So...The Journey Begins.......

[David]

Too much muck at the substrate level. The current hose I am using is just to large and cannot get into tighter spaces. So I decided to make my own gravel cleaner ...its actually a flexible CO2 hose attached to a harder CO2 hosing. with this, the flow rate is much slower and this give me more time to siphon out most unwanted waste and/or rotting material....



While I was at NA Aquarium I stumbled onto this...Dennerle Gold 7....Gosh I didn't know that they still have this....Its basically, or supposedly a growth booster for plants. Used this years before.

[barmby]

Did you buy 100pills for D7 gold?!?

[David]

yup...its the 100 pills

[David]

Hi everyone...

Just a quick update what's going on. Its a 3 day holiday in Malaysia so there is no need to go back to KL this week...

With so much time in my hands = symptoms of itchy hand waiting to happen....

Did my first pruning yesterday and got rid of immersed leaves off the Echinodorus and of course the dreaded Crypto Meltdown leaves. I got all sorts of algae growing ...you name it I got it!!!!.......most if not all are associated with too much light.

So I decided to bring my MH light set to extend the length of the power cables so that I can hoist it higher up. So I brought it down to an electrician to get the job done. My Gosh..it was a REAL PAIN just to get to the wire joint and in the process, one of the electrical lighting point broke. Thank goodness it was a generic part. Not much choice, I left the light set with the electrician, and because its the Raya and National Day holidays, I am not getting it back till next week or so.

So its off to get a backup light set and as a typical techy junkie. I want to try LEDs this time since all the hype I have been reading. I was introduced to the Mitras, a really advance LED light set made in Germany. Its got everything one can think off...and this is how it looks like. Unfortunately there is no planted version being brought.



So I ended up with 2 x 120watt (8000K) Razor. After two hours of installing and adjustment to the pendant, its finally up and this is how it looks....



Okay, the good thing is that my home does not light up like a star ship anymore.... the bad thing is that it really looks dim. Perhaps my eye balls are used to the brightness of the MH lights....but I am quite concern....I drop the height down to about 5in off the waterline.

Since the hooks on the ceiling is towards the back of the tank due to the MH, now with LEDs.. the light cast is just barely making it to the front of the tank.



Sharp drop in photosynthesis bubbling....this is going to slow down growth rate....which is not always a bad thing...my concern is that there is insufficient lights to support the lush growth of the Tennellus and meltdown happens....

[limz_777]

nice and sleek , maybe i might have miss it , your tank is a 4 footer ?

[Berny]

6, if I'm not wrong, just scroll back and read, on first post

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 4

[David]

4 footer in Sing and 6 footer in KL

[milk_vanilla]

Cheers David, fix your MH. Bring them on

[felix_fx2]

David how come you lowered it?
Razor is with focused optics correct? IMHO from the pictures the center part seems to be getting too much attention.

P.S, Starship Balestier is it near lor limau ? I just remembered it's pretty near Starship Toa Payoh

[saintdevilz]

very nice tank

[David]

@saintdevilz

Thanks .....much has happened since my last update. about two weeks back, I gave up the Altums. This is because they have grown and the fish water ratio is pushed beyond the balance and had a serious bout of green water. As I am not always around to take care of the tank, POW!!!!!

With green water comes all other algae and the worse of them all is the thread algae that grows on the leaf edge.....Action taken was:

1. 50% water change and UV 24/7 for a week.

2. Did another 30% water change and fert the water column at 50% dosage.

3. Manually remove algae either by hand or removing the whole leaves.

4. Pump up CO2.

5. Gave up the Altums and got 12 False Rosy Tetras and 10 cardinal Tetras.

6. Got a second canister filter to improve water circulation.

Now its much better and will be posting new pictures up soon to update the journey.

[milk_vanilla]

David, is your current filter capacity hit 1:10 ratio recommendation? If too less beyond probably you should consider to have that complied. Especially if your tank is considered high tech and lots of fauna, BIG fauna.

sent from tapatalk

[David]

Milk, on paper specs, both filters are hitting 1 : 12 filtration ratio. problem with it is that I can only hit this ratio at max power. At max power of both filters, the whole tank is like a whirlpool.... Have to cut both filters down to about half its power so technically, its at 1 : 6 there about? The thing is that I have a substrate heater that helps in the filtration process. Its now 3 month plus? You can see the muck of decayed vegetation and fish poo being slowly sucked to the bottom to the base fertilizer level to be decomposed and in the process re-generate the base fertilizer.

I will take a pictures to update.....

[David]

Hi everyone...just an update what is going on with my tank....

Since the last bout of Green Water....which by far the WORST I ever had, I had practically ALL types of Algae growing in my tank....you name it I have it... At the onset, did a 50% water change and I still could see anything (that was how bad the GW was). After 4 days of UV sterilization....I could see again My Java Fern and Moss are condemned....literally overran with algae and had to be disposed.

The E. Tennulus was also over run with BGA of which spend hours syphoning out BGA with the small siphon I made and that also marks the second 50% water change. Removed some of the badly infected leaves of the E. Uraguaysis and E. Bleheri. Fortunately the Marble Queen and Uraguaysis Red was spared for some strange reason.

Action taken....the Altums were removed, to reduce the bioload and in place, 10 Cardinal and 10 False Rosy Tetra. Pumped up the CO2 and bought a second filter to improve water circulation. 30 Yamatoes Shrimps where re-introduced as the last batch of Yamatoes was hunted as food by Altums.

Managed to get rid of most of the Algae except for one stubborn 1cm thread like greenish looking algae that loves growing on the leaves and one WEIRD green bread like algae that seems to pearl under high CO2.....

The Second filter....



1st Rain Bar Position A Week Ago...



Stubborn Algae as it is a 4 days ago on E. Uraguaysis





Marble Queen Doing Well and Spared From Algae....



Swa...Don't-Know-What-Its-Called..Tang....recovered after the GW and turned transperant brown.....



Bonus price of pond snail are now in my tank. They seem to love large leafed plants like the E. Ozelot Green and is the first plant that has to be uprooted and disposed of...not only because of snails but the leaves are getting too large and blocking water circulation...and in place a second E. Uraguaysis Red....



Any kind soul can identity this algae?...It looks like green beard algae that seems to pearl under high CO2.....to be frank it looks quite nice .....





My tank as it is yesterday.....with the rain bar re-positioned in the left right position....will be adding a wave maker soon......



Couldn't find the Dwarf Chain Loach anywhere...so to control the Pond and Ramhorn Snails....I pushed CO2 and dropping PH since last week....as at Saturday, snails are crawling out of the tank...Nerites Snails just clamp up really tight and not moving....spend 45 minutes hauling them out of my tank into a large jar of water....

As of last night...my two aquatic ignorant helpers unanimously voted that pond snails are cute and as they crawl out of my tank, the two of them pop them back in......

[Ingen]

Hahah, my pea puffers would love those cute snails of yours too!

Just curious, in regards to your razor light, why is the another flap without lights or you turned it off?

[David]

@ingen....pea puffer?....you mean the really tiny yellow looking puffers?...Do they not nip off the fins off your other fishes?

What other flap?....My razors are 2 footers and have only 2 groupings of LEDs....

[Ingen]

@ingen....pea puffer?....you mean the really tiny yellow looking puffers?...Do they not nip off the fins off your other fishes?

What other flap?....My razors are 2 footers and have only 2 groupings of LEDs....

I used to keep CPD with the three pea puffers in my wall mount tank. Pea Puffers got bullied by CPD instead, however, I accidentally killed most of my CPD during water change. Last week, I tried putting in some color shrimps from my 1 ft cube and the shrimps were still alive after a week. I introduced yellow back into the tank on Saturday, so far all are alive (7 of them went over my overflow system). I feed the pea puffers baby brine shrimps and snails, no aggressive trait so far. I read online that it could be they are still young and they get more aggressive as they mature. One thing for sure, they are pretty effective in hunting snails. And if all else fails, I will just keep the pea puffers. They are fun to watch and glide through the water like submarine, very calming, peaceful and "dumb" looking.

Looking at the picture you posted. The LEDs are "inside" and the outer flap are not lighted.

[David]

any pictures of your pea and yellow puffers?....and how big do they get?

The last time I was at Seaview....I saw puffer the size of Godzilla......!!!!

[Ingen]

About 1". I bought polyart but the color not very nice. I purposely choose those that hide or run away from others in the tank (cowardly ones). I saw some at GC too.

Here's a video of the cute little puffer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=SG&h...&v=6o1fw9jtRNc

[David]

Hi everyone

Just an update what is going on with my tank. Managed to recover from the algae infestation and got it under control. The only problem was the wood has very unslightly dead BBA on it. Looking at it really pisses me off. Tried to remove the wood to try scraping it off. Unfortunately, I have wedged it down well and the E. Tennellus have gown so much over it that its impossible to remove it.

So the whole weekend was to tear down the tank and start from ground zero. Lesson learnt:

1. Respect the 1cm of fish to 3 liters of water ratio.

2. Do not let E. Tennellus grow unchecked. Prune or cut off runners that are not suppose to grow.

3. Crypto Balansae can stay dormant over two months or so and they react well to CaCO3.

4. MH lights are best hung at least 1.5 to 2ft above water line.

5. A totally zero maintenance planted tank does not exist. Ignore it and pay the price...hahahaha!!!!

Since I have to tear down the tank, its time to try growing something new. Removing Echinodorus roots was a real pain especially with a substrate heater, the roots get large and spread very well. Yanking it out is going end up getting all my base fertilizer into the substrate or worse into the water column. Thank goodness I remembered how I did it years back...

Gently rocking the base of the plant, use a finger to poke the substrate to loosen the gravel exposing the the main rooting system. Cut the plant below the base and let the roots sit there for an hour or so. The roots tend to shrink a little after an hour and pull each main root one by one.....2 stupid hours just for this. As for the E. Tennellus was quite another story...another 1 over hour just to remove it. What was a waste was my Cryptos....because of the E Tennellus....most of my Cryptos got yanked out with it even though sections of the E. Tennellus was cut prior to yanking.

Waited so long for the Balansae to grow and when it finally gain traction it has to be yanked out.

A thin layer of new gravel was put in to ensure no leeching of nutrients from the base fertilizer that some how surfaced during the root removal. Threw in some rocks.....no wood this time and a whole lot of stemmed plants as this time I want to learn how to prune Rotalas to get the shape and growth thickness. plants of choice:

Rotala Indica Green Variant

Rotala Indica Red Variant

Blyxa Japonica

Hair Grass

I have always thought E. Tennellus was difficult to plant....well I thought wrong...Hair Grass is the Ultimate and after reaching half of the tank intended for Hair Grass, I want to throw it away....

Quite a far bit of Blyxa Japonica when into the tank. Some of it will be removed later on for other mid ground plants like Cryptos to go into. This is to buy time for the Hair Grass to establish. Planting Cryptos now may not be a good because if the Cryptos establishes first, the runners of the Cyptos will start to spread all over the Hair Grass area.

Perhaps later on, Luwegias after the Rotalas. At the same time trying my hand at gluing ferns and moss to rocks....



Sorry guys the image is not exactly clear....but this is how the tank looks now at day 1. I think its time to get lily pipes?....with the rain bar, seems like the stemmed plants are being pushed in the direction of the current.

I have seen lily pipes with a ball.....any opinions which is better and in what ways?