fishpoo & celebskin's 2ft journal

[fishpoo]

Hi fellow forumers

We decided to do up our 1st high tech 2ft tank here are the equipment.

Hardware:
60cm x 30cm x 38cm glass tank with black silicon
eheim 2213 canister filter
2 x 55w PL lights
2l CO2 tank with manual regulator (causing quite alot of trouble)

Substrate:
power sand special S
Amazonia 2
Amazonia 2 powder

Additives:
bacter 100
tourmaline BC
Clear super
penac P & W

Plants:
HC
Rotala macranda 'green'
Rotala rotundifolia
Blxya japonica
Christmas moss
Bolbitis heudelotii

Ferts regime:
brighty k ( 1 push per day )
green brighty step 1 ( 1 push per day )

Preparing the substrate...


Planting....


Top view


Flooding the tank


Pearling HC


Had lots of problems with the blxya and rotala as the plants were delivered in the morning and we could only start working on the tank late at night after work. Result... lots of melted blxya, rotala and christmas moss... . We are hoping regular fert dosing and CO2 and 110 watts of lights would revive them but.. not much improvement as of now...

Hope the experts out there can advise us as it's our first try at aquascaping and planted tanks. I was into crs previously so not much experience with plants.

Hope to everyone enjoys our work, will be updating every now and then feel free to comment!! Thanks in advance for the advice and for viewing!!
Cheers!!

[Viper007]

Looks good except for the 2 pix with the driftwood on the right.... Can see the string maybe you should stick some moss into it instead of leaving it empty as the string is an ugly sight to see.

[fishpoo]

oh yes, that's a problem as well... the wood is concaved inwards... so there's a huge gap between string and wood.... was hoping the blxya grows enough to cover it... but they are not doing so well haha

[fishpoo]

An update on the blxya japonica.. condition quite bad but they seem to be growing some antennas.. anyone know what they are? side shoots for propagation or flower?

[ghim]

You need to plant more HC. I made mistakes by planting sparsely for HC. And expected it to grow like HG or Glosso. It takes a way longer time to grow into a carpet.

Propagation. Blxya japonica will propagate sideways.

[JadeIceGreen]

Split your HC up and plant them separately as suggested by ghim.

[Mizu World]

Give the plants some time to adjust to your water parameters. They will bounce back fast (especially the B.japonica) once they are adjusted.

Are you using anything to bring down the temperature for your tank?

[fishpoo]

oh i'm using a fan... temp at night can go down to 24 degrees, but in the day it can go up to 27 degrees... i was thinking of replacing the blxya with new plants, as in getting a new batch of blxya. any advice?

[craftsman]

oh i'm using a fan... temp at night can go down to 24 degrees, but in the day it can go up to 27 degrees... i was thinking of replacing the blxya with new plants, as in getting a new batch of blxya. any advice?

Hi Fishpoo, I think leave the blyxa to get used to your water condition. Should improve.

[tcy81]

any full photo of your tank ?
using a solenoid to control your co2 input will be easier .

[ghim]

There is really no need to replace your blxya japonica. They will grow back very fast. If you notice, those new green leaves are growing way faster than those melting brown leaves. You will find a day that you start to hate their growth rate.

I was removing my blxya japonica - overcrowded - the other day. The root was so long that it almost destroy my entire scape.

In any case, good luck for your scape.

[fishpoo]

Oh i see, now that i recall yeah the roots were quite thick and long haha.Thanks for the advice.

any full photo of your tank ?
using a solenoid to control your co2 input will be easier .

I have a full picture on top, but will update again this weekend. My manual regulator seems to have stabilised alittle... probably needs to be seasoned? haha

Now i'm trying to brainstorm on plants to cover the strings on the larger driftwood... Was hoping for the blxya and chrismas moss would do the job... but they seem to be on MC...

[Viper007]

Now i'm trying to brainstorm on plants to cover the strings on the larger driftwood... Was hoping for the blxya and chrismas moss would do the job... but they seem to be on MC...

From my understanding christmas moss are the slowest growth moss around. unless your water is stable at 25C, good lighting and CO2 (Which you already have)if not it will take quite awhile before you see results.

[celebskin]

Hi everyone,

We noticed today that there seem to be some kind of green hair algae growing on the moss and bolbitis. Currently, the light and CO2 is turned on everyday for 10 hours. Should we cut it down? Or is there any product that we can does the tank with to get rid of this algae?

[celebskin]

I've uploaded a few pictures of the algae, seems to be all over the moss.



Algae is the enemy!!!

[Viper007]

Wow 10 hours for a new tank is really way too long. Base on your tank with too little plants you should put the lighting to 4-5 hours max as yours is 110W, and since your CO2 on max is 1 bps.

Better do a 50% water change to stop the algea from blooming.

Do not put in algea eaters now as your tank is not cycled.

[celebskin]

Yup, we only plan to put in livestock only after the tank is fully cycled.

So in the meantime do we continue dosing our ferts. Currently we are putting 1 push of Brighty K and 1 push of Step 1 everyday.

Besides the daily 50% water change and reducing the light to 5 hours a day, is there anything else we can do to remove this 'enemy' from our tank??

[Mizu World]

Yup, we only plan to put in livestock only after the tank is fully cycled.

So in the meantime do we continue dosing our ferts. Currently we are putting 1 push of Brighty K and 1 push of Step 1 everyday.

Besides the daily 50% water change and reducing the light to 5 hours a day, is there anything else we can do to remove this 'enemy' from our tank??

Manual removal. Existing algae will not go away on its own.

[celebskin]

Hi everyone,

This is the latest update, we have tried to manually remove as much algae as we can and cut down the lighting to 5 hours. The lastest check was our pH is 6 and the ammonia level is about 4-8.

We did a minor trimming of the tank, and added two more pots of HC, here is the latest picture. Although the bolbitis is not doing very well, is it because of the low pH level?






For our tank, we have put ADA Bacter 100 on the substrate, but after a week, the ammonia level has not decreased. Is that normal, and if we should want to get more bacteria, which is the recommended brand?

[blue33]

If there's no fauna inside, increase your CO2 to 3-5bps. Lighting wise i would go for 6hr straight. Get your plant kicking to consume more CO2 at this time.