Actually lack of flow (delivery of oxygenated water pushing into rocks center through pores) will increase the area of anaerobic activity in the center of rock.

Decided to show my WC setup, was able to do a 18L WC in 11 minutes (actual total of the whole thing start to finish) so that is pretty good, started using a stronger pump and soldered on a switch to make the process much easier, also the tube holder for the glass made everything that much easier as well. I have 2 tubes, one longer one for the pump out to the kitchen sink (takes only 2 mins or so to pump out about 17-18L) then a shorter one to return from my mixing container of 28c warm and oxygenated WC water. The whole thing is really stress free and fast, only effort is carrying the WC water from the bathroom into the kitchen but that isnt so bad. I wish I was doing this with my last decently sized tank, really much better than **** buckets! Some photos for demonstration:

Beautiful tank! I love the sunken roots look.

Thanks for the positive input! Me too, haha! I wonder how long that DW will last, most all the roots/branches are pretty thick so I suppose it will take a few years before it degrades much, though I wonder if GBR temps accelerate that. Anyway, when and if it ever needs to be replaced I think I will be cutting and assembling various pieces into a more "perfect" or custom shape, the piece as is very good but I think a bit thick/imposing at the "stump" somehow

Great aquarium and build log, andrewss. I'm planning on setting up a 40 breeder in the next couple of months, and every bit of info I can pick up will be put to use. Thanks again for sharing your build log.

dow

great idea of setting up the pump to do the water change! it'll definitely keep the tank running well if water changes are simplified to do on a regular basis

yeah, carrying buckets is a pain. is there a way that you can run a very small water around the back of the couch to provide feed water and I think you mentioned the tank is in the kitchen so you'd have access to a drain right?

Nice set up! Nice Rams!

Thank you! Be sure to start a journal then!

It is no new idea but yeah it has been helpful! I'm confused what you mean? I have two tubes, one long one short. The long one I can secure and feed into my sink for WC out. For WC in I bring my ~20L container in from the washroom, I premix my WC water and set it on an airstone and heater (also a tiny bit of prime and some Fresh Trace) to get up to temp and air out a bit before pumping it in with the shorter hose. I do this because if the water was too cold it would upset the GBRs and anyway the tank is 28 so water has to be pretty warm to not fluctuate much.

Thank you! They are quite a flashy fish!

Hey everyone! Been a while since I have updated here, not so much to report really except that the algae fight goes on and has I think finally turned a bit in my favor! I think a big help was my plants getting a bit healthier with the increase in ferts a couple weeks ago.

Still gotta keep up with it, anyway a few days ago was my last substantial trimming, had some die-off in the javafern bush, some bits that maybe didn't take too well to the light reduction and cover from the congo fern? Also maybe got weak from the old fert dosage. Anyway, things have bounced back pretty well. I also did further "bucket" treatments of some of the plants in that are easy to remove, I did soaks in only 3% H202 solution followed up by a blast of high dosed Excel. Buces hold up really quite well to that abuse, lose some leaves though.. anyway one of my anubias that got that treatment lost more than a couple leaves from that and I am paying attention to see if it further declines. After that the algae turns quite pale and dead, it appears that maybe the amanos then finally start to eat the dead bits and the treated plants appear quite nicely cleaned up after everything!

The photos show my changes to the light cycle, I have a very short peak at like 3-5pm or so then tapers off, at like 730 it gets very dim and "sunset" then goes to a dominate blues/greens cycle for dusk part that lasts until 9:30pm or so, really like the blue green LED effect with the green neons especially!








More updates coming in soon as I have a bit more time to spare these days again!

So here is a small video update, you can see the male GBR has become even more territorial and mean to his partner, he often chases her quite intensely if she comes forward in the tank, however I have noticed it seems to affect him if he notices me near the tank because I guess he thinks about feeding, if I stand by the door and he hasnt noticed me in the room I often see him tolerate her more often but he still nips at her a bit, so far I haven't seen any issues with her behavior except that she of course runs from him, but she still will ignore him for food and feeds fine, her coloring often is "submissive" these days though which is too bad - I am not sure what kind of stress this might be causing her... any GBR experts can let me know what they think about chasing in a 20g like mine with a supposed pair that has mated before. I also must say that the first couple months he was no where near as territorial with her - even now he will even go at the neons during feeding but not really much at all.


The video is pretty alright quality, today is stormy so the ambient light is at least subdued. More photos and a few testings to follow soon!

Hey everyone, so another update, mostly just about algae yet again... well I havent been posting or updating much lately due to distractions but I haven't be neglecting the tank much at all, the tank is 80L but probably only 70ish Liters actually, anyway I have been changing about 40-50 Liters a week now for quite a while. Been hitting about 2.5-3ML of excel daily as well. I've been individually increasing my N P K ferts as well, gotta do another round of water testing soon to see how that has affected the balance but for now I would say the plants are looking quite happy with the changes.

I did a couple very "precise" trims lately that take hours to do, a taking out dead bits and siphoning and turkey basting parts of the lava rock hardscape to get out mulm and muck. I realized it seems that my period of really backing down with the light and putting tons of floaters in really affected my trident ferns and I got a lot of dead bits in the high covered areas with the leaves pointing out and in from the middle level seemed to get all the energy. After a few more days I will be trimming the trident fern in the top left a bit back from the buces and mosses it has started to really cover up, hopefully that also helps it to grow out and up where it used to be thicker. I also removed the majority of the floaters as now I think my light period has been better optimized and things are getting more mature... hopefully it works out!

A bigger change was I finally pretty much gave up on my hygrophila pinnatifida and removed all but one stalk that still felt pretty healthy with very small growth at its base, everything else was not looking so good since the lighting changes a while back and I just couldnt get em to shake the small tufts of algae growing on the leaf edges of mature leaves. Maybe I will try hygrophila pinnatifida again after things settle a bit more, priority is still algae maintenance and this plant seemed a chronic problem for my tank. The buces and ferns seem to be a lot happier with teh current conditions and new growth seems to stave off algae development which is great! Even my flame moss melted on the right side from its rock which surprised me, I would imagine it was really trying to get to the light from down there though.

The whole of the tank esp on the left is in a good state, the right side almost seems to point to possible flow issues and the corresponding lesser co2 concentrations... anyone have any info for how I could solve that without swapping my main filter? I recently installed a powerhead like from a reef up near the outflow to spread it around a bit but it doesnt seem to help the right side of the tank just under it... where would you recommend I try to increase flow, in what direction? I want it to be more discreet so I am thinking hidden in the lava rocks on the right side kind of centered more so pushing from right center to the right wall to deflect off that a bit I guess... dunno! The general idea with flow is co2 distribution but I have heard more flow will probably help my algae issues quite a bit considering the kind I have and how relatively weak my filter is (would go for a bigger one if I could do it over again but I made the stand to size and I can't hide a bigger filter in there unfortunately... unless I did 2x of the same filter haha). Ideas for the right side of the tank flow wise and maybe even plant wise would be appreciated!

TLDR:

Algae is annoying and I am doing a lot to fight it since weeks now, kinda winning the battle it seems and the tank is running quite well for a medium maintenance tank (I like to keep things tidy and my GBRs need clean clean clean). Any input appreciated if you can be bothered to read my essay haha!

PICTURES!!!

I doubt flow is a big issue especially with the add'l powerhead in 20g. Is the pinnatifida under direct light? I have some and once I cut away the bolbitis and it got direct light it took off?

What has been and is your current light cycle. How much PAR do you think you have?

Yeah, but the powerhead was only in for about a week but I took it out and sent it back today because I couldnt take how much of an eyesore it was. I replaced it today with a smaller internal pump/filter that finally seems to be about the right fit for that corner of the tank, pictures will explain it better now, flow seems pretty good, gonna see if that direction helps circulate that kind of dead part of the tank flow wise under the inflow.

The pinnatifida was under direct light and was growing quite well for a while but after algae panic and so on I think the lighting changes didn't make it happy and it started doing worse however it always seemed a bit of a magnet for the staghorn so I decided to finally get rid of the bulk of it except for a small stalk that didnt seem melted or infested... see what happens with that now that I have slowly been increasing light period again and have been dosing more ferts.. plus thinking the internal filter might help in that part of the tank now.

PAR... no idea, might be worth taking a look into that. Light cycle is still modest, only about 5 hours at 25-33% with fairly slow ramp up and down cycles, can upload a few comparisons screenshots of my lighting period over the months!

Here are some new photos from tonight after the additional pump swap and so on, anyway interested to see how it turns out; gotta get the water test in this weekend too.


BTW I decided to grab a Twinstar off someone local that had it in a nice tank with RO so it should be nice and clean after a few months in use, curious if it might help me beat my algae... but if it is too ugly or doesnt seem to do anything after a few weeks I will try to sell it again but anyway at least getting it used at half price feels better than investing in it new considering it is a bit controversial as to its affect.








*** I added a small piece of plexiglas to shroud light from reflecting from the weird corner in my wall there which was causing an annoying visible line from the side... trying it out to see if it annoys me or if I might make a larger shroud or hood

I have had better luck with preventing dead spots by putting the filter intake and outlet on the same side of the tank right next to each other. If they'll fit with your surface skimmer that may be worth a try.

I always do that. Everything on the left side except my in-tank diffuser. So you get the lily smashing off the front glass and going around the tank back to the intake. My current tank is only 12G, but it's 3 feet long and all i have is the eheim 2213. There is no "visible flow on the right side but I could see the co2 bubbles slightly being moved about. I don't have alot of surface tension so the drop checker stays green all night and goes to pretty much yellow by mid-day.

Again i don't put much effort into flow/gph, It's almost impossible to me that co2/dissolved ferts won't move about in water. I had a previous 4-footer (70+ gallons) with an eheim 2215. My effective turnover was 1. The tank was pristine and no deficiencies on either side of the tank. Most issues in my world are light/co2/maintenance.