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1. Water (tap, distilled, etc)
2. Substrate (inert or Aquasoil kind...)
3. Light power and schedule
4. Co2 amount (pH drop) and consistency
5. Filtration (are the filters clean?)
6. Fertilization method and schedule
7. Water change amount and schedule
Great list, and this would be worth a separate thread on the forum. A lot to unpack here.
I would add:
8. Water flow and surface agitation.
Water flow is essential to bring nutrients (including CO2) to the plants, and increase the efficiency of uptake from the water. Stagnant water does a poor job of nutrient distribution and transport (that's why animals and plants have a heart and blood vessels or other internal fluid circulation systems). Surface agitation is another essential part for gas transport, and the stabilisation of CO2 in high tech tanks.
Precisely because I am learning a lot from each of you, I am doing a nice process of trim, discard and replant healthy top. Today I literally cleaned all the rotala macrandra, waited for them to grow at least 5cm, removed all the old stems and replanted the healthy tops. I plan to do the same thing to rotala h'ra and rotala blood red (very curious that all the rotala started to looks ugly, all at the same time, remind some test made by Vin, maybe I should consider front loading macro?), one each WC.
I have a curious fact to tell you, something strange happened to me lol:
Yesterday, it was water change day, but as it was Christmas Eve I wasn't able to do it and I went to sleep a little worried. At night I had a nightmare, I dreamed that the tank suffered a pH crash, the aquarium had become like the Sahara desert worn all plants wiped out and all the fish on the ground dead, out of the water. The dream ends like this and then I wake up, it was night, I tried to go back to sleep, but for some reason I got up to go and see the aquarium (this isn't a thing that I usually do, I sleep till morning), while I was going down the stairs, I take a look at the aquarium, I see that there was something black on the ground (I thought it was rubbish, a bit of plastic left the night before), I get closer and... It was an amano out of the tank, well my FIRST amano, around 5-6cm of shrimp, luckily alive. Idk how, idk why, how is it possible that I woke up from sleep at night, is unusual for me, and even stranger, that I went down at 3 am to see the aquarium? I have him since May, he never ever jumped out (neither him or any fish, I have a lidless tank). Anyway he's fine, he was still wet when I picked him up...
I like a lot how this journal is going, all the experts and legends here teaching a newbie (me lol) on how to be successful in this hobby.
I had those bad dreams a thousand times... tank breaking, leaking, fish flying around, etc... but seriously, you must be careful with Amano, they like to jump!
Anyway, macro front-loading works very well, I do that after every water change, and it is very convenient. I strongly recommend it. But make sure all the basics are in check
I prefer an alternate day dosing, is it recommended?.I use chihiros auto doser so doenst really matter to me...
I did a pH profile, for 1 week, below it's only last days of my daily checking.
I used a double junction pH meter from bluelab. Probably I need to turn on CO2 30 earlier, but I don't want to mess more with it for now
After 1 week of @Burr740 micros and my own macros I can definitely say that I never ever buy again commercial water.
Do you remember the spreadsheet above? Well, it's 2 days that I'm increasing CO2 each day. I need to check tomorrow, but since that spreadsheet, where ph at 12:00 were at 5.8 (near 1.5 drop), 2 days ago, at 12:00, the co2 was at 6.0, yesterday, at 6.2. I can definitely see more colors, shorter internodes and way more leaves. The plants are fuller and cleaning themselves from algae.
My AR Kleines-Papageienblatt, had every internode of 5cm to the other, with 2 leaves. Now, same plants has internodes of 2cm with 4 leaves, and way redder.
Rotala indica, in 1 week has made 4 branch (4ever stunted with both golden and Masterline 1 and 2). I've trimmed Myriophyllum roraima 1 week ago, in 1 week it grown up of about 10cm.
Ludwigia brevipens dropped ALL LOWER LEAVES and in just 4 day it branched everywhere. I can clearly see AR mini with some staghorn/BBA , same for ammania capitellata (I have around 10 stems of 35cm each, each internode has 2 new branch and at the bottom each stem has 3 new plantlets that popped out from substrate), but both are doing great.
On the ludwigia pantanal you can easily spot when I started dosing diy, because half of the stems has longer, wider, but less leaves per internode, while the other half, to the top has way more leaves per internode but thinner and shorter and way more colorful.
Rotala Wallichi finally started growing. Almost 5cm in 1 week and the top is pink.
Rotala SG blood red never had problems except for the "stripes" on old growth, it still has this problem but only because I didn't trim it yet, I plan to do it in the next week, but the top are way more colorful and fuller with way more leaves.
I'll post some photos tomorrow.
Since I started diy, I've trimmed lots of groups, but yet, the CO2 demanding has increased. It's insane.
Do you remember when I said that, with Masterline golden I had 30ppm of NO3? Well with my diy the NO3 is less than 10ppm at the water change day. There was definitely some nutrient deficiencies.
Hair algae on glass has committed seppuku, I can't see it anymore, I have some GSA on back glass, I didn't cleaned it, i just want to see if it goes away.
Now I did WC, I've dosed both micro and macro (1h of difference)
Its an awesome experience when the proverbial light comes on and everything starts doing well. Algae disappears, water gets crystal clear, plants throwing new healthy growth and pearling their butts off
Few difference between Masterline 1-2 and diy macro + burr micro.
2 weeks ago:
Today:
There's quite a difference. Way more lush growth on every plants.
The overall looks of the tank is emptier only because I've removed lots of old growth.
Only macrnadra is still a bit sad.
This is the overall looks:
Next trimming session, I plan to trim rotala H'ra and rotala SG Blood Red, both recovered from stripes on old leaves, but they are still a bit ugly at the bottom (never uprooted and trimmed since in this tank)
My macrandra does the same thing. It appears to like every thing constant, whether that’s lean or rich or whatever, just the same week to week. Any deviation and it throws a fit. Mine went canary yellow for two weeks now it’s back to wine red. No idea what caused the yellow. I was addressing CO2 stuff during that time so that may have been the cause although I have never had it turn that color before even with previous CO2 issues. My hat is off to anyone that keep that plant nice looking for months straight with no drama.
Joke aside, do you remember my old 20g? Well everytime I go to bed, I see it, empty, sad and depressed. It's trying to tell me something, but now i understood it. It is screaming "start mee!!". Do you know what's better than a dutch style tank?
2 Dutch style tank!!!
Luckily enough, I have a spot where to place this tank, it's near the big brother and I plan to use it as "farm" or as depot for the plants. I still have my old chihiros WRGB2 2 slim60, but I need a filter, regulators and CO2 tank.
About the filter I thought that I should remove 1 Biomaster thermo 600 from the 90g, swap it with a fluval fx4 (or fx6 even though, with this one the turnover will be 15x, while with fx4 is 12x, right now is 8x)
About substrate, I plan to use something inert with root tabs (or fully inert, as a indirect suggestion received by Vin through @GreggZ ).
What do you think? I don't think that I'll do a journal for that tank too, only because I think that will be boring for you lol, but depends how things evolve.
Hey guys, I have a new update, I'm asking for some suggestions.
Firstly, the macrandra seems start to liking the new routine:
The new leaves are nicely rounded, pink and "fresh". Instead before they were curly as you can easily compare the bottom ones (and with that shitty green color).
But only macrandra reacted better. The other rotalas (H'ra and SG blood red) are way more fuller, way more colorful but still have this green stripes on older leaves.
I'm honestly thinking into:
After wc, I'm not dosing anything the idea is:
- after every 50-60% WC, do a single macro dose (so 4:1:6ppm) or double/triple dose + 3x weekly dose? It's clearly a mobile nutrients deficiency (but it could be CO2 too but my pH drop is near 1.5), because before was way worse, now it improved by a lot but it's still there.
I have 2 big problems ongoing:
1) BBA /staghorn (I don't understand which one) increasing:
(That myriophyllum roraima grew by 30cm in 10 days)
2) cyanobacteria on substrate and on ludwigia polycarpa (I plan to remove every affected plant in the next maintenance session)
This is something I have been discussing for years. Over many years I found that plants like stability, and hate sudden changes. Think of it as a factory. Everything is humming along and the all of the sudden raw goods are delayed. Pretty soon the factory floor is a mess. IMO much the same for planted tanks.
Here is a link to my tank build where I discuss why I front load all macros right after a water change. What works for you may differ a bit, but a large dose right after a water change to bring levels back up has worked for me.
I hope everyone who has joined is enjoying the forum. Over time my plan is to post summaries of many of the discussions from my old long running thread that I kept on another site. Keep in mind these posts are my thoughts on a particular subject based my experience. Others may have other ideas...
Just as test, I did a front loading macro, so 12-3-18 N-P-K, I still dose 3 times per week micro.
I bought a hydor koralia nano 2200 lxh (580 gph), now where should I place it?
I have 2 filters:
- Left side 1 Lily pipe (CO2 pipe) at the back of the tank
- intake front left side.
- right side, intake that face the CO2 pipe at the back
- right side, pipe that face the other intake at the front.
I thought placing it at the very bottom where there is the CO2 pipe, or at the other side, below the other pipe (pushing CO2 bubbles).
I have removed the inline diffuser from CO2 art (for cleaning) and bought a qanvee M2 just for testing it (early testing, seems that big bubbles escape the inline, whole the CO2art diffuse better, more test needed)
Just as test, I did a front loading macro, so 12-3-18 N-P-K, I still dose 3 times per week micro.
I bought a hydor koralia nano 2200 lxh (580 gph), now where should I place it?
I have 2 filters:
- Left side 1 Lily pipe (CO2 pipe) at the back of the tank
- intake front left side.
- right side, intake that face the CO2 pipe at the back
- right side, pipe that face the other intake at the front.
I thought placing it at the very bottom where there is the CO2 pipe, or at the other side, below the other pipe (pushing CO2 bubbles).
I have removed the inline diffuser from CO2 art (for cleaning) and bought a qanvee M2 just for testing it (early testing, seems that big bubbles escape the inline, whole the CO2art diffuse better, more test needed)
Ok guys, I decide to push the "high tech" to the next level in my tank.
I have just bought JBL proflora CO2 controller and a double junction bnc probe (suggested by @GreggZ, months ago) from bluelab.
Now, I can't really do anything with my diy capabilities, so I'm evaluating again a guy in Netherland that sell diy reactor
He even do a version of the reactor above with a slot for pH probe, so out of the tank.
I haven't bought the reactor yet, but I've already bought controller and probe. I'll wait few weeks before taking any decision on the reactor, and test the controller + probes and see if I can acquire a rock solid CO2 injection.
About my water KH:
I have a test from Sera that measure KH, in tap water, the first drop the water become blue, while with my tank water, the first drop the water remain clear, after the second drop the water become yellow, it means that I have reached KH 0 or below 1?
De reactor heeft 2 slangaansluitingen en een aansluiting voor de CO2 slang. Dit is een 4/6 mm opsteekkoppeling met knelring. Met een diameter van 63 mm en een hoogte 35 cm is dit het basis model. Deze reactor kent diverse uitbreidings- en aanpassingsmogelijkheden. De getoonde foto is inclusief...
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