Journal Experiment Tank || 90x50x36cm, 39gal, Horizontal Reactor High-energy Aquascape Journal

[BenB]

Give me some ideas!

Any plants come to mind to try?

Synogonthas Vichada, Erio Quing, Hygrophilia chai Super Red, Blood Vomit are the things that come to mind.

 

[techman81]

I would say focus on creating a scape you haven't done before and decide what plants fit it best. My goal is to create a scape of each style there is.

Edit to add: Some styles aren't well suited to using BDBS . Although creating an Iwagumi with it would be an interesting challenge.

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Day 144: Photos before being "raided" for plants for my new 140 gal inert sand tank​

There are quite a few plants in here that don't belong! That's because they're in here for holding and "cleaning" as I work on re-doing my 150p tank.

For example, the square of HC Cuba (or whatever they renamed it to). It was grown emersed, and by putting it in this super-stable, biologically mature, high-ligh-high-CO2-high-ferts tank, I can quickly get it to transition to submerged growth.

Even better, I am absolutely FARMING snails in this tank to feed to my pea puffers. When some of the old emersed HC Cuba growth started melting, the snails devoured the melted plant material and kept it super clean.

It genuinely makes me think of how even now, doctors will use clean medical-grade maggots to eat dead and decaying flesh in a wound. These snails are absolutely HAMMERING the melting HC Cuba, but haven't touched the healthy stuff -- and new submerged growth has begun to explode.





Limnophila aromatica mini





Penthorum sedoides



Staurogyne purple behind some dwarf hairgrass, which is really exploding in growth.


Myriophyllum 'gold' behind AR Mini and Rotala Bonsai





After these photos, I took so many S repens, P sedoides, and AR Mini cuttings to plant my new tank with.

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

151 day update: post-raid, INSANE pearling, swappable hanging backgrounds​

Because of the success of this tank, my hubris has led me to try every plant I can get my hands on.

I removed the Rotala Blood Red in favor of Ludwigia Super Red (back left). I also planted this BEAUTIFUL ludwigia ovalis 'pink' (behind blyxa japonica) from @Burr740. Just gorgeous and already 1" taller than when I planted it. Everything is algae-free, even when newly added.



Rotala 'Florida' transitioning from emersed to submerged growth. One unexpected perk of having a stable bio-mature tank is having the ability to rapidly grow-out emersed plants into submerged plants. The transition on rotala florida is insane; from sage green emersed growth, to deep pink/purple submerged growth. I know Dennis Wong says R Florida needs more Ca in the water, but I have ~25ppm Ca and it's growing just fine!



Back: Ludwigia Super Red, Hygrophila siamensis 53b, unknown Persicaria sp from Burr, Limnophilia aromatica mini.
Middle: Penthorum sedoides post-trim, Ludwigia ovalis pink, A few stems of Pogostemon deccanensis
Front: Staurogyne repens, blyxa japonica, crypt wendtii bronze


All of the emersed growth on the HC Cuba mats that was going to die did finally melt, and the snails cleaned it up. The remaining growth is all new, underwater growth -- and pearling like CRAZY. The photo makes it look like there's algae?? but there's none.


I'll be removing this Myriophyllum 'Gold'. It's beautiful, but just not my style. Anyone want a massive, healthy portion? Let me know!
Myrio gold sitting in front of Rotala bonsai



Burr sent me this Persicaria sp. I didn't think much at first, but I LOVE it now. It's branching at almost every internode, pearls like crazy, and maintains a deep jade green despite HIGH lighting strength. Leaves are a bit twisted from 10 days testing higher micro dosing, so I backed off a bit.

It looks like bamboo. Really pretty. Also, it's FLOWERING!! Do you see??



I liked the simple panel background so much, I did one with a black ABS panel. transparent PETG "hooks" for the transparent background, black PETG hooks for the black background.

Literally takes 5 seconds to switch between them:


The black makes this tank's daily pearling "upside down rain" stand out way more.

Which do you prefer?

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Insane pearling:​

With transparent/white background:


With black background:



This isn't at 3 or 4pm, either. This was taken around noon today, only ~3 hours after lights on. It gets even crazier in the afternoons. To be honest, with the black background, the pearling is really distracting.

 

[techman81]

The black makes this tank's daily pearling "upside down rain" stand out way more.

Which do you prefer?

Black, but I really like the idea of quick interchangeable backgrounds.

I love watching the pearling in my tank in the late afternoon.

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Black, but I really like the idea of quick interchangeable backgrounds.

The black looks really good for photos and for plant colors, but the feeling of the tank in the room is so much cleaner/more open with the white.
My partner says "the black looks amazing but feels claustrophobic".

So maybe I quick-swap the black background for certain photos or for competition shots, and swap to the white background for regular use or when company is coming over!

 

[techman81]

The black looks really good for photos and for plant colors, but the feeling of the tank in the room is so much cleaner/more open with the white.
My partner says "the black looks amazing but feels claustrophobic".

So maybe I quick-swap the black background for certain photos or for competition shots, and swap to the white background for regular use or when company is coming over!

I don't know enough about the various competitions but I don't know that I've seen any high rated black background tanks in IAPLC. It seems that most are going for that sunrise or sunset look in their photos. Are there more black backgrounds in AGA scapes? I think it looks good for Dutch style scapes.

 

[BenB]

Which do you prefer?

I think when I can see the pearling, I prefer the black.
When I can't see the pearling and/or a more zoomed out shot, I like the white.

 

[Rob23]

Tank is looking very healthy. As for the backgrounds, my preference is for the transparent/white with one caveat. I find the shadow on the bottom half to be distracting from the otherwise attractive layout. A small light behind the base of the background might create a pleasant gradient.

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

It's the end of the week, and I suddenly noticed a bit of hair algae on some of the leaves. Just the tiniest bit, but enough to catch my attention.
I knew something was wrong because "healthy plants don't grow algae" and all that jazz. I tested the water for NO3 and PO4, and found that I bottomed-out of NO3 and still had some PO4 left. Which is pretty shocking since I'm dosing 30ppm NO3 in one 20ppm recovery dose, and one 10ppm midweek dose. That means that this tank is consuming more than 4ppm NO3 per day.

I DO have the lights set to ~80% (which is a lot for this shallow tank) and the heater is set to 74F, both of which are driving plant metabolism upwards.

However, plant health seems to suffer after a water change, and by the end of the week. Things are fine, but not exceptionally healthy. As I was playing around with my nutrient calculator, I realized why:

With my current setup, a tank consuming 4ppm NO3 per day with a weekly total of 30ppm dosed the way I do, has swings of over 14ppm between water changes:

14ppm swings of NO3 isn't the end of the world, but it's not good.

For reference, here's the same scenario but at 2.5ppm NO3 consumed per day, like where the tank likely was a month ago:


Much more stable.

---

Now I realize that determining stable dosing really is, primarily, dependent on daily uptake. That's why I love this accumulation calculator I made, to learn about these things!

I've purchased a Hanna Nitrate Checker, and I plan to do the marine-to-freshwater conversions to get a more accurate reading, so I can measure at 10am on Day 1 and 10am on day 2, and learn how much NO3 my tank is consuming. I'll probably do tests through the week to learn about consumption levels.

Examples of ways to keep levels stable (inlcuding a large weekly WC):​

If you have a tank with only ~1.0ppm NO3 uptake per day, you could just front-load 15ppm per week and be good:

This would work for many low/medium energy tanks, or newly planted high-energy tanks that don't have a lot of mature plant biomass yet.

If the same tank starts consuming ~2.5ppm NO3 per day, you could start adding a midweek 10ppm dose for similar levels:

These levels are pretty common for daily NO3 consumption in many "high energy" planted tanks, especially tanks that have fast growing stem plants that put on a ton of biomass very quickly.

Finally, if your tank is going bananas and consuming >4ppm NO3 per day, you could increase both your initial dose and midweek dose to try to keep levels similar, though the weekly max difference will always begin increasing mathematically, which isn't awful, but isn't great:

The max difference is 12ppm, which again, isn't the worst, but plants will definitely be playing "chase" changing their internal enzyme structures to try to match the nutrient levels, which days days/weeks to get stable.

---

One way that I speculate keeping levels stable in SUPER HIGH daily consumption tanks (4-5ppm NO3, which is probably only common in heavily planted, high-light, high-CO2 dutch style tanks) is via an initial dose after water change, then daily dosing as close to daily consumption as you can get.
In a tank that consumes ~2.0ppm NO3/day:

Yeah, that would be pretty stable, despite 70% weekly WC! That's thanks to the 10ppm "initial" dose.


What about the same tank, consuming 4ppm per day, but only dosing 3.5ppm per day?:

Again, only a max difference of 3ppm? That's incredibly stable. The initial 10ppm dose basically just determines the average ppm levels in the water.

I think I might give something like this a try; create a macro solution of known NO3 and PO4 (and K) concentration, that is dosed in a large recovery dose after WC, but dosed daily via auto-doser as close to daily consumption levels can be.

I can accurately test daily consumption levels with the Hanna NO3 checker.

We'll see!

 

[PeerUnk]

If I had such a high tech tank which consumed 4 ppm of NO3, I would definitely like to daily dose all macros in the ratios of their dry weight composition. The visual reports really help some folk I guess, well explained in terms of NO3!

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Tried my old 90mm macro lens today:

Ludwigia ovalis 'pink'


Rotala bonsai



Some freshly planted Bacopa colorata, with new growth showing some of that salmon coloration!


Blyxa japonica



Freshly planted Lobelia cardinalis 'mini' from @Burr740



CPDs


Ruby Tetra

 

[techman81]

My new 100mm Macro arrived today. Looking forward to testing it out.

 

[Minninips]

Waterproof "tub" base for spills

Are you using an insert for this or some sort of waterproof sheeting? I think I saw you mention silicone in another thread, but I'm not certain.

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Are you using an insert for this or some sort of waterproof sheeting? I think I saw you mention silicone in another thread, but I'm not certain.

Nope, I just primed with a good primer, used waterproof painter's caulk for all the corners, let it dry, then hit it with 3-4 coats of thick waterproof latex paint!

 

[HarryL]

@BenB As I was studying Rocco's posts, I noticed your signature:

"The pincettes choose the scaper, Harry."

I had asked about pinsettes a couple weeks ago and it caught my attention, feels like a hidden easter egg

 

[BenB]

@BenB As I was studying Rocco's posts, I noticed your signature:

"The pincettes choose the scaper, Harry."

I had asked about pinsettes a couple weeks ago and it caught my attention, feels like a hidden easter egg

Yeah, another time when @Koan was joking around.

 

[Koan]

Yeah, another time

Post in thread 'That didn't take long'

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Day 168: CO2 testing mistake, overdosing micros, algae explosion... WHEELS ARE COMING OFF!​

If you see my posts you know I'm an avid user of Hanna CO2 titration test kits. I consider them to be the single best tool for understanding and dialing in CO2. But all tools have issues if you don't use/store them correctly!

How I majorly ****** up:

I left the lid open on the "Titrant solution" bottle for who knows how long. Between 5-10 days? I also hadn't noticed my drop checker against the black background... So, when I tested my CO2, it was over 65ppm according to the Hanna kit. So I reduced my SCCM on my flowmeter, and checked again the next day.

It was 55+ppm CO2. I thought "WeLL THat'S pRetty HiGh" and lowered my CO2 injection even more.

I didn't check to see if the fish were uncomfortable, which they should be at 50+ppm CO2, even with good surface agitation.
Even worse, I LOOKED at my drop checker, which was dark blue-green, and thought "that's weird". And LOWERED MY CO2 INJECTION MORE.


Around this time, I also thought "My daily Burr micro dosing has been good (no stunting, no deficiencies), therefore if I increase the dose it will be even MORE good!" So I had increased the dose.

What actually happened:​

Leaving the Hanna titration NaOH bottle uncapped for days meant that the NaOH reacted with the CO2 in the air and essentially began neutralizing itself, making the solution significantly weaker than it's supposed to be. Which means I needed more to reach the titration point, aka the point where the solution turns pink. Which means I was "reading" 60+ppm CO2, but it was probably closer to 30ppm. However, I turned the CO2 down because of this, and repeated the mistake again. I quickly tested with a newer Hanna CO2 kit I purchased and found the issue immediately (see pic above).

By the time I caught it, it was too late. The combination of a sudden drop in CO2 in such a high-light setup, combined with a sudden increase in micros dosing, took a toll:

Algae and Microtox Mayhem​

Looks good, right? WRONG.



Limnophila aromatica mini covered in algae and melting



Ludwigia super red and HC Cuba melting



Rotala 'bonsai' melted from the bottom up. Old growth was absolute mush within days.




Acmella repens and Rotala florida covered in algae



A bunch of snails died, like 60% of the entire tank's inhabitants. It HAS to be from the micros, what else could it be?? But what really makes my cry, is this Crypt Parva carpet getting covered in algae. These plants take FOREVER to grow and spread, MONTHS at a time. Growing them algae-free in pure inert sand hasn't been easy, but this was crushing




It's not all bad, though. The Persicaria cf. Fasset Green @Burr740 gave me did well, and even flowered above the surface (see tiny tip!). Awesome plant. The ludwigia ovalis 'pink' is an amazing plant that continued to grow algae-free and was unaffected by overdosing micros.





AR Mini, completely stunted. This plant really likes good CO2 more than anything, I find, and not a lot of micros in the water.




It was time for a deep cleaning and a new plant scheme....

DON'T IGNORE YOUR DROP CHECKERS, PEOPLE! They are also a critical part to both monitoring and dialing in your CO2 levels.
If a Drop Checker with fresh 4dKH solution shows blue-green in the afternoon, I'd trust that more than any test kit...