Aquatopia - 6x2x2 Low-Med Light, High Tech Nature Aquarium

[Aquatopia]

Since the lights have come on today I can see the Diatoms are getting worse, it's now covering a lot of the bio fuzz on the wood as well, which was white and is now brown.

The UV Clarifier is now installed and running. I'll have to see how it goes. The Ammonia has already dropped more from earlier, it's down to 0.018 now and dropping by 0.001 every hour.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

@Aquatopia I'm no CO² expert, in fact is been several years since I've run CO² but I'm jumping back in soon.
It seems like is something is amiss with your set up. You're running your CO² for several hours before your lights come on to reach a certain pH?

The general accepted practice is to target 30 ppm of CO² for the plants benefit. 30 ppm should be safe for most fish, anything above that and your taking chances with your fish.
There are a couple of ways to measure for 30 ppm of CO², drop.checkers and pH drop.
If you don't have a drop checker then what you are shooting for is a 1.0 drop in pH.
Take your baseline tank pH from DEGASSED tank water, then measure pH every 30 mins after CO² comes on. Again you're looking for that 1.0 pH drop. Once you hit it you can adjust your gas to keep it steady. This my the a few attempts taking gas exchange/surface agitation into consideration.
Most people I know try to turn on the CO² one hour before the lights go on to hit 30ppm by the time lights go on. Also they shut CO² off an hour before lights out to allow time for the tank to off gas.

 

[Aquatopia]

@Aquatopia I'm no CO² expert, in fact is been several years since I've run CO² but I'm jumping back in soon.
It seems like is something is amiss with your set up. You're running your CO² for several hours before your lights come on to reach a certain pH?

The general accepted practice is to target 30 ppm of CO² for the plants benefit. 30 ppm should be safe for most fish, anything above that and your taking chances with your fish.
There are a couple of ways to measure for 30 ppm of CO², drop.checkers and pH drop.
If you don't have a drop checker then what you are shooting for is a 1.0 drop in pH.
Take your baseline tank pH from DEGASSED tank water, then measure pH every 30 mins after CO² comes on. Again you're looking for that 1.0 pH drop. Once you hit it you can adjust your gas to keep it steady. This my the a few attempts taking gas exchange/surface agitation into consideration.
Most people I know try to turn on the CO² one hour before the lights go on to hit 30ppm by the time lights go on. Also they shut CO² off an hour before lights out to allow time for the tank to off gas.

There's nothing amiss with my setup, it's just not the normal CO2 dosing setup that you would see on most high light planted aquariums. Mine has been changed to suit my aquarium, which is low-medium light with mostly low-medium energy plants.

I'm not running the CO2 for several hours before the lights come on or trying to reach a certain pH. That goes back to when I was looking at getting the pH stable for when the lights came on. I was trying to get it stable at any pH not trying to reach a specific pH.

The general idea is that you want to get your pH as stable as you can before the lights come on so you have very little drift in pH through the photoperiod, which equates to very little change in CO2 level.

Because I am dosing a lower level of CO2 it was taking too long for the pH to stabilise and I would have needed to start the CO2 several hours before the lights came on if I wanted to have it stable before the lights came on. Because of this I decided not to bother trying to get the pH stable before the lights come on and I have the CO2 come on 3 hours before the lights come on as a midground compromise.

I am aware of how to check the CO2 level and do have a drop checker in the tank. I am not aiming for 30 ppm CO2 though. My target is 15-20 ppm. As has been discussed a few times in this thread I am dosing a low-medium background level of CO2, just enough to keep the plants healthy and growing without super fast growth. Because of this I won't be getting a 1.0 drop in pH or if I am then there is something wrong.

I did take my baseline pH from degassed tank water and I do measure the pH every 30 minutes, 24 hours a day, every day. I have a Seneye monitor that does this and records the readings.

Having the CO2 start an hour before the lights come on is pretty common but I have also seen plenty of people (dosing to reach 30ppm) who have to have it running for 2 or 3 hours before to reach 30 ppm by the time the lights come on. As I said though I'm not dosing to reach 30 ppm. My CO2 does go off an hour before lights out.

I appreciate most people do things very differently but I am most definitely not most people.

 

[Aquatopia]

I've now added 2 x L134 Leopard Frog Plecos to my fish list after talking it over with a friend (Michal Kwil) who breeds a lot of L number plecos. He recommended these as they are one of the smaller L number plecos and a pair should do well in my tank.

I've decided to drop the Reticulated Hillstream Loaches from my fish list, again! Reason being I think it will be too many bottom dwellers/algae eaters. So I won't be getting them now.

I've also increased the Kuhli Loaches to 12 instead of 10 just because the more the merrier, the safer they will feel and I'll have more of a chance of seeing them.

This now makes my fish list look like this:

150 Cardinal Tetra.- Coming at end of January.
10 Cherry Barbs. - Coming next week.
12 Kuhli Loaches.- Coming at end of January.
20 Lemon Tetra.- Coming next week.
2 Leopard Frog Plecos.- Coming at end of January.
24 Orange Venezuela Corys. - Already in.
12 Panda Garra.- Coming next week.
7 Roseline Sharks.- Coming next week.
15 Kohaku Wagtail Swordtails. - Already in.

I've also decided to move the Echinodorus Red Diamond from the back of the tank. I thought it grew larger than it does so I'm now going to put it at the right side, next to the rock, where it will replace the Cryptocoryne Tropica that is not doing great, it has not grown at all or even put out any roots, so I've decided to not have that plant.

I'm also moving the Echinodorus Ozelot Green from the back of the tank to midground on the left side, it hasn't grown any submersed leaves yet and I now want to make space at the back for a larger sword and the Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig' (see below).

I'm going to move the Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig' from the top right to the centre back at the bottom, planted in the substrate where the Echinodorus Ozelot Green is currently. I originally got all the different stems and put them up there to allow for some of them to not do well in my tank, the thought being that I'd end up with at least some stems that did well.

It now seems they are all doing well! Because of this I've decided to move the Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig', which will then allow me to spread out the other stem plants at the top right so they can take up more space.

I've also ordered an Echinodorus barthii to go alongside the Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig' at the back bottom of the tank.

I'll be making the changes to the plants when I trim and do the water change on Sunday.

Here's the UVC Clarifier:

The UVC Clarifier has been on for almost 2 days now and I'm not seeing any change in the cloudiness in the tank yet. I'm not seeing a change in the Ammonia either, so no change in anything as far as I can see.

Everything is still progressing, the fish are doing great, the plants are doing okay, though there is algae starting, mostly diatoms and hair algae that I can see. I've been pulling the hair algae out and keeping it off the plants where I can, plus the Swordtails are eating it.

I have Amano shrimp, Ramshorn snails and 12 Panda Garra going in next week so hopefully they will help take care of it.

 

[Aquatopia]

A quick look at the Fluval 6w UVC In Line Clarifier that I've just added.

 

[Aquatopia]

Over the past week the tank has had some changes, some plants have been moved and I added the Fluval UVC Clarifier. Plants are growing, fish are still doing well but algae has also been getting worse, which was expected.

The nitrogen cycle is now complete, Ammonia and Nitrite are both zero. Nitrates are currently at 5.

The Tiger lotus have both grown more leaves and gotten bigger. I now think the one at the front is the red variant with the green variant at the back, which is what I wanted. I'll only be able to tell for sure though once the leaves mature more.

The tannins did not come back over the past week so either the wood has stopped leeching them or the Purigen is still removing them. I'll see how it is next week. If it continues like this for the next week or two then I may just end up taking the Purigen out of the filters to see if the tannins are actually gone.

I did a 50% water change on Sunday the 4th of January but I did not change the Purigen this week I just cleaned the Prefilters and did the plant maintenance.

I did decide to move a few plants around.

I decided to move the Echinodorus red diamond that was at the back because they don't grow as tall as I thought they did, so they are now at the right side of the tank. I then got an Echinodorus barthii to replace it at the back, which grows much taller but is very small at the minute, so it'll probably be a while until I can see it.

The Echinodorus ozelot green which was also at the back has been moved to the midground on the left side.

The Hygrophila polysperma rosanervig, which was at the top right is now planted in the substrate at the back where the Echinodorus Ozelot green was.

The rotala blood red, limnophila hippuridoides and Ludwigia mini 'Super Red' have all been trimmed and the trimmings have been added as new groups in order to spread those plants out more across the top and right side.

The diatoms have been getting worse this past week, as has the hair algae, I've been removing most of the hair algae but I'm leaving the diatoms alone to do its thing. Next week I am adding fish, shrimp and snails that should all help clear the algae up.

 

[Aquatopia]

Both the Swordtails and the Orange Venezuelan Corydoras continue to do well. Again there has been noticeable growth in the swordtails.

Continuing my attempts to increase plant growth I have increased the CO2 again from 5 bps up to 6 bps. This amount now seems to be getting my CO2 level to between 15 and 20 ppm, which is around where I wanted it to be.

There are going to be a few big changes in this coming week - I have Ramshorn snails, Amano shrimp, Panda Garra, Lemon Tetras, Cherry Barbs and Roseline Sharks all being added to the tank! So it's going to be an interesting week to say the least!

You can also check out this weeks update on my YouTube channel:

 

[Aquatopia]

Just wanted to add that I’ve been getting some pearling. I saw it from Sunday but I wasn’t sure of it was just because of the water change. It’s been happening every day though. Not much, just a bubble now and then but it is pearling.

It’s coming off the Rotala blood red, the Limnophila hippuridoides and the Christmas moss, that I’ve seen anyway.

 

[Aquatopia]

I added the 36 Ramshorn Snails yesterday and today the 50 Amano Shrimp and 12 Panda Garra arrived too!

I made a short video showing them as well.



The 7 Roseline Sharks, 20 Lemon Tetra and 10 Cherry Barbs are due to be delivered tomorrow, so looking forward to that!

 

[Aquatopia]

Today the 7 Roseline Sharks, 20 Lemon Tetra and 10 Cherry Barbs arrived!

Here's a short video of them being added.



I'm very happy with all the fish. The Roseline Sharks are a bit skinny but other than that they are all perfect.

Some of you might notice that the Cryptocoryne aponogetifolia is no longer in the left side of the aquarium, I removed it as all the leaves had suffered from the diatoms anyway plus I decided that it was too much, it just didn't fit the aquascape. It was an impulse buy and really needs a bigger aquarium, not in length but in depth and height.

I've also moved the Microsorum pteropus 'Sunrise' from the centre/back of the tank to the left side/back now. Both to fill in the empty area and because it wasn't doing great in the strong lighting where it was and it apparently does better in low-med light.

I'm much happier with the aquascape now and am going to enjoy watching the fish settle in now!

Almost forgot - The 2 x Leopard Frog L134 Plecos I was getting at the end of January has now turned into 1 x Leopard Frog L134 Pleco and 2 x Dwarf Snowball L471 Plecos (after my Mrs fell in love with them), which now brings my final fish list to this:

150 Cardinal Tetra.- Coming at end of January.
10 Cherry Barbs. - Already in.
12 Kuhli Loaches.- Coming at end of January.
20 Lemon Tetra.- Already in.
1 Leopard Frog L134 Pleco.- Coming at end of January.
2 Dwarf Snowball L471 Plecos.- Coming at end of January.
24 Orange Venezuela Corys. - Already in.
12 Panda Garra.- Already in.
7 Roseline Sharks.- Already in.
15 Kohaku Wagtail Swordtails. - Already in.

 

[Aquatopia]

The fish are doing fine, some plants not so much now. The hair algae got much worse but I think it is dying/dead now and just needs to come out.

It's the weekly water change tomorrow and I'm going to remove as much of the hair algae as I can and remove any leaves that are too bad.

The 3 ferns in the last 3 photos (2 x Trident and 1 Bolbitis) have been worse affected and I'm not sure if they can recover. I'll see what they are like tomorrow after I've cleaned and trimmed off leaves but most of the leaves are badly covered.

It could be filamentous diatoms and not hair algae, the strands looks quite thick.

 

[MattW]

The 3 ferns in the last 3 photos (2 x Trident and 1 Bolbitis) have been worse affected and I'm not sure if they can recover. I'll see what they are like tomorrow after I've cleaned and trimmed off leaves but most of the leaves are badly covered.

I found that my bolbitis and Java ferns were the same. I'm battling BBA, and I'm hoping changes I've made will make it go away

 

[Aquatopia]

I found that my bolbitis and Java ferns were the same. I'm battling BBA, and I'm hoping changes I've made will make it go away

What changes have you made?

 

[MattW]

What changes have you made?

I've started liquid carbon dosing, added in giant duckweed for excess nitrate and nutrient control, and shortened lighting duration.

 

[Aquatopia]

I've started liquid carbon dosing, added in giant duckweed for excess nitrate and nutrient control, and shortened lighting duration.

Did you test the nitrates and they were high? Mine are at 5. I've shortened the photoperiod down to 7 hours of full light now, with an hour ramp up/down at either end, and reduced the lights to approximately 40%. It's hard to say an exact percentage as different colours are at different levels, for example I have zero warm white light as I don't like the yellow look. If I average out the levels of all the colours then it gives me 44%, doing the same for what they were on gives me an average of 68% of the total light output. So I guess I had them at 68% and have dropped them to 44%. I've also increased the CO2 to 10 bps now.