Journal Freshflora's Tanks

Freshflora

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Figured I would start a tank journal here. This will mainly follow my 40 Breeder, but may occasionally have info relating to my smaller low tech tanks.

Here is the tank as it stands now:
tempImageezslIW.jpg

Equipment:
  • Chihiros WRGB II Pro Light - right now settings are R:78, G:52, B:78
  • Fluval Stratum 2+ years old
  • Oase 350 Biomaster Thermo
  • NilocG 24" Rex Griggs Reactor
  • Co2 Art Pro-SE Regulator
  • Aquatop ATP Surface Skimmer
  • Hydor Koralia Nano
Tank Parameters/Dosing:
  • KH - 0.5-1.5 (RO water reconstituted)
  • GH - ~6 (30ppm Ca, 10ppm Mg)
  • Temp - 76F
  • ~1.4 PH drop
  • PAR ranges from ~200 in the middle to 120 in the corners at the substrate.
  • Current dosing:
    • Weekly totals: 22.5:7.5:27 + 0.9Fe from Burr Micros. Water column target: 30:10:36
    • Methodology: I do two 50-60% water changes weekly. So for the sake of keeping things simple, I figure the weekly volume of water changed is around 75%.
What's currently going on:

So about a month ago, I decided to bring my dosing down a bit. My weekly totals a bit over a month ago were 30:9:35. I was getting a tiny bit of green dust, so I figured at least my NO3 was a bit high. I liked the ratios I had things at and don't think my tank needed as much PO4 or K either, so I decided to just lower things across the board at the same ratios and see how things reacted. I make up about a month's worth of macros at a time, so a month ago I made a batch at 25:7.5:30. I just made a new batch over the weekend at the new numbers, so I've given my tank about a month to adjust to the new levels each time and observe.

The way I see it, I have 1 main weak spot in my tank's layout that I'm still trying to strengthen--the back left corner. Also, I'm not super satisfied with the green plant (hygro difformis variegated) to the left of the Rotala SG nor the brownish/pinkish plant (hygro sp. brown) to the left of the Ludwigia Meta. The hygro difformis variegated just seems to grow sideshoots laterally mostly, which makes maintenance easy but also keeps it from looking how I'd like.

The hygro sp. brown has wide spacing between internodes, grows like a weed, and throws out tons of aerial roots. I've put up with it for a while though because it's a really unique color and I haven't really seen anyone else scape with it yet, but I've finally decided to swap it out with something else. I have some ludwigia ovalis on the way to try in hygro sp. brown's spot and some rotala bangladesh and vietnam to try in the back left spot.

Any suggestions for a green plant to swap with the hygro difformis variegated are welcome!
 
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Love it! The 40 breeder is just a great size and a common starter tank for many.

Few things:
  1. Would be great if you set up your Build Thread banner so that it's easy for people to find your build.
  2. How are you liking the Fluval Stratum? Two years old should give you a pretty good sense of how it's holding up.
  3. I know it's considered common today but I think something like the Myriophyllum guyana would work well in the back left as it would give you a green, bushy plant that would contrast well with the surrounding plants.
  4. Are you dry dosing?
  5. Why are you finding that you need two-a-week water changes?
 
Love it! The 40 breeder is just a great size and a common starter tank for many.

Few things:
  1. Would be great if you set up your Build Thread banner so that it's easy for people to find your build.
  2. How are you liking the Fluval Stratum? Two years old should give you a pretty good sense of how it's holding up.
  3. I know it's considered common today but I think something like the Myriophyllum guyana would work well in the back left as it would give you a green, bushy plant that would contrast well with the surrounding plants.
  4. Are you dry dosing?
  5. Why are you finding that you need two-a-week water changes?
Thanks, Art! Should have the build thread banner up and running now. It isn't showing up around my profile when I'm on my phone though. Not sure if that is something you're aware of and that can't be helped.

I went with Fluval Stratum because I was pretty inexperienced when I started this tank and I didn't want to deal with ammonia leaching. I started this tank when I moved and I transferred all my fish from a 20g high into the tank, so the absence of ammonia leaching made the transition smoother. Also liked that it was one of the cheapest aquasoils around. 2 ½ years later and I can't say that it's physically degraded at all. Also has been pretty clean with uprooting. Main downside I have experienced is it is pretty darn light weight-wise, and before smaller plants are really rooted I will frequently have to replant some.

Yes I'm dry dosing. Using the basic salts - KNO3, KH2PO4, KSO4 + CaSO4 & MgSO4 for GH. Also using a tiny bit of CaCl2 to get some chloride like Gregg does too since I'm using RO water and because Burr740's micros don't have any.

Sounds great, thanks for the suggestion for a plant. I think I will go with that actually.

I do 2 water changes weekly for several reasons:
  1. First and foremost because I have the time to do them right now with my schedule haha.
  2. High tech planted tanks and fish love water changes. I think a tank will pretty much always do better with 2 water changes rather than one a week. At least, in my case I've definitely noticed that things stay cleaner and are happier when I'm able to.
  3. Also, because this is a garden style, dutch-inspired tank, I am doing a lot of uprooting, and large frequent water changes are pretty much a necessity when that is the case.
  4. I have a pretty high fish load, so the 2x a week large water changes specifically help me keep slower growing species like buce and crypt flamingo algae free more easily in an environment with a decent amount of organic waste.
EDIT: Can myriophyllum guyana be used as a background plant? I think I’ve only seen it used in the foreground and midground.
 
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Thought I’d finally do an update on the tank lol. Current FTS:

F973BA90-5B3D-4D0C-9218-BB587FE1613D.jpeg


What’s been going on lately:

-Switched the substrate from Stratum to Landen around the first of May. Process was pretty easy and took the time to change the tank inhabitants to something more fitting for the plants being the main focus and lowered the overall stocking level.
-For the first time since I set the tank up in 2020 when I was still very much a noob, I’m having legit algae issues again. I messed with the reactor I was using and caused a leak, so I had to do a quick switch to an inline diffuser to hold me over. I had never used an inline diffuser until then, and I had to mess with the CO2 so much to get it in an okay spot that I triggered some hair algae that I’ve been having some trouble with.

Trying out API Algaefix for it as of today for the first time, because I’ve heard it is great for hair algae, and going back to at least 2 water changes a week. Also have more GSA than I’d like. Luckily I know so much more now than I used to, so I’m not too worried, and I’ve kept the hair algae under control. The main thing that worries me is a couple people I know who also bought Landen in the last year got a very strange type of hair algae that wouldn’t go away without resorting to bleaching the tank, @ryancamaratta being one of them. So fingers crossed it isn’t that weird hair algae.

Also mixed up my own batch of micros for the first time ever, so that was cool. I highly recommend the IFC calculator for it, takes care of serial dilutions and all which made it very simple. That and @GreggZ’s article got me through it lol.
 
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@Freshflora thanks for the update! We really appreciate it. The tank is looking great
  1. What made you switch from Stratum to Landen? What was the process? Sucked out with a hose?
  2. While certainly CO2 changes or instability can lead to some algae issues, IME any moderate to large change may impact the growth of plants and lead to algae taking a foothold. Always they're waiting for an opportunity. Did you replant / trim at the same time?
  3. My personal philosophy is to try natural methods of algae control except for cyanobacteria. Please let us know how it goes with the API Algaefix. I didn't know about @ryancamaratta's strange algae. @ryancamaratta did you ever figure out what it was?
  4. The IFC Calculator is a passion project by Paul Lefevre Morales. It's co-authored with the help of many people. As it's an Excel-based calculator, it's different than the online Rotala Butterly project. IFC is a great calculator but there is more of a learning curve.
Of course, this is @GreggZ great thread:
The Custom Micro Mix Thread
 
Thanks for adding in those links, Art. I'm sure that will prove helpful to people.

My substrate was almost 3 years old, and I'd been wanting to try Landen for a while. I took all the plants out and wrapped them in wet paper towels in a cooler. Took out all the fish and put them in a 5 gallon bucket with a heater and an airstone. Scooped out almost all the Stratum, leaving around a ½ inch/1cm of stratum on the bottom to maintain some of the beneficial bacteria. Did pretty much a 100% water change. Added in the Landen and did at least 2 large water changes, probably around 60%. Put the fish back in. Did at least one water change a day for the next few days. Then at least 2 water changes a week for the second and third week. Some melting from the fresh aquasoil during that first month, and then the plants took off. Zero nuisance algae at all until the beginning of July when I had to switch to the inline diffuser, so it was a really smooth process.

For almost 2 years I did heavy uprooting and replanting followed by a water change, and I never had nuisance algae. If I had BBA in this tank, it was during the first 6 months of 2020 when I originally set the tank up and was still very much a noob, but I don't really remember if I did. I know I remember I had staghorn and cladophora. Same with hair algae, don't really remember having it but if I did it was during those first 6 months. The tank completely stabilized after the substrate change and the substrate had already cooled down when I made the switch over to the inline diffuser. I had zero nuisance algae. Then I installed the inline diffuser and messed with the injection rate both while the CO2 was off and on repeatedly over a period of at least 2 weeks. Boom. Overnight I had BBA and then eventually hair algae pop up. It was very eye opening on the importance of good consistent CO2.

From talking with Ryan, he said people IDed it as a type of filamentous algae that normally does not occur in our aquariums and is found in natural ecosystems. He came to the conclusion that it was most likely introduced through plant purchases from another hobbyist. Based on how fast it took over his tank and its persistence, I don't think it's what I have.

Natural methods like water changes, manual removal, dimming the light extra cleaning of filters etc. are definitely king when it comes to algae removal and prevention. However, sometimes with legit blooms you need some help killing some of the algae spores because once a bloom is triggered it can be too persistent for natural methods to take care of the situation more quickly. Barr has done some extensive testing on API algae fix and found it does not harm plants, including sensitive species like Toninas and syns, nor sensitive species of scaleless fish and is great with all types of filamentous algae. Only harmful towards shrimp and maybe other invertebrates. Since I don't have shrimp or any other invertebrates in my tank, I figured it was a good opportunity to try it out. I will keep you guys updated on it.
 
So it seems like the API Algaefix worked a charm. Within a day or so the hair algae turned a gray dead color and it has not come back. I do believe it lowers the oxygen content in the water a bit, so additional aeration during treatment if you do not have a sump is not a bad idea. Also, might want to do a half dose on one day and then another half dose the day after to mitigate the oxygen depressing. No issues with any of my livestock!

Here's the tank currently:

tempImagek1yrJb.jpg

Pretty much 100% plant health right now. I've not been happy with the syngonanthus giants, might replace those. I have some tissue culture gratiola viscidula growing out behind it and may replace the syn giants with that. Behind the smaller buces and in front of the erio lineare is another newcomer -- buce dark skeleton king AKA kishii. I know someone growing some awesome submerged kishii with large orange leaves, so I wanted to give it a shot myself.

I got a new milligram scale that I'd definitely recommend to others. It has a 50g capacity and is rock solid to the 0.001 decimal point - https://a.co/d/0uZX5ha. This is the milligram scale I had before - https://a.co/d/itam2Cx. It only had a 20g capacity, and was not accurate at all and would fluctuate a lot between the 0.01-0.001 decimal points. It may have to do with the fact that the tray I was using to weigh out powders on it was constantly pushing it beyond its 20g capacity and the directions on these scales emphasize it's important not to overload the scale for accuracy purposes. For that reason, I think a 50g capacity milligram scale is much better, because you can take your tray's weight into mind and not overload the scale while also still measuring out at least 20g + worth of powder at a time.

Have some new plants on the way -- going to be replacing the limnophila sp. green wavy with ludwigia white. I've tried to grow it twice in the past unsuccessfully -- not the easiest plant to convert from emersed. Also going to be trying out didiplis diandria behind the bacopa salzmannii sg.
 
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Thanks for the update and confirmation on the AlgaeFix. I'm glad it worked out well for you. It's certainly an option to keep in mind.

Appreciate the recommendation on the scale. I've been through many because accuracy is an issue with so many.

Let us know how the new plants look!
 
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