Alvin Koh's Journal: 90x45x45cm Planted

[eviltrain]

Really like your scape more and more.

[Alvin Koh]

Nice to see the scape taking shape, love the crypts

Thanks limz_777 - the crypts grow extremely well emersed.

Really like your scape more and more.

Thanks Alan - really must thank you for the 'egg-crate' method, otherwise, I believe my rocks will start sinking once I fill the tank up without any solid base support. It's the most crucial advice I've received!

At this point, I am very contented with what I have - and it's honestly already beyond my expectation. I really must thank everyone who've helped one way or another till now.

[eviltrain]

hee hee, its nothing la. just my 1/2 cent of idea . most importantly able to help you with that.

[Alvin Koh]

Impressive growth on the HC and UG! Looking forward to see them when they mature. Will surely turn to be a nice nice carpet! Nice. following this thread like how most singaporeans are following Ai. LOL. Good job and thumbs up!

Thanks equidorz! The way you compare to 愛 (ai) is humourous, although it's my mother-in-law and wife who follows the series. Hehehehe.

[Alvin Koh]

Week 8 (18-20 March 2011)

The progress from the DSM was somewhat beginning to stagnate in some areas. The HC was growing very fast and it's almost a full carpet in the background but the spread of UG and Lilaeopsis brasiliensis was much slower in the back where the soil is much dryer. Increasing the humidity did not show significant differences in growth rates in the dryer areas in the past 2 weeks; whereas the lower portions of UG can be seen to be growing faster where it's wetter. I finally decided to flood the tank on the 18th (2 months old).

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The Flooding

As I have a very fine mist spray head, I filled up the tank without covering the plants with any protective layer. I drained the tank once at the halfway mark to remove excess nutrients and re-filled it again. It took about 1 hour to fill it up the entire tank - midway through I sprayed full blast at a submerged takeaway plastic to avoid any disturbance to the soil.


Goodbye DSM - Week 2 versus week 8








1 hour after flooding - Water had a light-brown tinge. I took out all my glassware and setup the necessary plumbing and installed the Up Aqua inline atomizer and cut all the necessary hoses to size.




3rd Day - I have been doing 50% water changes daily and the water clarity is about 90-95% now with a slight haze possibly due to bacteria bloom. There is mild presense of ammonia despite the filter running off a pail for 4 months now (wow, it's been that long??).

Lighting: 39w x 2 for about 8 hours daily
CO2 injection: 3bps during day (aeration with airstone at night to promote cycling)






Hemianthus callitrichoides 'cuba'




Chiller - set at 26.5 DegC



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What's next?

I find the way the UG contrasts in color with the background plants to be distracting as the UG is lighter in color. I will need to find a way to smooth the transition. I may also add some Blyxa Japonica behind the feature rock in time to come.

I'm definitely looking forward to adding fishes to the tank and I have more or less shortlisted the fishes but will have to wait for the ammonia levels to subside.

[urban.pleco]

Congrats man! Finally get to see your scape taking shape. Nice drop checker you have there

[Alvin Koh]

Congrats man! Finally get to see your scape taking shape. Nice drop checker you have there

indeed, the drop checker is very nice and in excellent condition!!

[limz_777]

i think a light green tone UG gradually to HC looks ok to me , perhaps replant the top left corner with HC and use the Lilaeopsis brasiliensis as fillers around the rocks .


what brand are your lily pipes ?

[zonkkie]

Yay! Finally flooding... now the exciting part begins.... haha. Lily pipes looked like ANS ones. Want to see also if your HG has rooted well enough to hold the top left slope so high!

[Alvin Koh]

i think a light green tone UG gradually to HC looks ok to me , perhaps replant the top left corner with HC and use the Lilaeopsis brasiliensis as fillers around the rocks .
what brand are your lily pipes ?

limz_777, that's a great suggestion.

I will have to reconsider my selection carefully so I don't stir up the substrate too much - fortunately, the Lilaeopsis brasiliensis hasn't spread too extensively although I think the roots have probably gone quite deep (fingers crossed).
I realised the problem is that the segmentation is too straight & looks artificial (both left and right sides @ the HC area), I will remove some of the Lilaeopsis brasiliensis where it meets the UG and try to add more UG in the upper slope to form a triangular wedge shape instead of a horizontal seperation. I've learnt something new again today.

The lily pipes are from ANS as zonkkie had noticed and identified correctly.

Yay! Finally flooding... now the exciting part begins.... haha. Lily pipes looked like ANS ones. Want to see also if your HG has rooted well enough to hold the top left slope so high!

Thankfully, the huge rock is supporting the soil like a massive wall so the slope is holding up well so far - unless I need to rescape that portion again.

[Alvin Koh]

Week 9-10 (3 April 2011)

It's been 2 weeks since the filling up of the tank and the tank is not doing too well. Majority of the UG is showing signs of melting/browning. I've added 2 schools of fish into the tank during this period. I will show some contrasts between the progress of the UG from week 9 to 10.

The tank lighting remains at 39w x 2 and the CO2 injection at about 3-5bps. Dosing of macros/micros are on alternate days.


Week 9 - Utricularia Graminifolia

Upon filling up, the leaves of the UG begin to float/erect upwards and by the end of the week, they look just like miniature grass.







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Week 10

Diatoms began to coat some of the plants and the UG seems to be most badly affected - taking on a sickly yellowish color. I spotted algae growing in parts of the tank and immediately started dosing (mixed dry ferts) to keep the algae under control. On hindsight, I started dosing a little late.

The Oto was unable to cleanse the UG leaves of algae/diatoms because they were very delicate, thin and leave clusters made it difficult for the Oto to get into the tight areas.

The UG continued to show decline in health as each plantlet started to melt from root to tip (the darker UG regions are actually transluscent). Although acclimatisation from emersed to submerged is a factor, I cannot firmly ascertain this as the melting seems more widespread - as though the water parameters were off. However, the rest of the plants were thriving.

The only positive news I have, is, my left cluster of UG (2nd pic) gew new leaves and regained some of it's color and began to sprout tiny runner shoots. I hope these new sprouts will adapt to the tank condition and start to spread. As of now, 95% of the UG is practically unusable (no joke!).







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Others / Inhabitants

The Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Tropica' is growing - quite a lot larger than I expected and about 3 times the original size. Leaves are about 4cm broad and 15cm long.

I have also added 2 schools of fishes.
1) 4 Golden Pristella Tetras - Pristella maxillaris
2) 20+ Ruby Tetras - Axelrodia riesei

The Ruby Tetras is taking on some color (from pale white), but it's hard to tell if they will take on a deeper shade of colour. Under brighter areas of light, their coloration is barely detectable. The fishes are generally eating well.

[ranmasatome]

As a last ditch method.. you could try to just trim off all of the UG.. just cut everything above soil off. IF it was to melt.. then might as well try to save it this way. If it doesn't work.. then it would have died anyway.. as mentioned previously.. last ditch method...if it doesn't work.. no big difference.. if it works.. good for you

[limz_777]

Could be the ferting causing them to melt, as a carnivore plant
i read that they don't enjoy ferts

[blue33]

new tank syndrome lar. very easy to solve. Even the Pro's also sometimes cant solve this problem.

[Alvin Koh]

As a last ditch method.. you could try to just trim off all of the UG.. just cut everything above soil off. IF it was to melt.. then might as well try to save it this way. If it doesn't work.. then it would have died anyway.. as mentioned previously.. last ditch method...if it doesn't work.. no big difference.. if it works.. good for you

I have some extra emersed culture on standby, so I may plant them again once the tank settles

Could be the ferting causing them to melt, as a carnivore plant
i read that they don't enjoy ferts

Will monitor, but as the diatoms are indication of the New Tank syndrome blue33 mentioned, it may be the water condition.

new tank syndrome lar. very easy to solve. Even the Pro's also sometimes cant solve this problem.

blue33, do you have any tips for me? I was thinking more water changes and perhaps activated carbon just to keep the water cleaner.

[barmby]

I think slow down is the way. cut down the hours of light that should be turned on because plants aren't making food anyway anyhow.

[Alvin Koh]

I think slow down is the way. cut down the hours of light that should be turned on because plants aren't making food anyway anyhow.

Ah, barmby, makes sense.. I actually reduced the lighting to 6 hours during this period, but will reduce to 1 tube (instead of 2) in this case.

[EvolutionZ]

keep removing those diatoms manually.. new tank always have diatoms.. after a few weeks, they will go away.

[barmby]

Eh, I meant reduce the hours and not intensity.

Example:-
When I first started, I have no money to buy powerful lights. Hence, I bought 36Wx1 PL, thinking that by turning it 14 hours a day can compensate for the lack of intensity. I was so wrong as the tank was soon consumed by BBA.

[Alvin Koh]

Hi all, thanks to all who contributed, especially blue33 via PM.

I was monitoring quite closely the past 10 days and didn't want to make any premature conclusions thus there were no immediate updates until today.

I am glad to report that the UG/diatom issue is mostly resolved.

Understanding the situation better, my primary change was to increase water changes to once every day for the past 8-10 days while keeping the lights constant (actually increased to 39w x 3 tubes).

After searching online, I realised that diatoms are not as light-dependant as I'd thought. Since they are free floating and coat most surfaces, manual removal via water change was the best method (algae eaters don't seem to work too well with UG).

Noticable changes:
1) 50% water change daily.
2) Brushing of hardscape, glassware, tank surfaces stirred up alot of floating particles, but I used a fine filter mesh at the outlet to catch the floating debris.
3) Added additional 1KG BioHome to my filter and replaced the fine filter wool (clogged with diatoms / soil particles).
4) I've kept up with my dosing regime (NPK + Seachem Equillibrium which includes more K), dosing (50-100%) more than usual since 50% water change is daily, so nutrients are being diluted more frequently.
5) Added Seachem Excel at twice the recommended dosage for algae control.
6) Re-introduced Amano shrimps (previously, they were uprooting my UG), to uproot/get rid of all the unhealthy rotting UG. Within 24 hours, about 80-90% of my UG was gone. Hehe.

My aim was to keep the water clean, and to let the other plants continue to thrive without light starvation. I'm happy to report that other than the residual diatoms hidden in pockets of spaces within some of the denser plants (e.g. HC), the tank is back to a healthier state.

I will update again soon with photos soon. Cheers!