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

[Aquatopia]

Today the Cryptocoryne parva turned up so I put those in the right hand side foreground.

Excuse the crappy pics.

I have got a little biofilm on the wood that sticks up in the middle of the tank now, but that's the only place I can see any and there isn't much.

There is also new submersed growth on the Limnophila hippuridoides now.

The tank is still quite cloudy and brown but everything is looking good. I think the cloudiness is maybe 10% better than it was yesterday. There's still no sign of any algae. One Cryptocoryne hudoroi leaf melted but that's half expected.

It's been a little weird with the CO2 and pH. After the pH didn't stabilise until around 2pm yesterday I started the CO2 an hour earlier today (8am) but today the pH didn't stabilise until 3pm, 2 hours after the lights were on full.

In order to have the pH stable by the time the lights come on I'd now have to turn it on at 6am, 7 hours before the lights are on full!

I am guessing that because the CO2 injection is on the low-medium side (for the size of the tank) it is taking longer to build up to the level where it stabilises.

Is there any CO2 experts here that can advise? Do I still need to get the pH stabilised for the time the lights come on or is it less likely to matter in my case, with the low-medium background level of CO2 dosing and mostly low energy plants?

I've also had another play with the Gyre pump and it's now on an alternating flow, around 90 seconds ramping up to 50% forward flow then 30 seconds ramping down to 100% reverse flow (reverse flow is weaker for some reason) and then ramping up again.

The alternating flow is better as the reverse flow unsticks any plant leaves that have got jammed in the back of the Gyre, it gives a bit more flow to the bottom plants at the right side too and it adds flow underneath the wood 'cave' I created on the right.

 

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I've decided to split the fish orders up a bit more, so now there will be three groups of fish instead of two. Each group having 3 weeks between when they are added.

I have just ordered the first group from my friend Michal (owner of World of Mosses in Kirkcaldy), which are all fish that he has bred himself. The fish are:

24 Orange Venezuela Corys.
15 Kohaku Wagtail Swordtails.

It's going to be colder tonight so he is posting them by Royal Mail Special Delivery tomorrow and they will be with me on Thursday by 1pm.

The second group will be ordered on the 6th of January and they will be:

10 Cherry Barbs.
20 Lemon Tetra.
12 Panda Garra.
7 Roseline Sharks.

The third group will be ordered on the 27th of January and they will be:

150 Cardinal Tetra.
5 Hillstream Loaches.
10 Kuhli Loaches

I'm going to do a large 80% water change in a minute, to dilute the tannins and the cloudiness. Hopefuly the tank will then be much clearer later today.

Oh, I've also ordered some more last minute foreground plants as I think it's a bit sparse at the front. They'll be here tomorrow.

I order more of the Cryptocoryne parva and the Lilaeopsis novae zelandiae and a pot of Helanthium tenellum 'Red', just to have a bit more variety in the foreground.

 

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Well the water change has definitely helped clear the water up but it is still a bit cloudy. It's a lot less brown though, so I can see the proper colour of the plants now. It definitely needed it.

I won't be taking any pics tonight, I'll wait until tomorrow night when the plants I ordered today are in the foreground as well.

 

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Some of the Crypt leaves have melted. Most of them on the Cryptocoryne hudoroi, half of the Cryptocoryne wendti 'tropica' and a few leaves of the Cryptocoryne lucens. One leaf on the Cryptocoryne aponogetifolia is also looking a bit dodgy. They should all recover though.

The Cryptocoryne spiralis 'red', which had no red leaves when it came, now has one or two with red on. The Ludwigia Mini Super Red has also started to sprout new growth now as well.

With the water being clearer now I suspect the growth will improve.

 

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The tanks looking good still. The extra Purigen I ordered arrived and I added that to the filters this morning, so now there is 500 ml of Purigen in there (250 ml in each filter).

I also moved the Limnophila sessiflora that was at the very top / back to the right side of the tank alongside the other group of the same plant. I have it attached to the back of a rock using the same clips that I used on the wood at the top. This way it fills in a gap and will cover the reflection of the airline at the back of the tank, once it grows up to the surface.

I also moved some of the Limnophila hippuridoides further up the top / back, where I moved the Limnophila sessiflora from.

The Rotala 'Blood Red' has also now started with some new submersed growth, which is quite pink.

I also finally got to add the first fish today. Everything turned up in good condition, very happy with them!

I'll get some more pics tomorrow but for now here's a quick video.

 

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More pics from today.

 

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More...

 

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More pics...

Cryptocoryne 'Flamingo' with new leaves.

Cryptocoryne spiralis 'red' with leaves starting to get some red.

Ludwigia mini 'Super Red' with new submersed tips.

Hygrophila polysperma 'rosanervig'. Note the new growth has now turned pink.

Rotala 'Blood Red' starting new submersed pink growth.

 

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Last few pics, fish this time.

Swordtails eating the biofilm.

That's it for today. Everything is going well. As you can see the Purigen is doing it's job. The tank is still quite cloudy though, that'll clear in time.

Interestingly the Ammonia has not spiked at all. It's still slowly going down. It's currently at 0.034. The fish seem perfectly fine and are loving the tank.

They're all eating well. Not having any issues at all really.

There is some slight brush algae but strangely just on one of the detail spider roots at the back/centre of the tank. I've seen the Swordtails eating it though but if it's still there when I do a water change I'll give it a quick spray with Hydrogen peroxide to kill it off.

Other than that everything is looking great.

 

[Aquatopia]

The tank has had a 50% water change today. Everything is going great. Fish are all doing well. Ammonia is still coming down even lower, it's currently at 0.023. Tannins are gone now but the slight cloudiness still remains.

I trimmed the stem plants, removed some dead leaves and cleaned off some of the biofilm. The little bit of brush algae has diminished, almost gone now.

I will be putting a video update together in the next day or two so you can see.

 

[Aquatopia]

The tank and fish are still doing great. The Ammonia is now down to 0.014 and dropping all the time. Day by day the bacterial bloom is getting less.

All of the fish are eating well, looking healthy and enjoying the tank.

The plants are also doing well still, most growing and looking healthy apart from the few Crypts that are melting but they should recover in time.

The Rotala 'Blood Red' continues steady growth and now most of the tips have new submersed pink/red growth.

Here's the update video for this week:



Any comments / questions feel free.

 

[Aquatopia]

Nothing much to add today. Tank is still looking good, fish are good, plants are continuing to grow.

The Ammonia is down to 0.01 today, so it's almost there.

 

[Aquatopia]

This week there hasn't been any big changes.

The Ammonia is now gone, for all intents and purposes.

The Seneye Reef monitor detects free ammonia down to extremely low levels and it's apparently common for levels of Ammonia below 0.01 to continue to be reported when the Ammonia level has stabilised and the Ammonia part of the cycle is complete. My Ammonia reading now fluctuates from 0.01 down to 0.007 every day and is no longer decreasing.

You can add 'trim' to the Ammonia reading in the Seneye settings to zero this reading out if you want but on every other test kit this level is going to show zero Ammonia, which is what it shows on my NT Labs Ammonia test.

As for Nitrite it's currently less than 0.25, according to the NT Labs test kit, so that's almost done now too.

The fish are enjoying the tank. The plants are still growing.

Rotala 'Blood Red' still growing and getting more colour.

The Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig' growing well.

The Limnophila hippuridoides growing more and starting to get some colour.

The Ludwigia mini 'Super Red' growing well and looking good.

The Tiger lotus, both growing well.

The Cryptocoryne 'flamingo' with a new leaf showing more colour.

An Orange Venezuelan Corydoras eating the bio fuzz.

The Echinodorus 'Red Diamond' with new submersed leaves. I removed the emersed leaves as there are quite a few submersed ones now.

Conversely the Echinodorus ozelot 'Green' has not sprouted any submersed leaves yet. I have removed the majority of the emersed leaves from it now, which I'm hoping will encourage new submersed growth.

The Cryptocoryne hudoroi has gotten a couple of new leaves so it seems to be picking up.

The Cryptocoryne nurii 'Rose Maiden', grown "In Vitro", with more growth. Still quite small though.

I did a 50% water change yesterday but before that I had noticed the tannins coming back slightly so whilst doing the water change I also switched out the 500ml of Purigen in the filters for a new batch - the original 200ml I had, which was recharged, along with another 300ml that was new. When I opened the filters the Purigen was used up so it needed replacing after just 1 week. I'm hoping that slows down as recharging/replacing the Purigen every week is going to be a pain. I'll have to see how it is at the end of this week.

I did notice a small amount of hair/thread algae starting, up near the surface on the wood, which I scrubbed when I did the water change, so I have now reduced the lighting level and reduced the photoperiod by an hour. The lights don't start to come on now until 1pm instead of 12pm.

I also increased the CO2 to 5 bps from 4 bps, hopefully this will increase plant growth, which has been steady but fairly slow. I know I want slow growth, in general, but whilst the plants are getting established a bit more growth would be better.

I have noticed growth in the fish, more so in the Swordtails than the Corydoras but even the Corydoras have grown a little.

After the water change this week I got another bacterial bloom, which I believe is due to the high volume water change as the cycle is all but complete now. I have now ordered the Fluval 6w UVC In Line Clarifier to clear this up each week. The added benefit of reducing parasites will also be welcome and makes the purchase a no-brainer now.

You can get a better look at the tank in this weeks update video:



I don't expect much to change over the next week, apart from more growth, but it's just over a week now until I order the second group of fish, so looking forward to that!

 

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The Ammonia has slightly raised again today, it's highest overnight was 0.026, it is dropping down and is currently at 0.022. Whilst this still isn't anywhere near a dangerous level it does indicate that during the water change something affected the bacteria, albeit only slightly.

The only things I did were clean the pre-filter sponges (in aquarium water) and switch out the Purigen for the 'cleaned' bags. The 'cleaned' bags contained 200ml of used Purigen that had been recharged and 300ml of new Purigen. I switched both bags out in both filters. I didn't touch any of the other filter media in the canisters though.

I used more than enough Seachem Safe when re-filing the aquarium (1/2 tspn) to neutralise any Chlorine in the whole tank volume. My tap water only has Chlorine and no Chloramine anyway.

The only thing that makes any sense to me is the Seachem Purigen that was recharged had some Chlorine remaining in it from the bleach soaking. I followed the instructions to the letter though, so it shouldn't have and I have seen others say that the instructions work fine and there is no problem with recharging the Purigen as long as you follow the instructions.

Maybe it's just that the slight affect on the bacterial colony is so small that most people wouldn't notice it. I mean most test kits you couldn't tell the difference between 0.01 and 0.026 free ammonia as most test kits won't even register amounts that low.

I'm not sure now abut continuing to use the Purigen. It seems to be getting used up extremely quickly anyway, much quicker than I expected and was told that it would.

 

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Forgot to say - I'm also starting to see slight patches of diatoms on some of the plant leaves (Cryptocoryne aponogetifolia, Java fern 'sunrise' and the Bolbitis) and on a small area of the wood at the top right of the aquarium.

I have the Amano shrimp, Ramshorn Snails and Panda Garra going in next week so I think they will soon shift that along with the remianing bio fuzz.