ADA 90P Iwugami (56K Warning) Updated 5/16/2013

[Amandas tank]

Your tank looks beautiful! I like the flow direction of the plants front to back. Very nice. Incredible foreground BTW!

[Uptown193]

Originally Posted by fplata

I mix my own into liquids that I dose everyday. It only takes 5 minutes to mix a couple of litters

5 mins is still to long.

sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2, an AT&T 4G LTE Quadcore Smartphone.

[Uptown193]

Originally Posted by @marko@

Uptown: if your plants stopped pearling and then a short while later you got algae, the algae is the result of a CO2 issue (like most algae usually is). increase your CO2 and/or decrease your light.

So do you think that I should run my CO2 24/7? I only run my lights for like 7 hours a day.

Do you think 7 hours is too short of a time to run CO2? what is the usual time people run their CO2? I usually run my CO2 with the lights at the same time.

sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2, an AT&T 4G LTE Quadcore Smartphone.

[@marko@]

No, I didn't mean increase the CO2 time period, I meant increase the concentration. Either bump up the bps if you are using just a timer, or lower the Target Ph if you have a Ph controller.
I personally keep my co2 on 24/7, but the plants don't have any demand for it while the lights are off. It's just to prevent flux, and its easier.

[styxx]

Originally Posted by OG_Plantmore

And right before a 4 day weekend. You've got my luck.

Interesting tank by the way.

I know - ridiculous right!?

Originally Posted by Amandas tank

Your tank looks beautiful! I like the flow direction of the plants front to back. Very nice. Incredible foreground BTW!

Why thanks Amanda, I think in a month it will be stunning! I really want it to grow much more thicker. This particular variety of lilaeopsis is thin, so it needs more time to grow together to make a truly stunning carpet.

Originally Posted by Uptown193

5 mins is still to long.

sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2, an AT&T 4G LTE Quadcore Smartphone.

I know, tell me about it, lol. Already the time it takes to dose, clean the glass, change the water, trim and scrub the rocks, aaaahhh!!!!!

Originally Posted by @marko@

No, I didn't mean increase the CO2 time period, I meant increase the concentration. Either bump up the bps if you are using just a timer, or lower the Target Ph if you have a Ph controller.
I personally keep my co2 on 24/7, but the plants don't have any demand for it while the lights are off. It's just to prevent flux, and its easier.

It's interesting my use of CO2 is really pretty high but then again I only have a handful of ottos in my aquarium and it doesn't seem to bother them. I think that rate that I have now (around 4-5bps) isn't really sustainable in the long term if and when I add more fish and shrimp. Indeed, I'm still unsure what caused the die off of all my damn Amano shrimp but CO2 ranks high on the list of possible culprits.

[@marko@]

did you check your nitrate?
i added 8 to my 20 long a week ago, and saw 2 dead the following morning. i acclimate everything super slow, so i check all my param, and my NO3 was at 15ppm. not enough to both fish or pest snails, but shrimp dont like it. lowered it and havent seen any more dead shrimp (though i never see more than 1 live one at a time either.... damn shrimp).

[styxx]

Originally Posted by @marko@

did you check your nitrate?
i added 8 to my 20 long a week ago, and saw 2 dead the following morning. i acclimate everything super slow, so i check all my param, and my NO3 was at 15ppm. not enough to both fish or pest snails, but shrimp dont like it. lowered it and havent seen any more dead shrimp (though i never see more than 1 live one at a time either.... damn shrimp).

I haven't since the massacre but I'm trying to get this damn foreground to grow thicker. I'm not going to add any additional fauna until I can get this foreground where I want it. Until then it's just the ottos that I have at the moment. I think a trim might be in order come next Sunday and this needle leaf Java Fern is driving me crazy. I can't seem to keep it clean so I might switch to something else? I don't know. Please forgive the dark water, I haven't changed it and the aquarium's been evaporating more since the winter's arrived...A quick pre trim pick:

[styxx]

And now here are a few post-trim pics (not much of a difference, but you can see that I've move some things around). Please forgive the wild changes in picture size (I'm still playing around with getting the best size for forum posts, but these are 1024x1024 which follow). In this first photograph you can see that I've done an across the top trim, but not too much, just enough to (hopefully) stimulate horizontal growth rather than vertical growth. Plus I like tamed look, lol. I had considered a much harsher trim but didn't want to stunt the growth that I've had so far, so while the difference isn't dramatic, it should be enough to instigate more growth via runners than via leaf height. Plus I added some Phyton-Git after doing so just in case. The water isn't exactly pristine as I decided to also clean my filter (which I haven't done in months) and good LORD I have so much more flow now it's ridiculous...but I also noticed that my poor Purigen is almost all brown and I'm going to have to get some bleach this week and (seriously) recharge it. That stuff is really magic, lmao.



As you can see in this photo, I've added some more anubias nana to this rock (though they do need a little cleaning of the leaves):



Importantly, here is a side view of the aquarium. I had a few inches of space in the back and decided to increase the depth of field by pushing the needle leaf java fern all the way against the back wall and moving the rocks back as well. As you can see this has opened up some room for the lileaopsis to fill in and you can see the runners already beginning to do just that. I know that I'm going to regret this later, because now I cant really clean the back glass but I figured I need to make as much of the limited real estate that I have now for this foreground since it's starting to really get going.



Hopefully tomorrow I will get my CO2 filled and things we will be back in business! In the interim I've had to dial down the lighting to 50%. I have also started to incrementally increase the dosage of ferts while maintaining the frequency (3x a week). Although you can still (closely) see substrate between the nearest leaves, in another month I hope that it will grow nice and thick enough that you won't see anything but green! And here is a final close up:

[Amandas tank]

Very nice!

[styxx]

Originally Posted by Amandas tank

Very nice!

Give me another month and I'm going to blow everyone's minds! Now that the lilaeopsis has started, it's really beginning to take off now...compared to the photos that I've taken a month ago (this friday) it's night and day.

[fplata]

I love this tank a+ for the professor

[styxx]

Originally Posted by fplata

I love this tank a+ for the professor

Awe, thanks!!

[styxx]

http://youtu.be/hx-RUPtH5KU

[fplata]

Wow. Beautiful!!!

[styxx]

Originally Posted by fplata

Wow. Beautiful!!!

Meh...It's ok. Give it until the end of the month! It should be the bomb then!