Son of Kahuna (56K!)

[sNApple]

dear scolley, move to BC, set up tank equipment for me

love snapple

[styxx]

Originally Posted by sNApple

dear scolley, move to BC, set up tank equipment for me

love snapple

lol!!! Now that's an invitation!

[PDX-PLT]

Spectacular pics!

Thx for the screen shots, too. 'very interesting.

[natx]

I think the amount of work you've put into this tank would justify upgrading your camera and photo skills! Or maybe finding a buddy who knows how to shoot. I picked up a cheap tripod and it made a world of difference with my photos. Now if only the tank I am snapping photos of was as nice..

[scolley]

Devin - Thanks!


Riley - Thanks too!

Originally Posted by fishscale

One of the NASTIEST discus tanks ever. This tank is sick.

Huh?

Originally Posted by eon17

wow thats amazing and very confusing to me!

Thanks, but I'm interested about it being "confusing". Is that because I'm not using well defined boundries for my plant species, in the Dutch style? Or because the driftwood has become obscured by plants, and you can't see the structure? Or something else... I'd be interested to know.

Originally Posted by sNApple

dear scolley, move to BC, set up tank equipment for me

love snapple

Now THAT is funny. Might there be any money in that??? Or was that a job offer? I'd LOVE to do that for a job!


PDX-PLT - Thanks! And I'm glad you liked the screen shots. I kinda thought they would generate more interest. They are WAY cool to me.

Just this week I came back from a week away, and saw my pH was about 0.2 too high. I'd changed the CO2 cylinder last weekend, and thought I set the bubble rate correctly (having a solenoid on a controller means you can have quite a bit of error there). But looking at the pH graph from the little web page I saw that the curve while I was away was my normal curve - 3 little peaks and flat, then 3 little peaks then flat, and repeat... But the pH was 0.2 too low. It didn't take but a second to realize that my problem was just that I wasn't providing enough CO2 - it was going as low as it could go. So that little graph told me what I needed to know - my bubble rate was too low. That's COOL to me!

Originally Posted by natx

I think the amount of work you've put into this tank would justify upgrading your camera and photo skills!

Actually I think I can snap a shot. I was just in a super hurry to shoot these, and I did not worry about the conditions and lighting. I had 20 minutes, and shot with my little A70, and used the lights over the tank - w/no flash. That meant having to crank the ASA to 200 (noisy on my camera), set the aperture as open as it would go, and see what came out. Easy to predict really - poor depth of field, grainy (noisy) pictures.

Like I mentioned in my post - this tank is currently not competitive as a well designed aquascape. So I entered to help the contest, and spread the word that you can have a decent planted tank with discus. I decided - in advance - not to get too hung up on picture quality this year. The tank wasn't really competitive anyway. Nice maybe, but not competitive as an aquascape.

But I do hope to have a better camera next year. And if so, I'll spend a little more time on doing it right!

[ScottMorris]

Originally Posted by scolley

Devin - Thanks!



Huh?

That means it is the bomb.....in other words....he likes it.


AK

[RoseHawke]

Originally Posted by fishscale

One of the NASTIEST discus tanks ever. This tank is sick.

Originally Posted by scolley

Huh?

Er, I think this is a compliment. You know, like "Man, that's really bad!"?

[bgoodwins]

Heh you old fogies. Get with the times!

[styxx]

Originally Posted by fishscale

One of the NASTIEST discus tanks ever. This tank is sick.

Word. I wish I could have discus they're awesome.

[scolley]

Originally Posted by styxx1

Word...

If I didn't have teenage kids, I'd be clueless on such language. Or maybe as my kids no doubt believe, I'm clueless anyway.

I mean if I'm clueless, I suppose by definition... I'd be the last to know.

Anyway, thanks for the help on the language. I figured it was something like that!

[Canoe2Can]

That's a beautiful tank, Scolley. What Wattage and color temp are the halides?

[scolley]

Thanks! Those HQI's are 150 watt (two of them), each at 10,000K.

I made a real deliberate switch from flourescent bulbs to MH for a few reasons:

1) I knew 10,000K lamps (or 13-14,000 if needed) would make the blue in the discus and neons "pop" visually.

2) I wanted the "swimming pool" visual effect in the tank because it's so lovely. Even though I know that it does not show in photos. But in person, it's KILLER.

3) I wanted "movement" in the tank, without creating excess water flow. Too high water flow seems to stimulate algae. But MH lights, with moderately flowing water, creates the whole "swimming pool" effect. And while lovely (see point 2 above), it also creates the illusion of movement, even in a tank that does not actually have a great deal of actual movement (good for discus), or high water flow.

Hope that helps.

[BiscuitSlayer]

Scolly - Your tank is insane! I have one question though:

Does the Aquacontroller have the ability to enable a cloaking device for all of the electronics, plumbing, etc. when the wife enters the room? If it does, I might get one to run my next big project as well as another one to let me take a bath in peace (unless I could buy a more robust unit that could handle both).

Seriously though, great job on the project. It truly is a source of inspiration.

[scolley]

Thanks BiscuitSlayer! No cloaking required... my wife doesn't want any thing to do with it. That's a good thing.


Anubias leaf shedding
For a while now my anubias have periodically shed leaves. It's always new, or young leaves - so there's something going on.

For the record, I switched from ADA Green Brighty Step 2 to Tropica Master Grow this week. I'm dealing with that topic in this thread. But this problem has been going on for months. A couple of days ago though, I lost 4 leaves in 1 day. Now it's got my attention.

I've tried to research this, and can't find anything conclusive. My plants otherwise seem fine. NOT explosively growing, but growing. I'm running less than 2wpg, so explosive growth isn't the plan. Just steady growth, and I'm getting that - large handfuls of plant matter being trimmed back and removed every weekend. But I'm concerned about this anubias leaf-drop.

Anyone know what this is?

I'm betting it's a micro deficiency of some form. And I may boost them by 50% to see if that helps. And I'm hoping it's not a magnesium or calcium issue, as those are the two things that I have to dose manually - calcium chloride and magnesium sulfate that is.

Any help or insight into this problem is much appreciated.

[scolley]

On a related topic - plant nutrition and water parameters - I found out that I had measurable amounts of ammonia in my water yesterday.

I did a whole slew of water tests yesterday - something I rarely do - and I did an ammonia test. I'm ashamed to say, once I verified that this tank was cycled, I've not done an ammonia test. And I was shocked to find the level was somewhere around 0.7 ppm. Not dangerous to fish, but far from the 0.0 that I'd like to see to keep algae in check. Maybe that's why I continue to have to scrape the sides of the tank every week.

I did do the test in the morning. So it's possible that that was just ammonia that accumulated overnight, that will get sucked up during the daylight hours. I'll have to test at the end of the day to see.

But if that persists, I'm going to have to reduce my fish load, or increase my plant load - or both.