My Planted Tank "the Green Hills"

[Aquamaniac]

Hi

My last project came to a sudden stop due to moving house so here i am with a new project.This tank was started about 2 and a half months ago.

Last project "My desired return"

So here is the setup:
Tank: 120x50x40 (aprox. 240 lts)
Filter: Fluval 305
Heater: Fluval mirrored M 300 watts
Co2: pressurized 3kg bottle (works for 11 hours daily.It starts 2 hours before the light goes on and shuts down one hour before the light goes off)
Lighting : 2x54 watts (10 hrs daily)
Fertile soil: Tropica aquacare mixed with some akadama from my last assembly.
Substrate: Tesco's cat litter
Hardscape: Dragonstone rocks


Plants:
Pogostemon erectus
Rotalla wallichi
Lilaeopsis brasiliensis
Eliocharis parvula

Fish:
temporary
3 mollys
2 plattys
2 guppys
1 ottocinclus affinis

These fish are here just untill i find them a new house.
I'll go to angelfish again just like in the last project.

So here are some photos:

First day: tank just with rocks and substrate

First day: The tank already with Eliocharis parvula and brasilliensis

First day: Tank with all the plants in and filling with water

First day : Close up of the parvula (not a very good quality image though,sorry for that)

First day: Close up of the right side of the tank

About two weeks ago

Last weekend


And here is a video:

Compared to my last project this tank as been off to a slow start.
Its been easy to keep,no major problems with algae. On the other hand my last project had an amazingly fast and healthy growth,this one its very slow and the plants do not look so healthy.
Instead of tropica nutrition plus i bought the dry salts and i am preparing the solutions myself, i guess that my control of it its still a bit off.
I know that different plants grow diferently but some plants used on the last project just don't look and grow as good.
As for fish my wife's 75 litre tank is overstocked so i allowed her to put her fish in mine untill i finally fulfill my promise of offering her a bigger tank.
But i hope to start adding some fish of my own soon.
I know its not that spectacular but with time lets see where it goes,some changes will have to be made the layout looks too simetric but for now its ok.

 

[JHR]

Awesome! Really looking forward to seeing it all grown please update!

Oh, and btw I love the symmetry. Keep it!

 

[Ps3Steveo]

Good start, I'll be watching this one.

 

[Jay1983]

Great start... could be epic!!

Jay

 

[Aquamaniac]

Hello
Here I am again with some update on this project.
From algae, to snails, to fish dying this past week had It all and my tank does not look that stable anymore.
The plants kept growing steadily but last week algae starting forming on top of them. It’s a black velvety type of algae. I’m not sure if its black beard algae or staghorn algae but I’m more inclined for the later, I fought black beard algae before and they looked a bit more different and more hard to remove.
In light of this I had I’ve been trying to find the cause. If not wrong both these type of algae come from this reasons:
BLACK BRUSH ALGAE
1- Unstable co2 levels
2- Deficient water circulation around the tank
STAGHORN
1- Low co2
2- Deficient water circulation around the tank
3- Tank with overfed fish and accumulated mulm
4- Dirty filter
5- Disturbing dirty substrate without water change afterwards
I have been checking wich one or if all of them could be the cause.
1- Co2 levels : I don’t have a drop checker yet ( Bad mistake), so I cannot at this point check how much co2 is in the water. But the flow has been the same since the beginning without change so for me to have algae now i think that the problem must be elsewhere something else that was not there before.

2- Deficient water circulation : My filter is a fluval 305 , and even though the specs say its ok for a 300 litre tank, I have spent hours watching the tank and I concluded diferent.
In order to have good circulation the plants and water should show some movement.
My examination as led me to believe the either there’s no movement at all or in some areas of the tank is just slight.
This tank has the inflow and outflow on the right side of the tank trough two holes in the base of the tank straight to the filter. Basically the outflow is located in the top of the tank but the inflow is located at the middle of the tank height, instead of close to the substrate.
The result is that the only the highter plants on the left side of the tank get any water circulation and also these are the ones that look less affected by the algae. And all the plants close to the substrate including the carpet are basically covered in them, I would say that 80% of the plants have hardly any movement at all.
To increase water circulation on the tank I’ll be running a 2nd filter a EHEIN 2215 I purchased from ebay this weekend. I researched a bit more on fluvals found a lot of people stating that even though they are good filters circulation is not exactly as good as they look in the specs.

Note: This 2215 filter was purchased as a reserve filter in case the fluval had any problems, but due to this circulation problem I decided to put both of them running.
I do see a lack of good circulation around the tank so in my opinion this is clearly one of the reasons.

3- Tank with overfed fish and accumulated mulm – Well I do not overfeed my fish. But I stated in the first post that for now the fish in my tank are not my own, but my wife’s and she feeds them.
So I started checking her feeding the fish , and my conclusion as led me yesterday that for those 7 fish are definitely being overfed and that my weekly water change is probably not being enough. I have explained my wife that the problems of overfeeding and hopefully that won’t be a problem in the future.

4- I also did a very big cleaning of the substrate to get rid of any accumulated mulm.
Dirty filter – cleaned the filter in my last water change and it was a bit dirty I must admit. I’ve cleaned all the media and filter parts with tank water and noticed a slight increase in the water movement after. Nothing big but there was an increase.

5- The substrate has not been disturbed much so I don’t think this was the problem.


My conclusion is that because of poor water circulation , dirty filter and overfeeding I am now experiencing an algae problem. I can also add the probability of bad co2 distribution trough the tank since water circulation is ineffective.
Most of these problems have come due to the fact I have become complacent with the maintenance of the tank. I wanted a more and less demanding tank than last time, but obviousluy a hight tech tank needs constant monitoring to prevent problems.
I will correct all this deficiencies ASAP. My problem now is to get rid of the algae already there.
- Changed my light hours from 10 to 8.
- Did a some trimming on the most affected plants.
- And will start doing more regular waterchanges trough the week to try to fight it.
- Probably add some easycarbo since it helps fight algae. Anyone had any success with it ?


FISH
Friday I did a water change and cleaned the filter. Unfortunately I forgot to power my heater afterwards and only noticed it the next morning. I put the temperature up slowly but one guppy died that afternoon.
It started showing trouble with swimming bending her boddy in a U shape and it died minutes after. The next day a molly started showing problems swimming but it recovered after a few hours and so far its been fine.
This week has been very bad for me, and this tank. In 7 years I never felt this reckless with my tank.
Being complacent with the tank filter and tank cleaning, overfeeding and leaving the heater off. These are beginner mistakes, something that I should not be doing at this stage.
Well nothing I can do now except try to remedy and contain the problem.
I’ve been sick for the past 4 days so at least water changes will have to wait until I’m better. But I really want to make this tank work .
Any advice on how to get rid of the algae?

I've also been experiencing a very big snail problem. No doubt worstened by the overfeeding. I've been vacuuming alot of them out of the tank at every water change, and trying the letucce method that is not being very efective. And hopefully my wife will not overfeed anymore.

I'll try to add some pics of the algae later.

 

[Jay1983]

Easy mistakes to make and I'm sure 99.9% of people new to high tech make the same mistakes...adding the other filter should aid with flow, If you are still experiencing bad flow after this a power head is a useful addition. I've found, on the advise of others that doing daily water changes for the first 2 weeks of a new hi-tech set up also helps, not only with keeping algae to a min, but also helps with plant growth.

I use easy carbon everyday alongside pressurised CO2, the easy carbon should help kill off the algae and make it easier to remove. Best off luck in getting it back on track.

Jay

 

[Aquamaniac]

Easy mistakes to make and I'm sure 99.9% of people new to high tech make the same mistakes...adding the other filter should aid with flow, If you are still experiencing bad flow after this a power head is a useful addition. I've found, on the advise of others that doing daily water changes for the first 2 weeks of a new hi-tech set up also helps, not only with keeping algae to a min, but also helps with plant growth.

I use easy carbon everyday alongside pressurised CO2, the easy carbon should help kill off the algae and make it easier to remove. Best off luck in getting it back on track.

Jay

Thanks

On my last high tech project i had algae and i sorted it by doing water changes every two days. I also cut my light to 7 hours. And i added 8 ottocinclus affinis to help with the algae.
It was far worse than now and it worked.
In all my tanks of the since 2006 i always did every 2 day's water changes,not 50% of water but at least 25%. It helped me alot with algae,and most specially with hardly any death or disease among the fish. I'm very inexperienced with handling fish disease and the main reason is that after my begginer failures someone teached the more water changes the better.Prevention is better. So i hardly had any fish sick or dying.
I stopped this every 2 day's water change in other to follow the extimative index for fertilizing.

3xNPK
3xTrace
water change and reset the tank.

I do not question the effectiveness of the Tom Barr EI index because it works.
But for health and stability around the tank maybe more water changes are better.At least when there is something wrong like in mine.
The fertilizing works because the plants are still growing even covered in algae.

 

[Jay1983]

I think that doing regular 25% water changes everyday/ every other day are a good practise for the first 2-3 weeks then you can move on to the 1 or 2 50% a week changes. I do daily dossing of TPN+ and easy carbo and generally do 3-4 25% changes a week.

Having otos and shrimp in hi-tech planted is a very common practise as algae is bound to occur, I have cherry shrimp in my 70L and will have a group of Otos in my new 110L

1 thing I need to get into the swing of is filter cleaning, I'm going to aim to clean my filters once a month.

 

[Aquamaniac]

I think that doing regular 25% water changes everyday/ every other day are a good practise for the first 2-3 weeks then you can move on to the 1 or 2 50% a week changes. I do daily dossing of TPN+ and easy carbo and generally do 3-4 25% changes a week.

Having otos and shrimp in hi-tech planted is a very common practise as algae is bound to occur, I have cherry shrimp in my 70L and will have a group of Otos in my new 110L

1 thing I need to get into the swing of is filter cleaning, I'm going to aim to clean my filters once a month.

Yeah a good cleaning team is definitely a must in a high tech, i was just complacent this time. Last time i had a good one. But i gave everything when i moved house.
This tank was started in the first week of march so its definitely out of the 2-3 week time frame. Still i am gonna increase water changes a bit.
As for filter i normally do monthly but since the tank only has 7 small fish,mollys,guppys and platys i was thinking that there would not be that much rubish blocking it. So i made de wrong assumption and left the filter without cleaning all this time.
I'll get things on track though.

 

[Jay1983]

Top man, good luck with it and look forward too seeing photo's of your progression

 

[Aquamaniac]

 

[Aquamaniac]

Hello

Here i am for another update.
My "NEW" used EHEIM 2215 arrived yesterday,i was worried that buying second hand online might be a problem, but everything went superfast,smooth,and the filter came in very good condition,new filter media ready to use some of still in the box.
So i did a 30% water change as part of the plan to stabilise the tank to try to get rid of the algae covering my plants and after installed the filter.
First things first:

NOISE

FLUVAL 305 vs EHEIM 2215

To my suprised the Old EHEIM was quieter from the start then my 10 month old fluval 305.I could not even notice it was working. The fluval is also very silent but both of them out of my cabinet side-by-side the EHEIM wins the silence competition easily.
The things change as soon as i put them both inside the cabinet were they will always be and close the door.
By some reason probably because my fluval pumps water through the base of the tank instead of pumping it all the way trought the pipes up the tank the EHEIM gets very noisy inside the cabinet.The fluval is also a bit more noisier but unless i focus on the sound you can't notice it and the eheim i can easily notice it.

FLOW

To be honest i will not bother my self to check wich one as better flow, but from a tank perspective the massive increase in flow was easy to notice straight away.
The eheim did not come with the suction pads for the spray bar, so i had to devise a method to keep it in place untill i get some new suction pads, i used two plastic clips that came togheter with my tank,never seen a reason for them to be there but know they are useful. But with these clips the spray bar can only be straight at the surface of the water and regulation is not easy, so the next few days i will get the suction pads to properly fix the spray bar under water and get the full benefit of the flow of this second filter.


Algae

As for the algae,the good news is they are not spreading.The bad news is they are still there.
This weekend i will get some easycarbo and starting to dose daily in other to get rid of them. And also a cleaning team for my tank.I will definitely get some Ottocinclus affinis, used them in the past with alot of sucess and i will look into some other algae eating fish.

Snails

Yesterday while vacuuming the substrate i took out alot of them, today there appears to be much less around. But i can still see them here and there so its still not controlled, erradicating them completely is unlikely.

Fish

No death's in the tank, fish seemed to be fine. But there is a fish that intrigues me and i will try to put a picture of this fish in a diferent topic.
This fish came from my wife's tank to mine, it was a white molly, soon after she put it there it started to change to a darker collor. The top half of the fish is now in a dark grey color i had never seen nothing like it,untill today.
I've been reading a book called "The manual of fish health"to improve my knowledge.It's quite a good book,lots of information and most of all pictures. And when i stumbled upon the velvet disease also called the gold dust disease all the fish in the pictures looked exactly like mine.
So i checked the symptoms and at least two of them match, the dark grey collor and the fact that he does rub himself alot on the substrate.
As i said before i will put a picture or video of him so i can get a second opinion from more experienced people here in the forum and go for the proper treatment.


Overall there looks to be some improvement, if its from the filter or the more regular water change is unclear but the tank does look better today.

Picture of the tank yesterday after water change.

Picture of the two filters,and co2 system.

Here is clearly visible the algae covering the plants.

 

[KkAaNnEe]

This has a lot of potential Aquamaniac, I like the erectus, only problem is the rocks are getting lost as the plants grow

 

[Aquamaniac]

You right about the rocks. Been considering replacing them with some bigger ones. But that can wait for a while. This tank contradits most of the rules about scaping in the fact that it is almost symetrical.
I had this idea about the two hills and wanted to see what i could do with it.
The plants were not suposed to be the same on both sides,but i decided to keep it simple and organized instead of the jungle look of last time. And to be honest this symetry is what makes this tank stand out. I love it. Looks like the countryside of my country were you see green hill after green hill as far as your eyes can see. Well except in the summer when they are more of a very dry brown.
In this case the switching of planes caused by the substrate an its symetry is the focus point.
I like to watch in a diagonal perspective to the tank where i can see the depth from one hill disapearing to the center just to se the other rise behind it.

 

[ian]

bigger rocks would work, as the little ones will get lost in the planting once it grows up. Is that BGA also on the substrate?