ADA 30-C Journal - 1st Hi-Tech attempt

[oni_XL]

Hi all,
So finally all of the items arrived, and we spent entire saturday setting up and planting the tank. So here it is the picture journal! Any comments, criticism, suggestions welcome!

So these are the items, not shown is the Aquamedic lamp.

[oni_XL]

I picked the stones from the store knowing roughly the arrangement options, so I didnt have much arrangement choice, with 30cm square, real estate is valuable. I decided to place the large stone showing its white veins. It felt weird at the beginning, seeing many Iwagumi with main stone on the left side, but I quickly get used to the main stone in the right in my tank.

[oni_XL]

The AS Type II really helps, the water is clear from the beginning and allows me to enjoy the tank without waiting and changing water for weeks. Now I must learn the art of patience and cross my fingers. Hopefully the glosso with carpet in 3 weeks. After that, get some schooling fish and a few amano shrimps. Thanks for reading and will update with new developments.

Cheers,
Hendra

[tcampbell]

Really beautiful equipment, but it looks like you have more equipment then tank. It would be nice if you had a stand where you could hide all the equipment and not take up the living room.

Isn't your light up a bit high in relation to your tank? Wouldn't that light the whole room?

[Jungle-mania]

I have to agree with what campbell just said, no offense but it looks like an overkill for a small tank. I think with the investment you have made, you could go on to a larger tank, maybe 2 feet?

[Aeon]

Less is more!

[oni_XL]

Thanks for the comments!
Tcampbell, yes you are correct. The light is 70w and the tank 7 gal, so I guess I am trying to play with the distance so the tank don't have too much light. I asked AFA in San Francisco to make me a custom stand, so the tank will sit higher.
j-m and Aeon,
I really did thought about the ADA 60-P, at that point I already owned 1/2 of the equipment (70w AM MH lamp and ADA 30-C, plus ordered the custom 30-C tank stand). Plus, with the 60-P, I wanted to have the ADA stand and light fixture that's made for it.

So I decided to go with it for now. I think once I have success with this I'll certainly move up.

I do have to say though, I am getting very impatient even if it's only been 2 days. 1/2 of the glosso look frail and thin, it's actually getting me very anxious and I have to look away and find other things to keep me distracted or I will keep messing with the light, CO2, ferts...

And oh Aeon, thanks for the glosso guide, me and my wife have that guide open on our laptop during planting and it really helps

[Aeon]

A small tank is actually more difficult to maintain since you have a very narrow margin for errors.

I took a closer look at your pics. I think the gravel is too fine, especially the bottom layer. Do you have any substrate fertilization? Glosso is a rooting plant and grows well when it can draw nutrients from the roots. The light is too far up. It should be closer to the water to be efficient. Glosso loves light.

I noticed some yellowing and cupping of the leaves, which could mean the lack of calcium which you can supplement with CaCO3. Do a CO2 test by testing pH and kH. Thin and frail glosso usually means lack of CO2. Possibly you have too much surface activity and CO2 is released into the air.

[oni_XL]

Aeon,
You are absolutely right. Last night I already wonder if the CO2 dispersion is okay, because it looks like the bubbles are not being spread around to a large percentage of the areas. Most of them got blown around the large stone and goes up to the surface. Also, I was being careful with the CO2 so I did only 1 bubble per 3 second. Now I will increase that to 1bps.
I will lower the light as well. I use ADA powersand special as 1st layer before putting AS ontop. Using Brighty K.

Thanks!

[Moss-seow]

Cool equipments and setup.
hope to see your update soon.

[Aeon]

The tank is small so I think the Co2 bubbles might not have enough time to dissolve before reaching the surface too soon. I think an external reactor like this one would be nice.



My Glosso loves Powersand. Yours will too.

[tcampbell]

Aeon - Those Mix Max is great. I had some help in designing and the packaging of it. It has worked fantastic on my 10 gallon tank, my 50 gallon tank, and I plan to use it on my new 28 gallon tank.

I find that it is a mistake most people make assuming that with fishtanks they will start small and upgrade later. It doesn't work like that. Anyone that starts small finds it diffiult and usully gets frustrated. starting larger is better. My 10 Gallon tank is a lot more work then my 50 gallon tank. The advantage of the 28 gallon tank (60 X 40 X 45 ) is that most equipment is cheaper and more available for 60 cm and 90 cm tanks. I think with smaller tanks the best way to go is low tech and with bigger tanks hi-tech as you have places to put the equipment.

oni_XL : Check out http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/f...ted-early.html

for a quick and easy way to make an ADA stand for the smaller tanks at a low cost.

[Aeon]

tcampbell you mean you were involved with the product design of the Max Mix Reactor?

I have the L size one and my 120cm tank is arriving in a weeks time. i was attracted to the design. I used to have the UP brand internal reactor which I use superglue to watertight it into an external reactor. The dissolving rate is really good and though I have a little trapped CO2 at the top, I don't have any bubbles exiting the outlet.

[tcampbell]

I was involved with having it tweaked before it went to market and English on the packaging.

[oni_XL]

I will certainly consider that reactor, thanks.
The small tank IS giving me headaches. I lost sleep last night and even dreamt that my tank is looking like a wasteland. This is quite a challenge, the water parameters changes so much and very sensitive. My 1st batch of glosso is 50% dead, and this is just the 4th day...

Moss-seow, thank you, I will post pictures if my glosso is spreading, as of now, I'm struggling to stabilize the tank. Plants are dying left and right, very painful to watch. I think as a hobby, this is definitely one of the toughest, next to learning golf

tcampbell, yeah I read that thread with great interest few weeks ago, I always admired people who can DIY, all I need is some tools and a bigger garage

Here, let me post some stats:

Tank: 7gal
pH: 6.8
CO2: 2bps
kH: 7dKH (was 14dKH yesterday, then did a 50% wc)
plant: Hydrocoytle and glossostigma
light: 70w 13,000k (6,500k bulb ordered)
Ferts: 3 drops of Bacter 100, 2 squirts of Brighty K
No fauna.

What's causing the glosso to die so quickly? So many are brown and dead...

[Aeon]

Relax, it's the beginning. Things are supposed to be unstable.

How many days old is it? As I know, Aquasoil will lower the pH considerably during the first week afterwhich it will stabilize but still it will lower the pH.

Your CO2 levels might be lower than what your reading gives you since Aquasoil lowers the pH. Right now is to salvage the remaining Glosso. Trim away the dying parts, save as much as you can. Reduce ferts accordingly since plant mass has reduced.

If possible, get more plants in or use carbon to take up excess nutrients to prevent algae.

[Jungle-mania]

A possible quick fix is to add some a few fast growing plants such as elodeas to stabilise your tank. Contary to what most people assume, I find that such method works well even for a tank that has no intended fauna, but with delicate plants.

[oni_XL]

Thanks Aeon and J-M,
The tank is now 2 weeks old.
A quick update, the inital batch of glosso pretty much failed. 70% or more melted. My final conclusion is the glosso was of very poor quality, and hard to use them to upstart the new tank. Even as we were planting them initially, a large percentage died in the pan of water before even planted. The 2nd batch we got was much healthier, almost every plantet has roots, and with higher light, higher PPM CO2 (30ppm) the 2nd batch is growing, even if only vertically for now I am happy that they are not melting

So an advice: not every pot of new plants you got is equal, look at the plants in the store and evaluate them. I was too eager to plant that I didn't notice the frail glosso. Those are really more for an established tank.

[StanChung]

Hi Oni,

If you find the plants too frail, let it float till new leaves/roots appear.

If it's growing tall, it simply means you need more light. In your case, move the tank closer to the light vice versa.

[oni_XL]

Hey Stan,
The melting has mostly stop, now just battling some algae on some of the leaves.

Nearly 3 weeks now. Not much to report. Glosso is a sloooow plant, at least for me. CO2 is cranked up, lighting now reduced to 6 hours due to green dust algae on rocks and glass. 50% wc every 2 days.

Hydrocoytle however is growing quite nicely, a bright spot in my tank that relieve my eyes from the lesser glosso. I got 6 new stems that are very very perky. It's my new favorite plant.

I think this is one of the cons Iwagumi. Usually its mostly slow growth plant in the tank.