Phishless 80G Journal

Good Evening All:

I reckon my journal here is well deserving of an update!

A lot has happened in almost 6 months.

The short version with more to come in the near future:

Capped soil became mostly depleted of nutrients and an extreme amount of worms were present.
The worms traveled up through the substrate at night and left soil deposits everywhere.
Vacuum nightmarish type of dream so soil had to go.
Tank cleaned and switched to BDBS only.

Plants were not happy transitioning from soil to only water column nutrients.
This brought on hair algae, BGA, and eventually cloudy water on the verge of turning green.
My normal game does not include chemical treatments, but in this case????
ChemiClean & AlgaeFix were used to prevent the high dollar plant loss.
Most plants were saved, about 85%, not too bad for a tremendous algae bomb.
It's been months and some are still not quite right but close.

Plant density is not as forgiving with the loss of soil.
Crowding and shading create more issues with inert substrate.

Experiments have also been taking place.
Lowering of KH to less than 1dKH and measuring the uptake of micro nutrients based on Fe.
This has led me to dose way less micro nutrients, plant uptake plus a bit extra.
The affect has now shown changes in macro dosing but more time is needed.

Lowering of KH was done with a combination of RODI and HCl dosing as needed.
No more HCl is needed just have to keep GH high enough since all RODI is used.
Plant growth has seen an extreme increase in growth with lower KH.

Night All:

 

Still farming Algae!

Due to several plants that I am trying to continue to keep in the inert sand.
I reckon I will just need to move them to a different capped soil tank.
Moving them and no longer dealing with the algae they produce will be a blessing for sure.
It's only a few species giving me grief.

Some lessons learned:
Moving any plants to capped soil from an inert substrate always seems to be a win.
The opposite can prove difficult with a several species.

L. peruensis/glandulosa only growing well in the capped soil with nice red flat leaves.
Almost complete leaf loss and disfigured tops in the inert substrate.

Pogostemon stellatus almost identical to the above scenario.

Ranunculus transitioned bad but does recover after much new growth.

Rotala magenta goes to complete hell and does recover slowly.
Mermaid weed worked out same as magenta, very slow.

I should stop since my sick mind could write a novel about many species that I grow.

In the End:
This forces one's self to learn way too much @ once.

When my cloudy water clears I'll definitely grab some "clear" pics and post.

Night All:

 

My tank has made an extreme turn around after planting almost all plants in soil capped cups.
The inert substrate is all eventually going to go.








More too follow soon, I have not kept up here much!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

 

Still growing in mini solo cups at the moment.
When I have time I'll cap soil again in all of my tanks.
Will need to report back later with a good update.