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Hi, not new to aquariums but I’ve been having some ideas that I’d like to discuss but I’m not sure where to put them.

I live in Barbados, which is a beautiful country built on limestone. My tap water chemistry has a high ph (8.6 - 9) and tds (300+). To get around the tds, I use collected rainwater and ac water, (tds 0 - 15). I am now wondering about reducing my ph. I wondered if I could add plain white vinegar to my stored water to bring the ph down to 7 or 7.5. I wonder if this could or would be detrimental to the livestock and how it would affect plant growth?

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Hello everyone! Today I am starting a new little forum on the new tissue cultures in the United States; Sreepadma GroWoW! tissue cultures. For starters, these tissue cultures were introduced into the United States in August of 2024. Although there was some excitement for them, there was some wondering if these new plants, such as Rotala macrandra 'Mini Gold' or Cryptocoryne spiralis 'Jwala' was an actual new plant or was just some random name the company put on the plant, such as ADA doing Cryptocoryne 'Pink Panther'.

Thus, here is my tank, using all the new (current) tissue culture plants from their GroWoW product line.


Tank Specifications
- UNS 90U
- Oase Biomaster 600
- Oase Skimmer
- Neo Flow Lily Pipes 16/22
- Week Aqua P900
- Mastersoil and UNS Controsoil mix (may plan to try this again using APT aquasoil when it releases)
- RO water
- co2art regulator with 5lb tank ( I want to upgrade later)

Dosing and Regime
- 50% water change every week, same day
- 3:1 Mg Ca when water changed
- 3x pumps of NilocG Thrive+
- turns on 1950 and turns off 0450
- CO2 blasted to the max pretty much

Day Zero (0)
I'm going to be honest, I did not take a good picture on the first day. I only took this photo to send to my friends. I will add in future photos the species to each plant.
I did not have enough of the tissue cultures (different sp.) to plant them all around. Therefore, there was a huge space near the front for the first few weeks.


Week One(1)
For the first week, I was worried. Although some plants looked nice and were starting to color up, some others appeared to be struggling.
The one plant that did seem most promising was the Cryptocoryne spiralis 'Jwala'. It had been starting to color up the most out of all plants.


Cryptocoryne spiralis 'Jwala' starting to get a little coloration.

Here, this Rotala sp. was looking great. Starting to color up, but a few pieces were looking a little sad.


As for this Rotala sp., it appears to be pretty sad and doesn't seem to have much to grow of. I was getting worried these plants were not thriving.

I wanted to share my experience so far with a cheap flow meter from Aliexpress.
I am generally a “you get what you pay for” aquarist, but I have taken a gamble due to circumstances. It is still early days, but it feels like it may have paid off.
Looking to add a flow meter to help tune my CO2 in a newly set up 130L tank, I searched far and wide for the different options. They were few and far between, most were for far larger flows than I needed and those that were appropriate were ridiculously expensive to get to Australia. So I went searching on the various Chinese discount sites and came across the LZB-3WB flow meters. They are cheap… real cheap. Less than $30 Australian landed, which made me nervous, but felt it was worth a shot at that price.
Not knowing what flow ranges I would need I ordered a 6-60ml/minute model.
After installing it, it was clearly too high of a range for my tank, but it did allow for some visibility while adjusting CO2. It was certainly better than a bubble counter.
Here is a picture of it action:

As you can see, the reading is below the scale of the meter, but with a marker I could at least set a starting point as I adjusted my CO2 higher. Also the adjustment valve was useless, a tiny turn would shut the flow off or open it to max out the meter.
I ordered the below as a replacement:


2.5-25ml/minute seems like a good range for my tank.
As a bonus the valve is better than most standard regulator needle valves. I can adjust the flow in increments of about 1ml/minute.
Below is the valve in action:


They have been in service for 2 months total now, 1 month each, so still an early review. It has been a solid upgrade though and was an easy install. They come with big 8mm barbed fittings but they can be unscrewed to reveal 1/8 female threads that standard needle valves for aquariums fit. I have also got some 1/8 to push fit fittings that I am yet to install as I am heading away on holiday for 2 weeks soon and don’t want to make any changes for the house-sitters to potentially have to fix!
Pros: adjusting my CO2 was made so much easier by being able to see exactly how much of an increase I was making with each adjustment. Monitoring that the valve isn’t drifting has been easy also, a quick check of the meter tells me it is steady.
Cons: I doubt that the reading is accurate. This means little to me, as I am not using it for a calculation or comparison between tanks. As long as the reading is consistent, even if it is wrong, I am fine with that. Also, the max pressure is listed as 40psi. I am unsure if that is a failure or accuracy maximum. Again, it doesn’t affect me as I run a low regulator pressure due to using a reactor. If I were using a diffuser that needed a high pressure, it may make me nervous.
As always, with any cheap gear, your mileage may vary. But, I thought it was worth sharing as it may help those with limited access to flow meters of appropriate sizes. So far it is proving to be the second best $25 I have spent on this tank, second only to the super red bristlenose I have in the tank.

Just my pet peeves. I'm using ChatGPT to check my grammar as I’m not an English native speaker, so sorry for any mistakes.

I don't really understand the concept of a biotope aquarium.

Why do people intentionally add leaves and wood to an aquarium and call it a biotope? And why do they think it's better for fish than a planted tank? Also, why are biotope aquariums almost always tannin stained?

I've noticed this many times in biotope competitions. When people create a biotope, they often say that there are no aquatic plants in the natural habitat. But surely other biological components, such as riparian plants, trees, algae, and microorganisms, count too, right? I'm pretty sure that an aquarium I've left outdoors, filled with rainwater, is more biologically mature than one where you intentionally try to recreate and calling it biotope.

Now, imagine seeing a clear karst stream with all its natural diversity. But when it comes to recreating that scene for a competition, you choose a section full of leaf litter and fallen wood and call it a karst stream biotope. I'm not saying it's inaccurate, but these streams can be very large and diverse, so why do people tend to focus on that one particular type of scene? What's that all about?

Why are you intentionally trying to make an aquarium look unpleasant when you're supposedly recreating a chalk or karst stream and calling it natural? I honestly have no idea. Because I'm pretty sure that a planted aquarium, despite not containing exclusively native species, is biologically closer to the actual habitat than what people often call a "biotope."

Anyone agree?

I can proudly say I placed 46th out of 48th for my category (Aquatic Garden, 45-90L) lol. I knew I wouldn't rise very high, but that's okay, it was fun to enter and see my entry on the list. Maybe I'll do better next year. When I look at the entries I can tell that mine belongs where it is, and I can see the quality increase up the ranks.

Some amazing works higher up as well. I think my favorite (for my category) is Socka River, placed 8th.

Hi all,

I have an Vulkan CO₂ dual stage pressure regulator lying in a cabinet for 10+ years, after 3-4 years in service after purchased brand new. I think it would need servicing (replacement of internal seals and diaphragms if necessary / overhauling) before I would put it back in use? Does anyone know what requirements would be for servicing a regulator? And it it required to be done by professionals?

Anyone knows or done such service?

Cheers!

This tank was a Dutch-ish tank before we moved 2 months ago. This was one of its last pictures, very overgrown I know.



This time I want to make it a true Dutch, so anyone can chime in and help me.

After we moved, it ran low-tech with just a few tissue cultures until this week when I finally had time and materials to finish setting it up. This is what it looks like now:



I know there’s some bubbles showing in the vinyl cling. I’m having trouble reaching back there to smooth it out. I’ll have to think about how to fix that, although when the plants grow in it may not be visible anyway. I did read that you can have 1 rock in a Dutch scape, so I kept one. I may put Monte Carlo on it again, I haven’t decided.

So, details…

Tank: UNS 90U, 68 gallons

Light: Week Aqua P900 Pro, current settings R 40%, G 51%, B 20%, UV 0, Fan 100, Power 51%.
8 hours of light with 30 min ramp up/down
Par—no idea

Filtration: Fluval Fx4, currently running at 75%. Any higher blows the fish around. I expect to be able to increase it when the plants are grown in.

CO2: Yugang stainless steel reactor, 370 mm long, working really well. I had to turn down the CO2 a bit today because the drop was more than I expected (from degassed 7.4 to 5.9). I’ve already changed the end cap to the medium setting, but I think I’m just going to make further adjustments with the regulator. Call it laziness, but since there aren’t any double taps available for the Fx4 tubing that’s going to be easier for me. Anyway, I really like it. It’s completely silent and does its job well.

Substrate: Aqua Natural Galaxy sand, with a few Aquarium Coop root tabs.

Other: Oase CrystalSkim 350 skimmer, Kactoily 6-in-1 water quality monitor

Fertilizer: Until today I’ve just been using Easy Green. Today I installed the Chihiro’s dosing system with PPS-Pro, 6 ml macros and 3 ml micros daily. On water change day, I’ll add another 2 ml macros. I’m currently changing 20% of the water once a week. I’ll increase if necessary.

Parameters: Ammonia and Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10 ppm, gH 6, kH 2, TDS 222, 70-74 F

Plants (mostly from @Burr740 thanks!):

Leopard Val
Echinodorus Aflame
Hydrocotyle Tripartita (coming)
Penthorum Sedioides
Crypt Wendtii Sindoor
Lobelia cardinalis mini
Bacopa colorata
Rotala (? back left corner)
Limnophila wilsonii
Nymphae Peru Puerto Maldonade
Rotala macrandra Kochi
Nymphoides Taiwan

I’m not sure I like the Leopard Val in there. Should I put it in my 125 gallon instead, and move the Limnophila wilsonii to that spot?

Fish:

1 Honey Flame Gourami
4 Ember tetras
8 Otos
2 Pygmy sunfish
4 Red neon blue-eyed rainbowfish
9 Pygmy Cory catfish
9 male Lime Green Endlers
1 Leopard Danio (last of a group)
A few random Amano and Neocaridina shrimp and snails

The fish list will change as I get more tanks set up. I would like to end up with just the gourami, Otos, Rainbowfish (but more of them), and Pygmy Cories.

Well, that’s a start. Thanks for reading!

THE official "what did you do to your tank(s) today" thread!​

Let's keep it real by sharing our daily routine. Post daily if you want. It's nice to check in with fellow aquatic gardeners.

Ludwigia repens, hairgrass "eleocharis palustris" and ludwigia glandulosa all found locally growing emersed beside water and all growing submerged in water. Nice freebys if they survive the transition theres 20,000 stems in this tiny little pond. all clean no bugs put in tank with no fish to be safe will peroxide dip it before moving into other tank. 1 bunch l repens last pic I picked 8 days ago grown 2" and top turning more red with no melt at all. Well see how it goes. All found beside my local Lincoln dealer parking lot lol.
I've got local emersed plants before I know where theres a storm of lemon bacopa and anacharis is. Seems it always melted badly to mush. These plants are growing emersed for a week then submersed for days when water levels go up. Maybe they are more hardy being grown above and below water over and over? They may all melt to turds in weeks lol.

Inspired by @gnatster 's Black Friday thread HERE. I'm curious what's on everyone's list this year. I need to come up with a list for the significant other aquarium or not. Not sure of much I want. I do want a small rectangle little tank to do a succulent garden and light like HERE, but I'm not sure which one to get. What are you asking for?