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Transitioning Phase... (Unknown Weeks) Transitioning into a Journal

Be happy to if that's what you'd like me to do ;)

Yeah that would be great. Is there any way that I can combine the two?

@Jayefc1 I'll decrease the intensity today to 80% and add a ramp up and down period. Do the plants photosynthesis at a light intensity of 10%? I'd like to see your tank at that intensity if you have a picture to share.

I've also started getting diatoms on the glass which will probably pass as the tank matures.
 
No all there work is done by the time it goes down just means you can view it for a little longer and its quiet a nice ambience to il take a pic tonight for you

Alright, thank you. I'll have to wait a few days to set up the dimmer as I'll need an 5.5 to 2.1 adapter.
 
Light on 10% pic like you asked for
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The evening viewing period looks great. I've currently got the co2 on from 12:30 to 7:30 and lights are on from 4pm until 9pm.

I will change it to the following:
Ramp up to 80%: 3pm until 3:30pm
At 80%: 3:30pm until 8:30pm
Ramp down to 10%: 8:30 to 8:45pm
At 10%: 8:45 to 9 and then lights off. I'll extend the period at 10% as the tank matures and balances out.

What do people do when the time goes forward? If I set everything back by an hour then will it have an impact on the plants?
 
7 weeks in now. I've removed one of the older pieces of wood as it had weird growth on it. I've implemented the dimmer today. I'll probably increase the amount of ferts and co2 being injected as the plant mass has increased The Rotala H'ra seems to grown horizontally across the floor rather than vertically which isn't ideal.
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I plan to conduct a major trim this Friday when I hit the 8 weeks marks. I've found that the growth on the Rotala bonsai and the H'ra to be very slow in comparison to the yao yai which has been trimmed twice. Even the cryptocoryne balansae has grown more in height than the bonsai and H'ra. The worst grower has been vallisneria nana which is no more than 2 inches long. Picture heavy update inbound which also shows the meager growth from the rotala.
Does anyone know what the moss on the left of the Taiwan moss is? It came from my old tank, I thought it was flame moss but it turned out to be something else. Could it be java or christmas? Those were the other two moss types that I had. Do I trim pinnatifida like any other stem plant. The growth has been quite good. One of the few Tropica plants that I've had which has had no melt when transitioning within the tank.
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growth on the Rotala bonsai and the H'ra to be very sl
I find these quiet slow to.get going and need a longer time to settle especially if there 1_2 grow pots
Do I trim pinnatifida like any other stem plant
I just pinch the tips out on the pinnatifida and nip off older leaves depends how you want it to grow
Does anyone know what the moss
I think its java moss looks quiet stringy to me
 
I find these quiet slow to.get going and need a longer time to settle especially if there 1_2 grow pots

I just pinch the tips out on the pinnatifida and nip off older leaves depends how you want it to grow

I think its java moss looks quiet stringy to me

That's good to know, hopefully once they're settled in they'll grow faster. I'd like the pinnatifida to grow outwards to try and cover more of the manzanita if possible. If it is java moss, then it's the slowest growing out of the taiwan and flame moss that I currently have.
 
My week 8 update has come a few days late now that I can upload images again.

I've removed 90% of the S. Repens in the tank as I was finding very difficult to access the lower leaves. The growth was horizontal across the substrate rather than vertical. The lower leaves were affected by gsa and a I found a small amount of Staughorne which I first identified in week 2/3 with it then dissappearing. I've ordered Blyxa Japonica to replace the vallisneria nana which doesn't grow due the excel and lilaeopsis mauritiana to replace the S.Repens. Ideally I would have liked lilaeopsis brasiliensis which has flatter and thicker leaves. I conducted a big trim of the Yao Yai and left the H'ra and bonsai to grow for another a week or two.

Hydrocotyle Tripartita Japan has finally started draping downwards after just growing busier at the surface of the water for a weeks.

I've included some of the inhabitants within the weekly images:
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Week 10 update. I have been a little neglectful with the maintenance of the tank. The plants are in need of a major trim. I swapped my sodastream canister to a fire extinguisher but I haven't managed to achieve the same drop in the drop checker as previously. I've also reduced the lighting level to 60% as I prefer the lower lighting levels. The images below were taken at unknown percentage as the light ramps up in intensity.
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In the past 7 months, the home required emergency building works which needed the tank moved. The only space available was in front of the all glass doors to the garden. I had to do a quick rescape which had no planning involved. The position it was moved to was less than ideal due to the amount of sunlight. This led to all sorts of algae problems and eventually I gave up on the tank. Now as we enter the winter months, I've had the desire to work on the tank as the green string algae and the staghorn seemed to disappear. The BBA has started to decline and I'm slowly getting rid of the green algae on the glass. I just need to buy curtains for the tank in the summer :(

I lost a lot of my plant mass, with mainly the stem plants, the java ferns, moss and anubias surviving. Picture was taken just before things became really bad after the emergency rescape.
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For those of you who have managed to bring a tank back to its former glory or are currently in the process of doing this, please can you share any advice that I could implement.
 
Life is what happens while you're busy making plans is what my grandma always used to say (or at least a Dutch version of it). Hope you got the building works out of the way now! From the times I've let my tank 'go' so to speak it usually meant I didnt refill CO2, didnt give ferts and didnt cut back plants. All I kept doing was weekly 50% water changes and feeding 2x per week (normal regime). Algea would eventually recede by themselves as the tank became more and more of a jungle, but more demanding plants would die or were in a bad way by this time. Basically all I had to do was replant with some healthy new plants and add some floaters, remove surplus plants that did enjoy neglect (java ferns, anubias, bolbitis, crypts etc), set my lighting scedule to 'starting up' (meaning back to 6 hours and lower intensity) and start the CO2 again (building up over a day or 2-3 to find the sweet spot) and start dosing ferts again regularly together with resuming normal maintenance. I didnt do anything 'special', just picked up where I left off and it went fine. Cant tell you if thats the recipe for succes or just a fluke, but thats what I did.
 
I took out some of the hardscape yesterday to boil them in order to remove any bba remnants. Notices that the thinner pieces of the manzanita were breaking off. Is this normal?

I have some bba on the java fern roots but not on the leaves which is strange. Would it best to cut the roots or to dip the whole plant in bleach as I've read on the forum?

I still have two species of shrimp out of the 4 I had originally. My amanos and my tangerine tiger shrimp are still alive. The cherry shrimp and the green babaulti died after the move.
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Life is what happens while you're busy making plans is what my grandma always used to say (or at least a Dutch version of it). Hope you got the building works out of the way now! From the times I've let my tank 'go' so to speak it usually meant I didnt refill CO2, didnt give ferts and didnt cut back plants. All I kept doing was weekly 50% water changes and feeding 2x per week (normal regime). Algea would eventually recede by themselves as the tank became more and more of a jungle, but more demanding plants would die or were in a bad way by this time. Basically all I had to do was replant with some healthy new plants and add some floaters, remove surplus plants that did enjoy neglect (java ferns, anubias, bolbitis, crypts etc), set my lighting scedule to 'starting up' (meaning back to 6 hours and lower intensity) and start the CO2 again (building up over a day or 2-3 to find the sweet spot) and start dosing ferts again regularly together with resuming normal maintenance. I didnt do anything 'special', just picked up where I left off and it went fine. Cant tell you if thats the recipe for succes or just a fluke, but thats what I did.

I ended up letting my tank go for 12 months lol. Fish were happy but plants weren't, with only the fittest surviving. My moss and cryptocoryne took over everything. Now that I have more time again, a rescape will be due towards the end of December. Going to use the next few weeks to get everything ready. It's been great to see how some of the other journals have matured as I hadn't logged on for a year.
 
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