My Tank Journal

[izzat]

Hi Rupert,

What chiller are you using for this tank?
Brand and model.

[Rupert]

Hello aCe^bOwleRz,

I am using an Arctica 1/5 HP chiller, it seems to do the job well, I made the assumption that it would work 15 min every hour, but in reality it works for a hour or so then switches of for a few, probably on 1/4 of the time.

Hello Crandf,

I am not sure if hair grass likes to be planted more finely, but when dividing the individual pots up, there was logical partition/groups of hair grass that could be separated, with each pot providing about 6-7 pieces. My thinking is that this would also cause less root damage and the plants would establish themselves faster.

The HG seems now to be thriving, but in regards to algae, I suppose it is a matter of when I get it rather than if… then I will have to figure out how to manage it. I hope it isn't in the middle of the HG, but I that is where the Yamoto will have to go to work if it is.

[izzat]

Thanks Rupert.

for the investment in that chiller

[mozesyap]

Nice! I like your setup. I am thinking of getting the Artica chiller also, where did you get yours?

My only concern is the heat that the chiller produce... Don't want my living room to be a sauna when I come home from work, so you got any problem yet with the heat from the chiller?

Anyway your setup will be added as one of my model setup
.. when I get my tank.........

[Rupert]

Hello Mozesyap

I got mine via Biotope [BLK2 Jalan Bukit Merah]. Yes the heat coming out when it is on can be quite impressive. Even now I am reluctant to talk about the price, but with intense MH lighting, persistent hot weather the second-hand market was empty, I had no real choice but to buy.

It isn’t noisy but the units are rather large and putting one inside a cabinet takes some partitions & planning. I made enough mistakes/near misses that I have written up the whole exercise, 15 pages so far. I will post this shortly

Rupert

[Rupert]

Well the tank seems to be going ok, the Wallichii is growing rapidly, really quite surprising how quickly it has transformed. I have been dosing every 2nd day LushGro micro [2 mls] and macros [20 mls], except today when after testing nitrates, there was no real observable change. I went though my checklist and realized that I hadn’t dosed any PO4. Have added hopefully 1/10 of a tsp or 1 ppm of PO4, that should help the uptake of nutrients.

• Hair grass has grown as well.

• Japonica… since I planted that first, it suffered a bit. The tips have dissolved, probably got too warm during the plant out. New shoots can be seen.

• I still have very cloudy water. I initially thought it was because I didn’t clean the media properly, but now think it is some form of alga, can see forming it on the glass. So will leave it.

My only real concern is not that It is that my pH just sits as 6.5 / 6.6. I have added enough Sodium Bicarbonate to bring KH from an unreadable low to about 4 and added some coral chips to the filter, after dosing pH goes to 6.7 or higher but always come back to a stable 6.5.

Anyway here are the pictures of the Wallichii on the 2nd day, 4th & 6th days

New edit - just added the 9th Day Picture

[crandf]

All plants are growing well, good for you then , hope the algae won't be too bad, I'm looking forward to seeing your tank in its full glory.

[|squee|]

That should be good news, the Wallichi will be sucking up all those extra nutrients won't it?

[Rupert]

The Wallichii seems to be filling out nicely, with the new branches showing good colour and density of growth is good. Have noticed that the older stems are still greenish in colour, so it might take some time get uniformity red/pink colour to develop.

Have been dosing micros regularly and macros today for the first time since day 4. The nitrates have been high for quite a while, so pleased to seem them come down. PO4 has been added regularly as well.

Water is still cloudy, annoying so, with algae appearing on the glass. I will trim the hair grass tomorrow to promote growth, tackle the algae and do a 50 % water change. The water has a greenish tinge to it as well... but just concentrating on plant growth. Thinking [dreaming] about getting a Diatom filter.

So I have survived
• Attack of the worm [planarian -a type of flatworm] there was only one and I killed it.
• Attack by thousands of tiny little 1mm white worms… gone within 24 hours of adding 4 guppies
• Attach of the snails looked like a loosing battle… but have observed them, strategised on their demise, but during my observations have noticed that they clean hair grass one blade at a time. The snails seem interesting, so they are staying as friends rather than foe.
• Yamoto… mortality rate 1 a day for the first 4 days, but now they seem happy. Reason behind the deaths seemed uncertain, first thought it was nitrates, then ammonia, … changed my CO2 from 3bps to 2bps as my external reactor was expelling bubbles. Well the next day by accident I saw for the first time some normal behaviour and no deaths! My hypothesis, it was not CO2 or the magnitude of the pH fluctuation, rather the temporal duration in which the fluctuations occurred was too short, thereby stressing the shrimp.
• Java Moss is growing well., Aponogeton Longiplumulosus growing well. Japonica Blyxa got too warm during planting & melted, but is coming back.…

Next steps
• Trim hair grass,
• Get guppies. Big debate at home at present on the sort of guppies. I want one strain, known history. My daughter wants a variety, a mixture… getting the feeling that I am loosing the battle all ready.
• Add 10 more yamoto
• Get some cherry shrimp in 3 or so weeks
• solve cloudy water problem
• learn to take decent photos


Anyway I will add the Wallichii pictures here as it develops further

[mercurial]

Your fertilization regime is somewhat of an overkill given the amt of plants you got there.Think you shld put in some fast growing plants to outcompete with algae and do so soon b4 they take over your tank. Watersprite, hornwort shld do the job. Can just leave them floating around so you dont have to uproot any plants. Green water is a bad sign, esp at this stage. I personally won't go with EI at this stage of cycling cos big water changes wldnt' do your bio filter any good. (even though planted tanks may not have this issue). Yamatoes will only survive in an established tank (fr what i gather in my limited experience).

Did you wash the lapis sand thoroughly b4 you put it in? It cld b the source of your problems. Carefully fill the water and u shldnt have such an issue.

You shldnt add livestock till 2 weeks after set-up then slowly add your algae crew after.

It's a really nice setup, cant wait to c it when the plants have grown out

this is jus some of my observations & recommendations, hope you dont mind..

[Rupert]

this is jus some of my observations & recommendations, hope you dont mind..

Thanks Mercurial, don't mind at all...

The growth of the plants has been quite impressive already with the Wallachii living up to its reputation of being a fast grower. Today when I trimmed the Hair Grass I noticed how dense the Wallachii had become, so some thinning will be required before long. The rest have a “medium” growth characteristic as defined by Tropica, except for the Java Moss. Actually one of my concerns was ensuring that there was no limiting nutrients. More it seems is much, much better than less.

I have had many days to consider the cloudy water, I am now quite sure it isn’t the lapis sand, or as a result the filter media. There is a slight green tinge and not knowing anyone with a diatom filter or UV Sterilizer to borrow or being prepared to buy one, I ignore the cloudy water and focus on plant growth. It will either go away as the tank matures and I will be happy or something worse could come along. What I like about Tom Barr’s approach is not to tinker around with too many variables, so that that cause and effect are easily seen, so in one or two weeks I might actually reduce my MH duration by 45 mins. 45 minutes representing approximately 10% of the current 7 hour photo period.

I did put the Yamoto's in a bit early, but as I had some "Shrimp Shit Water" from Japan to seed the bacteria process on day 1; I thought it would be ok? They were dieing 1 each day, it wasn't until I changed my CO2 bps from 3 to 2 that the situation completely changed. Now after 5 Yamoto deaths over 4 days, with one dieing of stress getting them, they now seem very happy.

To solve this problem was quite important for me. The [My] check list is …in order of attention:
1. Lights [ok],
2. CO2 [ok],
3. NO3 [ok],
4. K[probably ok?],
5. PO4 [ok].
6. Water flow [ok].

I incorrectly assumed that my CO2 was ok and it wasn’t. I had changed from a “planted tank” to a “planted tank with critters” and didn’t go back and reevaluate the entire checklist. This is what I like about Tom Barr’s EI approach, it removes some of the variables and describes a very sensible approach and in itself avoids complexity. I use to be an avid gardener and with any guidelines the follower must be prepared to deviate when they think it is required.

Thanks for you comments and will post some pictures of the tank as it matures and as my photo taking skills improve.

[mercurial]

Don't get me wrong - I'm not doubting Mr Barr's EI ;p It's just that i think it is in conflict with the cycling process - where water changes are kept to a minimal to maximise bacteria colonisation. But then again Walstad states that planted tanks don't have to go thru the usual process of cycling

Your 300w of mh may be a potential cause of algae so do be careful there- i think you have too much light & the hours seem quite long - the emergence green water may be an indicator of this- so do watch out! As i mentioned in the earlier post do get some fast growers in there. it's important.

CO2 - measure kh and ph to find out the lvl of co2/ppm - it's more accurate rather than going by bps. 20-30ppm is usually the ideal range. (sorry if i'm assuming you don't already know this)

Hope your trimming goes ok cos for me I always screw up my stem plants after trimming, heh.. But I'm sure you'd b fine since you have extensive experience in gardening.

"shrimp shit water?" haha... yamatoes are v sensitive critters so just b mentally (and financially ;p) prepared to lose some along the way. They have very minimal waste so cycling may take quite long.

looking forward to your next update

[Rupert]

I am not sure if EI is in conflict or in harmony with the cycling process. I would have thought the main objective of cycling was preparation for the addition of fish and other critters. A totally planted tank would not need to be ”cycled” and the EI philosophy could be followed immediately, however I stand to be corrected on this.

The point I was attempting to make was that in a system, if you tinker with too many variables you cannot easily differentiate between cause [action] and effect [outcome] with any degree of confidence especially if there is temporal bridge between the two and the observable change is gradual.

The trimming of the Hair Grass wasn’t difficult, just took a bit of time with a pair of good scissors. I have yet to attack the Wallichii, as it is my fastest grower and didn’t want to cut too much vegetation and create problems. Soft stem plants are often problematic in the garden, hard to trim and get good growth back, better of replanting. Replanting is something I want to avoid, so my emerging thinking is to thin first, keep the thinned stems and see how these grow. If thinning doesn’t give the results I desire, then have a go at trimming the Wallichii at the back of the tank to see how it recovers. Then replant if required, but this is a bit drastic.

For CO2 I let the pH controller manage this [ph 6.6, kH 3-4,]. CO2 bps only became a consideration when the bubbles were noticed to be coming out of the reactor. There was the observed side effect that the shrimp mortality dropped immediately from 1 a day to now 0 for the last 5 days.

Just added another 10 Yamoto & 17 Guppies [snakeskin -12 male, 5 female]. The yamoto have been hard a work, it is a pleasure to watch them. The guppies school together, but cannot get a photo worthwhile posting at the moment.

[andrewtyr]

Actually the thing about Japonica is that they take deep rootings and in future, if you want to remove them, it will really mess up everything unless, you are doing a total rescape. I said this based on a friends' experience.

[wycklk]

Right. And also Japonica needs strong light and CO2 to grow well.

Actually the thing about Japonica is that they take deep rootings and in future, if you want to remove them, it will really mess up everything unless, you are doing a total rescape. I said this based on a friends' experience.

[Rupert]

Hello Andrew,

Thanks for the tip on the Japonica. I was actually thinking of the Wallichii as the first plant to have its floor space reduced. It is growing like a weed, some of it has grown nearly 20 cm in two weeks… an amazing plant, but where I wanted some depth it just keeps on expanding up & out… great fast grower.

Rupert

[vinz]

Rupert,

The algae that is green water and the algae that grows on your glass are different. Spot or dust algae on the glass is usually indicative of low PO4. Green water or bacteria bloom usually indicative of an immature filter.

I've found that frequent massive water changes does not really help in cases of cloudy water as the chlorine in the water changes tend to damage the bacteria colony in the filter, allowing the green water to outcompete them. I would suggest you use an anti-chlorine/chlormine solution initially to handle the chlorine/chloramine. Avoid changing the water too often... maybe once in 3 days or more.

Do a 3 day blackout to get rid of the green water. Search for blackout method by Tom Barr... his recommendations for that are in AQ somewhere. I know Simon posted it in AQ too. And remember to use anti-chlorine/chloramine. Getting some temporary fast floating plants will help too.

In general, most of us do not add much fauna till the 2nd or so week.

I think you should stop trimming the hair grass. By cutting them, you are injuring them and that slows down their growth a little. Yes, it forces them to spread but this is not the time to do it. Moreover, some injured leaves die, rot and will contribute ammonia/ammonium to the water. The green water will thrive on these, and the plants/filter won't help because the green water is right there grabbing the stuff, while the plants/filter bacteria are waiting for the water to flow by.

(Amano usually trims all his plants in one go... removing as much as 50% or more of plant mass. He will then reduce the fertilisers doses for folowing 2 weeks to compensate for the drop in plant uptake due to lost of mass and injury. And also include fertilisers that promote healing and growth of young shoots.)

The most trouble-free initial period for my tanks has always been for tanks that I've planted and left alone for 2 or more weeks. I.e. no water change, no fishes, no trimming, nothing.

Fix the green water first... the glass algae can wait.

[vinz]

Oh, I've grown B. japonica in 30+ degrees water... so warmth is not an issue. Seems more like a fert problem in most cases. I've seen an entire tank of B. japonica melt in 3 days due from of CO2 in a high light tank, yet I've grown them (stunted but lush green) in a non CO2, unfertilised (except JBL aquabasis) low maintenance tank.

B. japonica is an enigma. Some hobbyist (including myself) have never had problems growing them, while others can never get them to survive in their tanks despite the health of the other plants. So far, no one has really figured out why. There are others who have successfully grown them after many failures... usually after getting plantlets from hobbyists with established populations of the plant.

For one of my friends, it was root fertilisers (e.g. root monster) that saved them.

[PeterGwee]

Failing to plant densely is the whole problem here imo/ime. Water changes have got nothing to play with the green water and it does help preventing that as well (Removes the ammonia buildup.). Filters get established slower in planted tanks as the plants always get a crack at the main food source first. Doing the EI method takes out the lack of nutrients issue and unless you use ADA aquasoil or any peat based substrate, GH is seldom an issue but can be easily taken care of with some dosing at water changes (I don't like coral chips for a planted tank as a moving KH can cause havoc to CO2) with Seachem Equilibrium or mixture of CaCL/MgSO4. All that is left is basically CO2 issue if the plant mass thing is good. Your test kit might say it is good but plants/algae are better indicators.

Blyxa japonica...mechanical damages during the initial planting can cause it to melt but if the conditions are good, it should come back strongly.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[andrewtyr]

Hi Rupert,

You know, your picture really got me reminiencing the good o' guppies again. After all the trying of planted community fish like killies, boraras, platies, etc, I am now back thinking about our lovely labyrinth fish.

Do keep us posted on the guppy conditions.