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Its been an eventful 3 weeks, to say the least
To begin with, the 10 gal sprung a leak. Yes, that 10 gal, the brand new one I just replaced the other one with a few months ago, which I cracked by slamming it with a bucket of water.
This sparked a chain of events that culminated with the 75 going back up.
Hello old friend
Using the previous 4 bulb T5 unit, around 100 PAR at the substrate.
Made a new 3"x24"" PVC reactor just like the one on here. Had to buy a new filter, went with a SunSun 704B, which is apparently the 2016 version of the 304B, has the skimmer, UV and all that, sturdier casing. Its pretty nice, dead silent as usual.
Blasting sand sub, basically the same set up as all the rest.
It went in place of the 20 long. So now in the back room I have the 75 and the 50. Gone are the 20 and 10.
Maintenance is a lot easier now w/o all those HOB filters. And I can use the big siphon hose to drain and fill so no more toting buckets. It only took three for the 20 and 10 but still a pain in the ass. Should've done this a long time ago.
The 120
Moss walls are growing out nice. About ready to trim the right side and fill in some empty spaces.
This stuff pearls like crazy, I wasnt expecting that.
Re-did the stump...again. I hated to re-start the Fissidens so soon but it had to be done. Hopefully it takes off with a quickness.
Replaced the H araguaia with Penthorum sediodes. Added a Barclaya (thanks Vin). Gone are the Erio lineare and AR variegated. Might bring the AR back if I can find a good spot for it.
Stem groups are still a jumbled mess but I have a plan finally. Tomorrow's water change will do some trimming and re-arranging
Here's two fts, such as it is, taken a few days apart. See if you can tell the difference before I explain it.
The difference is I changed out a bulb in the bottom pic. Better colors now, right?
All this moss cast a heavy green tint on everything and I wasnt really diggging it. Played around with a few different bulbs, a blue actinic finally did the trick.
I ran one on the 75 for a few months in conjunction with the 3000K. Those two are a dramatic combo, excellent compliment to one another. The ATI purple sorta does the same as the blue, but all this extra green needed a heavier punch.
Here it is now. Front to back
Trulumen Flora
Zoo-med 420 actinic blue
Plantmax 3000K
Agrobrite 6400K
ATI purple
Zoo-med Flora
Generally you want the reds in front and blues in back for a better depth effect. But I wanted a heavy blue next to the 3000K to off-set some of that yellow shining down on the moss sides.
Fert update
3 weeks at .075 Fe 3x. The previously mentioned symptoms of overdosing at .12 and .1 are probably...75% gone now. But its still too much.
The little tufts of BBA that appeared on the substrate is gone. GDA on the glass is hardly any by the weeks end. At .1 is was pretty bad already by mid-week. GDA is usually associated with excessive macros, specifically ammonia, but too much Fe can trigger it too. Ive seen this movie a few times before.
Lingering plant symptoms are minor. Rotala indica is still abnormally dark, not bright and pretty like its supposed to be.
Persicaria pink and sao paulo leaves are still twisting. Which in this particular case is 100% due to an overdose of micros or Fe. Some may scoff at the notion, but just like curling AR, it happens like clockwork. Too much brings it on and lower levels fix it. Done it over and over again.
Other than a few nagging issues like that, everything else is doing pretty good. Rotala mac variegated and sunset are both fine.
Llimnophila belem is big with nice purple splotches. When this plant colors up right you know things are good for the most part.
Its not a tough plant to grow, nearly impossible to kill, but having good size and colors is another matter
Next step micro-wise is go down to .05 ppm Fe 3x per week and see what happens. Ive tweaked the ratios a bit, more B and Zn, less Mo, and now adding a dash of Cu. Roughly a Marschner ratio now, which it was pretty close to before.
