but its a PITA in my hair grass as you end up yanking that out with it.

IMG_20170128_1538242 by AWB70, on Flickr

IMG_20170128_1537498 by AWB70, on Flickr

IMG_20170123_2154226 by AWB70, on Flickr

Is there any condition in particular this algae thrives or do I just need to tighten up all parameters?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Still battling with the same old algae. Not sure which type it is so I've attached a picture.

If it feels tough and a bit "gritty"? It is <"Cladophora">.

cheers Darrel

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Certainly looks like it Darrel based on those pictures , I'll get a piece out and give it a feel. It's not particularly stubborn and doesn't appear to be growing attached to the plants more growing within the structure of the plant. It is very easy to remove, you just grab it with your fingers and a whole clump just pulls away other than in the hair grass where you tend to uproot the grass. It also seems to grow around the base of the plants and spreads upwards.

As with most of the algae on JPT it says low co2 or nutrients. I'm currently dosing EI at around 21ppm kno3 per week and 2ppm po4. With weekly 50% wc and Mid week about an hour before lights off I change about 2 gall just to drop the water level and get a bit off has exchange. My tank holds quite a bit of co2 due to not having much surface agitation. Based on the water lettuce and duck weed nutrients don't appear at first glance to be an issue.

I've just changed my co2 bottle and right now co2 is a little high for my liking, DC is quite yellow in the evening and I find a couple of my ottos hanging out on Sword leaves that are next to the surface which they don't generally do. Don't fancy turning it up any more although I have added some more ottos at the weekend and they could still be climatising to a co2 rich environment.

As for flow the algae seems more prevalent in high flow areas.I have the outlet pointing towards the hairgrass.

Maybe just needs a bit more time and manual removal. I also dose 3ml Flourish in 100 ltrs and have recently added a bag of purigen to the filter so the only thing left in my arsenal is the kitchen sink

Other than this everything seems fine. Just added another three Embers at the weekend and four ottos bringing the total to 10 of each. That's me nearly fully stocked including the shrimp. Just got 6 pygmy Cory's to add but I'll give things chance to settle with the new additions before getting them. Struggling to find any at the minute just normal ones which are a bit big, trying to keep the scale right. I have one panda Cory which is living out retirement from a previous set up, was going to get more but I find they don't seem to care which variety of Cory they hang out with.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I don't tend to get it in the tanks, low nutrient, no added CO2 and softish water, but that may because the snails graze it off before it becomes obvious. I found a large tuft in one of the tanks once, lodged in an Anubias, and in the flow from the filter, but it never spread and eventually disappeared. I actually like the look of it, and would quite like it to grow in the tanks

I think Cladophora is quite a difficult one to control. Not much eats it, and it is a <"green algae">, and they are very similar in physiology to the plants we want to grow.

cheers Darrel

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

So as algae goes it may be a good sign that things are fine it just got a foot hold somehow. It's definitely not at a nuisance stage right now. If it wasn't attached to the hairgrass I could probably completely remove it like I have on the Staurgoyne. The plants certainly appear to grow faster than it does so it can't really dominate. In fact rather than spread it seems to go into a denser tighter ball. I maybe try trimming the hairgrass down really short as the algae is mainly on the surface of it and see if I can eradicate it that.
Just realised this is supposed to be a journal so better get some updates going Thanks for your response Darrel, as always very informative. I know this isn't really your bag forcing Plants to grow as opposed to your philosophy of just letting Plants grow.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

So as algae goes it may be a good sign that things are fine

Yes, pretty much.

In fact rather than spread it seems to go into a denser tighter ball. I maybe try trimming the hairgrass down really short as the algae is mainly on the surface of it and see if I can eradicate it that.

I think manual removal is a good idea.

I know this isn't really your bag forcing Plants to grow as opposed to your philosophy of just letting Plants grow.

I'm just lazy. I've spent the last two months looking at the scum of floating Riccia and Utricularia gibba on one of the tanks, and thinking "I should probably remove some of it", but I haven't and it is now about 2" thick and has engulfed moss and Ceratopteris plants as well.

cheers Darrel

 

[micheljq]

relatively depressing journal title though

Title is the same as a song from Black Sabbath

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Title is the same as a song from Black Sabbath

I wish that was the reason why I called it that now, didn't realise must have been subliminal when I was playing it backwards

Time for some shots, apologies for the phone pics but at least my new phone has a better camera than my previous one..

Algae starts like this.

IMG_20170131_2206342 by AWB70, on Flickr

Then culminates into this although very easy to just pull out in clumps. Some use you are mate Ok fair enough, it's like feeding bananas to a piranha but he looks healthy enough on something even if this algae isn't his thing.

IMG_20170131_2205134 by AWB70, on Flickr

Not quite as easy too remove from the hairgrass though!

IMG_20170131_2205260 by AWB70, on Flickr

He's not much use either but good to watch.

IMG_20170131_2213472 by AWB70, on Flickr

As you can see my lily pipe enters from the rear left pointing towards the front of the tank so the hairgrass and s.repens get the full flow making me think flow isn't an issue. No signs of any plant deficiencies either in the Water lettuce and duck weed which can get out of hand if not netted out weekly.

IMG_20170131_2210300 by AWB70, on Flickr

Doesn't appear to affect anywhere else on the tank other than the odd clump on the wood. Only really in areas of high flow.

IMG_20170131_2215238 by AWB70, on Flickr

I'm running my co2 a fair bit higher than I normally would, looks lager yellow when taken out the tank.

IMG_20170131_2212308 by AWB70, on Flickr

Doesn't seem to bother the other ottos or embers. New ones are settling in.

IMG_20170131_2207191 by AWB70, on Flickr

IMG_20170131_2208099 by AWB70, on Flickr

Except this guy who doesn't appear to have moved from this position since I got them 5 days ago???

IMG_20170131_2203375 by AWB70, on Flickr

Obligatory FTS, can't get the right angle because my dining room table and chairs are in the way which means I have to move them to get a 90 angle to the tank...One day when I think its worth it though and I have a decent camera.

IMG_20170123_2154226 by AWB70, on Flickr

As usual I've let the tank do what it wants and grow where ever it wants. My next move is better placing of plants and some structure. I think I'm just a habitual junglist.

IMG_20170131_2159146 by AWB70, on Flickr

All comments or advice greatly appreciated.

 

[cookie.dou]

From my experience, thats due to excessive lighting. I think you're on the right track (reducing hours). I also recommend cutting back your dosing at the same time. I had the same thing happen - reduced lighting intensity, period and did not dose for like 3 weeks.. eventually it kinda went away on its own and I manually removed the rest and am slowly starting to dose again.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

From my experience, thats due to excessive lighting. I think you're on the right track (reducing hours). I also recommend cutting back your dosing at the same time. I had the same thing happen - reduced lighting intensity, period and did not dose for like 3 weeks.. eventually it kinda went away on its own and I manually removed the rest and am slowly starting to dose again.

I'm always a bit dubious about reducing ferts at anytime of algae. Strangely this situation became worse when I increased the amount of water changes unless it's a throw back from the previous couple of months where wc's were a bit hit and miss.

My lighting is on for 7 hours from 4.30pm to 11.30pm, intensity is at 100% throughout and the light isn't what I would call excessively bright compared to say T 5 's.

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[xim]

Hi, I have an acquaintance who had these algae. Only manual removal got rid of them. They are very similar to moss. Some sources even call them a moss, i.e., moss balls.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

Funny you should mention that, I had a feel of it today during the water change and I can't say that it felt gritty at all. Because the ball gets tighter rather than spreading I thought to myself this reminds me of those Moss balls you often see for sale in the lfs.

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