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Tom's ADA 45P - new design

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Here's a quick video of the tank, showing the CO2 injection and overall poor plant health. Sorry it's not so clear.

I'm seriously considering starting again with a new scape and EI from the beginning, to see what happens - but that does mean putting more money into it again.

 
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It's such a nice scape, it would be a shame to restart :( I'm not a co2 user but have managed a handful of plants alright with soft water but are generally in the 'low tech, easy' catagory :D I wondered with using in vitro plants (which are naturally younger & less stored enery) if using co2 & ferts are a bit out of balance - I can imagine everything goes south quicker. Now you have seemed to sort out your fertilising regime it may just take time & patience for it to come around again like Tim says ☺ Hoping it improves for you soon!
 
Hi,
If you want to re-skape, go for it but will not solve the issues. I saved some of my tanks from different types of algae/plant melt like this:

1) Switch off the filter, lights and CO2. Physically remove algae or dead plant mass to reduce ammonia spike later.
2) , 3% H2O2 treatment on the most infested zones/hardskape using syringe or eyedropper( do this when tank is still full of old water, and leave for 5-10 min hydrogen peroxide to work) will fuzz like champagne:) careful with the moss is the most sensitive to H2O2 so the fauna of the tank, you can use power-head to circulate the water during the treatment, dont use your filter as will bleach the beneficial bacteria in it.
3) 50% water change try to siphon as much as possible dead algae and plant mass
4) Top up your tank with fresh water that will stop H2O2 treatment as will dilute the peroxide.
5) Power the filter but not thy CO2 as can suffocate the fauna
6) Fully cover the tank with carton box or black bin bags or dark paper, should be fully BLACKOUT for the next 3-5 days. Dont peek to see whats up the fish/shrimp will be OK.
7) Open a can of your favourite beer, you deserve it.
8) After the certain time 3-5 days uncover the tank. Switch OFF the filter.
9) Your plants will be clean and a little bit overgrown as they was searching for the light for 5 days(Phototropism)- they will look pale but healthy.
10) Hit the remaining algae( if any) with another dose of H2O2 just to make sure you damage all algae cells.
11) 80-100% water change if you dont have sensitive fish/shrimp, I lost couple of shrimp because they can not handle rapid change of the water chemistry...if so do 50%. Try to syphon any dead algae/plant mass
12) Most of all you fixed the Problem now not the reason, so try to revisit your dosing regime, do extra WC as dead algae can provoke ammonia spike, clean your filter media as there is dead algae trapped there
13) Revisit your Lighting schedule as the plants need a week or so to recover from the Blackout period and start to uptake Nutritients. I go always lean on dosing for week or so after the treatment and do extra WC
14) Pump up your CO2 gradually as your dosing regime.
NB. Dont use any stronger than 3% H2O2 as it will burn your moss and some sensitive plants like HC, Bucephalandras. Dont over do peroxide as over 5 - 10 min can damage any plant cells or fish gills. Circulate the water during the H2O2 treatment. Expect some dead plants as they been damaged prior the treatment, the same for the shrimp and fish they may be sick prior the treatment without any signs for that.
Hopefully will be no victims in the war with the algae, but the algae itself! Wish you luck!
 
Just read your entire thread and I think there is a lot of urban legends behind the importance of CO2 distribution, Light strength PAR, dosing nutrients and so on. It is all matter of what do you want to achieve with your tanks. The truth is almost any plant can grow at any conditions but at certain rates as long as you keep the golden triangle in wright shape and your tank balanced. Ammonia and Inconsistency is your biggest ENEMY.
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Still persisting with this, and have now been dosing EI for just over a month. Some stems are growing marginally faster and the new growth does look a little better, but still becomes engulfed in brown rather quickly. The Glosso has also started to die off, after initially carpeting very quickly and nicely. It hasn't recovered well from even a rather mild trim.

The moss is, believe it or not, the fastest-growing plant I have - but even so, it is mostly brown. The healthiest-looking plants are the new Bolbitis leaves. It's the only plant that doesn't seem to go brown.

I'm also getting a lot of debris settling every couple of days. The moss gets regularly vaccumed, and the water coming down the tube is opaque. Debris also settles heavily like snow on the stem plants and below the Glosso. Is this due to the diatoms, or possibly the cause? If it's the cause, then where would it be coming from?
 
I know the leaves indicate a deficiency but my first port of call would be to absolutely make sure my co2 was nailed on.

Over here you can buy a ph pen/indicator solution and a KH measurement solution for a tenner. Measure your KH, measure your pH before lights on continue to measure your pH during the day. Check with the KH, pH, co2 charts and get the co2 levels bang on.

Clone's triangle is obviously correct and maybe the fact your lfs uses a weaker light could be useful info. Maybe raise your lights a couple of inches for a while till you find out where your deficiency is.
 
Your plants are yellow , not brown , the brown stuff are diatoms , they are coming from the plants that are not growing .

As i said before , you have a Fe deficiency , check out the new anubias leaves , they are pale /yellow , also hydrocotyle tripartita is yellow

Change your micro fertilizer , switch to DTPA iron / micros , like Easy Life Profitto / Ferro or JBL feropol or JBL microelements , you should see changes in 2-3 weeks

Also lower your CO2 diffuser and add more CO2 if possible , be careful not to kill your fish / shrimps with too much co2

Do water changes 2 times per week , 30-50 % and add ferts back right after water change

Good luck .
 
I've changed the micros twice now. I'm dosing EI with chelated trace, KNO3 and KPO4 powders from CO2 Supermarket. I'm in Japan and it is hard to find what I want here. Pretty much everyone here seems to use ADA, as have I in the past, with great results. With the exception of the ADA ferts I used before, I have been ordering from the UK.

As the for the yellow, some of it in the latest video might be the white balance on the camera. New leaves, to me, look to be a nice green - but not for long. From there, they become covered in diatoms.

I'm injecting more CO2 than I've ever done before for a small tank, and it is being well distributed. The drop checker is yellow all day and blue before lights on - I don't want to increase it any more.

I'm doing 3-4 50% water changes per week because of the dirt that builds up.
 
Here's the new design.

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This time I'm using a heater, and have re-plumbed my CO2. I think I was losing quite a bit of gas from having loops of silicone tubing, but now I'm using minimal. The rest is ADA high-pressure tube. I used a whole canister of gas in a week, whereas before it lasted 6. The bubble rate is a lot easier to control now.

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I have hairgrass at the back, but the substrate level is lower than I thought - it might not be visible. Will see how it goes.

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Look's to be fresh start:cool:.
To be possibly followed shortly, by diatom's.
Might were it me,(and it ain't) start with moderate light intensity/photoperiod.
Amano shrimp,Nerite snail's (if GH suit's them) would help scour the hardscape whilst you get consistent CO2 and nutrient's lined up.
Would not fret bout diatom's on hardscape for they mostly go away on their own over time (month's sometimes).
My apologies if type of lighting has been mentioned but,,the tank look's to be very well lit up.
 
Quick 10-day update then.

Things are beginning to grow. I've also added the Amano Shrimp that I took out of the last layout. The Crypt at the back was added too, from the last layout. The rest of those old plants are sitting emersed in a Do!Aqua plant glass (cheaper than a supermarket glass bowl here...!)

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This might sound a little out there - but I would recommend you adding ramshorn snails too. I have them in all my tanks and honestly they are such good cleaners - they will eat up all kinds of algae (diatoms, gda) along with dying leaves/plants. This will help you keep the tank clean with minimal effort. If there are too many, add an algae wafer or lettuce or w/e, they will all swarm on it and then you can remove a bunch at one time. Hope everything works out better this time around!
 
Thanks Doubu, that's a suggestion I hadn't thought of.

I've started to see some diatoms appearing this week for the first time, and so I went to expand my cleanup crew. I already had 5 Amanos (Yamato numa ebi) but I picked up 3 more. Also went for 3 Otocinclus and 2 ishimakigai (snails - I'm not sure of the English. Nerite snails?).

On a positive note, the new Rotala growth looks good - some stems are struggling to adapt, but most are putting out new shoots near the bottom. I'm cutting off the old tops as they start to grow.

On a side note - I was looking at some Neon Tetras in the shop yesterday. They're fantastic here. Like, really. I've not seen Neons like this back home. They always look sickly, mis-shapen and can be quite hit-and-miss. They're not only great-looking here, but are by far the cheapest fish in the shop, at ¥55 each. That's about 40p, even with our awful exchange rate now. When I commented on it, the man in the shop told me that before they were as expensive as ¥100, thinking that that was horrific.

Amanos, too, are ¥100 each. That's around 70-75p. My Otos were 3 for ¥900, or £6.50 ish.
 
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