My Tank Journal

[Rupert]

Thanks Peter & Vinz... I don't think that I have green water, the green tinge came from the algae on the class, which is good... but need to consider my actions otherwise it will get it. I am traveling at present so will digest the other information over the next day or so.

The Japonica, seems to be bouncing back, I must have mishandled it in some manner.

[Rupert]

The MH’s are great, but the speed of developments and plant growth can be quite amazing, after 17 days the wallichii had grown taller by 20 CM and expanded with new branch so much so, that the original plant-out shape is an old memory. The Angopton after 17 days was already touching the water surface a good 30cm growth for some of the leaves. Hair grass has grown up, but not out and Java Moss has developed rich green carpet of shoots. The consideration now is how to stabilise the growth, keep the colours.. add the biolife and maintain in a predictable environment.

I don’t think that I have green water, it is not noticeable enough to say yes, but the water is smokey, with a greenish tinge, but since I am not in the country there is little I can to do. This is one of the challenges of having an occupation that requires some travel. My algae on the glass, an annoyance, but I do not worry about it…I did up the P04, but have no idea of what are the uptake levels.. I did my 2nd water change [40%] in 17 days, always adding anto chloramines to the water, going to weekly 10% changes from here on in. However it would not surprise me that the bacteria has not developed as you stated and I am prolonging the process.

I did an ammonia test as I thought the melting japonica would contribute to this, but it was zero. The japonica is bouncing back, I thought that I “cooked” it during planting, but thanks to Peter I can rule this out, maybe it was the shock of transition from farm to tank? When I last saw it, the plants were showing many new shoots. I suspect that it is like some of my old garden plants, they would choose death when moved.

I must say I regreted buying the NH4 test kit, but I felt sorry for the 4 shrimp that I calculated I had lost to something… which turned out to be CO2 and consequential temporal speed of the pH fluctuations

I wonder if trimming the hair grass was premature, guess I will find out… the shrimp and guppies I am told are happy. I actually made the comparison with lawn mowing and trimming the Hair Grass, in that it is not so much what you trim, what is important is to remove all the cut bits so no decomposition can occur. I did want to trim the wallichi, but didn’t I do not know the plant well enough yet. My observations of Wallichi is that is absorbs via stems/leaves maybe more so than the roots, which it did have when I got it. This plant it grew the instant it touched the water and was given a highlight. I reduced my dosing of macros after the hair cut as a consideration by 50%, but up’ed the micros, but have no basis for this remote decision, it just seemed right.

Anyway thanks Vinz and Peter, the next 3 weeks will probably show if I am ok or in deep algae…

[Rupert]

Custom and Planted Tank Setup – My Journey

I have documented my experiences, challenges and approach to getting a custom tank and setting it up. I started with a blank slate, an open mind and decided to document the process, considerations in a manner I hope the next new enthusiast embarking on the same journey would benefit from.

Here is the link, there are quite a few pages & pictures:
http://www.shrimpnow.com/modules.php...warticle&id=25

In this link I have only documented up to the point that the tank was planted-out and first filled or Day 0. But it covers the list below.

1. The end game – what do you want?
2. Size & Type of tank
3. The Aquascape – Rocks & Wood [PART II]
4. The Aquascape – Layout and plant selection
5. Planting & Substrate [PART III]
6. Cabinet design [PART IV]
7. Tank arrival day
8. Lighting
9. Power, timers and plugs [PART V]
10. Chiller
11. Filtration
12. Water Changes
13. Dosing / Fertilisation
14. CO2,
15. The Forums - Patience & Maintenance
16. LFS Support
17. Appendices [PART VI]
18. Day 0 completed [PART VII]

There are parts were I covered the topic lightly and am happy to clarify / expand on them where I can. I will probably follow up this Day 0 piece and document day 1 to day 30 as well.

[ranmasatome]

Woa....very detailed man!! Great Job..

[Goondoo]

Woa....very detailed man!! Great Job..

Yup, excellent article....
Any recent pictures of your tank?

[Rupert]

Here is my tank at 29 days old. I have almost finished documenting the trials & tribulations of the first 30 days... some ups and downs and will post the link when complete.

The Wallichii has exceeded expectations and grows like a weed, next week I expect it to have reached the water surface. Guppies have reproduced many times, the Yamoto’s are happy. The Cherry Shrimp are red, and I hope they breed like the guppies.

The smokey / chalky/ cloudy/ Grey haze water still exists. This is annoying, but haven’t got a solution except patience and wait for the filter to mature.

Have had dust algae, green spot algae, BGA, hair algae but everything seems to be under control at the time of writing this!

[Rupert]

The Cherry Shrimp are happy, now just waiting for them to breed as the 30 I have now can hardly be seen in the tank.

[Rupert]

As promised here is the follow on piece describing my first 30 days. Rather than take a day by day approach, I thought I would go by significant events or activities that stood out, fill in some of the gaps along the way and my thinking at the time.

Here is the link, there are quite a few pages & pictures:
Part 1 http://www.shrimpnow.com/modules.php...warticle&id=35

1 Overview slide of the first 30 Days
2 Attack of the worms
3 Attack of the Snails
4 Changes in approach
5 Cloudy water
6 Dosing Observations

Part 2 http://www.shrimpnow.com/modules.php...warticle&id=36

7 Cabinet & Tank
8 Landscape
9 Chiller
10 Planting
11 Changing water,
12 Glass Cleaning

Part 3 http://www.shrimpnow.com/modules.php...warticle&id=37

13 Algae count
14 Testing & Test kits
15 pH Controller
16 CO2
17 Check List

Part 4 http://www.shrimpnow.com/modules.php...warticle&id=38

18 Guppie’s
19 Shrimp
20 Lighting
21 Maintenance

Part 5 http://www.shrimpnow.com/modules.php...warticle&id=39

22 Power& water bill
23 Things that caused extra work.
24 Mistakes or near misses and good luck
25 Forum usage.
26 Good ideas, Unfinished work, next steps
27 Day 1 versus Day 30

[Simon]

I fear with those R. wallichii, you might find the center not getting enough light and starts rotting. So my advise is try to reduce the size or find a way to get light penetration thru

[Rupert]

Hello Simon,

You are absolute right; I have already begun the process of thinning out the Wallichii so that light can penetrate from behind and so it does not crowd out the Aponogeton Longiplumulosus. I will start trimming the front this weekend to give it better form, as at present it looks like an erupting volcano!

The Aponogeton Longiplumulosus has leaves must be close to a metre long. Which is a bit longer than the 60 cm I was expecting.

[Simon]

why don't you consider moving the A. longiplumulosus away?

[Rupert]

Hello Simon

I should have used the plural for A. Longiplumulosus, but I can’t really move them as I have quite a few, the effect that I was looking for was a curtain of leaves, which has yet to develop.

[wynx]

Here is my tank at 29 days old. I have almost finished documenting the trials & tribulations of the first 30 days... some ups and downs and will post the link when complete.

The Wallichii has exceeded expectations and grows like a weed, next week I expect it to have reached the water surface. Guppies have reproduced many times, the Yamoto’s are happy. The Cherry Shrimp are red, and I hope they breed like the guppies.

The smokey / chalky/ cloudy/ Grey haze water still exists. This is annoying, but haven’t got a solution except patience and wait for the filter to mature.

Have had dust algae, green spot algae, BGA, hair algae but everything seems to be under control at the time of writing this!

Congrats...Time to work on the scaping. Wynx's here..I kinda feel your wallachi is not doing the tank justice...too centralise...try to get to the 'golden center'. It will help...How about adding more plants to your tank? Make it lush and thick manz..


Juz my 2 cents.

[vinz]

Hey, thanks for recording your experience down. It'll help a lot of people to come.

Ok, the wallichi just bugs me... but to be fair, your scape has not grown in yet.
About using the A. longiplumulosus as a "curtain"... I don't think they suit that role, their leaves are just too stiff.

A similar but less ridgid/more flowy plant, the A. crispus might be a better choice. Other alternatives are:
- Cypherus helferi
- Valisneria sp.
- Blyxa auberti

[Rupert]

Thanks Wynx & Vinz,

The edge of the big rock is close to the golden ratio, with the R. Wallichii supposed to peek from behind both sides of this rock and sit low. But not everything goes to plan. I knew that Wallichii was a quick grower, but now it deforms what was originally intended. I thought the plant would reach a maximum of 30 cm, anyway it will give me some good trimming practice until everything else matures.

Vinz your suggestion of Blyxa auberti, is a good one as that was on my list to use, but got distracted, now I plan to be patient and let the melted Blyxa Japonica slowly return, tame the Wallichii, let the A. Longiplumulosus flower and see what I have got in a couple of months.

I recorded my experience as I hoped it would help others, be a bit of an experience accelerator for those like me are new to the hobby. I plan to post the PDF files here once I can get the file size down.

[Rupert]

Useful Spreadsheet

I have managed to trim down the spreadsheet I use and zipped it so it just squeezed inside the 97k upload limitation. I have cut and pasted from the PUB web site the water characteristics, link attached in the tab, used formula found on AQ.

The LushGro tab came from this site, from a forum member; his credits are in the properties box. I made some changes to suit my needs and sure he/she wouldn’t mind it being posited again as it is a real gem if you are a LushGro user.

I have left inside it my spreadsheet for calculating CO2 levels, this is broken down to 2 decimal places because I have pH controller that gives me 2 place decimal readings… Here is the mathematical formula the CO2 charts are based on, I used it more to double check the information found on the internet.

• CO2 (in PPM) = 3 * KH * 10^(7-pH) where KH is Carbonate Hardness in degrees.
• Example 3 * 4 KH * 10^(7-6.6) = 30.14

The Colour shades [Red/Green/Blue] came from Chuck Cadd calculator, I not sure if this is an infringement of copyright, but no infringement intended. Forum Moderator it you think it is then remove the post. I might have to remove the file anyway as I have run out of allotted upload space.

[Rupert]

I couldn’t resist taking some pictures as after about 5 weeks of hiding my two Wood shrimp have lost some of their shyness and venture out during the day to spread their fans.

[Rupert]

Finally got my glass Lillie pipes to put in my tank, I like the ADA emphasis on mechanical cleanliness, but found that their Lillie pipes were too expensive. However after all the effort of finding a glass blower it probably isn’t, providing the ADA designs fit your requirements.

Glass blowers can produce amazing customized equipment, but there are few economies of scale to be had. I have searched high and low to find an injection mould manufacturer to make transparent Lillie pipes but to know avail, so I you know someone, just PM me. My thinking here is that if I like transparent piping others would as well?

I originally thought that it would be rather easy to dispense with the green piping in and around my set-up. However I was wrong, the transparent hosing that I have seen is not of the same elasticity/quality as the green Eheim hoses. So the search continues

[Robert]

Hi Rupert,
these lillie pipes are really nice but how do you keep them clean? My pipes get coated by bacteria all the time and to disconnect them to clean them would be a lot of work (which has to be done every week or so I guess). So are there any brushes or other things you can use to clean them easily, best would be without disconnecting them?

Best regards

Robert

[Rupert]

Hello Robert,

Good questions, you have to disconnect, but you can make the process easier, so I have more than one set of Lillie pipes and hoses [glass & Plastic]. I have been using Eheim connectors [picture] which enable me to simply turn off the canister filter, turn off the Eheim taps and replace. The replacement hose if filled up with water first so that I do not need to prime and then just turn on the canister filter again.

The Lillie pipes are easy to clean; the biggest problem is cleaning the hoses as I have struggled to find a long pipe/hose bush and currently using the following technique of squashing the pipe against the edge of the sink while drawing the hose through the compressed bit. This is more effort than it should be, but until I can find a long pipe cleaner I have no choice.

One design consideration in getting my own Lillie pipes made was to be able to have the inlets lower in the water than most. This enables me to be able to do a 20% water change without turning off the filters. I have two canister filters, so tend to alternately clean pipes, when I feel inclined to do so.