Journal UNS 45T Nature Style-Inspired High Tech Build

[BranchScape]

Looks good, sorry about the jumper. They sell a 45T lid but not sure it fits the pipes but if it does that could help.

 

[deepgreen]

Made an annoying mistake that luckily only cost me a little time and convenience. It’s been about 10 yrs since I last had a CO2 injected tank, and I guess I forgot that I need to wrench tighten the regulator. I set up the CO2 about a month before I finally got planted, but noticed that the pressure was near 0 and the bottle was almost empty. Applied a little soapy water everywhere and couldn’t find any leaks, but I knew there had to have been one somewhere. I’m getting new washers today to be sure, but I’m fairly certain I just didn’t tighten the regulator connection enough.

Oh well, just refilled the 5# bottle today for $14 and asked them to fill to 800PSI.

To be honest, I intended to get the higher end FZone regulator but got this one secondhand from someone selling it along with the CO2 bottle. If I encounter more issues I’ll probably swap it out.

It may not be a leak at all. Are you certain that you got a completely filled cylinder? Sometimes, it happens that it was not properly filled. They should weigh your bottle. The pressure does not help because you always have the same pressure until the cylinder is almost empty. CO2 becomes liquid at this pressure leading to a constant pressure in the remaining gas phase.

 

[ample]

It may not be a leak at all. Are you certain that you got a completely filled cylinder? Sometimes, it happens that it was not properly filled. They should weigh your bottle. The pressure does not help because you always have the same pressure until the cylinder is almost empty. CO2 becomes liquid at this pressure leading to a constant pressure in the remaining gas phase.

I believe it was a combination of not being properly filled initially and not tightening the regulator to the cylinder fully. The first time I got the cylinder it was only at about 500PSI, but this time I asked them to fill it to 850PSI and they did. I also cranked it with a wrench this time and it seems to be holding pressure.

 

[ample]

Looks good, sorry about the jumper. They sell a 45T lid but not sure it fits the pipes but if it does that could help.

The UNS lids don’t have enough clearance for pipes, and I have some driftwood breaching the surface anyhow. I might consider a strip of thick acrylic across the long sides, almost like a euro brace, but even then I wouldn’t be able to get total coverage of the perimeter.

Hoping I’ll just have a chill group of fish and try not to gas them with CO2.

 

[ample]

Week 2 Update

Did a water change and some light maintenance.

• Very slight brown algae on the glass and some of the smaller stones
• First trim: moss is starting to get tons of new growth and bright green tips so I trimmed some of the long stringy bits to encourage compact fluffy growth. Trimmed a couple of the hydrocotyle runners. Trimmed a couple buce leaves in poor condition. So far it looks like all the buce is transitioning well and only dropping one or two leaves here and there.
• Not much mulm to siphon, so I’m pretty happy with the filter flow rate and pattern.

Livestock Added

• 1 male honey gourami
• 8 corydoras habrosus
• Handful of red cherry shrimp from my other tank
• Fish are so expensive now, holy cow. The last time I kept fish was almost 10 years ago and these exact same species were about half of what they are now. Crazy how things change.

Everyone is thriving and eating well! Still waiting on my local connection to get back to me on the group of pseudomugil luminatus and Ludwigia arcuata so that I can plant the background. A little difficult to get in touch with him but he always has such high quality stock that I’m okay waiting.

Lighting and CO2
I started the tank on 25% power for the Chihiros WRGB II 10th edition, but haven’t increased the power at all. None of the plants are particularly demanding and I don’t mind the aesthetics at all, so as of right now I don’t see a reason to increase the power. Would love to hear some thoughts though.
Now that I have fish, I’ve been trying to dial in the CO2 injection rate and photoperiod. I think I need to lower the BPS by a hair because I notice the Cories start to glass surf and surface more towards the end of the photo period when the drop checker turns light green. In the first week, the drop checker would stay greenish until the following day, but now it’s turning blue before the photo period is even over. It takes a couple of hours to go from blue to green but then teeters into the yellow green zone a couple hours before lights go off. So I think I need to start it earlier but turn it down in order to flatten out the saturation curve a bit.

 

[MrJG]

Really digging the layout! It’s nice and bright feeling but has some dark spots to give a little mystery. I like too how it has a jungly feel from the start, it’s going to be a banger once it matures.
I follow you on the co2 it gets tough to dial in when you aren’t around during the week (me) so I feel like you get one good shot to make a change to see how it hits on sat/sun.

 

[ample]

Really digging the layout! It’s nice and bright feeling but has some dark spots to give a little mystery. I like too how it has a jungly feel from the start, it’s going to be a banger once it matures.
I follow you on the co2 it gets tough to dial in when you aren’t around during the week (me) so I feel like you get one good shot to make a change to see how it hits on sat/sun.

Thanks! I’m not going for super jungly but I have two fistfuls of buce that I’m just holding in my tank until I can swap it out. It’s just shoved in the foreground and back right corner for now. I think it’s making things look a bit more chaotic than I intended.
I was going more for the classic NA style, but I don’t have enough of the trident java fern to fill out the spider wood, and I’m also waiting on some Ludwigia arcuata to make a dense bush in the back.

 

[ample]

1 Month Update

Skipped the 3 week update and probably won’t be doing weekly updates from here on out, as I expect the tank to remain pretty stable from week to week.

Last week I noticed some hydra. I think their reputation is a bit overblown, but because I recently transferred a bunch of juvenile and berried neocaridinas into the tank, I wanted to be cautious and dose the tank with some No Planaria that I already had (btw, did anyone see that it’s now $80 on Amazon?!). I did a full dose the first day and a half dose the second day. Ended up being overkill, as I started to see a ton of stringy white goop all over the place.

I already planned to do some filter maintenance at the 4 week mark, but the flow was so impacted by the meds that surface agitation and oxygenation started to suffer. I ended up doing 2 additional small water changes and opening up the filter early. Everything is fine now and I don’t think anything in the system is too much worse for wear, but I’m glad that I can spot issues early and act appropriately before things get out of hand.


Staghorn Algae
Today I did my 4 week water change on schedule. Weeks 2-3 I had a very mild onset of diatoms, which just meant a little extra glass scraping. It didn’t even really affect the sand.


I also noticed some staghorn algae affecting a wide swath on the right side of the tank, in the open area opposite the outflow. It’s hitting a spare buce clump in the back right the hardest, but I’m also seeing some attached to hardscape, moss, anubias, and some longer java fern leaf tips that stick out into the open.

As of right now, I didn’t remove the buce. I trimmed some of the affected moss and Java fern leaves and generously dosed some APT fix over the buce. I’m not sure yet how I want to manage it, as I suspect some of it is just a result of instability in the past couple of weeks. I’m hoping overall good plant management and consistency will solve the issue, but if it doesn’t, I’m okay sacrificing that clump of buce anyway.


Don’t dose APT Fix directly to riccardia moss sitting exposed in air and leave it for an hour during a water change.


I moved some more Java fern from a neglected low tech nano tank to this one and finally finalized the positioning and glued some clumps down. Some of it is in rougher condition. Loving the fuller look and hoping it’ll grow massive like the ADA nature tanks over time.


Here’s a side view where you can see the Cyperus helferi that I was being dramatic about in another thread. I’m not really paying much attention to it and hope my indifference makes it grow.

I still desperately want Ludwigia arcuata for the back of the tank, but admittedly there isn’t that much space behind the hardscape for planting, probably 1.5” of substrate. From my experience keeping it in previous high tech setups though, it’s a very hardy, fast growing stem that would look so nice as a golden/orange backdrop here.


Shoutout to Livestock

The fish and shrimp are really thriving and their behaviors add so much to the tank. The neos are getting bigger and breeding much more readily in this tank than in their original species only nano tank. The honey gourami is very active and follows you as you move around the tank. The cories are awesome and I like that the habrosus display more classic corydoras behavior at the bottom of the tank vs pygmies. They also double as an indicator of how well oxygenated the water is. They’ve adapted very well to the level of CO2 injection in this tank but as soon as flow and surface agitation go down, I’ll see them start to surface more toward the end of the injection period when they’re normally very relaxed.

Genuinely can’t wait to get a group of pseudomugil luminatus to complete the stocking.

 

[MrJG]

It’s looking really nice. I feel like our startups are synced up as I’m dealing with staghorn as well in high flow spots. Lots of manual removal happening. I know mine is most likely from inconsistent co2 and hopefully I’ve got that worked out.

Does the honey gourami do pretty well with the flow? I’ve been searching for a good centerpiece type fish that isn’t too crazy about snacking on shrimp.

 

[ample]

It’s looking really nice. I feel like our startups are synced up as I’m dealing with staghorn as well in high flow spots. Lots of manual removal happening. I know mine is most likely from inconsistent co2 and hopefully I’ve got that worked out.

Does the honey gourami do pretty well with the flow? I’ve been searching for a good centerpiece type fish that isn’t too crazy about snacking on shrimp.

Thanks! I just went through your journal and I’d say we’re pretty synced up. The staghorn is pretty tough to remove with pincettes or by hand, as it’s a bit slippery.

Surprisingly the honey gourami isn’t bothered by the flow. I had the same concerns and was worried he’d have issues without surface plants, but he doesn’t seem to hang out at the surface or by the outflow much, and the flow isn’t that strong except directly in the path of the outflow. He really works the entire tank and darts in and out of the hardscape and plants all day. Reminds me of a coral reef. I’ve seen him unsuccessfully go for some of the super young shrimp if they shoot past him, but he doesn’t pursue them. Super chill about the cories and adult shrimp. I’ve had more aggressive honey gouramis in the past, and I think they’re more territorial when they’re paired with females.