40 Gallon- Putting it all together

Ghostie

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No exploding growth yet! But the good news so far is there is no algae yet either.

The two happiest plants are the HC and Rotala Wallichii. The HC is growing and spreading nicely and is nice and green. The Hygrophila Pinnatifida is slow growing, but the new growth looks good. The Stargrass looks happy.

For some reason the Limnophila hippuroides didn't like the aquarium and melted away, so it has all been removed. The glosso has new growth, but the leaves are fairly small and reaching up. Not much is happening with the hairgrass yet.

I increased the co2 pressure to 35 for the diffuser. I was having a hard time at 30 pushing enough co2 through. I also have a thread in the sediment area about the Onyx sand raising kH. So that is making it a little difficult to pin down the co2. Hopefully the Onyx sand will slow down raising the kH in a few weeks.

I will post a few pictures later!
 

Ghostie

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[attachment=1505:name]
Wide view of aquarium location.

[attachment=1504:name]
On the left, sitting on the driftwood, is a mat of unplanted glosso.

[attachment=1503:name]
Here is the happy HC next to the less happy glosso.

HC & glosso.jpg


lasndscape.jpg


wide view.jpg
 

BellinghamFish

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Nice pics I'm jealous of the rimless. Plants look good, I've heard Wallichii is a co2 hog so if you have that growing happy you are doing very good =]
 

Ghostie

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So right now my KH is 5 with a ph of somewhere between 6.2-6.4 for 94 ppm of CO2. Since I have no fish, I assume this isn't a problem?

Some of the stargrass stems were dying from the bottom up, I trimmed and replanted the tops. Maybe the Coralife NO T5 36" PAR is too low? The stem plants aren't growing as fast as I thought they would!

I never seem to get any pearling, may that be because the filter is very efficient at moving water? When I change water, and turn off the filter, the plants pearl like crazy. When I turn the filter back on is seems to stop.

The HC seems to be the happiest plant so far with the Rotala W. coming in second. The Christmas moss hasn't done a thing yet and the Hygrophila Pinnatifida is very slow growing...

I am still dosing 1/4 tsp KNO3 3x, 1/16 TSP KH2PO4 3x and trace 3x(amount suggested for 20-40 gal aquariums.) Do you guys think I should up the amount daily a bit?

Still no algae...
 
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Ghostie

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So the new leaves of the Rotala Wallachi seem to be getting smaller and smaller. Also a few of the new stargrass leaves are transparent. Should I try to up my fertilizer dosing? I think My co2 is high enough at 60ppm. Maybe the 2 bulb T5no fixture isn't bright enough... What do you guys think?
 
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Ghostie

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[attachment=1508:name]
Here is picture of the dinky new rotala growth.
Kh is now 6 and gh is 13! I think the Onyx sand is really messing with the parameters. Perhaps it was a mistake to go with it...

rotala wallachi dinky.jpg
 
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thegasman

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That looks like the growth that I get when I take a cutting from my high light (130 PAR) tank and put it in my low light tank (30 PAR).
 

Tom Barr

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If the KH was lower, say 3-4, then the R wallichii is a good plant to say there's not enough CO2.
It'll grow like a weed if you have soft water and decent water column ferts, but needs good CO2.
 

Ghostie

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thegasman: You a probably right, the plants did come from a high-light(aquariumplants.com) to my tank with low light.

Tom: My mistake was using Onyx sand as a substrate. The kH out of the tap here in NYC is ~1.5, which is pretty good. But over the course of the week it has gone up to ~5 kh. I did a 50% WC on Sunday. I hope it will slow down a bit raising the carbonates, if not I may have to change out the substrate to black sand. Not something I look forward to!
 
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Tom Barr

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As long as you keep up on larger water changes and high frequency, then the R wallichii should be fine with the water, then it's mostly CO2/light.
 

Ghostie

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I will keep up the water changes for sure. Since the CO2 is at 60ppm I can rule that out. Is the PAR of my light too low? Should I up my fert dosing? Maybe a magnesium deficiency? I must be doing something wrong! Much of the stargrass is dying from the stem up, I trimmed the tops off and replanted. Tested nitrates(NO3) using LaMotte Nitrate kit at 14.2 ppm today.
 
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Ghostie

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Changed 50% of water today. Kh back down to 4. Although I am still getting a decent co2 concentration(50ppm), it seems like the super diffuser is slowly clogging so I may have to replace it.

Any insights into my previous issues of stem plants not doing well? I know everyone out there has nothing better to do than solve my aquarium problems! ;) I am beginning to think I might need a better light...
 

Ghostie

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I upgraded to the 36" Fuge Ray LED light. My plants seem much happier than they were with the T5-NO light.

Several weeks ago the Up Aqua Super CO2 Diffuser broke(a seal popped somewhere) while I was out of town on a work trip. I replaced it with a basic glass diffuser. I had to up the bubble rate quite a bit to keep the CO2 levels the same. It took a week or two to get it to the proper levels. CO2 is at 30ppm right now.

This past week I also doubled the amount of dry ferts I was adding. I could also see a a positive change in the plants but also an increase of different algae(claphadora, thread and a few others.) So I may need to split the difference in ferts and check the CO2 levels again. Maybe I should also lower the photo period which is at 8 hours now. Any other ideas for controlling the small amount of algae?

It also seem the Onyx sand is not raising the KH and GH quite as much as in the beginning, so I will leave it in.

Last week I added 4 ottos from a previous aquarium. I also have 7 cories, but was unable to catch them to move them over!
[attachment=1569:name]

aquariumJuly.JPG
 

gsjmia

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How do you like having an acrylic aquarium? It looks great from the pictures.

Is it hard to keep clean without scratching at the water line?

I read on a reefer site that a guy was using Mr. Eraser to clean acrylic-I tried it on my overflow box and sure enough it cleaned it like new with no scratches.
 

Tom Barr

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Public aquariums use acrylic, mostly for structural reasons, but you can buff the sucker, you can buff glass, but it takes hours and hours, like buffing stone.

Still, I prefer glass for tanks in the 300 Gal and less range, over this, you sort of are asking for it or will need to spread a lot of $ to have it built on site. Amano's 10x5x5ft glass tank had to be craned in and then required a steel frame.
I'd likely just build a pool type thing with 2-3 viewing panes instead.
When you get to that scale, screw to box design.
Go with a pond design.
 

Ghostie

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No scratches on the acrylic yet! I am very careful though and it has been set up for only two months. I bought it several years ago for half off, so I couldn't pass it up.
 

Ghostie

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Update:
So now I have fish!
7 Bronze Corys(transfered from old tank)
15 Ember tetras
10 Axelrod's Blue Rasbora
4 otos (transfered from old tank)
6 amano shrimp


Plants are only doing okay. I am not sure what is wrong with them, but growth isn't great. I also have a bit of algae both claphadora and a tiny bit of BBA.

My co2 is in the correct range of 45ppm (about 3-4 bubbles a second.) I still change 50% water weekly.

kh 6
ph 6.6-6.8

I have been dosing between the 20 gallon and 40 gallon recommended amounts of ferts 3x a week for EI. Maybe I have a deficiency? Should start upping the amount of ferts until things perk up?