Help 90g, Dutch style, first try

[Mr.Shenanagins]

Filling out nicely! Love the oranges

 

[riioKen]

Filling out nicely! Love the oranges

Thanks, I'm loving how it is evolving, I need more cutting skills for sure but for now I'm very happy.

I would be even happier if the my single Amano would stop eating my both althernathera Reineckii mini and the althernathera Reineckii KP. I even drop algae wafers but he is not interested.

 

[FrankZ]

I'm ignoring it for now, I'm transitioning to RO)

Good move here. I’d let things grow in for a couple more weeks before trimming. I tend to trim to soon and I am slowly getting away from that. Letting more new and better growth come in before trimming and replanting or topping and planting seems to give the plants a better chance of rebounding from the trim. I am also trying to not trim the plants as short. Things seem to be doing better post trim. At least, I think that’s what I have noticed, I could be totally wrong though.

Colors are looking great! They will really pop once you boost up the light with the burraqua micros.

 

[BigWave]

If you were able to raise CO2, I would think correcting and maximizing CO2 should 100% be your first priority before assessing any other potential problem.

So much this statment right here. Often times I've seen it where I did not clean the CO2 diffuser from being lazy that water change and well algae sure noticed the concentration was off. Some of the cheaper regulators, as the pressure decreases in the bottle or regulator they dont put out as much as they did before.

 

[Unexpected]

So much this statment right here. Often times I've seen it where I did not clean the CO2 diffuser from being lazy that water change and well algae sure noticed the concentration was off. Some of the cheaper regulators, as the pressure decreases in the bottle or regulator they dont put out as much as they did before.

I don’t have enough fingers to count how many times I was seeing a problem and went through the whole rigmarole to try and fix things while it was my CO2 the whole time.

 

[riioKen]

Well both you were right @Unexpected and @BigWave.

My inline diffuser was extremely dirty (I'm ashamed, never cleaned it in 7 months) and the CO2 finished 2 days ago, so probably the regulators had problems to maintain constant level last week (I noticed the drop checker changes color slower).

Colors are looking great! They will really pop once you boost up the light with the burraqua micros

Yep, can't wait, the colors are nice but macrandra is a bit pale/washed. Hopefully the next week arrives.

 

[GreggZ]

Now, the trimming style. How do you know when to trim? Honestly I like how bushes the blood red is, I'm even afraid of touching it with the scissors lol, but probably Abit of shape is needed?

Trimming and horticulture are an important part of the hobby. It takes time and trial and error to see how different plants prefer to be treated.

As to Rotala SG it doesn't much care. It just keeps growing. Most times I just pull the entire bunch then rip off about 6" and plop the whole bunch back down. Never misses a beat. If you want it to become a really thick bush then take scissors and cut about the first 3" off the tops without uprooting. It will sprout many new heads and get thicker and thicker.

And then every so often I need to thin mine out. I take the entire bunch apart and piece it back together using the best longest stems. It's a cycle.

 

[Unexpected]

Have you read @Yugang post on his reactor?
I hate to be a sleazy salesman here, but I consider it the Mercedes Benz of reactors. I’ll never use any other method until he comes up with something better .

Yugang Reactor

 

[riioKen]

Have you read @Yugang post on his reactor?
I hate to be a sleazy salesman here, but I consider it the Mercedes Benz of reactors. I’ll never use any other method until he comes up with something better .

Yep, I have written at the start of this journal that, when Christmas holidays comes, I'll for sure build one myself (well not alone, I'm so bad at diy, but luckily my father is very capable, when I showed your @Yugang design he said "yes, should be easy enough", I'll help him with maths lol) so yes the only problem would be the space, I don't have much horizontal space, I need work on it.

As to Rotala SG it doesn't much care. It just keeps growing.

Yeah, it's incredible rotala SG.

Most times I just pull the entire bunch then rip off about 6" and plop the whole bunch back down. Never misses a beat. If you want it to become a really thick bush then take scissors and cut about the first 3" off the tops without uprooting. It will sprout many new heads and get thicker and thicker.

Makes sense.

And then every so often I need to thin mine out. I take the entire bunch apart and piece it back together using the best longest stems. It's a cycle.

I heard somewhere that Amano said that the stems should be trimmed 7 times, a the 8th the plants should be uprooted (or trimmed at be bottom) cut in half, and only the top replanted

 

[riioKen]

Nothing professional, just a different "view" from the above with a 7 years old smartphone.

 

[Count Krunk]

Looks really good

 

[riioKen]

Tank update:

Very bad case of mobile nutrients deficiency on rotala macrandra.
I have around 30-40ppm of NO3, dosing Masterline golden at suggested dosage, so leaner on NO3 dosing.

Rotala macrnadra in less than a week become completely green except for the tops.

Now I've changed ferts (golden ran out, I'm using Masterline 1 and 2, the 2 has micro only, ppm are the same that we can find in Golden, while Masterline 1 is macro only and is richer than golden).

In this week I'll do an intensive trim session, probably tomorrow or Thursday (can't do it now because I'm sick)

 

[Burr740]

How do you have 30-40 ppm NO3 in the water using Masterline Gold? Maybe from the fresh soil converting ammonia? Anyway if you actually do have 30-40 ppm NO3 youre not deficient in that.

PO4 is more likely. I bet theres zero in the water due to fresh soil

Macrandra is somewhat of a hog. It doesnt thrive in super low nutrients ime. Good indicator plant

I would also be hesitant to blame nutrients with the tank being so new but If you changed ferts and saw immediate change like this then yeah its likely a fert issue

 

[riioKen]

How do you have 30-40 ppm NO3 in the water using Masterline Gold?

I was very surprised when the api test showed it to me

Maybe from the fresh soil converting ammonia? Anyway if you actually do have 30-40 ppm NO3 youre not deficient in that.

PO4 is more likely. I bet theres zero in the water due to fresh soil

I can check po4 with a Sera test.

Macrandra is somewhat of a hog. It doesnt thrive in super low nutrients ime. Good indicator plant

Seems that is lacking something, I've spotted very few GSA dots on the glass, considering the high NO3, it could be easily a po4 deficiency.

would also be hesitant to blame nutrients with the tank being so new but If you changed ferts and saw immediate change like this then yeah its likely a fert issue

I'm not blaming ferts, the greening of the leaves started last week (so still under Golden as always), around Tuesday, by the end of the week, all macrandra leaves turned green. I changed ferts regime (Masterline golden, to Masterline 1 and 2) yesterday (so still no effect whatsoever).

I was thinking in bumping up the light, I'm still at 60-65%. Thanks to Tom and lots of journals around, NO3 toxicity is true only to 100 or more ppm.

I plan to do:
- wait 1 week and see if with Masterline 1 and 2 I'll have improvement.
- do maintenance as always (trimming and WC, but imo trimming is like cheating, so idk if I should do it, it could invalide the "test")
- something is a bit off for sure because, the CO2 is almost at its extreme, if I increase even a bit more, amano go wild and try to jump out, so CO2 seems "ok", but I don't have much pearling (I have it, but I expect a bit more)
- if this week tell me nothing about ferts, I'll try to increase light next week.

I know that both Dennis and Marian will come and say, I dose suggested dosage of my own ferts in a tank that has 3x your plant mass and is great, and they know their business, so no blaming to ferts. But, if the tank went great for 2 months, and last week macrandra lost all of its colors, considering that the plant mass increased a lot in the last months, I assume that there is a nutrients deficiency in the macros (new growth is healthy, red but a bit curly)

 

[GreggZ]

PO4 is more likely. I bet theres zero in the water due to fresh soil

Agreed this is a possible issue. When I had fresh soil years ago, I had to dose loads of PO4 just to keep any in the water column. The substrate sucked it up like mad. Some plants don't care, but ones like Macranda do. At least in my tank.

 

[riioKen]

New update about macrandra turning green.

Clearly some deficiency, after using a bit richer ferts, the macrandra new growth is healthy and red

I'm noticing that the others plants are redder too.

I assume that the old growth turned green, can't be recovered right? So I wait 1-2 week and do a trim, discard and replant with the macrandra stems

Same thing happened to AR Kleines-Papageienblatt, red leaves turned green.

 

[riioKen]

Hi @Burr740 , I have a question for you (I was asking this in pm, but just doesn't make sense considering that I have a journal here)

I'm reading your journal (120gal with 35% less volume, very funny, but sad name for the thread) diligently. I'm at page 55, where you setup your 50g with aquasoil received from jbvamos (around august 2018, lots of time ago lol). What I've understood is, with aquasoil, like the one I'm using, we should dose way more frequently (as reference, we should never see 0ppm before dosing again po4), or the po4 will not be available in water column and so, as consequence, the plants can't absorb all nutrients?

So, it would make sense that my NO3 are very high, if the po4 is lacking in water column (I have a sera po4 test, but I didn't test it yet).
That means my tank is po4 limited, . I have some algae here and there but not a bloom, but this deficiency on rotala macrnadra and some sparse GSA on the glass and a bit of hair algae on some slower growing, could be a sign no?

Edit: tomorrow I'll fix grammar lol, its night here

 

[Freshflora]

Hi @Burr740 , I have a question for you (I was asking this in pm, but just doesn't make sense considering that I have a journal here)

I'm reading your journal (120gal with 35% less volume, very funny, but sad name for the thread) diligently. I'm at page 55, where you setup your 50g with aquasoil received from jbvamos (around august 2018, lots of time ago lol). What I've understood is, with aquasoil, like the one I'm using, we should dose way more frequently (as reference, we should never see 0ppm before dosing again po4), or the po4 will not be available in water column and so, as consequence, the plants can't absorb all nutrients?

So, it would make sense that my NO3 are very high, if the po4 is lacking in water column (I have a sera po4 test, but I didn't test it yet).
That means my tank is po4 limited, . I have some algae here and there but not a bloom, but this deficiency on rotala macrnadra and some sparse GSA on the glass and a bit of hair algae on some slower growing, could be a sign no?

Edit: tomorrow I'll fix grammar lol, its night here

Aquasoils suck up pretty much all nutrients except NO3. So some people like to dose PO4 until the aquasoil is fully saturated and stops sucking it up so that some PO4 can stay in the water column. The way you do this is by dosing however much PO4 you need daily so that a little bit is still in the water column after 24 hours until the aquasoil stops sucking up PO4, which you’ll see by more PO4 than usual still being in the water column the next day.

 

[riioKen]

When an

Aquasoils suck up pretty much all nutrients except NO3. So some people like to dose PO4 until the aquasoil is fully saturated and stops sucking it up so that some PO4 can stay in the water column. The way you do this is by dosing however much PO4 you need daily so that a little bit is still in the water column after 24 hours until the aquasoil stops sucking up PO4, which you’ll see by more PO4 than usual still being in the water column the next day.

Ok, so based on that:
- I start dosing x amount po4 every day, let's say 5ppm (or 10ppm?, I'm still using commercial fertilizer Masterline 1 and 2)
- if, after 24h I see 0 por or very low, I repeat the dosage.
- continue dosing every 24h the same ppms of po4 till I see a, not so high, drop.
- when I find that po4 is not all consumed after 24h, I decrease por dosage to around x ppm daily.

In the end, the objective Is to have 0.2-0.5 ppm po4 measurable. I got it right?

 

[Burr740]

Yeah fresh soil quickly sucks up all the po4 in the water and will do so for about a month then gradually slow down over another couple of months. In the very beginning Ive seen landen and ada zero out 10 ppm in two days. This action operates independently from the soils CEC since PO4 is an anion. Other nutrients that get ab/adsorbed are the cations which is natural. Ive seen the explanation why, somebody here may know, but I dont remember edxactly what happens

In my tanks this is a problem for probably half the species in there. Big leaved green plants are the first to show deficiencies. The first sign is pale splotches beginning on the 2nd or 3rd set of leaves down from the top. Other types of plants display their own weird responses.

Im not sure why its not a common practice to load PO4 with fresh aquasoils. Im pretty sure Dennis doesnt do that, although I havent read a lot of his articles so he may touch on the subject somewhere, idk. And some of these ferts with no NO3 or PO4 Im like how does that work?? I wouldnt for me.

Anyway what I do with a new soil tank is dose an extra 10 ppm PO4 after every water change, which are usually 2x week for a month or so for the ammonia. After 6-7 weeks of 10 ppm I'll give it an extra 5 for another month or so. I dont meticulously test the levels or anything these days, I just add extra approximately on that schedule

Other nutrients I just dose normal from the start, except I may go easy on NO3 for a month or two