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Jaguar's Low Tech ADA 60-P (Celebrating 6 Years of Failure!)

40K views 202 replies 41 participants last post by  Jaguar 
#1 · (Edited)
LATEST FTS Jan 20 2018:



TANK: ADA 60-P (17 gallon)
SUBSTRATE: Flourite mix - original, black, onyx sand
FILTRATION: Eheim Ecco 2234 w/ knockoff Lily pipes
LIGHTS: 12 3w Cree XPG LEDs, cool white, dimmable, 8 hrs a day on a dawn/dusk cycle

Scape will be very lush and natural, lots of leaves, texture, mostly green with a splash of red. Spider wood hardscape. Dosing EI light twice a week. Excel when I remember to. Some Osmocote+ capsules in there too.

FAUNA:
6x albino corydora
1x ember tetra
1x bristlenose pleco, longfin
1x assassin snail

FLORA:
Java fern windeloev
Java fern narrow leaf

Crypt wendtii green/red
Crypt walkeri
Crypt lucens
Crypt parva

Hygro sunset
Rotala rotundifolia

Anubias nana
 
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#113 · (Edited)
More plants, you say..?

MORE PLANTS, I say!

Stems! Stems! 4 kinds of stems. 6 bunches. I got em for $20. Manager gave me a discount. Cool!





Nothing too fancy scape-wise, kinda want to wait for everything to open up and grow flat before I start trying to move it around - not a lot of room in there!

Pulled out the little piece of driftwood and also the big Java fern.

If you have any arrangement/scape ideas please tell me!

I am not 100% sure what plants they are exactly - I know I got heteranthera zosterifolia (stargrass) and ammania gracilis, I want to say the other 2 are Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig'
(sunset hygro), and hygrophila salicifolia
 
#116 ·


Some excellent growth already - especially the stargrass (bottom left)! Due for a WC today and a minor rescape... I get soooo much tank evaporation... need a RO/DI water system for topoffs :(

Also got a stowaway Ramshorn snail on a bunch of L. repens (back center)... I decided to keep it :)

 
#119 ·


Today after a WC :) Not much to report, most things are growing great, a bit of melting on the salicifolia's (?) lower leaves, but new green growth on top so I'm confident it will bounce back, even if I have to trim the tops and replant em. Still hoping to get my CO2 back up and running in the future.
 
#121 ·
Oh yeah... my tank... lol. I started a new job recently and haven't done ANY maintenance other than topoffs on the tank in about 3 weeks. It looks just fine, but I had about a MILLION guppy fry... lol!



Here's what I set up to take care of the guppy fry (for now)... just a spare 5 gallon tank :)

 
#123 ·
I like I like, you can try some easy carpeting plants now. I did HC Cuba as my starter carpet and it was a very very unforgiving plant for starters. I'm glad you got the whole tank looking great now, maybe try some Dwarf Hair Grass? Plant and grow, that the way to go.
 
#125 ·
Wow... again, been about a month since a WC and cleanup. Some plants are getting leggy at the bottoms and there is a large amount of staghorn algae... but otherwise, things look pretty ok considering how badly I've been neglecting the tank lately.

Looks good from afar...


But up close... uh oh!


One of these days I will do a trim + replant. I want desperately to rescape it and get my CO2 going but I just have no energy to get ANYTHING done lately. Blah. :(
 
#126 ·
I did a massive trim and replant a while back. Good news/bad news... good is that the staghorn is gone, bad is that i have cyano again. Not so bad, but I need to mix up a new batch of ferts and I have no potassium left. Fish are all good, ramshorn snail died, plants are leggy and growing slow but alive - even the HC. There's proof that HC is a fairly hardy plant and can do just fine in low tech environments, even covered in cyano :)
 
#127 ·
No signs of staghorn since that explosion. Cyano is a bit crazy, but other than that, not much algae going on at all. I did a big cleanup and some trimming tonight, hopefully that will help my plants outgrow the cyano again. I really would love to get a scape down but I don't have a clue what I can do with such a limited plant selection.

Sorry for the bubbles, did a WC a few hours ago.





One of these days I really want to get to Petsmart and pick up some new fish... I need something like ottos or some kind of small pleco.
 
#128 ·
my fish have ich. i moved them into a quarantine tank. water is at 84, added a tablespoon of salt per 5 gallons. crossing my fingers and hoping for the best :x

after my latest rescape my aquasoil was SO powdery/dusty on top. since my fish were in quarantine, i decided to drain and empty the ENTIRE tank and wash the Aquasoil. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out... at the worst i'd have to replace my substrate, but it worked well. no more powdery crap on top :)

 
#129 ·
Nice and clean. Is that HC Cuba in the corner right side? I had an easier time growing HC Cuba carpets with emersed growth.

We have very similar equipment, mind me giving you some tips? I feel your pain with the cyano, I battle that monster myself and had to redo some scapes. So yeah, I want to see if what I learned from my tanks can translate into another.
 
#130 ·
yup it's HC. I let it grow emersed for a few months before I filled the tank and had a pretty awesome carpet going, but I treated the tank with H2O2 and most of it died :( It's done pretty well in low tech, though I wasn't too excited to pull it all up and replant it.

So far I wonder if a filter with higher flow would help with the cyano issue. Maybe a classic 2217. Maybe a spraybar... or some big lily pipes? I'm clumsy so I need to find someone who makes acrylic ones. I am struggling with light, too... LEDs are so deceiving, I don't know if I have too much light or not enough... that and I wish my regulator wasn't broken.

Cyano's a tough one, though. P deficiency seemed to be causing mine. When I started dosing it frequently it literally disappeared. My biggest tip would be don't get lazy... I had finally found a good balance in my tank but have lost it now due to lack of routine maintenance, trimming and replanting, filter cleaning, etc. The cyano's come back with a vengeance :(
 
#132 ·
You could try starting completely new, removing all media and giving it a deep vac. Start with new fish?

I had a terrible case of ick with cardinal tetras and neon tetras, I had to replace all my media in my AquaClear 20 and shut down the tank.

RESTART!
 
#135 ·
I would love to restart it and do CO2 right off the bat... I've got a great regulator and a full cylinder but the damn safety valve on the reg is either just screwy and needs replaced, or the whole regulator is damaged. It's something really hard to get fixed, and the thought of messing with potentially damaged, high pressure gear just scares me, so I've been putting it in the back of my mind... :(

The tank is currently fishless and biomedia-less - just an empty aquaclear to keep the water flowing. If all my fish don't die from columnaris they will go back in the tank, but I'm slowly coming to terms with the idea of having to replace all my livestock soon.
 
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