ProjectCode858

The stand really looks remarkable!

lanceduffy

Well after thinking over the lighting for way too long, I bought a 4 bulb 24" from FNI today. The plan is to suspend it 10"-16" above the tank and use as many bulbs as needed. It comes wired to run 2 or 4 bulbs off two switches but I think I can rewire it to run 2 or 3 bulbs if needed. I went with this over the MH for two reasons. Most of the tank contest submissions that I could find data on are running 2 or 4 bulbs of T5HO. Mostly 2 bulb setups. The beauty of the 4 bulb vs. the MH and the 2 bulb is that it is scalable. I can adjust the height and the amount of bulbs that are firing.
Well, that is what I am thinking now. I will let you know how it turns out.

On another note. I am 1 week in. daily WC suck but I have found a system that is not too bad. Tomorrow I will start every other day changes. I do my WC in the AM and tonight when I got home I found .25 ppm ammonia, 0 ppm nitrite, and 40 or 80 ppm nitrate (using API kits). Remember that I put an established filter on this tank with fresh purigen, fresh carbon and 1.5 litres of seasoned bio rio.

lanceduffy

At this point, 13 days in, the tank has just about cycled. I have zero detectable ammonia and nitrite. Nitrate is like 80ppm, pretty high but nothing I haven't seen before.

Well I am starting to see some trouble. After starting the new light and during the second week, I have done WC every two days, 3 squirts Brighty K and Step 2 per day. I also trimmed the hairgrass to the substrate. I am seeing what I can interpret as K deficiency. I used to run the coralife 65W on top of the tank for 5 hours. When I got the new light, I suspended it 12 inches ( 3 days ago ) and kept 2 bulbs on for 6 hours and all 4 bulbs on for 3 hours in burst style.

At this point I am in panic mode and am doing stupid things. I know I am thrashing about but I am doing it anyway. GRRR. I increased K today to 5 squirts. Then for tomorrow I have abandoned burst and am going back to 5 hours full 4 bulbs.

Please someone give me some rescue! Thanks for looking.

TooManyTanks

Your setup si far is amazing!!! Stand looks purchased so i would say EXCELLENT job!!! Keep up the good work. Keep us posted sith any changes


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lanceduffy

thank you for the kind words.

lanceduffy

Things are, at this point under control. They were never really out of control. If things get out of control, cut the lights back and do daily water changes right?
Right now I have the fixture 9 inches above the tank. I run 2 bulbs for 7 hours and add a third bulb for 3 hours in the middle. There is some green forming on the rocks and I still get dust algae on the glass in 48 hours.
I am dosing 3 squirts Step 1 now and 5 squirts brighty K.
I think the potassium deficiency problem I had was caused by dosing the package directions for Brighty K and having 6 or 8 frogbit plants floating. I upped the K then removed the frogbit. No more holes in leaves. Now I will dial back the K until I have the right amount.
Thanks for looking. I should have time for photos this week.

thief

Really nice journal you have going here, the Stand and scape look very professional, seems like this is going to be a great project and can't wait to here more about this setup!

lanceduffy

I am sorry that it has been so long. Life has been going full blast and I just have not had the time to update. But I am keeping up on the maintenance

The above pictures were taken on the same day but with different WB and flash settings. Suggestions on the scape and my photography are welcome. Aquarium photography is not easy and I could use any and all advise.

So what's been happening around here? Lighting, ferts, waterchanges, watching plants and learning.
Lighting was going on for 8 hours a day with one bulb on for the first and last hours and three bulbs for the 6 hours in the middle. CO2 solenoid started acting weird and I cleaned it out, and cleaned it again and again. Milwaukee rep had me do the drill the needle valve thing and still an unreliable solenoid. It would not shut off the CO2. I noticed that when I took it to a regular outlet to test it after cleaning, it was snappy but when I put it back on the timer and installed the diffuser, not so snappy. so I changed out the timer and voila! I got my solenoid working again.

It was on a two outlet timer that brought 1 bulb and the CO2 on at the same time. This let me control the other 2 bulbs with a second timer. Since I had to reconfigure the timers I can't "ramp up" the light anymore so I cut back to 7 hours full light. Today is the first day of that so we will see where it gets me.

I am dosing 3 ml Brighty K daily, and 3 ml excel. I use ADA step one sparingly, one or two squirts every 2-3 days. Basically, I dose it until I see algae, green on the rocks, small thread or brown on the glosso. As soon as I see the algae, I stop dosing the Step One, after a day or two the algae really does just go away, die , whatever. Then I start lightly dosing it again. There were two weeks when I tried not dosing the Step One. I figured why play this game? Maybe I could just not use this stuff and save myself some money and headache. The result was growth that was not quite as green and a little stunting here and there. So I am back to it with the Step One.

I change water at least twice a week. I took a lot from the "how to do everything ADA" post on THE OTHER SITE and basically follow those guidelines for water changes. Usually the WC's are 50% but every month or three weeks the green on the rocks gets to be too much for my taste and I take the water way down. I paint the rocks with excel (not exceeding the water change dose) and fill it back up.

As you can see, growth has not been terribly fast. I am OK with that. I am a very leery of algae and do not drive this tank with long photoperiods. The growth that has happened has been good quality and mostly algae free and that is what I am going for.

I had hairgrass planted between the glosso and the blyxa. It grew in fully and I didn't like the dark green in the middle of the light greens of the glosso and the blyxa. I gave the hairgrass a haircut so it is still there but I am looking for a suggestion of what to do. Should I just let the glosso take over and go right up to the blyxa? Should I stick with the hairgrass? Is there another direction I should take?

Thanks for looking!

lanceduffy

I'e been aggressively trimming any vertical growth in the glosso and the results have been very good!
Ordered a eheim 2215 today and a 2217 impeller. I plan to replace the 2215 impeller with a 2217 impeller.

lanceduffy

I was cleaning the Blueline pump and broke the pump at the outlet by over-torquing the threaded nipple to the pump outlet. This was my fault. Because of this I have been back to the 2213 flow for the past week. This was right after I ordered the 2215 I talk about in the previous post.

So I've got these rocks in here and every few weeks, 2-3, they get a little too green for my tastes. It is usually the top side of the big stone and the top and front of the right stone. What I usually do is put 2 or 3 ml of excel in a shot glass and clean the stones by dipping a toothbrush in the shot glass and scrubbing the stones. Of course this requires me taking the water down really low so that the rocks are exposed.

Last week I needed to clean the rocks and instead of using the usual procedure, I squirted the excel directly on the rocks then scrubbed them. I used about 2x the usual shot glass.

Well this might have been a bad thing. The blyxa j. that is directly in back of the big stone is melting. Not all of it but just the parts that could have been damaged by the excel running off the rock in large quantities and onto the leaves of the Blyxa J. The center leaves and leaves that are against the glass are unfazed and growing well.

So I am picking out debris as often as I see them. There are bubbles and scum accumulating on the water surface. My impression is that the filter is working overtime to take care of the dying organic mass.

I am changing water every other day. I cut back the lighting to 6 hours. I aerate after lights out. My 2215 with 2217 impeller is scheduled to arrive in 2 days and I hope the extra flow helps with mechanical filtration. The 2215 also has 2x the media space so I am hoping the extra bacteria can help out also. Fingers crossed.