Journal Art's tank(s)

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Well, I'm tankless at the moment due to circumstances so will post a few of my last ones. Nothing near the masterpieces of others but I try.

Had a Dutch-inspired a few years ago when I was trying different techniques. This one had a sump and I ran carbon to minimize water changes.
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Then I moved to an apartment so I changed it up with a more fitting UNS 90 with more traditional equipment. I first wanted to go traditional aquascape with stone.
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Then I said, forget it. I like the stems too much! Ended up with a Dutch-inspired, wabi sabi combination.
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Thinking about what's next for me.
 
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Freshflora said:
You may want to consider going up to EI levels of 20-30 K. No real harm with doing it, and it’s not something you want to risk limiting
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If I remember correctly, Art is planning on growing sensitive rotalas and ammannia. They absolutely will not appreciate 20-30k. I had problems with them even at half EI dose. Masterline golden dosing levels are a very good compromise Imo. Grows weedy ludwigias and picky lythracaea together. 7:17:0.5 (No3, PO4, K, Fe)
 
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Freshflora said:
When you say targeting, are you saying you’re going to be dosing those amounts per week, or those will be your numbers factoring in accumulation and water changes? Those who mean the second usually use the term “targeting” haha, so just clarifying.
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This is a very good question and it is often either confused or completely overlooked. This is what I'm initially dosing per week. I will tweak based on accumulation calculations as I go forward.

So if I'm dosing 10 ppm per week (daily roughly 1.4 ppm) with a 50% water change weekly, this is what my accumulation looks like assuming a .4 ppm plant uptake daily.

nutrient-accumulation.jpeg
As you can see, I will eventually be bouncing between about 8.4 and 14.3 ppm for a rough average of 11.35 ppm. This may lead me to slowly decrease my dose to bring the average down to 10 ppm.

This is how I've driven my tanks in the past and it's worked OK for me long term. Anyone find any issues with the above? I'm always learning and more than willing to be corrected.
 
I think its NO3 that lythracaea doesnt like. My tanks will absolutely crash if K is not considerably higher than NO3. Im not a huge believer in ratios but in this case, in my tanks, ppm is not so important but having more K than NO3 is, like at least 2:3 NO3/K.
plantnoobdude said:
7:17:0.5 (No3, PO4, K, Fe)
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What number is missing PO4? And is that weekly total or what?
 
Burr740 said:
think its NO3 that lythracaea doesnt like. My tanks will absolutely crash if K is not considerably higher than NO3. Im not a huge believer in ratios but in this case, in my tanks, ppm is not so important but having more K than NO3 is, like at least 2:3 NO3/K.
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Hey Joe remember when we were talking with that group guys that seemed to think that K was devil? We both went down that road of lowering K and if I recall didn't work out too well for either of us.
 
Burr740 said:
I think its NO3 that lythracaea doesnt like. My tanks will absolutely crash if K is not considerably higher than NO3. Im not a huge believer in ratios but in this case, in my tanks, ppm is not so important but having more K than NO3 is, like at least 2:3 NO3/K.

What number is missing PO4? And is that weekly total or what?
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I use 7:1:7 NO3: po4:K I forgot the, ":"

Weekly dose with 80 percent WC. I dose a bit extra after a big water change, so the numbers can be a bit higher.

In my experience I used potassium all the way from 0.5ppm weekly all the way up to EI levels. Most plants do not care too much about high K or low K.

The fact that you say your tanks crash without lower K is interesting to me.
I used even No3:K at 7:1 ratio to good results. Are you using tap water these days?
 
GreggZ said:
Hey Joe remember when we were talking with that group guys that seemed to think that K was devil? We both went down that road of lowering K and if I recall didn't work out too well for either of us.
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Yep, Vin tried it at the same time too. Disastrous results at first when we dropped it real low. Then I screwed around for about a year slowly going back up. Lots of things struggled through that, easy stuff too

plantnoobdude said:
I use 7:1:7 NO3: po4:K I forgot the, ":"

Weekly dose with 80 percent WC. I dose a bit extra after a big water change, so the numbers can be a bit higher.

In my experience I used potassium all the way from 0.5ppm weekly all the way up to EI levels. Most plants do not care too much about high K or low K.

The fact that you say your tanks crash without lower K is interesting to me.
I used even No3:K at 7:1 ratio to good results. Are you using tap water these days?
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When I said crash that was a bit of an overstatement. Plants just start growing poorly, stunted tops, extreme paleness, or just stop growing - all this happens way before pinholes ever show up. From easy stuff to hard plants

That you can run 7:1 NO3:K just blows my mind! lol

Yes I use tap. Its pretty good, has negligible amounts of macros, about 35 Ca and 5 Mg. To which I add another 3-4 ppm Mg. Thats another one Ive played with a lot, esp in relation to K. In fact thats what sparked the whole low K experiment. Vin had talked with somebody in Europe who was at the time growing some stellar Ammania species, this was just before his Kill Tank days. Supposedly Mg and K had to be about even. Which does hold water on paper if you look at the Mulder Chart. So we tried it at various levels for a few months. Gregg jumped on board too. It was a disaster and didnt help Lythracaea one bit

Personally K is the last nutrient I would ever limit
 
Burr740 said:
Yep, Vin tried it at the same time too. Disastrous results at first when we dropped it real low. Then I screwed around for about a year slowly going back up. Lots of things struggled through that, easy stuff too


When I said crash that was a bit of an overstatement. Plants just start growing poorly, stunted tops, extreme paleness, or just stop growing - all this happens way before pinholes ever show up. From easy stuff to hard plants

That you can run 7:1 NO3:K just blows my mind! lol

Yes I use tap. Its pretty good, has negligible amounts of macros, about 35 Ca and 5 Mg. To which I add another 3-4 ppm Mg. Thats another one Ive played with a lot, esp in relation to K. In fact thats what sparked the whole low K experiment. Vin had talked with somebody in Europe who was at the time growing some stellar Ammania species, this was just before his Kill Tank days. Supposedly Mg and K had to be about even. Which does hold water on paper if you look at the Mulder Chart. So we tried it at various levels for a few months. Gregg jumped on board too. It was a disaster and didnt help Lythracaea one bit

Personally K is the last nutrient I would ever limit
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This is from when I was dosing very lean... 5 No3 (urea) , 0.4 PO4, 0.7 K, 0.016 Fe,
Water changes every few weeks at TDs around 20. Lythracaea and ludwigia both did great, very slow growth. Sand substrate as well, so no additional nutrients.

However, I don't recommend it for people since I'm not sure how replicable my results are. I do know however, that I can recommend masterline/ APT SYSTEM because I've tried them, and more importantly thousands of others have as well.
 

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plantnoobdude said:
This is from when I was dosing very lean... 5 No3 (urea) , 0.4 PO4, 0.7 K, 0.016 Fe,
Water changes every few weeks at TDs around 20. Lythracaea and ludwigia both did great, very slow growth. Sand substrate as well, so no additional nutrients.

However, I don't recommend it for people since I'm not sure how replicable my results are. I do know however, that I can recommend masterline/ APT SYSTEM because I've tried them, and more importantly thousands of others have as well.
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This is just another example that very few things in this hobby are universal across the board for everyone.

As for Masterline/APT sure, but lean is one thing, practically zero K is quite another
 
@GreggZ was kind enough to loan me his Seneye and I was able to take PAR readings.

My light, the Netlea AT6 Pro is about 8 inches from the water surface. I took measurements at 1 inch below the water surface measuring in a 9 point (back middle front and left middle right) grid. I did the same thing at the substrate level that is about 21 inches from the light.

Here is PAR at 1 inch below the surface:
IMG_5240.jpeg
Here is at substrate level:
IMG_5241.jpeg

The horizontal grid readings were all within 10% of each other meaning even light spread. No hot spots.

This thing is a beast!

I am running it at 50% power or 96w. I’m using only RGB with white turned down all the way.

I don’t know about you but I think this is more than enough light for the plants I will be keeping.

At this point in time, I’m happy with my purchase. I would recommend.
 
Art said:
@GreggZ was kind enough to loan me his Seneye and I was able to take PAR readings.

My light, the Netlea AT6 Pro is about 8 inches from the water surface. I took measurements at 1 inch below the water surface measuring in a 9 point (back middle front and left middle right) grid. I did the same thing at the substrate level that is about 21 inches from the light.

Here is PAR at 1 inch below the surface:
View attachment 2553
Here is at substrate level:
View attachment 2554

The horizontal grid readings were all within 10% of each other meaning even light spread. No hot spots.

This thing is a beast!

I am running it at 50% power or 96w. I’m using only RGB with white turned down all the way.

I don’t know about you but I think this is more than enough light for the plants I will be keeping.

At this point in time, I’m happy with my purchase. I would recommend.
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Those readings are the light at 100% right? So you’re getting around 125ish umols running it at 50%? Yeah, I think you’re set haha.
 
Thanks, guys. The tank is still maturing and I'm working on healthy growth at the moment. Looking forward to more trimming and shaping in a month or so.

It's been interesting to see the plants that work and don't work so far. I'm also going to switch over to APT fertilizer soon.

Always something to do in the garden.
 
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