Thinking Of Going Backwards :(

[Rorie]

I have my low tech 90L which looks great. I dont do much with it, it just works! Looks great! Photo below.

My 360L is high tech. It has cost me a fortune. I have been tweeking it for so long now and i am thinking of giving up with it. I have £300 of CO2 kit alone! The problems are that the carpeting plant never grew, so i added extra light, extra CO2 and extra flow (not all at once). The extra light seemed to do the trick, but that lead to a huge and uncontrollable amount of algae. CO2 had to increase, as flow was already high (with discus) as had two 1200l/h filters and 2 900l/h pumps.

I have moved things all over the place to optimise the flow etc, but still no luck.

I have had a couple total panic moments where i have increased the CO2 a tiny bit, and next thing all the fish are breathing at an incredibly fast rate. I have had to run and put loads of air stones in to sort it out. Thankfully i have always caught it early.

My CO2 levels just dont seem to be steady no matter what i do. So last night i moved the position of my spray bar output and put the CO2 up a little. Not as high as it had been in the past though. This morning (take into account the CO2 has been off all night!) and all my fish were breathing heavy as anything!! So again i have switched off the CO2 (wasnt active yet anyway) and filled it with air stones.

So i am at the stage of giving up. Tried everything - cant add more flow, tried every combination of changing flow. Light is high for carpet plants, but creating huge algae issues. CO2 is stressing fish and not good for discus. So i am thinking to save worrying about the CO2 levels, to save trying and trying and trying to get the carpet plants to grow, i could give up. And reducing the light will get rid of the algae. I hate giving up, and it is not like me at all. I love a challenge, and read loads into things. I'm an engineer, so the way i see it is that there WILL be a solution somewhere. But i have just not managed with this, and its coming to the stage its putting my fish at risk and its taking a lot of time out of my day.

I am thinking of changing the layout that is just now (2nd photo below) to pulling up all the carpet plants and putting down either sand or gravel. Just now its ADA substrate which is very soil like so kicks up easily.

 

[SuperColey1]

are you using a drop checker? what diffusion method etc. detail as much as possible. anything you think may be useful.

Andy

 

[Rorie]

Got a Aqua Medic 1000 reactor to diffuse the CO2 into the water. I have various drop checkers around the tank. I have tried the spray bar short, extended. I have tried aiming it at the top of the tank, the bottom, the middle. I have tried the pumps being in place. The water was at various times circulating very well. But still no use.

360L tank
2x54 w lights on for 6 hours
2 x 54w lights on for 2 hours
lights are 2 foot above substrate
2 x 1200 l/h filters
1 filter has reactor diffusing CO2 into it
1 filter has UV filter on output
CO2 is added to try and have DC's showing lime green, but is hard to control
CO2 is from compressed CO2 bottle
2x 900l/h K. powerheads
EI ferts

 

[SuperColey1]

Ahh I remember this one

Like I said before I'm not sure why youl'd need the powerheads there. 2 x 1200lph should be fine. Both spraybars facing front, intakes in the rear corners and should be fine circulation wise. Think of it as one filter setup. the water comes out front, hits the glass, returns along the bottom and in the intake. Circular motion. 2 will work the same way.

The light should be fine at just over 2WPG.

Lime green is something that I personally aim for but not necessary. The 'holy grail' of 30ppm is less than lime. nearer to a light grass green. however 30ppm is not needed. Its more of a supply max to make sure.

What IS important is to have a stable rate. That can be 15ppm, 20ppm, 25ppm etc. As long as it is stable then the plants adapt to the available amounts and grow accordingly.

So with this in mind I would set the CO2 level as follows:

Push it until the fish are gasping, For ease of explanation lets say this is 10bps. Once you reach that point, back it off to 8bps and raise the spraybars to gas off some of the CO2 and bring in more O so the fish aren't hurt.

After a couple of hours lower the spraybars again and watch fish again. If they are fine then leave it for a wek (monitoring the fish)

DCs and bps whilst being an decent indicator can be a bit of a bane sometimes because they are static, monitor one area and also the 2 hours+ lag and often either convince people their CO2 (circulation) is fine or convince them to keep fiddling. Can work both ways.

Once you have been at a stable (and safe) level for a week or 2 post back.

Alternatively:

If the carpet isn't planted yet (or if you want to master the CO2 first) then remove the second bank of lights (the non burst) and try for a month, see how the plants do etc. Then once you get that right and are happy move onward to the higher light.

If it is planted (HC/Glosso) the plants will still grow fine under 1WPG. They may grow upward a little but they won't be harmed. Then once you're happy and continue the second bank of lights you can prune them back down low, replant the cuttings and increase the CO2 etc.

Either way I would try without the powerheads for a while. They may well be contradicting the circulation of the spraybars and negating the 'boost' they should give. I can't really say because I only ever use powerheads with lily pipes so I add it in the opposite corner 'complimenting' the circulation rather than pointing an alternative direction.

As a co-incidence I had setup my latest scape (125ltr tank) with a 2000lph on top of the 700lph Eheim (21.6x.) High light (1.12WPG LED 7" above) and with CO2 via Up inline atomizer. Currently running that at 2bps.

However I removed the powerhead so circulation is now at 5.6x with just the Eheim. No issue as yet.

Whatever changes you make though remember you need to give them time to work. one change every 2 weeks or so.

Andy

 

[Rorie]

Thanks for the input.

Time is something i have given it lots of - since December!!!! haha

I had the set up as above, but the CO2 was only diffused though one output, so i thought it would be interesting to see if half would be algae free etc and the other half (which would be lacking CO2) would not. But no such luck! it looked identical. I was thinking about getting a second diffuser to diffuse the CO2 through both outputs to give a more even spread.

How do you know the 'bps' of CO2? I just add a little more until the DC changes colour a bit. But as you say, this is a very slow process!

The plants are already in. Looks like the above photo just now.

The plants in the back grow like hell! Need cut back every week! The recent changes seem to be growing the carpet plants too now which is great. But still loads of algae!

 

[coldcazzie]

Bps is bubbles per second. You have a bubble counter in between your check valve and diffusor, and you adjust your needle valve to give a particular number of bubbles per time frame

 

[Rorie]

ok i can do that with my reactor.... so, solutions ? I fear all the same answers i have had before will come this way which wont solve what ever is wrong with my tank! Someone want to come to Aberdeen and fix it for me?! haha

 

[SuperColey1]

ok i can do that with my reactor.... so, solutions ? I fear all the same answers i have had before will come this way which wont solve what ever is wrong with my tank! Someone want to come to Aberdeen and fix it for me?! haha

Well according to this:

The plants in the back grow like hell! Need cut back every week! The recent changes seem to be growing the carpet plants too now which is great. But still loads of algae!

Something is moving forward Which algaes are you getting?

Andy

 

[Rorie]

I have BBA algae on the tall plants. I guess this is lack of flow through their dense growth.
I also have BBA on the substrate and rocks. Annoyingly you can see it swaying about in the flow!
The rocks have algae that i cant identify. Green and fluffy when it grows - may be able to see from the photo.
My java moss has algae that is similar to BGA, but less blue. Its right in line with the flow and the CO2!!

 

[SuperColey1]

And the dosing regime?

Andy