Uns 60u First Time Scaping With Wood (harmony)

Hello Everyone!

This is my second journal that I've posted on this forum. Due to the current situation, the Uns 60s has been put to a halt (its coming together soon, I promise). I've wanted to purchase the UNS 60u for some time now but didn't pull the trigger on it yet. I came home one day and noticed that my dutch aquarium has a crack in it and it was leaking everywhere. Luckily, I was able to save all the plants and fish before it was too late. I thought to myself, this is the perfect time to finally purchase the UNS 60u. So the next day after work, I went to the LFS and purchase the new tank. Due to the lack of time, I had to throw together a scape and planted in less than 5 hours. I didn't want a Dutch or Iwagumi aquascape anymore. I wanted something different, I wanted something that was out of my comfort zone. I decided to go with something that looked more natural. So I decided to dig up the pile of wood that I've collected over the year and scape with it. I've never scaped with wood before since its very intimidating to me. Every time I do it, it never comes out the way that I wanted to. After 2 hours, I finally got what I wanted. I used multiple types of wood and stones to create a more natural look.

Hardware
Tank: Uns 60u
Light: Nilocg Prizm
Co2: 5lbs tank with Nilocg Atomizer
Filter: Eheim 2217

Plants
Foreground
-Marsilea Hirsuta
-Micro Sword
-Cryptocoryne Parva
Midground
-Rotala Bonsai
-Hydrocotyle Verticillata
-Cryptocoryne Wendtii Brown
-Bacopa Monnieri
-Anubias Petite
-A random type of Anubias (Idk the name, if you could help me determine which type it is, that'd be great!)
-Bucephalandra Antyovani
-Buce Wavy Green
-Buce Brownie Ghost
Background
-Amazon Sword
-Rotala Pink
-Hornwort
-Ludwigia Super Red

Inhabitants
-Blue Dreams (Started with 15)
-Amano Shrimps (x5)
-Bamboo Shrimps (x2)

This is my previous tank, the Dutch tank that cracked RIP "Rebirth"


Day 0

Day 7: Added some more details and the buces finally arrived

I hope you enjoyed reading my journal, as much as I enjoyed scaping and admiring this tank. I will be updating this journal weekly so there will be more to come!

 

An unfortunate event occurred yesterday. I woke up this morning and realized that my Azoo Skimmer had stopped working and the tank was not able to degassed properly overnight. Turned on the light to make sure that everyone was okay, but only to find out that both of my Bamboo shrimps and one Amano shrimp have passed away. Learning from my mistake, I looked for another skimmer and I came across the Eheim Skim 350. I've read reviews that stated that shrimps could be caught in the skimmer due to its high flow and ability to skim the surface very well. However, I've also seen how people modify it to where it would still function as it should without having shrimps getting caught in it. After some readings, I went to my LFS to pick up the new skimmer. Set it up, works well, modified it, works okay but not as great as it should. But, its nice to know that my shrimp won't be caught it in.

 

Things have gotten out of control lately. I did a Nitrite and Nitrate test on Wednesday (06/17/20) and discovered that my Nitrite is at 2.0 ppm and my Nitrate is at 80 ppm. After finding out, I moved all my blue dreams into my nano tank since I can still detect Nitrite. I guess the beneficial bacteria have died in the filter. No big deal. However, I started getting a lot of GDA this week so I decided to tweak my lighting a bit to see if that helps. Lowered the light level down by 10% and reduced the lighting period to 7 hours instead of 8 hours. Hopefully, this will do the trick. I will also be leaving the GDA alone for 3 weeks and then do a big water change/cleaning.

Now onto tackling the Nitrate issue. I'm guessing that the plants have not completely settled in yet so only a little bit of Nitrate is being used. So, I decided to add some floating plants to help with the Nitrate for the time being.

Learned a lot this week, hopefully these tweaks will help the tank. Still love looking at it though haha.

Day 14: The beginning of an algae farm (hopefully not )

 

The tank finally finished cycling this week so I was able to add back the Blue Dreams and Amanos. Good news and bad news this week. GDA have finally slowed down with the new lighting schedule. However, due to the lack of lighting, after trimming back the rotala pink (left top corner), probably half of the pink rotalas melted away. Right now, there are a lot of debris and stringy algae. Hopefully by adding the Blue Dreams and Amanos back, they'll be able to take care of that. Also! I got new inhabitants for the tank! 5 Ember Tetras and 5 Corydoras Pygmaeus. So far, I'm happy with the tank. I might buy new plants to replace the top right corner. But we'll see if the rotala can pull through. Im also not dosing right now since the substrate is still leeching out nutrients. I'll start dosing in 2 weeks, hopefully.

Day 21: Rotala, please pull through

 

Tank is looking a lot better now and plants are growing again. Rotala H'ra didn't make it through so I decided to take out the old rotten stems out and replaced it. I took a Nitrate test and it was at 0ppm, I also notice some GSA on the leaves and glass (minimal, not a lot) so I will be dosing EI this upcoming week. Short update this week since everything is growing very well!

Day 28:

 

This week was a very successful week. I started dosing EI again and it definitely show that its an amazing method. I also increased the light to 50% to compensate for the extra nutrients and CO2. Everything is growing at a good rate and is now able to out compete the algae. I did notice some staghorn algae but I am not super worried about it since I might have found the culprit for it. The flow in this tank is good when its just the filter, but when the skimmer is on, the flow is actually really really good (skimmer turns on and off every 30 minutes). I think the culprit is the CO2, I think my previous diffuser was way too small for this tank and I would have to turn it on 2 hours before the light comes on and the drop checker isn't even light green when the light is on. I decided to switch out the previous diffuser for a bigger one so I can pump for CO2 into the tank. This was only changed 2 days ago so we'll see what the tank is like in next week's update. Super excited for this tank!

Day 35

View attachment 16136

 

Sorry for the late update! Went out of town this weekend and I was very nervous to leave this tank by itself since its still pretty new. I was absolutely surprised by how well it did when I was gone. I left for 3 days, no feeding, no dosing and no weekly water change (I change my water on Sunday) and all I got was some GDA on the glass which is completely normal considering the light level and time remained the same. Here is what the tank looked like when I came home.

Day 42: Before water change and trim


During this trim, I just wanted to trim the unhealthy plants and I also trimmed back the Rotala H'ra and replanted the trimmings to make that side a bit bushier. Im still combating Staghorn Algae, I might want to dose Excel or H2O2 but I want to see if I can beat it naturally. I use algae as an indicator to see if my tank is balanced. Frustrating to deal with but rewarding when beat.

Day 42: After water change and trim

 

So. I thought the tank was doing okay but now its full of Staghorn algae and BBA. I did a h2o2 treatment (using Mark's Shrimp Tank method) 2 days ago and it helped a little bit. I've done a lot of research on BBA and Staghorn past couple days and I think my problem is inconsistent CO2 level. I know I have stated in my previous post that I suspect that it was low CO2, but after increasing the amount of CO2 going into the tank with no results, it makes me think about the consistency of the CO2 level (I increased from 1 bps to 4 bps and my dropper still stay lime green). My previous dutch tank did not have this issue since I was using an inline diffuser instead of a ceramic diffuse which in the beginning, I already thought it was iffy. I switched over to ceramic because I didn't like how the inline diffuser sprite up my water.

My final decision is to build a Rex Griggs Reactor to achieve a more consistent CO2 level. I won't be building the traditional Griggs reactor, I saw a build video on youtube that suggested a design where the Griggs reactor would not interfere with the flow of the water. I don't want to hurt the flow since I do think that my current water flow is absolutely perfect if not a little bit strong. Hopefully this will fix the algae problem.

 

Big update today. Trimmed all the infected plants, h2o2 dipped all the annubias and buses. Cleaned every single surface of the tank and hardware. I also did a big water change today, 80%. All of the algae on the annubias and buses are now turning pinkish. I know that I should be looking for the cause of the algae issue and I'm currently in the process of that. I just don't want the algae to get out of hand to the point of no return. Hopefully this big clean up will help out the algae issue for now. I've also decided to drop my light level from 50% to 40% for the recovery phase. I will be going to Home Depot tomorrow to pick up supplies for the Griggs reactor. Hopefully this works, first time building this thing so I'll probably make some mistakes. Anyways, I'm praying that this tank will pull through.

Day 49: Second Phase of the algae farm