Ada mini m iwagumi "valley" journal

Thanks for the input guys. i added some small flat rocks in the valley hoping to provide a more natural look of a valley eroded by a river. I also placed a flat rock under the overhanging big rock on the right to eradicate the potential problem of HC not growing there. I ordered plants and they will arrive tomorrow:grin2:. Pearlweed was on sale 1 euro so naturally i could not resist buying it. i might add it to background to create the impression of a dense forest in the mountains.

Im new to high tech tanks and i have some questions still which i hope you can answer.

1. lighting intensity

Someone on this forum measured the following par values for the Chihiros led:

For the 13G (30cm / 12 inches from substrate middle line of the tank), dimming levels 1-7 on the included dimmer.
Level 1 - 8.5 Par
Level 2 - 30 Par
Level 3 - 49 Par
Level 4 - 70 Par
Level 5 - 90 Par
Level 6 - 105 Par
Level 7 - 130 Par

I was wondering which dimming level i should choose for my setup (will be planted with HC and DHG sp mini)

2. Dry start

i was planning to do a dry start and mist the plants twice a day and and aerate the tank once a day by lifting the plastic wrap. Will this be sufficient to provide sufficient water and prevent mold? also, how long should i keep the lights on (10 hours a day?) and on what setting?

3. dosing

I plan on using Potassium nitrate-potassium sulphate solution for macro and a bottle of Tetra plantamin for micro's (i have learned that this stuff is not the best but its what i got from the pet store when starting my low tech. and i rather not buy more stuff if not nessicary ). The tetra plantamin does not contain magnesium btw which im afraid might cause issues. My water has a DH of 8 so does that mean that ill be fine?
I was wondering if i could get away with dosing micro's twice a week and the plantamin once a week since my plants are heavy root feeders. also ill be dosing excel once a day especially during the initial phase to deter algae. what do you guys recommend?

4Add amano's?

Will the red cherry shrimp be able to handle algae by themselves or would it be good to add 2-3 amano's to the tank (they eat more algae species right?).

Ill be sure tokeep you guys updated on the tank!

I think you should swap the outflow with the inflow if you put the diffuser there. Although this may work to just something you can try.

I did a dry start to and I am having barely algae issues, but I didn't like the look of the tank during dry start.
If you want to watch your tank already, the dry start is gonna ruin the looks; due the humidity and wrap over it.


If you don't mind dhg and hc are good plants to dry start with. Also good for rooting to avoid floating plants when flooding. During a dry start plants can handle a lot of light due the unlimited supply of co2. I started with 8 hours a day and ended up with 12 hours a day. I even saw people with 18 hours a day during dry start. Spraying once a day and putting the wrap off for 15 min a day is fine. Leave a small opening to prevent mold.


Keep the soil moist but no puddles this will cause mold!

If you do the dry start make sure to blast a lot of co2 in there when you flood. The plants were used to unlimited co2 supply and do have less in the water. Don't add any livestock during this phase. Drop checker on yellow.

Not 100% sure what par dhg needs but someone on this forum told the dhg started to do "well" at 100 par. DHG needs pretty high light to spread. I think lower will work but it takes more time. Personally I would start with like 40-50 par and see how it goes.

Only use excel with a syringe if you have BBA

Today i planted the tank and started the dry start! I bought 3 pots of HC since it was on sale and was only 2 euro per pot (im lucky to live in the Netherlands i guess since plants are very cheap here). It turned out i had enough to cover nearly the entire area that i wanted to plant! I just laid the HC as a carpet on the soil with the roots down. Since i played it as a carpet it was not possible to get the roots in the ground but i guess it will root by itself. Will this happen quickly or is it better to take it apart into small clumps and plant those? I also used pearlweed in the back, curious how it turns out

I used pieces of plastic plant pots as barriers between the different plants. I hope this will prevent the DHG from taking over the HC.

Since the tank is pretty much covered with plants i guess it will be a short dry start.

Ada mini m iwagumi "valley" journal

Wait a bit longer, patience is best! Give it a month and you may have a full carpet by the time you flood. Like I know it's covered now, but in a month you will literally have a lush green carpet, rather than just pure coverage.
It's a good scape by the way! The largest rock is perfectly and the focal point, and nice use of negative space in the middle. Also, DHG will eventually spread to the other stuff no matter how hard you try, it sends runners under the substrate. Additionally, for future referance you can lay down plants like HC on the substrate to root down, only if you are doing a dry start like you are. They'll root by themselves eventually and that's what I do for my emersed setups. IMO it's the best way to plant them for dry starts/emersed growth cus I'm lazy and you get a lot of coverage quickly. If you are flooding immediately you have to plant them into the substrate.
Agree with Nigel don't blast too much light in, the plants you chose aren't super light hungry 40-50 umol of PAR should be sufficient. If it is growing under whatever setting it is now, it should be fine when you flood too. I have a DHG carpet in my 60P and I was around 30 umol of PAR and it spread at one point. (I use the Chihros 60cm and had it at level 2 for a while)
Another thing your fertilising won't have to be too heavy, carpeting plants aren't super demanding and Aquasoil is actually really nutrient heavy especially for the first month or so. You could do a more lean regime like PPS-Pro or follow ADA's target ppms for nutrients and you would be golden. The micro mix you have should be fine your GH seems high enough that you won't need extra Mg. Although sometimes you can have a high GH and low Mg but I think you'll be fine. I usually just go for 3 days macros, 3 days micros. Excel won't be needed just use it if you need to kill BGA or BBA, works like a charm, again like Nigel was saying.
1 BPS of CO2 should be more than enough although of course bubble counters are all made different so none are equal. A drop checker with 4dKH water may help to get a (slightly) more accurate reading.
Sorry for the late reply to everything just found your thread! Great tank by the way, excited to see this fill in.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Opare said:

Wait a bit longer, patience is best! Give it a month and you may have a full carpet by the time you flood. Like I know it's covered now, but in a month you will literally have a lush green carpet, rather than just pure coverage.
It's a good scape by the way! The largest rock is perfectly and the focal point, and nice use of negative space in the middle. Also, DHG will eventually spread to the other stuff no matter how hard you try, it sends runners under the substrate. Additionally, for future referance you can lay down plants like HC on the substrate to root down, only if you are doing a dry start like you are. They'll root by themselves eventually and that's what I do for my emersed setups. IMO it's the best way to plant them for dry starts/emersed growth cus I'm lazy and you get a lot of coverage quickly. If you are flooding immediately you have to plant them into the substrate.
Agree with Nigel don't blast too much light in, the plants you chose aren't super light hungry 40-50 umol of PAR should be sufficient. If it is growing under whatever setting it is now, it should be fine when you flood too. I have a DHG carpet in my 60P and I was around 30 umol of PAR and it spread at one point. (I use the Chihros 60cm and had it at level 2 for a while)
Another thing your fertilising won't have to be too heavy, carpeting plants aren't super demanding and Aquasoil is actually really nutrient heavy especially for the first month or so. You could do a more lean regime like PPS-Pro or follow ADA's target ppms for nutrients and you would be golden. The micro mix you have should be fine your GH seems high enough that you won't need extra Mg. Although sometimes you can have a high GH and low Mg but I think you'll be fine. I usually just go for 3 days macros, 3 days micros. Excel won't be needed just use it if you need to kill BGA or BBA, works like a charm, again like Nigel was saying.
1 BPS of CO2 should be more than enough although of course bubble counters are all made different so none are equal. A drop checker with 4dKH water may help to get a (slightly) more accurate reading.
Sorry for the late reply to everything just found your thread! Great tank by the way, excited to see this fill in.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for your tips! I guess the DHG will not be stopped by the barriers i put in the soil. It will be interesting to see how long it will take for it to conquer the rest of the tank. I probably want to rescape the tank in about half a year so until then ill be able to enjoy a nice mixed carpet:grin2:. Good tips on the dosing as well! sadly i don't have testing kits (with the exeption of a co2 testing kits) and i don't plan on buying them if not necessary since it will cost me like 40 bucks . The fact that such kits are not needed for EI dosing is appealing to me. Also, dosing ferts 6 times a week (3 macro, 3 micro) is quite a lot of work. Considering the shrimp need to be fed only once a week i was wondering if i could get away with dosing only once or twice a week. In that case ill only need to care for the tank in the weekend (feeding shrimp, water changes and dosing ferts), which would be very convenient. Do you think i can get away with dosing macro's on saturday (after water change) and micro's on sunday?

Ada mini m iwagumi "valley" journal

Hah to be honest it'll look fine mixed because DHG won't battle with the HC if you get me, they grow differently.
You don't actually need test kits for those either, I don't use test kits for nutrients. Just use Rotalabutterfly.com to see how much you need to dose (like ml) of something to reach the level for the specific regime like EI or the PPS-Pro.
Trust me dosing won't take long maybe a minute everyday hahaha. I just get a syringe, open a bottle and squirt, the only reason it may take long is if I end up watching the tank afterwards. You could just dose once a week but I wouldn't dose a whole week of EI in one day. Maybe just do 1/3 EI and just dose it on those 2 days (micros and macros seperately), full EI isn't super necessary for your tank. Things like feeding fish/shrimp and dosing really take no time at all though, even if you have a long day at work you can do it just before you sleep and it takes tops 5 minutes if you are messing about.
EDIT: Side note you will need ammonia and nitrite test kits though, Aquasoil releases quite a bit of it it may not be as bad because you dry started but it's still something to check for. Ammonia and nitrite test kits are must haves IMO anyway cus you need to know when your tank is cycled and safe for livestock. Of course you can sort of eyeball that it's gonna take about a month, maybe less before it's fully cycled and Aquasoil is no longer doing the Ammonia thing, but it's better to be safe than sorry with a bunch of dead stuff.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk