JadeIceGreen's Sanzon Iwagumi

[JadeIceGreen]

24 degree C

Looks like a bigger tank is indeed more power efficient!

[JadeIceGreen]

Test Results for Day 6

PH – 6.6
GH - Did not test.
KH – 3
NO2 – 0.25
NH3/NH4 – 8
CO2 level 22.61 ppm approximately

There a lot of changes today. Firstly, I cut CO2 bubble rate from 1.5 per second to 1 per second, thus the change of 48.88 ppm approximate. For tomorrow's photo period, I will try to hit about 35 to 50 ppm with a very slight increase.

Secondly, for some reason, NO2 has stopped rising and went back down to 0.25. NH3/NH4 on the other hand went back up to 8. Does this means that my nitrogen cycle has stopped?

Nothing was done to disturb the tank except the usual cutting and re-planting after last night's photo period.

Will also post a picture update tomorrow for comparison as it has been a week.

[ghim]

Looks like a bigger tank is indeed more power efficient!

That's what I thought too. Almost got a TEM chiller for my 1ft tank. Better save the money, wait for my next upgrade

Will be planting more glosso in my 1ft tank tonight. Want to race on who filled up their tank with glosso first?

[JadeIceGreen]

That's what I thought too. Almost got a TEM chiller for my 1ft tank. Better save the money, wait for my next upgrade

Will be planting more glosso in my 1ft tank tonight. Want to race on who filled up their tank with glosso first?

On! haha.
Ermm, I just remembered! You started first. Anyway, I will be away the next four days, going to cut my photo period to 6 hours, but I'll still take up your challenge. Haha.

[ghim]

You "on" too fast! Just for the fun of it. My first row glosso had been growing for a while. Tank already cycled and inside the substrate has Wondergro Root!

Took out all my moss and driftwood, placed them in my 2ft tank. Placed 2 rocks inside my tank. Planted glosso and japanese HG. Will start a new thread on this tank after CNY.

[JadeIceGreen]

Hey All!

Sorry for the lack of updates during the last 4 days as I was out of the country, here is what greeted me when I came back.





Just to see the comparison of growth, here is Day 1.



Glosso has grown leggy again due to a lesser photo period of 6 hours as I was not around to fert and I didn't want algae to come. Good news is that there is still no sight of a single speck of algae and today day 11. Bad news is, I got a lot of trimming to do tonight!

[Viper007]

Bro I notice your glosso are growing upwards instead of carpeting the ground. I suspect your lighting may not be enough. Just a thought.

[Morgan01]

looks kindda wild bro

[StanChung]

Just let it grow for the time being. Trim when it fills up. Feel the insides of the tank with your finger tips. Bumpy? Scrape with card and do a WC.

FYI, even if you do weekly dosing your tank can also grow nicely. 4 days away is no problem IME.

[JadeIceGreen]

Bro I notice your glosso are growing upwards instead of carpeting the ground. I suspect your lighting may not be enough. Just a thought.

I already mentioned that its growing upwards as the photo period was cut to 6 hours a day because I was away.

looks kindda wild bro

Thanks for the compliment.

Just let it grow for the time being. Trim when it fills up. Feel the insides of the tank with your finger tips. Bumpy? Scrape with card and do a WC.

FYI, even if you do weekly dosing your tank can also grow nicely. 4 days away is no problem IME.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will let it grow out more then. The insides of the tank is fine as I follow your earlier advice by cleaning it with my hands during my daily water change.

Never knew that, I thought 4 days was always too long for scapes that follow a daily fert regime. Learnt something new today!

[StanChung]

Hi Isaac,
I'm from the old school where we used to dump in weekly dose and the plants still grow well. Of course 3 time or regular dosage has slight advantages of keeping water column less saturated when you do weekly 'dump' dosing especially if you have sensitive fauna and a high light tank full of hungry stem plants.

I currently adopt every 3-4 days dosing since my plants are not so demanding-ferns, hair grasses, mosses one or two two stem plant species. I have 5 planted tanks.
all in various stages of high to low light. I'm leaning more towards substrate feeding for most of the tanks but mosses, anubias and ferns need water column dosing since they don't root into the substrate.

So fart I've tried a few substrate fertilisers and Ferka rosetta capsules are really something. Anything you want to grow giant size just stick some in the substrate near it.

[ghim]

I am also from the old school then. The only liquid fert that I dose daily is Balance-K. The rest are either 3-4days. Main fert is weekly.

I had been away for 4-5 days before. What I normally did was to off the CO2, reduce the photo-period and dose liquid fert before I leave. And of cause I will overfeed the fauna. So far the results were pretty ok.

Your glosso seems to be looking for something. Light or nutrient. As they seems to be rushing to the centre.

Stan actually brought up a good hint for you, root fertiliser . It will really boost up the growth of rooted plants. Even though you had base fertiliser in placed, the release speed is different.

[JadeIceGreen]

Hi Isaac,
I'm from the old school where we used to dump in weekly dose and the plants still grow well. Of course 3 time or regular dosage has slight advantages of keeping water column less saturated when you do weekly 'dump' dosing especially if you have sensitive fauna and a high light tank full of hungry stem plants.

I currently adopt every 3-4 days dosing since my plants are not so demanding-ferns, hair grasses, mosses one or two two stem plant species. I have 5 planted tanks.
all in various stages of high to low light. I'm leaning more towards substrate feeding for most of the tanks but mosses, anubias and ferns need water column dosing since they don't root into the substrate.

So fart I've tried a few substrate fertilisers and Ferka rosetta capsules are really something. Anything you want to grow giant size just stick some in the substrate near it.

I am also from the old school then. The only liquid fert that I dose daily is Balance-K. The rest are either 3-4days. Main fert is weekly.

I had been away for 4-5 days before. What I normally did was to off the CO2, reduce the photo-period and dose liquid fert before I leave. And of cause I will overfeed the fauna. So far the results were pretty ok.

Your glosso seems to be looking for something. Light or nutrient. As they seems to be rushing to the centre.

Stan actually brought up a good hint for you, root fertiliser . It will really boost up the growth of rooted plants. Even though you had base fertiliser in placed, the release speed is different.

Thanks for the tips!

I will be following Stan's photo period method and then will leave the lights on at night when I'm viewing. Ambient lighting is what I think is causing the glosso to grow legs, so I am hoping this change of photo period will help that.

I dun think I can put root tablets now that the glosso has covered most of the ground, but I will remember next time. So far, I am very pleased with my vivipara, daily trimming makes them grow nice and straight.

[JadeIceGreen]

Test Results for Day 13 (Thursday, 29/01/2009)

PH – 6.2
GH - Did not test.
KH – 3
NO2 – 5.0
NH3/NH4 – 1.0
CO2 level 56.79 ppm approximately
All in all, ammonia is going down fast and nitrite is very high, very good news. Now I just got to wait till nitrite falls and my tank will then be cycled.

I have also upgraded my filter to Eheim 2213 and I now have 2.5 litres of Bio Rio and 500ml of activated carbon, shiokness.



Eheim 2213 comes with a filter basket that holds 5 mechanical filter pads that can double up as biological filter pads and one fine filter pad that goes on top. I am not using this basket and its filter pads, but I will be using the cover of the basket.



Without the basket, looks just like the big brother to the 2211 but without the green plastic strainer thingy which is soley missed.





In place of the green strainer, I am using Eheim Ecco's fine filter pad, this will prevent my Bio Rio from jamming the inlet to the filter. I can't use the pads that was provided as they were made to fit the basket, so Eheim Ecco's pads fit nicely and just a little tight which is good. I may change to the blue mechnical pad in the future, going to monitor how long these fine filter pads last as it is a real pain to dig out all the Bio Rio just to change the pad at the bottom. Like I've said, I miss the green plastic strainer and only 2213 does not have it.



2.5 litres of wonderful Bio Rio, this made my day!



And finally, 500ml of activated carbon that is due for a change tomorrow.


The plastic cover goes on top of all that, filter connected and switched on. Perfect. This is as close to a ES-600 as I can go I think..

[JadeIceGreen]

Test Results for Day 15 (Saturday, 31/01/2009)

PH – 6.2
GH - Did not test.
KH – 3
NO2 – 5.0
NH3/NH4 – 0
CO2 level 56.79 ppm approximately

NH3/NH4 has finally at zero. NO2 is at the height of my scale at the moment but once it starts to go down, my tank will be cycled.

Algae has also made its unwanted appearance and I'm having green dust and green thread algae which are easily removed during water change. I have changed out 500ml of activated carbon that was first installed in my filter 2 weeks ago with a fresh 500ml, hopefully this will help with algae control.

Massive pruning was done two days ago to remove most of the high growing glosso as my photo period was moved 5 hours earlier. Initial glosso response to the new photo period has been encouraging with new shoots growing very low.

All in all, things are going pretty smoothly with only one or two hiccups, like my filter pipe coming off and half flooding my bedroom

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been with me on this journey and I will continue to update on a regular basis until this tank is decommissioned. THANK YOU ALL!

[StanChung]

So you got some first hand experience on something about 'fengshui' stating it's not a good idea for fish tank to be in bedroom.

[Shadow]

2.5 litres of wonderful Bio Rio, this made my day!

I suggest to put the Bio Rio on net, make it easier to clean the filter later on.

[craftsman]

So you got some first hand experience on something about 'fengshui' stating it's not a good idea for fish tank to be in bedroom.

Theres really such a saying?

[Shadow]

yeah heard that before but doesn't really care

[JadeIceGreen]

So you got some first hand experience on something about 'fengshui' stating it's not a good idea for fish tank to be in bedroom.

yeah heard that before but doesn't really care

Hmm, I have never heard that before but I dun believe in fengshui so I don't care about it too.