Newly Setup 4X2X2 discus planted tank

[Tony]

Hi All,

I've just finished 1st cut setup (into week 2, reused old filters to speed up process) and at the moment hunting for plants to fill the gaps. Any comments on improving the scape is welcome.

[Tony]

A few more shots to add. Sorry for the poor quality taken from my mobile phone.

[benny]

Nice setup Tony. I think the aquascape will look much nicer when the tank matures.

Cheers,

[Tony]

Hi Benny, thanks for your comment. The newly planted hair grass I think will take a long time to spread. At the moment some of the C. Balansae leaves are melting which is suspect is part of adapting to new environment symptom?

The layout still look very bare, still trying to improve it. I'm planning to add some c.helferi where the pavement of soil track leads to at the back of the tank. Hope it will turm out ok. Will update when I managed to get the plants. Cheers.

[Tony]

Before I have time to do any change in scape, look and behold!!!

No wonder I find the 2 diamond discus were acting strange the night before as they were shivering at intervals near the c. balansae leaf and is very aggressive towards other discus by chasing and forcing all others to hide behind the thick bolbitis and narrow leaf java ferns forest.

I'm not too hopeful these eggs will survive as this is the 1st spawn and very low count. Both fishes are inexperience. Nonetheless it is good news that the fishes are healthy

[tropic]

Before I have time to do any change in scape, look and behold!!!

No wonder I find the 2 diamond discus were acting strange the night before as they were shivering at intervals near the c. balansae leaf and is very aggressive towards other discus by chasing and forcing all others to hide behind the thick bolbitis and narrow leaf java ferns forest.

I'm not too hopeful these eggs will survive as this is the 1st spawn and very low count. Both fishes are inexperience. Nonetheless it is good news that the fishes are healthy

Wow..you lucky guy. I think the discus should not be subjected to unnecessary shock if they need to care for the brood.

[Young Man]

nice and simple (: job well done (:

[johannes]

welcome to AQ bro! hope you enjoy your stay here..
there isn't much tangayikans, maybe you can poison the members here.. hehe

[Young Man]

welcome to AQ bro! hope you enjoy your stay here..
there isn't much tangayikans, maybe you can poison the members here.. hehe

thank you for the welcome (: haha
it's ok if there are no tanganyikan topics here (: there is still ALOT ALOT more for me to learn from the forumers here especially regarding the planted tank arena (:

[Tony]

Hi All,

Thanks for your kind comment. A quick update, the eggs are gone today as expected.

I've added more plants to the scape and will leave it till it mature in the next few weeks. Any comments on how to improve is welcome.

[Young Man]

looks good (: what are you growing as foreground plants?or are you leaving it empty?cos i could only see some slight greens in the foregroung in the photo..

[Tony]

Planted some hairgrass at intervals at the foreground. They don't seem to grow much in the 1st week and I anticipated it's going to take very long to grow and spread. Will see how it goes in 3 weeks time to decide whether to switch to e. Tenellus.

[Tony]

Into week 3 and some hair algae seen on bolbitis, so I introduced a pot of watersprite to soak the extras up before removing it from tank in another 3 weeks time (pls ignore the pot of light green plant at the front left).

The rest of the plants showing signs of growth. Any suggestions on improvements welcomed.

[broken arrow]

Simple and nice set up

[Salphur]

Nice big tank! Can't wait for it to mature.

[Tony]

Hi bro broken arrow and salphur,

Thanks for your comment. At the moment I'm fighting hair algae and small amount of bba on the bolbitis...

Looks like I may have to junk the bolbitis if the infestation proves too bad

Will update in the next few weeks. Thanks for viewing.

[barmby]

bolbitis [ Lighting: Low. Growth Rate: Slow. Difficulty: Medium ...] from.. www.plantedtank.net

Just some suggestion:-

Reduce lighting period to 4 hours a day. Go easy on liquid fertilization. Check CO2 outlet x 2. Check water flow. Dose Seachem Excel.

Until they start to grow, start increasing everything.

[Tony]

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll reduce the lighting period from the current 6hours per day back to 4hours and see if that improves.

My current setup has the external CO2 canister at approximately 3-4 bps connected to external L-sized ISTA max-mix reactor before going into a rainbar vertically mounted powered by Rena XP3 canister. I can see the fine bubbles being nicely blown out into the tank so CO2 distribution seems good. A second external Atman 3 canister with horizontal rainbar 2cm below water surface to agitate the water and provide good circulation.

As for fertilisation, weekly 3ml of Easy-life profito, 1 capsule of Denneler Planta Gold 7 and 5ml spoon of powder equilibrium.

Let me know if my combination above have any issues. I'm not good at following fertilisation regime or EI and the above combination at the moment is simple enough for me to do weekly.

[barmby]

Hi Tony,

It will be good to know the CO2 in PPM level in water column during lights on period. For pesky people like me - I checked 1 hr after lights on, and 1 hr before lights off. Reason- I am interested with maintaining 20-30ppm during lighting period. Also, don't want to kill too many shrimps

For Fertilization - I have not used Easy-life profito, but make sure they address NPK, and TEs

I don't feel comfortable about the CO2 level.

And... move the water surface abit like how a lily pipe do it. O2 presence cannot be ignored as we need O2 during the whole Nitrogen Cycle (NH3, NH4, NO2, NO3 conversion)

Btw, new tank don't produce enough O2 because plants are not photosynthesis-ing enough. We always assume and "I think". But we are always wrong

[Tony]

Hi Colin,

Thanks for the advice. I do not have any test kits so not able to tell the CO2 PPM. The current agitation by the rainbar near the water surface is able to imitate that of the lily pipe. Whatever shrimps in the tank has already become snacks for the discus so experimenting with CO2 is not an issue for the fishes.

As for Easy-life profito, there isn't any info provided on the container. The nearest I found on the web in some forum discussion shows the following:

Easy Life - ProFito concentration:
The product contains 17 elements :
Fe(2+) : 1.200 ppm ; K : 7.000 ppm ; Mg : 900 ppm ; Mn : 400 ppm ; I : 200 ppm ; B : 80 ppm ; Cu, Mo, Zn, Li : 20 ppm ; Ni, Co, Al, Sn, F : 10 ppm
V, Se : 5 ppm

As for Denneler Planta Gold 7, the manufacturer did not disclose the secret formula inside; but state that it is an enhancer to fertilisation absorption in plants like a "shot in the arm".

For Seachem equilibrium:
Soluble Potassium (K20)
23.0%
Calcium (Ca)
8.06%
Magnesium (Mg)
2.41%
Soluble Iron (Fe)
0.11%
Soluble Manganese (Mn)
0.06%


Can't quite make any sense out of these information and need help to decipher them. By the way, I'm using 4x54W T5HO and reduced from 6hrs to 4hrs daily now.

Amid all these fight against BBA and green hair algae, I came home this evening to find 2 pairs of Discus spawn inside the tank at the same time. The turquoise pair spawn on the c.balansae leaves at the centre of the tank; while the blue diamond pair spawn on the crypt wendtii leaves at the right of the tank