Marko's High-light Eclipse III Journal: Update- 11/9/08; R. Vietnam trim.

[@marko@]

well, redid the tank today (but not planted).
first i removed my amazing betta that i spawned myself (im pretty proud of him, deal with it). then removed my moss carpet, wood, ferns, and anubias. the wood was boiled, ferns and anubias bleached. heater was bleached. intake of the filter was bleached. then i added some more flourite. and then took forever filling it up so as to not raise all the dust. put the wood back in and the ferns and anubias. here are the pics:


Eclipse 3


With the 9w light


Wood with fern and anubias

[@marko@]

here is the plan i have for the tank. any suggestions/comments?

[CL]

Sounds like a plan, now hop to it

[@marko@]

lol
i hope to have the rotalas by wednesday. the glosso and microsword, will be a while. i will take the microsword from my 20L, but i need to finish the treatement for parasites on it first, which will be 3 weeks. idk when i will get some glosso in there.

[@marko@]

i got the rotalas a while ago; and now until i get the glosso from dr.tran, i have the stems lined up front where there is the most light for grow-out mode. along with the rotalas i got 2 other stems, some floaters, and what i think is a bolbitis (pics of these for you guys to help with ids on the bottom). NOTE: the original 3w bulb was off when i took the pics, and the contrast in lighting for the sides of the tanks looks more drastic then it really does when the bulb is on (which is 80% of the time). here are pics:
FTS:


rotala mini:


rotala vietnam:


a. petite growing a new leaf:




ok. here are the plants id like ided:

#1 bolbitis?



#2 didiplis diandra? stargrass? idk


#3 idk, the leaf edges are slightly serrated, though it doesnt really show up. any clues?

[@marko@]

oh and yesterday night i added CO2. i used some yeast that was labeled "highly active". let me say: WHOA! it was bubbling by morning. and a bubble in each row. heh, thank god the betta had a labyrinth organ, that may have helped him survive the 56 ppm. plants probably liked it though. i added a drop checker and lefted the output up a step, and now it looks better. anyway, this stuff will probably peak and be used up in a week, but it is great for tanks with pressurized for if the CO2 runs out and it takes the person a few days to get around to it. 6 hours and this yeast is producing like normal, where as the normal one doesnt do anything for the first 12 hours, and after that i usually dont see this kind of activity for 3 days.

[CL]

plant #1 Is 'oak leaf' water sprite, great plants, incredibly fast growing

[@marko@]

good. i like fast growing. fast growing = nutrient sponge = algae starvation = .
are you sure its a water sprite? could a water sprite grow a new plantlet off of its leaf tip, cause this one is? but yeah i doubt its a bolbits (colors wrong) but i never heard of anything but a fern growing leaf plantlets, and it sure isnt a java fern.

[CL]

Originally Posted by @marko@

good. i like fast growing. fast growing = nutrient sponge = algae starvation = .
are you sure its a water sprite? could a water sprite grow a new plantlet off of its leaf tip, cause this one is? but yeah i doubt its a bolbits (colors wrong) but i never heard of anything but a fern growing leaf plantlets, and it sure isnt a java fern.

yes, this plant grows like crazy

[@marko@]

oh. ok. ill keep it for a while, then move it to my 20L (which im going to be completely redoing in a few weeks) for start-up. then sell it.

i really like my rotalas, they look awesome. big (but late) thanks to cardinal fish who sold them to me. really nice plants.

[CL]

Watersprite gets big. Twice I have had one grow 5 inches out of a 29 gallon tank

[@marko@]

no problem. it wont get big enough to not leave any room for my other plants in my eclipse 3 in two weeks since it was just introduced, and still hasnt adapted. then it will be moved to my 20L, where it will only be used in start-up, and then given away for free + shipping (unless i can sell it, but i doubt it).

[@marko@]

the plants are growing!
and so is the algae

today i noticed a glass nicely dusted with cyano:


so i took out my algae scraper pad and scraped it off (the good thing about the pad is that it captures all the cyano so it doesnt float back into the water column). then i went to treate the root causes: not enough N and low flow. i dosed some more N, and bought one of these little powerheads (set it on min which is 30gph):


i put it in and took the opportunity to move around the plants a bit:



anyway, the R. vietnam is growing like mad. its up to the surface already! and its not even established.



R. mini is growing a tiny bit, but nothing nearly as dramatic. maybe it has a longer adaptation time?


and here is a pic of the powerhead:

[CL]

Hopefully that powerhead will solve your problem. Any chances of a 2213?

[@marko@]

hope so too.

thats 116 gph. you think i need a 38.67 times an hour turnover? that filter could just about blow the polyps off of an SPS coral in such a small tank.
besides, the powerhead has a min of 30gph, but a max of 50gph; almost double. so i can always increase it if i need too (though i hope not to, for the bettas sake).