Tom's 180 wood scaping

[Martin]

UG is a horrible plant.. totally unpredictable
Whenever I planted it in a tank at work the UG seemed to evaluate my attention. If I ignore it completely, it grows like a baby on fire... if I fuss around it, making sure all conditions are in order.. it goes brown and dies.. You could grow UG more successfully like our old friend HC..emersed.. or at least partially emersed.

[blue33]

Hi Tom! Is temperature an issue when using Metal Halide? Whats your temperature like in your tank, do you use chiller to control the temperature at summer season? As the place i'm staying(Singapore), whole year through out is warm, around 28-33 Degree Celsius, people here normally get chiller to cool down the tank temperature. Would 28-33 Degree Celsius temperature good for plants growth and fauna? Thanks!

[plantbrain]

Originally Posted by Martin

UG is a horrible plant.. totally unpredictable
Whenever I planted it in a tank at work the UG seemed to evaluate my attention. If I ignore it completely, it grows like a baby on fire... if I fuss around it, making sure all conditions are in order.. it goes brown and dies.. You could grow UG more successfully like our old friend HC..emersed.. or at least partially emersed.

It's not too bad for me.
Like some plants, you need to let them do their thing and then after they are well estbalished, then..............you can trim and control.

You need to let the plant roots get going in enough mass to control things in the aquarium. Then you can uproot a % without too much issue.

I took out a lot of biomass and roots(imporantly) and things did not do well until they where returned and established a again. No algae etc, but plant growth and fish health are not as good as with.

So the transition between lots of well established roots and new planting is the key it seems to me. The roots pump O2 and help the bacteria really get amplified.

This takes time, adding external O2 will not increase this process(hence the issue with Heating cables and Powersand claims..........), good plant health will, this is a plant driven internal plant related process, not something you can amplify. Some seem to assume you can(likely cause they spent their wad of cash on the product and are trying to rationalize their purchase), but there's no evidence that is in any way emperical (lots of faith based claims though) nor has there been in well over 30 years of claims.

I've seen the plant roots do this on numerous tanks. I've also used RFUG which adds a lot of O2 for over 10 years of use. Saw little difference. It just takes time for the roots to grow and good health(CO2/light/nutrients) and shoot growth are the only real factors that will increase the root growth. Plants allocate root growth/resources based on the production of sugars from the shoot, not from O2 additions.

Takes more than O2 to grow a root
This is common sense.

I've seen it on this 180 as well.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[CL]

So, any updates on this tank?

[plantbrain]

Well, Gloss is starting to take off a bit better, tank has righted itself well.

Removed most every part of the biomass and replanted and will go back to a similar design with different plants and more Blyxa.

Be a bit yet for new pics, tank needs to fill in and a few more trimmings before hand.

But it's doing well and I think I cleaned the inside of the glass back 3 months ago, maybe longer, so no algae issues or anything on the wood etc.

I switched to the disc diffusers with the same set rate as the mazzei venturi as an experiment. So far, with the mist traveling upo and into the 2000gph pump flow, it gets well distributed. Good current seems to suggest that the methods are relatively equal near as I can tell.

I do not lose the head pressure with the disc, but still have to have them in the tank and they require cleaning every so often(*I love Tilex), but so does the canister filter as it clogs and affects the mazzei flow rate.

So each CO2 method has a trade off.

As roughly 90% of the CO2 we add or more is lost to the air, I think there's less difference on methods and more is focused on mist and current as main predictors.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[CL]

So Tilex is tank safe?

[Pinto]

This is one incredible tank!!
Love your school of fishes

[plantbrain]

Originally Posted by clwatkins10

So Tilex is tank safe?

Well, no more than bleach is
You wash it off good, then add dechlor and rinse and blow it out a few times before you return to the tank.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[fishsandwitch]

Pictures?

[plantbrain]

Originally Posted by fishsandwitch

Pictures?

Wait till the tank is worthy of a picture

Regards,
Tom barr

[Crystalview]

I saw this tank Tuesday. It looked wonderful. Mister perfection had to talk about the flaw of His ground cover not growing in evenly. I thought it was cute and very humble of him.
Looking at his tank in person gave me a much better feel of the tank. In the pictures you just can't get the 3D effect. Both of Tom's tanks in the living room have a tranquilly that is of simple design. It gave me idea's for changes in my tank. I was always concerned about not having enough plants or wood and such. But now I want to aim for the same tranquility, mine always seem so busy. Even with all 70 cardinals it's amazing in the way they school from one end of the tank to the other, lovely!

I also loved the wood he has in his 60 Cube West African. It seem more a center piece at this point.

[seds]

Looks AmAzInG Plant-brain //Tom!!!! It looked overstocked when I saw the list but it doesn't look overstocked at all in the photos. I one day plan a similar setup only with tiny barbs rather than characins. (Then again I have like 10 plans and each one requires at least 70 gallons)

I like the 60 gallon congo tetra one even better though. It looks extraordinarily unique.

[fishboy87]

Originally Posted by plantbrain

Wait till the tank is worthy of a picture

To be honest, it could be an empty tank or an algae swamp. Your tank has looked great and I'm sure it couldn't look so bad as to not be picture worthy. I mean, I post my tank pictures up and I think a picture of a pile of dirt would be more appealing

[SleepySin]

Originally Posted by jaidexl

Holy driftwood, plantman!

Hahahahaha.. that'll be my quote of the day

[CL]

So, I did a search, but I can't find it. Did you have a total of 2800 gph of flow in this tank? I have a koralia 4 laying around, and I'm wondering if it'll be too much for my 40 breeder, and I'm wondering if I can run the k4 (1200 gph) then should I just get a 2213 to filter it instead of a 2217 or 2215?
Thanks Tom