Trenton's ADA 60P Journal - Tank Planted

[styxx]

I hate to say it, but I suspect that something's wrong with your pressure and you probably have a leak somewhere. What are all those pieces with the regulator? I think that's your problem - you have so many different parts that each one is a place for a leak and failure. The fact that water is filling your airline tubing suggests that you don't have enough static pressure to keep the water out, which says "I'm leaking" to me. Another symptom of insufficient pressure is the fact that the diffusor is only putting out bubbles from one area, and the bubbles themselves are large. They won't be microbubbles unless you have an atomizer type diffusor. Perhaps others can suggest some alternate theories? By my count you have no less than 5 screw points with teflon that could be leaking all at the same time at different speeds. Since this is your first tank, I would have donated to buy you a new Milwaukee (I've used more than one of these over the past decade and they've never failed me yet) had I known you were going to build your own, lol! Definitely leak test everything and keep us posted.

Also I'm sure that I don't have to tell you (as you've already learned) don't touch the HC until its started to spread really well. It will just keep floating up on its own. Keep up the water changes while checking the ammonia and no ferts (except maybe a little K) for a least a week. Those are my suggestions, others can elaborate on their strategies... Hope this helps!

[sayurasem]

nice!

[jcgd]

Push the hc down and bury it by dumping soil directly on top till it stays down. It'll come back through. You should also sprinkle AS powder of the hc to fill in all the gaps and bring the soil almost level with the hc. It'll help keep it down.

[trenton]

Originally Posted by styxx

I hate to say it, but I suspect that something's wrong with your pressure and you probably have a leak somewhere. What are all those pieces with the regulator? I think that's your problem - you have so many different parts that each one is a place for a leak and failure. The fact that water is filling your airline tubing suggests that you don't have enough static pressure to keep the water out, which says "I'm leaking" to me. Another symptom of insufficient pressure is the fact that the diffusor is only putting out bubbles from one area, and the bubbles themselves are large. They won't be microbubbles unless you have an atomizer type diffusor. Perhaps others can suggest some alternate theories? By my count you have no less than 5 screw points with teflon that could be leaking all at the same time at different speeds. Since this is your first tank, I would have donated to buy you a new Milwaukee (I've used more than one of these over the past decade and they've never failed me yet) had I known you were going to build your own, lol! Definitely leak test everything and keep us posted.

Also I'm sure that I don't have to tell you (as you've already learned) don't touch the HC until its started to spread really well. It will just keep floating up on its own. Keep up the water changes while checking the ammonia and no ferts (except maybe a little K) for a least a week. Those are my suggestions, others can elaborate on their strategies... Hope this helps!

I think something was the matter with the bubble counter and diffuser. I did the soap test and I did not find any leaks. I will keep on eye on the CO2 system though until it starts to act more consistent. There were some hairline fractures at the corner of my diffuser, so I bought a cheap Fluval one. When I was trying to switch it out to see if there could be a change I broke it, but the bubbles are much better with the Fluval one. I will wait a bit to buy an ADA one.

I am not going to touch the HC again till it is rooted better.

Thanks for the help!
-T

Originally Posted by sayurasem

nice!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by jcgd

Push the hc down and bury it by dumping soil directly on top till it stays down. It'll come back through. You should also sprinkle AS powder of the hc to fill in all the gaps and bring the soil almost level with the hc. It'll help keep it down.

Good idea, I should have done that when I planted it. I think it would be complicated to add more soil now that the tank is filled, wouldn't it?

-T

[trenton]

Fourth day picture after water change:




The plants started to pearl right after the fill like crazy!


There are two different kinds of algae that I have seen in the tank. There is some white fuzz on the soil and hair algae on the ammania.




Water test results:

• pH 6.4
• Ammonia 2 ppm
• Nitrite 1.0 ppm
• Nitrate 20 ppm

Cheers,
-T

[lotus02]

Just Beautiful ! Makes me think my tank is crap and here I thought I did an awesome job but now I want to tare it apart and redo it.

[sayurasem]

Now that is flooded. All you can do is trim and replant.

[SaltyNC]

It's looking great, Trenton. I really like how you document so much with photography, like your water parameter tests. That is really helpful for new people coming into the hobby. Sorry about your diffuser, man. I tried to find a Fluval until my diffuser arrived, but everyone around here is sold out. I ended up having to use a piece of bamboo, but I'll be durned if it didn't work quite well.

I'm looking forward to seeing it grow in.

[trenton]

Originally Posted by lotus02

Just Beautiful ! Makes me think my tank is crap and here I thought I did an awesome job but now I want to tare it apart and redo it.

Come on now, your tank isn't that bad... I have seen much worse, plus, if I even attempted a reef tank, I'm sure I would be saying the same thing.

I just planted it too, so we will see in a couple of weeks how it looks. Things could go downhill very fast if I mess it up.

Originally Posted by sayurasem

Now that is flooded. All you can do is trim and replant.

I have already to trim the ammania, and the HC is getting kinda scraggly. I'm gonna have to trim that soon, but I don't want to uproot it.

Originally Posted by SaltyNC

It's looking great, Trenton. I really like how you document so much with photography, like your water parameter tests. That is really helpful for new people coming into the hobby. Sorry about your diffuser, man. I tried to find a Fluval until my diffuser arrived, but everyone around here is sold out. I ended up having to use a piece of bamboo, but I'll be durned if it didn't work quite well.

I'm looking forward to seeing it grow in.

Thanks Salty! Some people may think that my pictures are excessive, but for myself, I find journals boring if there are no photos. Plus I love taking pictures! All my glassware is Aquatic Magic from ebay so I wasn't expecting high quality. I will wait until I find some ADA glassware used and then use the cheap stuff as backup.

I saw some wooden diffusers at my LFS, but I decided not to get them because on the package it said they needed to be replaced quite often (like 3 weeks) when their functionality starts to go down.

Hope you can find a nice diffuser... your tank is too nice to have an ugly fluval one!

-T

[trenton]

No picture today, sorry.

The tank has a weird film on the top though. I guess it's not really a film, it's a layer of what appears to be more viscous water that kinda traps the small CO2 bubbles. Is this a protein layer or something? What is this caused by, too much fertilizers?

I bought new drop checker solution yesterday because the ebay stuff stayed a weird brown/green colour. After I used the new solution, within an hour it was completely yellow, hence I turned the CO2 down considerably. I'm trying to keep it on the lighter end of green.

Would a high CO2 rate like I had cause plants to not bee as healthy? The ammonia doesn't seem like it is doing the greatest with the bottom leaves melting and the top leaves looking pale. An ideas?

Till next time,
-T

[SaltyNC]

Originally Posted by trenton

Thanks Salty! Some people may think that my pictures are excessive, but for myself, I find journals boring if there are no photos. Plus I love taking pictures! All my glassware is Aquatic Magic from ebay so I wasn't expecting high quality. I will wait until I find some ADA glassware used and then use the cheap stuff as backup.

I saw some wooden diffusers at my LFS, but I decided not to get them because on the package it said they needed to be replaced quite often (like 3 weeks) when their functionality starts to go down.

Hope you can find a nice diffuser... your tank is too nice to have an ugly fluval one!

-T

You can never have too many pictures, especially when they look as nice as your pictures do. That's sad to hear about the Aquatic Magic. I thought it was good stuff. The nano diffuser from them is what I'm waiting on.

Ha! Funny about the ugly Fluval. I don't know about my tank being nice (thanks for saying so), but the Fluval was definitely going to be a temporary solution until the glass one comes in. When I build my ADA tank, I'm going to do an inline CO2 reactor. That might be something to consider. One less thing in the tank, though the ADA diffusers really are like art work.

Originally Posted by trenton

The tank has a weird film on the top though. I guess it's not really a film, it's a layer of what appears to be more viscous water that kinda traps the small CO2 bubbles. Is this a protein layer or something? What is this caused by, too much fertilizers?

I think the ADA guys recommend bringing the lily pipes up at night to create some surface agitation. On my little Petco tank, I was getting the same thing and had to drop the water level. That also seemed to help with algae.

Originally Posted by trenton

Would a high CO2 rate like I had cause plants to not bee as healthy? The ammonia doesn't seem like it is doing the greatest with the bottom leaves melting and the top leaves looking pale. An ideas?

Till next time,
-T

I don't think it can be too much CO2. Even at a high rate, it would still be less than what is in normal air when plants are growing emerged. Are you still dosing 1/2 squirts of Pfertz? You might actually need to up the dosing with your good light. Most of my plants went through a little shock after flooding the tank, and I trimmed them up, and now everything is very vibrant since adding CO2 and dosing Pfertz, and I'm doing about a 3/4 squirt every other day in a 6 gal tank. Yes, I fell for the pretty bottles, too.

[SaltyNC]

T,
Check out the Tom Barr link in this thread for your surface film:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=185643

[styxx]

I agree with SaltyNC, the film is just a protein layer. A little surface agitation will make quick work of it. And you could have a very high CO2 and it wouldn't (by itself) harm the plants, though the reduced PH might burn some if the CO2 is high enough (to say nothing of suffocating any life in that aquarium). Now where are those pics!? lol

[trenton]

Originally Posted by SaltyNC

T,
Check out the Tom Barr link in this thread for your surface film:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=185643

Originally Posted by styxx

I agree with SaltyNC, the film is just a protein layer. A little surface agitation will make quick work of it. And you could have a very high CO2 and it wouldn't (by itself) harm the plants, though the reduced PH might burn some if the CO2 is high enough (to say nothing of suffocating any life in that aquarium). Now where are those pics!? lol

Yeah, I figured it was a protein layer. I have been raising the outlet pipe at night sometimes to remove it and it seems to be working. Whenever I do a water change, I just place some paper towel on top of the water t remove the skim.

I actually had very high CO2. The 4dkh solution I got with the drop checker from asia malaysia or wherever was... crap. So I bought some new fluval solution a while back and it turned instantly yellow within about 1/2 an hour so... I reduced my CO2.

Also, I found my CO2 leak before I left before the weekend because I was scared it was going to runout by the time we got back It was at the connection between the CGA320 fitting and the reg. Since fixing that more than a week ago, my needle has barely dropped. I'm pretty thankful about that, cause I would have had to fill it every couple of weeks it the problem hadn't have been resolved.

Thanks for the help guys.

-T

[trenton]

Progress pictures.

July 30


August 1


August 2 - Some of plants trimmed.


August 7


August 9


August 10



More to come shortly,
-T