My Planted Tank Journey

[paulc]

Hi,

I have decided to use a journal to track my attempt at creating a planted tank. As well as a log of my efforts I am hoping some of you may give me your feedback (good and bad) and help guide me through to a half decent looking tank.

Please leave a comment (especially if you think I can do something better) - it would be much appreciated

A bit of background

I have successfully kept tropical fish for a number of years and have always had a few live plants in the tank. However, the plants have never thrived and to be honest have never looked that good. You know how it is, you walk into a shop, see a load of plants and think oooo that would look nice. You get back and throw them in, feed them when you do a water change and wonder why the heck they look like c**p after a few days.

It's my birthday soon and I was asked what I would like. After a bit of thought I said I wanted to aquascape my aquarium. And so the journey began.

So to give you an idea of what I have at the moment, here are the details:

Aquarium Specs:

Model: Aqua One AR-850
Capacity: 155 165 Litres
Filter: 1000 Ltr / Hr external with trickle system (pulls water up from tank and then uses a spray bar to trickle the water over two trays containing the filter media which in turn lets the cleaned water return through a clear pipe).
Filter Media: Two layers of some sort or sponge one fine and one coarse (Mechanical?). One layer of activated carbon and some ceramic noodles covered in beneficial bacteria (bio filtration?)

Average Water Parameters
Ammonia: 0
Temperature: 25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate: 40 - 60
PH: 7.9 - 8.0
KH: 14

After Co2 injection
PH: 7.2
Co2: 27ppm

Inhabitants
11 Lemon Tetras
2 Female Dwarf Gouramis
4 Neons
5 Red Wagtail Platy's
1 Female BN Pleco
5 Peppered Cories
2 Bolivian Rams


Picture



The plants you see were purchased a few weeks ago and are already starting to look worse for wear (no wonder I hear you cry). As you will see in the picture, I did add a DIY yeast system which consisted of 2 Hagen Natural Plant System canisters feeding a single ladder. Whilst this did produce CO2 it was at a rate of approx 1 bubble every 3-4 seconds. Obviously my drop checker remained very blue.


Current Regime
These are the things I currently do to my tank on a regular basis - I will update this as things change.

Daily - 10ml AE Aqua Nourish
Daily - 20ml AE Aqua Nourish+
Weekly - 30-40% water change

Lights on 12:00 - 22:00
CO2 on - 10:00 - 21:00

Since I can't make a sticky post at the top of this journal I am going to add a couple of sections below. One to list the suppliers I have used and one for links to topics I have found useful.

Suppliers I have used

Aqua Essentials - I have purchased my plant ferts from these people together with my diffuser, check valve, bubble counter, T-Piece (splitter), Aqua Nourish and Aqua Nourish +.

Charterhouse Aquatics - Bought my D-D co2 kit and Koralia NANO 900 from these guys.

Information I have found useful

Testing CO2 with a drop checker - I found this article useful as it used the same JBL drop checker that I have

 

[paulc]

CO2

I wanted to add a pressurised CO2 system and asked many questions about this. I totally get the idea behind a FE system and understand that in the long run it will be much cheaper. But for now I wanted a ready made solution. This turned out to be the D-D CO2 Kit (Salt water version). The reason I went with the salt water version was that it provided two gauges (one for canister pressure and one to show the pressure being sent to the diffuser) and I already had a glass diffuser and bubble counter.

My impressions of this kit? Well, TBH and this is my opinion, it looked like it had been thrown together in a box. The canister was un branded (unlike the photos you see), the instructions were photo copied, the plastic clear cover on one of the gauges popped off (easily put back on) and everything was loose in the box. However, it went together easily enough and seemed pretty solid. I'm not sure why I was nervous of putting this together (something to do with reading about exploding CO2 canisters maybe - I even considered assembling it outside incase it decided to launch itself and me to the moon!) but looking back, it was very easy to assemble and the instructions pretty clear. Took me about 10 minutes.

Any way, I connected my bubble counter, check valve and diffuser, plugged it in and within a few minutes - bubbles Wooo Hoooo!






Here we go - one green drop checker coming up ....

.... 1 day later - BLUE!!!!!!

 

[paulc]

Ok, so today I have upped the BPS from 1 to 2 and have positioned my drop checker near to the diffuser - I guess I just want to see this thing go green.

By the way, I am using the JBL drop checker with their own d4kh bromo blue mix.

Also today, my 250ml of purigen and media bags turned up. This will replace my activated carbon as I have read that carbon strips the nutrients from the plant ferts when I add them.

 

[minnnt]

Looking good mate.

Any reason for the water level being low? And also the 850's are 165 litres.

 

[paulc]

Thanks minnnt,

Is it low? That's how much Ive always filled it - guess there's my missing 10 litres

 

[minnnt]

Thanks minnnt,

Is it low? That's how much Ive always filled it - guess there's my missing 10 litres

No probs mate. Yeah fill it to the top.

 

[stu40]

This will replace my activated carbon as I have read that carbon strips the nutrients from the plant ferts when I add them.

Where did you read that ?
Nice start

 

[gadgetmonster]

Where did you read that ?
Nice start

Thanks Stu, they are just the plants that happen to be in there at the moment. Once I have good co2 levels and a feeding regime under control I will add some plants and attempt to get some decent aquascape going.

As for carbon, I have read this in several forums - if you google active carbon in a planted tank you will see what I mean.

 

[gadgetmonster]

Drop Checker update

Ok it's been 4 hours since I moved my drop checker near my diffuser and although it has several co2 bubbles attached to it - it remains blue. I have no idea how this can be. I am using the fluid supplied by JBL which is an all in one, I.e. it has 4dkh water and bromo blue ready mixed. I will leave for tonight and if no change tomorrow I will use my own 4dkh water and low ph reagent.

Am I being impatient? Does it take longer than 4 hours even though the DP is on the edge of the co2 bubble stream?

 

[paulc]

A Drop Checker Test

Last night I read that you can test the solution in a drop checker by breathing into it. Since we breathe out a fair amount of co2 the solution should change colour.

This morning I took my JBL drop checker which was still very blue and started blowing into it. After a minute or two, it started changing colour. After three minutes it had gone a lime green So this proves to me that the solution I have is working and that the problem is definitely not enough CO2 in my aquarium.

So I have placed the drop checker back into my tank and will work towards upping the co2 levels. Now my question is do we start with trying to improve the flow or simply up the BPS. Currently my bps is 2 - maybe I should change that to 3 and see what happens.

 

[paulc]

Things to do today

1. Each morning i find that most of my water has been sucked out of my bubble counter due to the pressure change when the solenoid switches off. Whilst I have been told the D-D regulator has a check valve in side I think I will add mine into the tube just to be sure. The check valve I like is the one from Aqua Essentials as it has a screw lock mechanism.



2. I am going to top my tank up as minnnt pointed out that it looked low.

3. Clean the last of the Algae from the back of the tank and place my heater vertically (I saw this in several images of users tanks and IMO it looks pretty neat)

4. Wait for some feed back on my questions (up my bps or add more flow). If the consensus is to add flow then I will look into getting a small powerhead.

5. Replace carbon with the perigean.

6. Arrange for a replacement timer switch. One of the Timeguard TG77's i bought doesn't seem to switch off properly. This was evident last night when the co2 was still bubbling away 1/2 hour after it should have switched off.

 

[ian]

Carbon is one of the best high tech planted tank media, Carbon doesn't take out the ferts. I'd leave it in if i was you and run it with the Purigen. I always do.

1. don't worry about the water in the bubble counter, as long as you have a Non return valve before the solenoid you'll be fine.

2. Fine.

3. Very good, manual removal is good.

4. Flow Flow Flow, this is one of the biggest mistakes made by planted newbs, not ensuring the flow is good. Ensure that C02 get everywhere!

5. Keep em both!

6. Good idea, don't gas your fish.

 

[paulc]

Carbon is one of the best high tech planted tank media, Carbon doesn't take out the ferts. I'd leave it in if i was you and run it with the Purigen. I always do.

1. don't worry about the water in the bubble counter, as long as you have a Non return valve before the solenoid you'll be fine.

2. Fine.

3. Very good, manual removal is good.

4. Flow Flow Flow, this is one of the biggest mistakes made by planted newbs, not ensuring the flow is good. Ensure that C02 get everywhere!

5. Keep em both!

6. Good idea, don't gas your fish.

Thanks for your reply ianho,

I have a check valve between bubble counter and diffuser and not between solenoid and bubble counter. That is where I planned on adding a second (even though they say the D-D kit has a non return valve built in). Im guessing I could simply move my existing check valve instead?

Flow Flow Flow - I have upped my BPS to 3 to see if that helps. I have drawn the following diagram to help explain where I have positioned various parts:



You can see that my diffuser pushes the co2 bubbles up around the filter outlet which (in theory) should push them around the tank. My idea was to get a Korali Nano 900 and put it on the back of the tank to conflict against the existing flow. In another thread I have been told that it may be better to have the flows going in the same direction. Any thoughts on this? Also i'm not sure if I should get the nano 900 or 1600. The 1600 is aimed at my size tank but i'm a little worried the flow rate may be too strong.

 

[ian]

I would put the diffuser under the Koralia. Just be careful with that water, as it could knacker you solenoid. Koralias are great, as they don't push a jet of water, the push a volume of water, i would go with the 900lph tbh, with what else you have on there.

 

[paulc]

I would put the diffuser under the Koralia. Just be careful with that water, as it could knacker you solenoid. Koralias are great, as they don't push a jet of water, the push a volume of water, i would go with the 900lph tbh, with what else you have on there.

I found a spare check valve so have added that in-between the solenoid and bubble counter - now I feel happier.

Re the Koralia - I haven't got one yet but if that drop checker don't go green today I will order the 900. Do you think the placement looks OK (back centre) ? and what about depth. I was thinking about half way down as there seems to be a reasonable amount of flow on top.