[DennisSingh]

pantanal progression
8/16/2020

still 8/16/2020

8/17/2020

8/18/2020 lights off, but other tanks lights on

if it was mainly co2, how come at the surface with all the co2 unlimited, how come no ultra red?

 

[DennisSingh]

pantanal progression, it would go in and out of red and dull, eventually i just gave up. Let it become duller and duller. Then I pulled the stems put them in a bag and intended to transfer them to another tank, but let them die instead. So i lost pantanal species.

 

[DennisSingh]

tFirst part of progression, I hacked all the giants from my tank, put back a few middle right end of tank. My crops got very dusty, so I waivered them and water changed.

I have noticed, syn touching syn is just fine. Syn touching other sensitive plants like kimberly one or the other can melt. S grades touching fast growers can melt. The spread is fine, so ...

8/24/2020
all giants are on right side

all 8/27/2020
this is a uaupes, it was shaded under giants on right side middle

giants extracted

s grades dusted

 

[DennisSingh]

progression continue

8/28/2020

8/29/2020

took the rotala t. out
8/30/2020 pic

8/31/2020

9/1/2020

 

[DennisSingh]

I put my vichada into my fresh amazonia tank and it started splitting within a matter of days. I had this in malaya for so long few months, just growing but no splitting.
9/3/2020

buce skeleton king 7/13/2020

 

[DennisSingh]

9/4/2020 -present (9/12/2020}
algae on lower or older leaves. It was very stuck, siphoning couldn't get it off, scraping with fingers not effective. Only choice, let the plants outgrow the algae. Or maybe pluck all leaves with it, but i'm not going to do that.
I only got the lyrics to describe my feeling of how the tank is "I wonder, the spell we're under...will ever be broken.."
9/4/2020

9/5/2020

9/6/2020

reverted green, white stripe in pic

9/7/2020

9/8/2020

9/9/2020

9/11/2020

9/12/2020 present day...

 

[DennisSingh]

Stuff was really booming. I wasn't doing maintenance, dosing, water changes. I'd get very light melt in the back. This all outta lack of motivation. I was really excited and pumped on doing a aga naturescape and that has halted basically everything on my syn tanks. The soil was doing its work, but I really feel like I've wasted it. It was in its prime week, s ago. I felt like i wasted it mainly on giants. But the soil did a great job, now I feel like its back to being depleted and dosing a bunch. Sooner or later I will have to switch my main tank to amazonia. Right now no need to worry. So in growing some different species like r. tuladensis and such I didn't really like them or they didn't do what I wanted them to do. Back to syn again, passion never dies here. Maybe I will try erio in my amazonia tank. My amazonia tank is full of algae, diatoms and hair, easy stuff to fix, but its a mess. I'm surprised la Lindosa is still alive. I have the syn white stripe i bought reverted green, and all its doing is growing like regular variegated in the tank. Very dissappointed in the price I paid for it. I really gotta aim propagation for Syn Meta. People don't seem to like the taller syns. I was in love with belem in the beginning. So this tank getting too much algae. The problem is lack water changes maintenance, but also a key to the problem is the tank is shallow the outflow is low and it blows dust off the substrate, i believe this to be a problem too. So I need to raise the outflow, switch out material, raise the water from there. The tank filtered by a canister. People don't ever say plants are filters, they are great filters. If you have say a cruddy filter and great plants growing, that water will still clear overnight. So I never understood why people never say plants are filters. The lighting is just 4x bulb t5. 6500k. The real problem though, the tank is in another room, I never go in and look at it. I have to look at my object for a little bit, while I plan what to do with it. I can't just go into it. Its harder that way. But always algae better than melting. This tank will be clean in a day. I just dont know what day. It gets pure ro, no remineralization. I find that only necessary for fish with the plants I grow. All my tanks get ro, remin varies by tank. Dosing, its so hard to maintain stability. Main tank i just front load, but other tank i this tank in pictures, i just don't dose. Making it worse, the micro toxicity gambit, got me to hardly even dosing traces, which works very well anyways. They seem to cause rhizo type stringy algae, but could be just overlook. Creativity has reached its peak for me, what am I going to do, add a moss wall? Really no more creativity going on. Drinking red bulls daily can't get me going. Oh well, comes in spurts I supposed. I think I had got to the point where I wanted to be but just wasn't enjoying it, i achieved my goal and just didn't care. Weird. Now its just pretty much farming syn.

9/25/2020
s grade not melt, strange

tonina still growing

giants, i simply wipe off with hand and siphon, all green and all clean

full tank

metas and company

lot algae

raising water and outflow will rid duckweed

la lindosa not die for awhile now

zoom out

 

[DennisSingh]

Ok before I interrupted myself with the other tank. The main tank, I did lots of work overnight. This whole process took 3 water changes. Each change was 10 gallons, 2 5g jugs, and each removed a considerable amount of undesirables. First was catch all the fish I can. I removed all fish in the end, this allows me to open up the overflow box, as well as inject as much co2 as i want. But first, I caught, most fish, excluding the ones in the sump. Remaining was one fish in the tank, and rest in sump, that which i did not catch yet, the caught ones went straight into my aquascape low tech tank. So one remaining fish in the tank, I started dismantling the sump, this allowed me to catch the fish in there and I knew the count of fish. So after all those guys transfered to low tank. I uprooted all plants and drained some water, this allowed me to see and catch the last fish in the tank. Plants uprooted, I needed to wipe down the glass as much I wanted, removing all glass bba. GLASS BBA??? yes. So siphoning and stirring the soil up for all that powder, equaled up to 2 water changes. There was, and still is a lot of powder, basically the majority percentage of soil is powdery. But I did what I can. While removing plants, one by one, needed to identify each and seperate. I've got a good understanding of uaupes vs rio negro 2006, and then I got unidentified ones. Theres chance, I have sao gabriel, there is a third i have seperated. So I got 2 big groups, 1 3rd, and some unable to id. It wouldn't surprise me if I had uaupes and sao gabriel mixed up and that would make the uaupes group the smallest. Enough blabbering though, doesn't really matter in the end for my end.
9/18/2020

Bump: continuation 9/21/2020

 

[DennisSingh]

Ok sorry, so this post in continuation of last post details. I got lazy in continuing post.

Last pics before tear down and redo 9/24/2020

see the algae on the glass?

 

[DennisSingh]

So whatever I said, I dont' know if said it or not. But redo
1. caught all fish
2. tear down sump to catch fish replace new medias
3. Remove plants and try id as best I can and also to catch one last fish inside the tank
4. Scrub walls of all algae
5. Siphon remove all debris, bba, everything I can
6. Take break
7. Plant everything accordingly
8. Raise tf out of co2
10. Open up overflow box removing screens

 

[DennisSingh]

9/25/2020
s grade not melt, strange

So my main tank I totally redid, siphoned the soil clean the walls etc, whatever etc is...One thing has been a reoccurrence, I had this fear which delayed the redoing, and its been MELTING leaves. It got me overthinking into this theory, the thought connected with a feeling, and it made sense to me when I looked at these S grades unknown in my fresh amazonia soil tank. The tank got heavy water changes for the first week, and then I totally slacked off and stopped caring for the tank. The algae that was already there came in booming. So without these water changes, there must be a good amount of nh4. Why aren't they melting, even the melted stems i transferred over, x2 of them recovered or didn't melt the other stems. Whats going on here? And then I could only think, my goal was to have a tank full, have them fully grown out and as fast as possible. I have always wanting to raise light(increase intensity) and I had/have, and then I remember reading about the soil and melting powder from Wong and how light will increase damage. Lowering light will lesson the damage, and will give the plant time adjust and stuff. I realized out of all my experience the eagerness and increase of the lighting always just led to problems. Then I thought, Tom Barrs way, well not his way, but his advice at some point in time. Moderate light, co2, and excess nutrients. Its a good system that works out. So with this, I'm going full on through low par, high co2, high ferts or root tabs. I need to adopt a method and stick to it. And my method, is never high light. I didn't take pictures of the melting but I will start, and start recording the progress of low light. The main tank. The light has a value 255 pwm, i don't know what this means, but 255 is max intensity, I had it at 120, so almost half of full par, now I have it dialed at 60. Thats about under 1/4 of the intensity the light can produce. With syns, I know its said as a high light high co2 plant. My co2 was high af and the intensity at 120, still caused algae and melting issue(s grades). Co2 I 've raised in both my syn tanks to the point no fish can survive. I have not tested fish, but co2 very high those two. I thought ridding the fish and turning up co2 would never lead to melt again so thats why I did the redo. Another thing, removal of this fish lessens the nh4 to nothing.
LOOK! any change to your system, your not going to see it right away. PATIENCE is key virtue to planted tank. I've learned not to look for the instant reactions anymore. Even if my plants are pearling great and all its not a sign that the system is healthy.

clearing algae, redoing, etc

filled water level, changed outflow

 

[chinaboy1021]

Dennis,

What is that green plant called that you refer to as "Giants"? I never seen this plant before...:O

 

[DennisSingh]

Dennis,

What is that green plant called that you refer to as "Giants"? I never seen this plant before...:O

Full name provided is
syngonanthus rio negro giant, but I did send it to a identifyer and it might go under the classification of macrocaulon, I have no idea.

 

[kookyxogirl]

Good luck Dennis! You can grow any Syn!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[DennisSingh]

Good luck Dennis! You can grow any Syn!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Naw D. I want to but I cant. There are certain ones needing that nh4, I have not been able to. I will keep trying though.

 

[DennisSingh]

So the redo was 9/24/2020 and pictures run through to 9/28/2020
Here are pictures
I will follow up with melting pic or /s

9/25/2020

9/27/2020

9/28/2020

 

[DennisSingh]

So all these pictures were taken on 10/5/2020
Here I have pointed out in this fts the melting areas, not sure if I need to siphon that soil up another round, iono.

zoom in

You see some blurr, that is algae on the glass

 

[DennisSingh]

I don't think I am different from anyone else. I could've been born a different person and go through their footsteps, but not. But I am no different from you guys. Its just experience and persistance that got me to where I am at. How many times have I failed miserably, how many fish have I killed, how many plants destroyed. Sometimes ego comes as things are going so well but the success is just about anything anyone can do. If you keep at it, keep observing, keep trying, you'll keep learning and just keep getting better at it. Maintaining a planted tank, is very simple. Plants need light and food. Plants are great filters for your water. Everyone can add a light to a tank, everyone can add co2, dose whatever, i never got the saying of balance, maybe a few constants like light and co2, but in realm of of fertilization, there is no balance to what I dose. I go from frontloading a s-load to not dosing at all. All depends if I can get those jugs filled, cause I like dosing after a water change. I get the term established, as this actually means balance ie. rooted in, established bb. The environments of plants are all different, different ranges of ppm and pars, but there seems to be a system to well, grow it all. Plants need light and food, if this is not working for you, then you gotta look at your water quality main thing. You see top growers and wonder, what am I doing wrong? They do got good tap water and they do water change a lot. Well water changes won't help if your water is contaminated. You give your plants light, co2/ferts and they should generally grow. Then there are more aspects into color of plants, thickness, and so on, if you want to persist into perfecting everything. Over 20+ years of experience and I am still learning. Some growers plant spaced out, some plant real close together. You can observe a lot from pictures. But you basically know your system more than the people trying to help you.

I am trying to perfect all syngonanthus and collect all syngonanthus. The difference I'm seeing right now is the need of nh4 vs not needing. The stems ones root lesser and do really well in over ei macros and such, and the caulescens types do real well in the nh4 leech and get a lot of the soil. I will continue to kill, but as this happens, I will have observed, and gain a bit more experience. When I started into syngonanthus I was horrible. Now the lagos, giants, belems, meta, manaus, etc easier syns, I just can't melt them. Water parameters are too perfect. But I'm still trying to perfect. Right now, main tank, par is low, spread is good. I want to flower these plants again. I don't know if flowering is good or bad with these stem syns, they don't make new plants and they are far from being emmersed, way far. I don't know whether or not to let the stem grow or pull the stalk. I've only flower stalked them once in my lifetime for a period. Im going to try again and I really think it has to do with ph. I'm adding humic acid to my sump. Granules, not the liquid kind which I have too. Water has not turned brown yet. I might keep adding more to see if I can get it just lightly tinted, but the main is getting that ph buffer down. Right now degassed is about 5.4 and co2 peaked is about 4.4 ph. So barely a 1point drop. I'll test again tomorrow. I don't think my ph measurements are on point, I don't wait long enough for the pen to settle in. I'll test tomorrow to see and try get exact measurements.

Par is low, so the melting is under control. I do not as of now see it spreading.
Rookies, beginners even novices, you can do it. I have light and co2 on timer, dose whatever, do water changes, and have good soil. If your not getting there I'd definitely check into your water. I'm seeing a lot more growers out there now growing a wide range of plants. Its not super hard. Yes these things have probably already been said, seems like everything has already been said, you just got to search through history-it does repeat itself hee hee.

melting area

 

[DennisSingh]

Low par has done wonders for the tank. Gradual continual growth I have found myself with an abundance of plantage. There is algae and it continues to grow, being the best way to keep things clean and in shape are the water changes. Anyone want to dethrone me? Be my guest. Things are all good and all, but I've lost my passion, I am burned out. The kush moments and not kush moments haven't mattered anymore. Viewtime is low. I'm overwhelmed with 3 tanks, I know I want something else for each tank, but I can't get a stable goal anymore. I manage water changes, but that is it. Dosing continues. I had to use algae fix for spiro. There is continuing algae on the glass. But the thing is no melt has happend since I last updated this thread. It stopped and everything grew over. That was one of the main goals wasn't it. But being burned out like this sucks. Feels like such a waste of precious time. The stems, they really like the ei dosing. You can see shifts in color through the timeframe. I added a lot of humic acid granules to the sump, I am in attempts to flower and try get identifications on my these and i've been observing for a very long time I cannot distinguish if the species are any different. So at this time I'm just going to consider all as one species and spread as such. I've really tried a very long time. I'm no longer afraid of melting. The low par has done well, slowed it down until the melting parts grew new green over.

So left off on 10/7/2020....
so. 10/9/2020

melted area 10/11/2020

10/12/2020

For about a few days after I transferred fish, I got an explosion of bugs, not sure what they are, but they did a great job cleaning plants, and then eventually i guess food ran out and they dissappeared, some still there probably
10/12/2020

10/15/2020

10/15/2020 melting area

10/15/2020 melting area

10/15/2020 fts

 

[DennisSingh]

10/16/2020

10/16/2020 caulescens with bugs

10/17/2020

10/20/2020
the stem that was melting from before now has about 5 splits

10/20/2020

10/20/2020 spiro around

10/21/2020 water change