Dennis Singh

SynKing!
May 5, 2013
2,423
639
113
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Orange County, CA
So 6/25/2019 I moved the tank to my room. Removed all the bba and capped the soil with more Malaya aquasoil. Redid the whole tank.
Now that I have new soil I got to keep up on water changes. 20 gallon long, I changed the water everyday some periods off I skipped water change. 5 gallons I changed with pure ro. I don't know what that computes to with the soil and tank not filled all the way up, but i'm guessing about 40% each day. One algae I could not rid of was bga, seemed inevitable with the new soil. I treated it with ultra life blue green slime remover and chemiclean with no luck at all no success. This led me to the conclusion that bga is a phase of time where it totally disappears when the nh4 leech is gone. That's what happened. It just went away on its own when the leech was over. No treatment. This done with surface agitation along with, if you don't have proper flow it can be a pain.

all the bba I dealt with, manual hand removal
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tank on 6/25/2019
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bga creeping in slowly but steadily
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Dennis Singh

SynKing!
May 5, 2013
2,423
639
113
40
Orange County, CA
Over 20+ years into aquariums I have never ever had a stable dosing regime. Never! after all that time. Yes soil would deplete and I would add fertz but never consistently. Deficiencies seem hard to get as the soil would always have nutrients or the water column would always have enough nutrients. That's why I have purchased nilocg's liquid fertilizers, not thrive or anything with urea or nh4, this way I can keep on a stable regime. No pain of weighing and dry dosing.
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I saw a video on facebook of Japan planting a forest of trees in a circular motion. The trees inward and closer to each other grew smaller, and the trees outward had more space and got more resources easier and grew a lot bigger. So got me thinking, if you want to see a plant that you love at its full potential plant it and give it space. I suppose you can combat the idea with higher light as well. But crowding will limit access to resources, nutrients co2 etc.
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Spread of light is way more important than intensity. I've grown stuff in the lowest of lightings which are supposedly high lighting plants. The case in which you need more intensity is only with red plants. But if you overdo things like co2 or N they definitely can revert to green. Lowest of pars will grow most all plants if there is good spread of lighting.
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Theres a certain point in time where plants will root in and help to absorb everything that's in the water quicker and better than non rooted plants. I have seen topping plants and replanting these tops in redoing my tank that they're more susceptible to algae rather than rooted plants.When redoing a tank a large water change is very helpful but rooted plants are a lot stronger than non rooted plants.
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BBA, i'm not sure of the cause of this damn algae, but it seems mostly light driven. Plants like moss and buces or """low""" light plants are very more prone to getting it in higher light tanks. Closer to the light the more bba I get. I don't think organics is the cause anymore as my tank was packed full of mulm and I had a bba side wall and it just slowly went away, organics was not being tackled at the time. It could of been microorganisms that ate it off, but who knows. Manual removal, microorganisms, or chems to get rid of it. I don't know how it comes about but one thing I know for sure, cause of bba is not from lack of co2. It is the idea that healthy plants=no algae, but I've seen both growing coexisting at the same time just fine. Maybe its a well stocked tank full, u can get away with more, initial investment or your going to fail. Investment on good everything, good filter, good regulator, good lighting, well actually no, the lighting you can do cheapo and still do well.
organics/mulm tank full
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I don't know why people don't surface agitate. Not much co2 is degassed and the system always benefits from more o2 gas exchange. I've seen algae growing faster when water was raised and no agitation. I see poor advice for co2, saying dial it up till your fish gasp, then dial it down, what a sick test to do with your fish, I'm a hypocrite though in this concept as I have gassed a lot of fish in the past, LOTs. Reactors are always the way to go in my opinion. I do not like atomizers or diffusers anymore, I really do wonder how the fish are, swimming in a swarm of co2 bubbles.
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Lastly eriocaulon sectaceums can't have the bottom grow sideshoots and be topped. Only the crown will split and then you can divide.
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Dennis Singh

SynKing!
May 5, 2013
2,423
639
113
40
Orange County, CA
7/6/26/2019
quick fts clear up
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6/27/2019
planted rio negro giants
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little bit of cyano
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6/30/2019
fts, wate clear
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7/3/2019
add bit of humic acid to the tank
I add humic acid just for the buffer, out of all times using humic acid I have not noticed only but minor differences. I've seen my syns get light whitish with the addition.
other than the buffer, adding traces, it doesn't really do anything
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7/5/2019
see progressively growing
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7/6/2019
a lil cyano
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emmersed eriocaulon heterolepsis, now its dead and gone, back in india, no one bought it...spend $ spread plants
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7/18/2019
cyano coming on way stronger
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8/4/2019
not where i'd like to be
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Dennis Singh

SynKing!
May 5, 2013
2,423
639
113
40
Orange County, CA
There are just too many aspects to a planted tank to accurately pinpoint one issue if u are having many, too many aspects to growth, just a lot of aspects to all of it. The amount of aspects to a planted tank is a lot. U got substrate, that you can go soil, that can go soil contents-water chemistry buffering and water chemistry, co2, low light, led light, t5 light, to filter, to micro organisms, to water change to flow current and agitation, to levels of nutrients, to what kind've nutrients, from fresh or old into the water column, to stages in time, to stability, to size and volume, spacing, roots of the plants, health, growth, to hardness, to kh, to to to...on the general advice is softer water, acidic, moderate light and good co2, exceptions possible but seen done, but mythically plants like downoi, r. sunset/florida need the higher supposedly. The growth of syns in Malaya soil inspired me to write this paragraph. In fresh Malaya soil, ive tested twice, syns will grow tall and lenghty. The organic load of soil is low, the nh4 leech is light, and the buffering is lower.

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Dennis Singh

SynKing!
May 5, 2013
2,423
639
113
40
Orange County, CA
Merry Xmas and happy new year all
I've gotten most syn to flower stalk. I've gotten syngo belem, sao gabriel, lago grande, rio uaupes, rio negro giant,
rio negro 2006 all to stalk. Never seen a flower once for all of them. I've never gotten manaus or madeira to stalk.
But I'm wondering how to propagate the flower pods. Does anyone know and can help? Is it cool to just pull the stalks
out, dry them up and then pinch and spinkle onto emmerse setup? Is it possible to cross pollinate and create some
sort of hybrid syngonanthus? Seems like no one knows. They know how to with erios. The plants have not seem to die off
at all though having three stalks or so. The buds even seem to attract cyano. I use a small siphon and it doesn't seem to
suck off. My ph must be pretty low, i haven't measured it. If anyone can help or refer someone to help that would be
greatly appreciated. In all my life I have never seen a syn flower or belem shoot out a stalk, and stupid me wasn't paying attention when
I was trimming i pulled it off, when it was pretty close to the surface, without noticing and tossed it. Even when belem
reaches the surface of the water I still have not seen it stalk till now.

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belem
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