Journal 350 liter planted tank

[Jarno]

Hello everybody im new here and wanted to introduce my tank,

The tank is a 350 liter Juwel rio (120x50x60)
Pretty high tank but wanted to have 50 cm wide

Lights: 3 daytime onex (1x plant 2x colour)
Good for 180 par at the bottom, 1.5 hour build up/5 hours full and 1.5 hour build off

Co2 by Inline with a co2art series pro dual stage regulator dropping 1.4 in ph

Filtration: 2 external filters (1x crystal profi 900, 1x tetra ex 1500 on a spraybar) and a eheim skim 350

Substrate: mastersoil black powder with masterline root tabs

Fertilizer: apt e

Fish: cherry barbels, siamese algae eaters, kuhli, ottociclus and some bloody mary shrimps

Plants: rotala macandra, anubias tinto, reineckii mini, reineckki rosenarvig, rotala blood red, ludwigia repens super red, bacopa carolinia, lobelia cardinalis, crypto flamingo, crypto rosen maiden, staurogene repens, spiralus tiger, ludwigia inclinata meta, samolus parvifloris red.
Might have forgotten something

Currently battling algae and unhappy plants due to nutrient inbalances and a no3 tester that was not correct.

Under a pic of the current state and the state it was a little better in balance (not as it should tho)

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Beautiful tanks! Excited to see updates as it changes.

 

[Jarno]

Beautiful tanks! Excited to see updates as it changes.

Thank you, it is one tank 1 picture is of the current state and 1 when it was doing better but not as stable as it should be

 

[Jarno]

This week i measured the no3 with a working test set
Pretty stable but pretty high
Pic 1 is day one, 2 is midweek, 3 is day before change

 

[Unexpected]

Nice looking tank and those lights produce a nice dark rich color! How do I convince you to abandon the Sprite water and go with a Yugang reactor ?

 

[Jarno]

Im already convinced hahah. I really hate the sprite

Today i changed and gonna try to keep no3 stable at 25mg/l.

 

[Unexpected]

Im already convinced hahah. I really hate the sprite

Today i changed and gonna try to keep no3 stable at 25mg/l.

Are you one of them Aqua Soil people?

 

[Jarno]

Are you one of them Aqua Soil people?

What you mean with that?

 

[Unexpected]

What you mean with that?

Lol, just pump 30ppm NO3 and call it a day!

 

[Jarno]

"Anubias flower when they are in a stable tank and show they healthy"

Meanwhile my tank unstable as hell, my anubia covered in bba
Think its more a surrender flag he rising

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Ha! Stress flowering is a very real thing. Blyxa japonica does it, too, as do some buce varieties. Surrender flag is a spot on way to describe when it happens.

 

[Jarno]

Ha! Stress flowering is a very real thing. Blyxa japonica does it, too, as do some buce varieties. Surrender flag is a spot on way to describe when it happens.

Poor anubia

 

[hamfist]

From the "before" pic it would seem that it has had happier days. How long ago did you actually set it up ? Maybe a lot of your current issues are down to old substrate.

Also it would be interesting to know what your water source is , and what the tank GH/KH etc is. So many people's experience transforms when they start to use remineralised RO instead of their tapwater. In this modern high tech world its shocking what many of us are offered as suitable tapwater IMO.

 

[Jarno]

From the "before" pic it would seem that it has had happier days. How long ago did you actually set it up ? Maybe a lot of your current issues are down to old substrate.

Also it would be interesting to know what your water source is , and what the tank GH/KH etc is. So many people's experience transforms when they start to use remineralised RO instead of their tapwater. In this modern high tech world its shocking what many of us are offered as suitable tapwater IMO.

Yeah my soil is on the older side. Almost 2 years running now. Although my soil is not turning into powder and i keep refreshing root tabs every 2-3 months.

My kh is 0, gh 8. Im using only osmose with di filter and refill the minerals with apt sky.

 

[Jarno]

The surrender flag has been opened

 

[hamfist]

Yeah my soil is on the older side. Almost 2 years running now. Although my soil is not turning into powder and i keep refreshing root tabs every 2-3 months.

My kh is 0, gh 8. Im using only osmose with di filter and refill the minerals with apt sky.

OK, I suspect that the ageing soil is the main cause of the slight deterioration in the plants over time. You are clearly trying to apply root tabs and water column ferts to compensate but I suspect that has not quite replicated what the new aquasoil provided. Maybe a couple of fertilization tweaks will get you back to a similar situation. Do you use any sort of micro nutrient mix at all ? I see that the APTe has macros plus Mg and Fe but no further micro nutrients ? I've not really looked through the APT range of fertilizers before but there seems to be no specific micro supplement available. I'm guessing this is a deliberate strategy. I know my micro mix (Solufeed Sodium-free TEC) also contains Zinc, Molybdenum, Manganese, COpper and Boron. Maybe you have some level of micro nutrient deficiency ??

You are obviously well sorted with excellent water, so no problems there.

 

[Jarno]

OK, I suspect that the ageing soil is the main cause of the slight deterioration in the plants over time. You are clearly trying to apply root tabs and water column ferts to compensate but I suspect that has not quite replicated what the new aquasoil provided. Maybe a couple of fertilization tweaks will get you back to a similar situation. Do you use any sort of micro nutrient mix at all ? I see that the APTe has macros plus Mg and Fe but no further micro nutrients ? I've not really looked through the APT range of fertilizers before but there seems to be no specific micro supplement available. I'm guessing this is a deliberate strategy. I know my micro mix (Solufeed Sodium-free TEC) also contains Zinc, Molybdenum, Manganese, COpper and Boron. Maybe you have some level of micro nutrient deficiency ??

You are obviously well sorted with excellent water, so no problems there.

Apt E also contains all micro:
5ml per 100L dosering voegt 5ppm Kalium (K), 4,6ppm Nitraat (NO3), 1.5ppm Fosfaat (PO4), 0.16ppm IJzer (Fe), 0.4ppm Magnesium (Mg) en daarbij de nodige hoeveelheden Boor (B), Koper (Cu), Mangaan (Mn), Molybdeen (Mo) en zink (Zn).

I think the issue is unstable nutrient balance that im fixing now. Also the soil would not help neither .

The new growth is looking better since its more stable. So hope when i replant everything with fresh tops it will stay good

 

[gjcarew]

Apt E also contains all micro:
5ml per 100L dosering voegt 5ppm Kalium (K), 4,6ppm Nitraat (NO3), 1.5ppm Fosfaat (PO4), 0.16ppm IJzer (Fe), 0.4ppm Magnesium (Mg) en daarbij de nodige hoeveelheden Boor (B), Koper (Cu), Mangaan (Mn), Molybdeen (Mo) en zink (Zn).

I think the issue is unstable nutrient balance that im fixing now. Also the soil would not help neither .

The new growth is looking better since its more stable. So hope when i replant everything with fresh tops it will stay good

As a fellow aquasoil enjoyer, it can get pretty dirty over time. Cleaning with a gravel vacuum really helps get rid of algae issues with older aquasoil in my experience.

 

[Jarno]

As a fellow aquasoil enjoyer, it can get pretty dirty over time. Cleaning with a gravel vacuum really helps get rid of algae issues with older aquasoil in my experience.

True that, i do suck some open places with a vac sometimes and always point my wavemaker at the substrate before waterchange. How you do that with planted areas? Because 80 procent of my substrate is covered with plants

 

[gjcarew]

Whenever I have to pull and replant a group. So not super often, but maybe every two months?