Journal Many Lessons || 150x60x60cm, 140gal, Horizontal Reactor High-energy Aquascape Journal

[Rob23]

Regarding C. helferi, the following excerpts are from Christel Kasselmann's book Aquarium Plants:

"Creeping rhizome, up to 5 cm long, 7 mm thick, very branchy... Vegetative propagation occurs through rhizome division as well as adventitious plants on the emersed inflorescences."​

 

[Rob23]

I've grown it in the past, and after 9-10 months it never once sent out runners:
View attachment 10445

Love the flow of this aquascape. C. helferi is a plant that has always struck me as particularly well suited to intimating motion in a still photo.

 

[Noahspapa]

Version 1:​

View attachment 8154View attachment 8155​

Version 2:​

View attachment 8156View attachment 8157​

After finally buying our first house, I was able to live out my dreams of installing a large high-tech rimless aquarium. It has:

• RO-water lines in (one large one for water adding from the basement storage, one small one for the top-off reservoir and float valve) with leak prevention and redundancy.
• A drain-out in the wall behind the stand for easy water changes.
• A custom built ADA-style plywood stand stand.
• Skylight Hyperspot FM lights above.
• A GHL Aquarium Computer to monitor and control auto-top offs and level, water changes, pH, flow sensors, etc.
  as well as control all sockets/outlets.

The Journal starts below:

Hello Rocco - can you tell me where you were able to purchase the Skylight Hyperspot lights?

 

[Kwyet]

I thought I posted this already, but it was sitting here waiting for me, lol! This is the close-up of the C. helferi. If it isn’t that, I would really like to know what it is so I can list it correctly. I really don’t think it’s Val. The leaves are thinner and more delicate when it’s young, and it doesn’t send runners out nearly as fast as Val does. Also Val’s runners tend to be under the substrate, while this spreads on top of the substrate.

 

[SkaleyAquatics]

I thought I posted this already, but it was sitting here waiting for me, lol! This is the close-up of the C. helferi. If it isn’t that, I would really like to know what it is so I can list it correctly. I really don’t think it’s Val. The leaves are thinner and more delicate when it’s young, and it doesn’t send runners out nearly as fast as Val does. Also Val’s runners tend to be under the substrate, while this spreads on top of the substrate.
View attachment 10448

Could it be a sagitarria? While ive never kept either C. helferi or sagitarria just throwing out other ideas. There's also alot of different vals but they typical spread pretty rapidly.

 

[Kwyet]

Could it be a sagitarria? While ive never kept either C. helferi or sagitarria just throwing out other ideas. There's also alot of different vals but they typical spread pretty rapidly.

I don’t know. It’s not the dwarf variety, but I haven’t kept the other ones to be able to compare.

Edit: I found a picture of an emersed C. helferi plant with a daughter plant. It looks like a runner to me, but raised up. Maybe it’s not quite so raised up when the plant is growing underwater, and that’s what I’m seeing. I thought rhizomes were always thicker and shorter, but apparently not. I think I do have C. helferi and was confusing its rhizomes/side shoots with runners. Regardless, it will spread on its own with some time. When mine sends some out again, I’ll take a picture.

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Hello Rocco - can you tell me where you were able to purchase the Skylight Hyperspot lights?

I got all of my Skylight Hyperspots in multiple orders from Nature Design Studio! I think he's the only guy in the US who currently carries them. I would highly recommend getting them while you can!

 

[Noahspapa]

I got all of my Skylight Hyperspots in multiple orders from Nature Design Studio! I think he's the only guy in the US who currently carries them. I would highly recommend getting them while you can!

Thank you very much!

 

[Kwyet]

Here is an example of my Cyperus helferi putting out a runner (or a rhizome). You can see it’s starting a new plant a few inches above the substrate, and is also sending out another runner/rhizome from that. What do think?

 

[gjcarew]

Looks like helanthium bolivianum "angustifolius" to me. Growth habit is all wrong for Cyperus helferi. Cyperus helferi should be a tighter rosette, with a white and brown base. With a val the leaves are flat all the way to the base, plus they tend to throw runners UNDER the substrate, as you mentioned.


Here's a pic of my halnthium bolivianum "angustifolius" from this morning. It has the same runners growing above the substrate. If I don't trim them I'll get runners floating all around the tank.

 

[Kwyet]

Looks like helanthium bolivianum "angustifolius" to me. Growth habit is all wrong for Cyperus helferi. Cyperus helferi should be a tighter rosette, with a white and brown base. With a val the leaves are flat all the way to the base, plus they tend to throw runners UNDER the substrate, as you mentioned.

View attachment 10605
Here's a pic of my halnthium bolivianum "angustifolius" from this morning. It has the same runners growing above the substrate. If I don't trim them I'll get runners floating all around the tank.

Thanks for solving the mystery! I think you must be right!

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Some thoughts on dosing (again, mostly for myself to remember!):​

Currently, I follow the same process with this big tank as I do my smaller experimental tank, where I dry dose my ferts via small cups.
After the 70% WC, I add the DIY GH booster, the initial recovery dose (20-6-26), and midweek after WC I add the booster dose (10-3-13).

However, it gets tedious measuring 2-3 amounts for each cup, multiplied by how many weeks of cups I want to make.
Instead, similar to my experimental tank, I'd like to consider making concentrated liquid ferts that I dose the exact same (20-6-26, with a 10-3-13 booster dose).

I'll keep dry dosing the GH powders (Ca/Mg SO4), as there's no good option for the alternative when you're working with 100 gallons of water.

The biggest issue with making a macro solution is that K2SO4 is the first limiting factor in terms of solubility. If you want to make a solution with K2SO4, you can only add a maximum of 120g/1000mL. For example, the solubility of KNO3 is closer to 360g/1000mL.

But in my macros bottle, where weekly total doses add 30-9-39, the KNO3 and PO4 already add 22.6ppm K naturally. I only need to add enough K2SO4 each week to add 16.4ppm, which brings the weekly total to 39ppm.

What if, to increase the concentration of my macros bottle, I cut out adding the extra K2SO4 in the macros solution, and instead included the dry K2SO4 powder in the GH cups? Each GH booster, delivered after WC, would add 20ppm Ca, 5ppm Mg, and 16.4ppm K.

This would allow me to create a 1000mL macros bottle that would last 11-12 weeks or more with only 90mL total weekly doses.

Has anyone ever tried this? Paging @Burr740 since we've been talking ferts a lot lately.

 

[gjcarew]

Commercially, yes. Seachem Equilibrium (their remineralizer) adds potassium. It makes sense, there is no reason we separate out calcium and magnesium from the other salts other than because of solubility issues. So why not do the same with potassium?

 

[PeerUnk]

I dont know why it shouldn't work. You are going to dose a little more K (front load at water change) and a little less during the week.
I tend to go with presolved dosing, not needed to have pour dry powders in the tank. Why not go with a larger solution bottle?

 

[Jeff Miotke]

Some thoughts on dosing (again, mostly for myself to remember!):​

Currently, I follow the same process with this big tank as I do my smaller experimental tank, where I dry dose my ferts via small cups.
After the 70% WC, I add the DIY GH booster, the initial recovery dose (20-6-26), and midweek after WC I add the booster dose (10-3-13).

However, it gets tedious measuring 2-3 amounts for each cup, multiplied by how many weeks of cups I want to make.
Instead, similar to my experimental tank, I'd like to consider making concentrated liquid ferts that I dose the exact same (20-6-26, with a 10-3-13 booster dose).

I'll keep dry dosing the GH powders (Ca/Mg SO4), as there's no good option for the alternative when you're working with 100 gallons of water.

The biggest issue with making a macro solution is that K2SO4 is the first limiting factor in terms of solubility. If you want to make a solution with K2SO4, you can only add a maximum of 120g/1000mL. For example, the solubility of KNO3 is closer to 360g/1000mL.

But in my macros bottle, where weekly total doses add 30-9-39, the KNO3 and PO4 already add 22.6ppm K naturally. I only need to add enough K2SO4 each week to add 16.4ppm, which brings the weekly total to 39ppm.

What if, to increase the concentration of my macros bottle, I cut out adding the extra K2SO4 in the macros solution, and instead included the dry K2SO4 powder in the GH cups? Each GH booster, delivered after WC, would add 20ppm Ca, 5ppm Mg, and 16.4ppm K.

This would allow me to create a 1000mL macros bottle that would last 11-12 weeks or more with only 90mL total weekly doses.

Has anyone ever tried this? Paging @Burr740 since we've been talking ferts a lot lately.

This is exactly what I do and have for years.

 

[Burr740]

Some thoughts on dosing (again, mostly for myself to remember!):​

Currently, I follow the same process with this big tank as I do my smaller experimental tank, where I dry dose my ferts via small cups.
After the 70% WC, I add the DIY GH booster, the initial recovery dose (20-6-26), and midweek after WC I add the booster dose (10-3-13).

However, it gets tedious measuring 2-3 amounts for each cup, multiplied by how many weeks of cups I want to make.
Instead, similar to my experimental tank, I'd like to consider making concentrated liquid ferts that I dose the exact same (20-6-26, with a 10-3-13 booster dose).

I'll keep dry dosing the GH powders (Ca/Mg SO4), as there's no good option for the alternative when you're working with 100 gallons of water.

The biggest issue with making a macro solution is that K2SO4 is the first limiting factor in terms of solubility. If you want to make a solution with K2SO4, you can only add a maximum of 120g/1000mL. For example, the solubility of KNO3 is closer to 360g/1000mL.

But in my macros bottle, where weekly total doses add 30-9-39, the KNO3 and PO4 already add 22.6ppm K naturally. I only need to add enough K2SO4 each week to add 16.4ppm, which brings the weekly total to 39ppm.

What if, to increase the concentration of my macros bottle, I cut out adding the extra K2SO4 in the macros solution, and instead included the dry K2SO4 powder in the GH cups? Each GH booster, delivered after WC, would add 20ppm Ca, 5ppm Mg, and 16.4ppm K.

This would allow me to create a 1000mL macros bottle that would last 11-12 weeks or more with only 90mL total weekly doses.

Has anyone ever tried this? Paging @Burr740 since we've been talking ferts a lot lately.

This is what I used to do before I had a retail macros product, now I use that with them all in solution. Good input from others above. I'll add that KCL dissolves easier than SO4. Its still the hardest thing to dissolve but you can get a little more ppm into solution

At a strength of 2 ml per 10 gal, 3 ppm from kcl is the absolute max you can get along with the other two macros. 2 or 2.5 is a little more comfortable. Id stick with the latter ppm using an auto doser. And can always increase the ML per dose by a little bit to make it less concentrated

KCL will add approx 1 ppm of Cl for every 1 ppm K. Thats not even close to being a problem ime

But dry dosing it at wc is a simple fix too

 

[Minninips]

Hi Rocco, I'm taking a lot of inspiration from your tank setup as I plan out an 80 Gal setup myself. I'm considering getting the Hyperspot light and was wondering if you could share a picture of how the lights are installed over your tank. I'm considering making a custom light stand in order to hide the power cord and still allow for the light to hang over the tank. Do the back (tops?) of the lights generate a lot of heat?

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

wondering if you could share a picture of how the lights are installed over your tank.

They were installed in the drywall in the ceiling with the kit that came with the lights!

I'm considering making a custom light stand in order to hide the power cord and still allow for the light to hang over the tank. Do the back (tops?) of the lights generate a lot of heat?

these lights have been on for 8 hours at 80% power. I hit the tops with a temp gun, and it was between 100 and 104F at the most:



They're not too hot at all!

 

[Minninips]

Fabulous, thank you!!

 

[Kwyet]

I love how everything you do has such precision.