Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:16 pm Post subject: New Scape of my 3feet (with some guidance to beginners)
I have setup a new scape on may 7th last month in my friends room, and i am also gonna give step by step things i have done with the tank in initial stage so that it might help some beginners, below is the tank details.
Tank - 36 x 18 x 22 inch
filter - sunsun 302(1000lph) and 304(2000lph)
light - 4 x 39 w T5HO in that 3 tube with 6500k and 1 with 4000k
co2 - pressurized no bps and all, will tune till my drop checker turn to lime green to yellow.
chiller - hailea 150A mod to 1/6hp compressor where it comes with 1/10 hp compressor
fertilizers - EI dosing i prepare according to my tank macro i get salts from science lab store and micro plantex csm+b
Soil - ADA 2 new 9litre bag and balance used ADA Soil.
And chihiros doctor got as gift for b'day, only difference i see no diatoms which i initially used to see in new setup. now i need to clean every 3-4 days for better mist
plants - limnophila aromatica, hygrohpila polysperma, pogostemon stellatus octopus, HC cuba, Hair grass, Eriocaulon breviscapum, Hydrocotyle tripartita, Alternanthera reineckii Rosanervig, staurogyne sp brown, staurogyne repensRotala sp. Spikey, Hygrophila pinnatifida and hygrophila corymbosa
first let me add pics
Hardscape- I am not great in hardscape
After planting within a hour
had some aquatic moth larvae invasion maybe came with the plants or when planting came and laid eggs no idea still now , which ate 70-80% of my plant leaves in 2nd week, So Sad and removed around 42 larvae manually i lost most of the hc, staurogyne repens, limnophila aromatica new shoot leaves and lost Ludwigia senegalensis plant totally little buggers gave a real heart attack
Below is the affected leaves
HC now recovering you can see new shoots.
And the moth larvae
anyhow plants started recovering, this is today pic of tank because of aquatic moth attack i split the hc again otherwise i should've got 50-60% coverage by now
health of the plants
Below plant got has a gift when ordered plants, not able to identify the name confused whether rotala or ludwigia family or someother family if somebody know let me know
Top View of the plant
what i did in this last 4 weeks
1st week - I did 3 times 60-70% water change after water change i will add beneficial bacteria below is the link which i used, for bacteria to grow fast and cycle tank fast also. And kept light photo-period for 4 hours with only 2 bulbs ON where my fixture has 4 bulbs and i removed 2 bulbs(in first day photo there are 4 bulbs that is to take photo). and co2 will switch on before 1hour prior to light and will switch off 1 hour before lights go off and target co2 drop checker for lime green to yellow color and water temperature to 25 degree in chiller, this co2 and water temp will last till i rip my tank
2nd week - same has 1s week but added chihiros doctor which i got has a present from my friend but u dont need this really and increased photo-period to 4.5hrs
3rd week - reduced water change to 2 times a week and increased photo-period to 5hrs and added the third bulb in my fixture and started EI dosing till 3rd week i will add beneficial bacteria you can use any company i mainly use seachem but this time went with microlife and also added a air stone in timer which will switch on at 10.00pm and will switch off at 8.00am will keep this air stone for 2 months. uprooted rotala sp spikey plant totally and trimmed the below part and planted only the toppings. same with other stem plant in above pic
4th week - reduced water change to once in a week which i will follow till i rip this tank off because i dose EI dosing so i need to do 50% water change every week for resetting the water column and its always best to do 30-50% water change every week and clean your filter once in a month. and increased photo period to 5.5hrs and added the 4th bulb and changed to co2 reactor.
Do note i follow 5x filtration and 10x flow of tank water volume and my filter have ceramic ring, coarse filter foam for mechanical filter, and for biological eheim substrat pro and for chemical filtration seachem purigen and i never use high current flow in my tank because that will disturb viewing experience of the plant by shaking them to much which will make the look of the tank awful and fishes also can't swim properly, so i always follow strong but gentle flow.
I get hard and soft water in same tap so i have 270litre drum and will collect soft water in that whenever it comes mostly my water ppm will be 30-42ppm only yep we are lucky to have this good quality water here in Coimbatore and i will add diy minerals to increase the ppm to 70 below is the link which i used to make my own minerals and will add seachem prime to detoxify chlorine, i wont use any other product for this purpose seachem prime is very good and will come for long time for my use, ph meter i use to test the co2 ph profile test i do only in new setups to check co2 distribution that's it, i wont do any other test with whatever kit available.
and from 5th week i will increase light by half hour till i reach 8 hour cycle that's it after that only water change every week and filter maintenance once in a month.
my Fertilizer mixture is
Macro-(500ml Deionized Waterr and dose 20ml 3 days a week)with 500ml water i mix
kno3 - 90gms
kh2po4 - 23gms
Micro-(500ml Deionized Water and dose 20ml 3 days a week)with 500ml water i mix
Plantex csm+b - 25gms
Do note until you learn what your plant need just follow the actual values for EI or PPS pro once you get into it, you can easily tweak the dosing as per your requirement i use below calculators.
And most important thing when you make some changes wait for a week to see the difference patience is the key in planted aquarium and below are some guide which might help you start a beautiful aquarium.
And in planted tank lighting and co2 plays a major role and when you learn to tweak this according to your setup then you will see one of the best result. so do lot of research in lighting and co2.
Posted: Wed Jun 14, 2017 11:48 pm Post subject: Re: New Scape of my 3feet (with some guidance to beginners)
Wow... I think this is really great post from Andrew. Not only now but many times your posts are just awesome with tons of info and this needs plenty of patience to post info like this .
Any newbie in the group can easily understand how maintain a tank after reading this. I have really no words in appreciating this effort.
Few Questions:
1.
Iam also starting a new 2 feet with ADA amazonia with all high tech setup. I have been given an advice to change the water several times after hard scaping the tank and before planting. Any reason we have to do this? remove water cloudiness risk after planting?Does removing water several times remove vital nutrients from the tank?
2.
how did u permanently remove the larvae ? That would be good know.
Wow... I think this is really great post from Andrew. Not only now but many times your posts are just awesome with tons of info and this needs plenty of patience to post info like this .
Any newbie in the group can easily understand how maintain a tank after reading this. I have really no words in appreciating this effort.
Few Questions:
1.
Iam also starting a new 2 feet with ADA amazonia with all high tech setup. I have been given an advice to change the water several times after hard scaping the tank and before planting. Any reason we have to do this? remove water cloudiness risk after planting?Does removing water several times remove vital nutrients from the tank?
2.
how did u permanently remove the larvae ? That would be good know.
Thanks,
Thanks Man,
1. changing water frequently in 1st month is not to get rid of cloudiness because cloudiness will clear within 24hrs, but mainly to remove the organic matter it leaches out and that too ADA leaches too much so we used to do heavy water changes mainly to remove that and by doing that you can control algae in initial stage because your plants are adapting to the new environment so within 2-3 weeks your plants will adapt once adapted it won't give room for algae to grow anyhow still it's always best practice to do weekly 30-50% water change for removing organic matter even if your plant settles also it will absorb what it requires only. Below is the link from ada itself about water changes in initial stage.
http://www.adana.co.jp/en/release/detail?id=80
it depends on the substrate you use but 90% of substrate will leach organic matter nowadays getting very good review on cal aqua labs Black Earth Premium will try in my next scape.
2. even i never came across moth larvae issue before this is 1st time and even i was not able to identify 1st where in another forum some experienced guys identified this and only way is to remove manually or you need to leave them to complete it's cycle that is from eggs->larvae(this period where it eat the plant)->cocoon or pupae->moth it will fly out of the tank below is the video link which will explain about it. so in my tank after i removed manually also i took 3 more when it was in cocoon stage where it forms a nest using 2 leaves. my only worry now it shouldn't come back to lay eggs because there is a saying in our place water,elephants and insects never forget there path.
Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2017 5:37 pm Post subject: Re: New Scape of my 3feet (with some guidance to beginners)
Informative post.Nice setup and well planned execution. In fact i got inspired by you and others in this forum on DIY LEDS and successfully did my LED setups for my couple of planted tanks (Well after many iterations ).
I am planning to rescape one of my 3 feet planted tank from low tech to high tech. Got the black earth premium substrate. Will use your tips during setup. Few questions-
1. Do i need to do frequent water changes with black earth premium like you did with Ada?
2. I am going to keep live stocks in seprate container during the rescaping. Shall I add it to the tank once the water clear up or do need to wait for fews days till the aquarium is cycled?
Informative post.Nice setup and well planned execution. In fact i got inspired by you and others in this forum on DIY LEDS and successfully did my LED setups for my couple of planted tanks (Well after many iterations ).
I am planning to rescape one of my 3 feet planted tank from low tech to high tech. Got the black earth premium substrate. Will use your tips during setup. Few questions-
1. Do i need to do frequent water changes with black earth premium like you did with Ada?
2. I am going to keep live stocks in seprate container during the rescaping. Shall I add it to the tank once the water clear up or do need to wait for fews days till the aquarium is cycled?
Regards,
Rengarajan.
Thanks Rengarajan, it's been 3 years back i did that led and still working and im going to upgrade that using 3w or 1w led will post once i finish the work.
1. ADA used to leach too much ammonia at initial stage and other organic matter also but it's a good soil though. But like i said never used Black earth but as per the reviews i seen it leach very less ammonia and other organic matter and yep you need ammonia but not too much. if you ask me i will do water change but 20% max, below is link where you can see some reviews
2. you can add fish immediately if you have cycled water and filter if not then wait for the tank to get cycled, to improve the cycle process fast add beneficial bacteria whenever you do water change. looks like you don't have cycled water and filter and even if you have also better wait for a week if not then wait for 3-4 weeks .
Joined: Nov 03, 2015 Posts: 63 Location: Bengaluru
Status: Offline
Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2017 12:51 am Post subject: Re: New Scape of my 3feet (with some guidance to beginners)
Hello Andrew,
Can you please post latest picture of your tank? curious to see the progress. its been a month and Monte Carlo in my tank is not growing at all. I see new leafs but it stays there, no growth.
also, it would be really appreciated if you can help me with below issue
I am facing terrible blue green algae problem after adding seachem purigen in my tank. I added purigen 10 days ago and I started noticing BGA in substrate and plants, I kept cleaning substrate and plants without any luck. Just couple of hours ago I noticed almost all the plants are covered with BGA and few plants really look sick, covered with slime like BGA. I am suspecting purigen has removed all the biological nitrite/nitrate and therefore BGA attack.
My tank size : 24"x18"x18", I believe it has about 80~90 Liters of water (excluding substrate, wood, stone)
Fertilizer : seachem flourish and potassium - 2 ML alternate days and seachem iron 2 ML alternate days.
Light : finnex planted+ 24/7 se in 24x7 mode
CO2 : pressurized
Things which changed in last two weeks :
1. Added Purigen.
2. Upgraded light from T5HO 2x24W to finnex planted+ 24/7 se
I am facing terrible blue green algae problem after adding seachem purigen in my tank. I added purigen 10 days ago and I started noticing BGA in substrate and plants, I kept cleaning substrate and plants without any luck. Just couple of hours ago I noticed almost all the plants are covered with BGA and few plants really look sick, covered with slime like BGA. I am suspecting purigen has removed all the biological nitrite/nitrate and therefore BGA attack.
I am facing terrible blue green algae problem after adding seachem purigen in my tank. I added purigen 10 days ago and I started noticing BGA in substrate and plants, I kept cleaning substrate and plants without any luck. Just couple of hours ago I noticed almost all the plants are covered with BGA and few plants really look sick, covered with slime like BGA. I am suspecting purigen has removed all the biological nitrite/nitrate and therefore BGA attack.
Even i am using purigen, but i dose nitrate for my plants and my nitrate level are around 10-15ppm.
Thanks Paul,
Very informative post, actually I was not dosing nitrogen since I thought plant, fish waste and leftover food would be enough to generate required Nitrogen.
Let me order Nitrogen, between how do you measure nitrate level?
Also, do you think I should start dosing phosphorus as well? Currently I am dosing Seachem Potassium and Flourish only.
Joined: May 17, 2013 Posts: 104 Location: Bangalore
Status: Offline
Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 2:42 am Post subject: Re: New Scape of my 3feet (with some guidance to beginners)
Hi manish
You can start dosing nitrogen, also you can measure the nitrate level by using test kit.
All macros are very important, but you can limit the phosphorus dosing. I had a good success with or without phosphorus dosing. I would suggest you to start with nitrogen to combat BGA, then think about phosphorus.
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 12:41 am Post subject: Re: New Scape of my 3feet (with some guidance to beginners)
hi Andrew,
Can you please explain what is EI dosing? i typically dose every day 1ml of fertlizers as written on bottle. How does EI differ from this? Can you please explain it for a layman.
Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 1:14 pm Post subject: Re: New Scape of my 3feet (with some guidance to beginners)
Also, in your first post u mentioned to keep co2 drop checker to yellow? Any reason you keep it yellow instead of green? Is that only for initial few weeks or do you always keep it yellow.
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, which ate 70-80% of my plant leaves in 2nd week, So Sad and removed around 42 larvae manually i lost most of the hc, staurogyne repens, limnophila aromatica new shoot leaves and lost Ludwigia senegalensis plant totally little buggers gave a real heart attack 
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