Journal SkaleyAquatics Re-attempted Dutch

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SkaleyAquatics

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Hello Everyone,

So, 2 years ago I attempted my first Dutch aquarium that some of you may remember from various other forums.
It was this 10gal:
Last 10gal shot.jpg
Unfortunately life got busy and this tank became a disaster a few weeks after this picture was shot.

The good news is today starts a new Dutch aquarium. Taking what I learned 2 years ago and hopefully applying more patience this time around for this 40gal:
20240609_143412.jpg

This was literally setup today. And wanted to share my journey navigating the Dutch aquascaping scene.

Equipment:
Tank: 40gal breeder (36in x 18in x 16in)
Light - Fluval 3.0 Planted (Set to 80% for 6 hours with a ramp up and ramp down time of 1 hour total)
Filter - Aquaclear 70
Heater - Eheim Thermocontrol 125 - set to 72F/22C
CO2 - 10lb tank with Co2Art SE Pro regulator with intank diffuser (On 1.5 hours before lights on and off 2 hour before lights off)

Ferts:
Following @Unexpected fert numbers from his tank of the month post as a baseline to start. These are all front loaded besides the Micros:
NO3 30ppm
PO4 10ppm
K 40ppm
Fe .45ppm
Ca 24ppm
Mg 8ppm

pH and pH drop is currently unknown as I have tested it yet but will tomorrow after work to see numbers as the diffuser and check valve came in about an hour before lights on.
I am using a RO/DI unit that I have setup about 5 feet from the aquarium.

Plants:
  1. alternanthera reineckii var. 'roseafolia' TC
  2. bacopa carolina TC
  3. bolbitis heaudelotii difformis TC
  4. cryptocoryne lutea
  5. cryptocoryne Crispatula TC
  6. elocharis montevidensis
  7. hygrophila salicifolia
  8. hygrophila pinnatifida TC
  9. hygrophila lancea araguaia TC
  10. lobelia cardinalis TC
  11. ludwigia repens
  12. ludwigia palustiris
  13. rotala H'ra TC
  14. staurogyne repens TC
I am extremely excited to be able to start up another Dutch aquarium. and am looking forward to this journey. This aquarium is about 10ft from my desk in my mancave of the basement so it will get a lot of viewing from me.
 
Quick update today: I was finally able to get the pH drop, my old pH pen finally lost all of its sensitivity and I had to order another one. At peak pH I'm at 5.5, after letting it off-gas for 24hours it is at 6.7, a solid 1.2 pH drop. I would ideally like to get this down to a 1.5 drop but I am pretty happy with the 1.2 I currently sit at.
 
SkaleyAquatics said:
Quick update today: I was finally able to get the pH drop, my old pH pen finally lost all of its sensitivity and I had to order another one. At peak pH I'm at 5.5, after letting it off-gas for 24hours it is at 6.7, a solid 1.2 pH drop. I would ideally like to get this down to a 1.5 drop but I am pretty happy with the 1.2 I currently sit at.
Click to expand...
@Yugang is better with the off gassing specifics but just letting it sit won’t get all the co2 for a nerd level starting pH. Your 1.2 could very easily be a 1.5 with a fully 100% degassed water sample. It’s probably close enough.

EDIT - scratch the yugang reactor stuff. I misread your filter, it won’t work with a HOB. My mistake.
 
FrankZ said:
@Yugang is better with the off gassing specifics but just letting it sit won’t get all the co2 for a nerd level starting pH. Your 1.2 could very easily be a 1.5 with a fully 100% degassed water sample. It’s probably close enough.

EDIT - scratch the yugang reactor stuff. I misread your filter, it won’t work with a HOB. My mistake.
Click to expand...
My plan is to eventually get a canister and put a yugang reactor, I've pretty much followed that build since @Unexpected adapted it.
 
Ended up getting a fx2 canister. Now I have to figure out how to build this Yugang horizontal reactor. IE what parts I need to pick up.

In the meantime here is a little update for the farm tank I am going to setup once my new regulator comes in:
20240616_185524.jpg
Don't mind the grey paint on the rim this was a tank from the fishroom.
This will have a chihiros wrgb II 60 on it to light it that I have laying around and I will put the aquaclear filter on this once I get the 40gal switched over to the FX2.

Also I seem to have a pretty happy nymphaea sp peru puerto maldonado:
20240616_174057.jpg
 
Drew out the reactor today and figured out everything I needed. Only 1 change was I'll be using 2" pvc for the reactor instead of 3" no where in town has a 3" -> 1.5" reducer in stock and I'd have to order a quantity of 10.

Decided to put a vinyl connection immediately after co2 injection to confirm I am getting bubbles into the reactor. I do not plan to have a relief valve but it's still a toss up on if it is needed or not.
20240617_130206.jpg
 
@SkaleyAquatics you may want to optimise your bypass, making sure that any bubbles that leave the reactor can travel up, not down as in your drawing. Please refer to the discussion here
scapecrunch.com

Horizontal CO2 Reactor - Yugang 鱼缸 Reactor

I closed the bypass and will see if any changes to co2. I don't expect any changes, definitely not when using the reactor with a precision regulator, ie under its maximum capacity, and most likely also not in overflow mode. when should we start worrying about a too slow water flow, or what I...
scapecrunch.com scapecrunch.com
 
Yugang said:
@SkaleyAquatics you may want to optimise your bypass, making sure that any bubbles that leave the reactor can travel up, not down as in your drawing. Please refer to the discussion here
scapecrunch.com

Horizontal CO2 Reactor - Yugang 鱼缸 Reactor

I closed the bypass and will see if any changes to co2. I don't expect any changes, definitely not when using the reactor with a precision regulator, ie under its maximum capacity, and most likely also not in overflow mode. when should we start worrying about a too slow water flow, or what I...
scapecrunch.com scapecrunch.com
Click to expand...
That's an easy enough fix, I can just switch the co2 injection to the bottom and the bypass to the top. Unless you think it the bubbles need to go up immediately after it leaves the reactor?
 
Alright.

Fluval 3.0 is gone and welcome the Weekaqua P900.
20240618_211525.jpg
I am blown away with how powerful this light is. This is at 70% overall power. UV at 90%. It's 9" from the top of the tank and 22" to the substrate. May have to borrow Greggz par meter to check the par every where.
20240618_211618.jpg I also added some new plants, one that I mentioned in nymphaea sp. Peru puerto maldonado, echinodorus iguazu 2009, cryptocoryne nurii var. Ruabensis 'rosen maiden'. I took out the cryptocoryne lutea, and the hygrophila pinnatifida melted on me(I choke this up to the tissue culture being on its last legs).

I have some more plants coming for this tank/farm tank. I'll have more updates later this week once I get the reactor built and hopefully the 20gal farm tank up and running.
 
Just wanted to give a huge thank you and shout out to Joe (@Burr740 ) for the plants and free sample of his micro mix, that i received today! Appreciate everything he has done to advance the hobby and the great prices!

1000004363.jpg
Expect an update soon. Lots of things have been updated the past couple weeks.
 
Haha, thanks Sean! I appreciate the order!

And ya know its not often I get to see what the plants I sell look like when somebody opens them. But I gotta say that looks pretty damn good straight out of the box, especially mid-summer

Thanks again man. I look forward to seeing your tank develop!
 
Last edited:
Burr740 said:
Haha, thanks Sean! I appreciate the order!

And ya know its not often I get to see what the plants I sell look like when somebody opens them. But I gotta say that looks pretty good straight out of the box, especially mid-summer

Thanks again man. I look forward to seeing your tank develop!
Click to expand...
They came in excellent for mid-summer. Very well packed by you!
 
Okay so here is the display/competition tank:
CompTank_07032024.jpg
Things are growing pretty well in the tank. GDA is starting to buildup a little on the substrate and have a bit of brown diatoms, specifically on the elocharis. Ended up getting a 407 for this tank and am still working building the horizontal reactor. Was hoping to get it installed today but I have ran into some other issues with the house like my utility faucet breaking and not having access to input water for RO. Car would not start yesterday, adopted a kitten for cat#5. Its always something with me and my wife.

The tank was a few days late on a water change this past week as I was out of town this past weekend and Sundays are the water change days for the hi-tech tanks. Almost everything looked okay except the ludwigia palustiris and staurogyne repens, the ludwigia looked to have developed choloris, and it had best I can describe as bleaching with olive green colored spots. I am guessing I need to up my Fe to resolve this? Staurogyne got trimmed and separated into stems as it was pretty much just clusters from TC.

It is going to be difficult for me to get this tank down to the correct number of plant species as I like way too many. Although when that time comes I know I have to find a spot for echinodorus A-Flame that I received for Joe, as I quickly fell in love with its color and leaf shape, it'll need a bright green behind it so it stands out. bylxa japicona is another I am really loving currently as well as I love the tiger stripe pattern its developing on its blades.

Was able to get the farm tank setup as well. Except its also a 40gal breeder as I have collecteritis and did not want to trash plants. With a 20gal being worked on as a secondary farm tank, these will be located in the fishroom. Here is the farm tank:
FarmTank1_07032024.jpg
Farm tank is getting daily fertilizer with the following levels:
NO3: 1.25ppm - totals: 8.75ppm
SO4: 0.2ppm - totals: 1.4 ppm
K: 1.5ppm - totals: 10.5ppm
Micros: 0.07ppm - totals: 0.49ppm
Ca and Mg are dosed the same as the comp tank at 24:8 ratio.
I have not fully checked my Co2 levels yet in this tank as plants are growing and thats fine with me for now. These will continue to have a intank diffuser as I don't mind the bubbles since this tank will never be pretty as I am using it strictly for growing plants. This will also apply to the 20gal farm tank once I get that running.
Photoperiod is exactly the same with co2 kicking on an hour and a half before lights on.
The light is the aquamaxxx prism II from BRS, Was able to grab one before they discontinued them and wish I would've grabbed a second one at the price they had them listed for.
I also like the substrate slightly better then the comp tank as its ever so slightly larger and planting is quite a bit easier than the crystal river in the comp tank. This is diamond black I believe from petsmart. I was going to use blasting sand but honestly I was not looking forward to washing it and just spent the extra money on this as I did not have to wash it at all.

Last project I have worked on is getting the RO storage barrels hooked together via uniseals and a float valve since I had a tendency to overfill them, and had to keep the wife happy. @GreggZ helped me with this by directing me towards the uniseals he used and they work great. I wont lie I was a little skeptical at first but after watching a few videos I felt better about them.

RO Barrels.jpg
One side note since quite a few of us will be entering AGA contest: I use krita for my editing software on pictures its completely free and open sourced if any one was looking for alternatives to the adobe powerhouse suite.
 
The green chlorotic spots on the red ludwigia is almost certainly low macros. I missed what youre dosing on the main tank. But your dosing on the farm tank above is only going to work with very small water changes, 20-25%. It wont be near enough doing 50-60% water changes - especially with inert substrate

Another thing daily dosing macros in general only works with small water changes. Micros it doesnt matter but with macros theres too big a drop in nutrient levels if youre doing 50+% water changes

These tanks are gonna need 15-20 ppm NO3, 4-6 PO4, and 25-30 K, per week doing 50-60% water changes. And thats probably what you should be doing, unless youre locked into a strict ppsp routine with small infrequent water changes
 
Burr740 said:
The green chlorotic spots on the red ludwigia is almost certainly low macros. I missed what youre dosing on the main tank. But your dosing on the farm tank above is only going to work with very small water changes, 20-25%. It wont be near enough doing 50-60% water changes - especially with inert substrate

Another thing daily dosing macros in general only works with small water changes. Micros it doesnt matter but with macros theres too big a drop in nutrient levels if youre doing 50+% water changes

These tanks are gonna need 15-20 ppm NO3, 4-6 PO4, and 25-30 K, per week doing 50-60% water changes. And thats probably what you should be doing, unless youre locked into a strict ppsp routine with small infrequent water changes
Click to expand...
Is it common to only occur in red ludwigia as that was the only thing with this issue in the tank? Or is it an early indication?

The main tank gets weekly totals of 30ppm NO3, 10ppm PO4 and 40ppm K over 4 doses now. A double dose at water change and then twice throughout the week.

I haven't seen it yet in the farm tank but will up those numbers to match what you are doing in yours. I'm doing about 60% WC a week on the 40's. I was trying to keep lower dosing numbers for the lythraceae species in the tank.
 
I see, that should be enough in the main tank. Just see how it goes moving forward

The only lythracaea species that dont like nutrients in the water is ammania. Everything else is gonna need it with inert substrate. But go by what the plants are saying, if theyre happy its fine
 
SkaleyAquatics said:
“….


The light is the aquamaxxx prism II from BRS, Was able to grab one before they discontinued them and wish I would've grabbed a second one at the price they had them listed for.
Click to expand...

What does your lighting profile look like. I just received my Wi-Fi controller yesterday. Thanks


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
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