The Planted Tank Forum banner

The 120-P Reader - Pictures Included (56KWarning)

40K views 210 replies 43 participants last post by  theblondskeleton 
#1 ·
A little background, first. I’ve been a member for a while, but out of the loop for about a year.

I have been a planted tank hobbyist for around 4-5 years. I have made some truly horrific planted monstrosities. I didn’t keep the pictures of all the bad ones for, well, obvious reasons, but I kept some. Remember that I said these are the ones I didn’t toss out, haha…

I had always been fascinated with the iwagumi style. I particularly value the wabi-sabi aesthetic it demonstrates – and really that’s what draws me to Mr. Amano’s work and Japanese style gardens in general. My own work as a theatre director follows this same transient, imperfect ideal, and I have always been drawn to art and expression that reveals frailty, character, uniqueness, organic origin and development, etc, particularly as it represents isolation and flawed beauty.

While I am only a doe-eyed novice yet, I always strive toward this sense of wabi-sabi – with little success, I admit – in my layouts. The areas I need the most experience and practice in are plant selection and trimming techniques.

I’ve spent a lot of time lately on the ADA View YouTube channel, and really it couldn’t have happened at a better time. These videos have been invaluable to me. Seeing these scapes planted for seminars, and then trimmed and grown in - seeing their development over time - awesome.

We don’t have an active club in my area, and the members around Portland are not terribly active as a community, so we have little opportunity to share plants, techniques, and tips with one another. This has been a good substitute so far.

A quick retrospective of my previous work. I do this for context. Go ahead and skip, if you want the build begins later. But, If you like a good, old-fashioned house of horrors, or a nice freak show, perhaps the type you'd rather not admit you love to see, then please by all means share in my past failures!

An early attempt:



Things I got right: CO2 and Light
Things I didn’t: Ferts, substrate, layout, trimming, and plant choice

I wanted to represent an area much like my home. High desert. Tonina sp. “Lago Grande” was a poor choice, here. The other plants grew ok, though.

Another:



Things I got right: Layout, substrate, CO2, Light
Things I didn’t: Ferts, trimming and layout material

Ugh… why am I sharing this? Well, I think it’s important to remember where I’ve been, so that I can see how far I’ve come. Plus, it’s kind of cathartic to relive some of these horrors, haha…

My first collectoritis tank:



Things I got right: light, ferts, heavily planted
Things I didn’t: CO2 (neither stable nor well distributed), substrate, layout, gassed my fish ☹

This was my first 90-gallon scape. Perfect footprint, but the height was a LOT to deal with. I couldn’t get the proportions to look right. I couldn’t tolerate the complete chaos, either. I enjoy engineered chaos. My job is a lot like that.

My first (sort-of) success:



Things I got right: Light, CO2, diffusion, ferts, heavily planted, substrate, layout
Things I didn’t: trimming

That was my 90-gallon from a few years back. I had a chance to practice some trimming techniques and grew a pretty awesome HC carpet. I never trimmed the carpet though, so it eventually uprooted when it reached about 2” thick. The plants grew so quickly that I couldn’t keep up with them. 6xT5HO plus reactor diffusion and PPS classic dosing was a very high-growth combination!

The next version of the 90-gallon:



Lace rock and Manzanita. Kind of a tough scape to maintain with the sand. Eventually, my routine broke down, and I ceased to be productive scape-wise. I still really wanted an iwagumi scape. So, I built a few nanos to try my hand at stone layouts.





And then, back to the 90 for some wacky stone scapes:







That one was more like an aquarium clown-car: How much hardscape can I cram into a 90-gallon glass box?

Others:













 
See less See more
17
#129 ·
Fplata is right- this stuff be nasty.

Thanks for the tips! For now, I'm trying to stabilize it. Then I'll zap it and do a bunch of water changes. Hopefully that will do the job. I'll try the Excel treatment, as H202 didn't really do a lot.

Actually, it did, but my CO2 was wonky so it didn't last. I suppose I could try to be more accurate.
 
#130 ·
my fights lasted two weeks + here is what I did

first week i started with acclimatization of the shrimp (i have anout 300 of them, rilli, PFRs, Amano, etc) to the exell, i started at 1/2 and worked my self up to almost 3x, watch your shrimp. once i was at almost 3x, i started water changes daily with the first water change being so large that exposed most of my rocks and allowed me the chance the brush 3% h2o2 on to the affected areas. i was dosing full ADA, which i noticed lacked no3 and po4, I then brought up my po4 to .8ppm and my no3 to 2ppm (iam at 1.2 PPM of po4 and 3 PPM of no3 with a 60% WC every 5 days) I applied phiton git everyday @ 1 drop per 5L it took 14 days for the rocks to get fully cleaned, i only applied H202 1 time. i did not mess with the photo period at all. now my co2 is at a level where i can not count the bubbles sat 16 bps (i dont know) and the algae has been pretty much dormant, i have a strong ripple on the surface, i know i am probably degassing CO2, but i am doing everything possible to keep my beneficial bacteria thriving. I also used a carbon media (30% of my canister was carbon, the remainder biological) I am now back to 100% bio
 
#132 ·
Yes, this is similar to what I have been doing, following your schedule. I'm now a little more than 1/2 way through the Excel regimen. I did notice one otto freaking out last night when I accidentally turned on the lights (which usually never happens) so I might do a little water change today just in case. Nevertheless, I did a very strong bleach-to-water (1:6) dip of all my stone and anubias (the plants were in there for about a minute to 2 minutes tops) along with a vigorous Oral-B brushing, lol. Everything survived and came out beautifully, though I left the stones in and scrubbed them for about 5 or 6 minutes. Subsequently, I too have had my CO2 very high, I would say around no more than 6pbs, but I also have a mild surface current. In a 48 G tank that currently holds probably 42G of water (displaced substrate and stone) I only have 5 ottos, 1 loach and 5/6 Amanos so I'm not to worried about the CO2 issue ATM. So far, so good and with addition of more plants, I think the algae is going to be history (or at least that's what I'm hoping, lol).
 
#131 ·
Sounds like you have the process down - at the core, treating any algae is the same game: return the balance, and then eliminate the stragglers.

For my algae outbreak, I was misdiagnosing what the algae was (I had never seen a clado outbreak before, so I didn't recognize it until it was pointed out to me), so my attempts to bring it back to balance were hindered and tended to make things worse. As soon as I identified it properly, I was able to correct the imbalance (CO2) and start cleanup. Now, I have hit it with H2O2 and Excel and most is dead or dying. Now come regular water changes to evacuate the dead plant/algae matter so it doesn't turn into a different algae issue.
 
#133 ·
I think with the larger aquariums that you and fplata have, it may be more difficult to get a handle on the algae issue because the volume of water is so much higher, and thus the remedies must also be proportional to the higher volume. But that's just my guess, either way, I have had fairly great success following the same process and would advise you to try it out and see what happens. As always YMMV...:redface:
 
#134 ·
I actually think that the size of these bigger tanks makes us (me) feel like we (I) need more light than we (I) actually do. Plus maintenance just takes a bit longer, but I actually enjoy that part. I am always surprised at how little light I truly need to do what I want. And it takes a bit of wrestling to get there still.

Balance-wise, I have no trouble with my Do!Aqua "10-gallon" (I don't remember the size, but its exactly the same as a standard 10). I have always been able to set and forget that one.
 
#138 ·
So it's been a while since my last pic update. The clado went bonkers and pretty much buried everything until I got my CO2 sorted out. Trims, water changes, water changes, water changes, and some Excel and H2O2 treatments brought us here. Still not super but much better. Everything has been trimmed so its a little barren-looking at the moment, but when it grows back in it should be nice and pretty.

Plant community Plant Rectangle Pet supply Wood


H2O2 works much better against the clado than Excel, which hardly touched it. The key has been heavy CO2 dosing. My reg is at 38-40 psi for 2 diffusers: an atomic diffuser an an atomic in-line diffuser.

I had been using mineral oil in my bubble counters but after much trouble with leaking, infiltration to my diffusers, etc., I replace it with water. More trouble than its worth. Unless I can find a super reliable bubble counter with a double check valve, I'm sticking with this:

Fluid Gas Machine Plumbing Cylinder


I'm beginning to believe that all of my issues (past and present) have been connected to CO2 imbalances. I browse through my journals, and reassess what was happening (plus what wasn't written), and I see consistent CO2 related issues. This isn't from any particular resistance in my part to acknowledge it, but more due to trying to find shortcuts to a simple problem. I'll try not to do that anymore. The issue has been keeping my reg pushing enough CO2 to keep a steady pressure and CO2 level. Also equipment maintenance. Sometimes you just have to do the nasty.

Next month, I'm going to pick up about 100 Amanos. After all of my issues, I currently only have 1 survivor. This was due to a nitrite spike that took me by surprise a couple weeks ago. Very frustrating. I had been overdosing ferts to an insane degree, and the Amanos suffered for it. Currently, I'm back on PPS, and it is working much better for me.
 
#139 ·
It's 'funny' that you mention CO2, because mine just ran out, damn it! 100 Amanos, wow! Are you sure that you need that many - mean I know you have a 120, but isn't that overkill? Believe me when I say that they will grow very large and AFAIK their appetites never decrease, lol. Well if you do, we want some pics of that Amano...swarm? What's a collection of shrimp named, lol? Good to hear that you've narrowed the cause to the CO2. I've found over the years that having reliable, consistent CO2 is of paramount importance in a high light aquarium and there is no substitute for it.
 
#140 ·
It looks like the clado has slowed considerably! I can see parts of my rocks again, haha... I'm making progress after all. This is a very good thing. Progress, however, is not perfection. Still attacking with H2O2, trimming aggressively, and dosing regularly. The return to PPS has taken a load of confusion off. This is much more manageable now. Guess I'll just be sticking with it :)
 
#142 ·
Clado is gone after a lengthy battle (won in the end by diligence and lots of water changes). Now to repair and regrow. I planted some HC and glosso a well as some ludwigia to color things up a bit. I moved the hydrocotyle to the mid ground where it belongs, and everything is super trimmed. I also picked up an Eheim 2217 and it is cycling right now. Eventually I may pick up another and go dual on this. I really like the flow I'm getting with it. About double that if my old Renas. Everything is looking up finally!

Plant Plant community Rectangle Wood Grass
 
#144 ·
I started with two big ones (90% or so) in one week after spot dosing around 150ml of H2O2 on the clado. It was sizzling for about 15 minutes before I started the water change. I then trimmed the crap out of everything - often down to the very substrate - just to get rid of as much as I could. Then I'd give it a day off, then hit it again. I did one more big one on the next Sunday, again trimming ruthlessly, and repeated it the next week. Then I cranked up the CO2 and lowered my lights a bit. After that it was a slow (2 weeks) retreat. This stuff is a pain, but it is possible to get rid of, once you identify the cause. Mine was a series of issues with my CO2 system that were causing unstable levels. No BBA, oddly enough.

The big issue now is my LED fixture is out of commission while I wait for a new driver, so I'm back to my T5HO's. Good thing I hadn't sold them like I had intended.
 
#148 ·
Thanks :)

By the way: Eheim 2217 FTW!

I have a 2211 on my small setup upstairs but this is just phenomenal. The flow I'm getting is soooooo much better! I love my Renas - they've been good to me - but this is kind of impressive. Eventually I'll pick up a super jet, but this will do in the meantime :)

New plants settling in happily.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top