37g Tech Tank

[Dandy Pearl]

This post has more build details. I have struggled with this forum and getting pictures displaying in the correct orientation. I apologize for them being sidewise, but I've spent too much time trying to figure it out. 

This pic shows the heater installed close tot he outlet. Hopefully I won't get any "LF" indicators. The heater is a bit obtrusive compared to everything else in the tank, but it is a needed piece of gear. It did make for hiding the CO2 diffuser behind it.

 

Here is a pic of the tank with the diffuser and bubble counter tucked in behind the heater. I like how when the CO2 bubbles rise they are incorporated into the tank by the filter outflow. I found a few more uses for the tubing holders. They certainly help keep things neatly organized.

 

Here is the CO2 bubble checker installed on the side opposite the diffuser. I wanted it on the other side of the tank so I would be sure I was measuring the true amount of dissolved CO2 .

This shows the plumbing and electrical up through the desk and how I've tried to make things neat. I've left enough slack so that I can just push things to the side when I remove the filter for servicing. BTW, the hole in the desk was drilled for one of those plastic desk power cord pass throughs. I didnt' have enough room to pass things through the plastic part, so I just didn't use it.

 

I also cut the CO2 delivery tubing long enough to be able to service the tank and not get hung up in the filter when it's removed. this pic shows how the tubing is installed. Thread the tubing through the nut, push the tubing onto the valve nipple, then thread on and tighten down the nut. The flexible tubing made installing the CO2 setup very easy.

Here is the nut tightened down. Since the tubing was so soft, I was able to easily hand tighten the nut.

This pic shows the tank 'tucked' in under the desk. You can now see the height limitation is was dealing with.

[Dandy Pearl]

6 minutes ago, josh world said:

a co op easy planter will look good in that tank 

Agreed, but it would be a waste of all the eco complete . . .

[Dandy Pearl]

The CO2 star up went okay. Reference the pic below.

I opened the tank only 1/2 turn.

When I opened the solenoid valve, the connection at the base of the bubble checker immediately popped off. I figured out the needle valve was open too much and the outlet pressure was to high. The lower the outlet pressure, the better adjustment you'll get from the needle valve.

I ended up running just over 1 psi at the outlet of the regulator. In the pic, the upper gage is the outlet pressure. The cylinder pressure is the lower gage and is showing about 60psi.

The black knob which adjusts the outlet pressure worked very well. The needle valve however (brass knob), even with the very low inlet pressure needs to be almost completely shut off to produce 1-3 bubbles / sec. That was my problem. I started with this valve open about 4 turns. This seemed to me to be 'wide open'. The valve does work, but you need to adjust it with barely detectable turns to adjust the flow. I will be looking for a replacement for this in the near future. The threads appear to be 1/8 NPT so a replacement shouldn't be to difficult to source. The tubing connection will be the tricky part. 

If you've never played with gas, regulators and valves it can be a bit confusing at first. One simple "rule" to keep in mind is that if you ever need to reduce the pressure of the outlet, the solenoid valve needs to be OPEN for the pressure to have a place to go. Otherwise, any attempted reductions in pressure simply won't happen. You'll be playing with valves and regulator and then realize you need to open the solenoid valve. Be careful as you may open it with too high a pressure and flow like I did.

Sorry for being wordy, but I thought new folks would benefit.

[Streetwise]

Thank you for documenting this!

[Dandy Pearl]

The 🌿 Plants 🌿 Have Arrived!!!!!

Here are the plants in the tank. Given that it is election night, there is No Way I'm gonna get these planted tonight. It will likely stay this way until Saturday. I got sooo many I didn't think I was going to stop unbagging. All in all they look BEUTIFUL!! The pictures do not do them justice.

 

From Left to Right: Java Fern, Scarlet temple, Crinum.

 

Clockwise From Left to Right: Cryptocoryne Tropica, Hydrocotyle tripartita 'Japan' (behind), Java Moss, Dwarf Hair Grass, Red Flame Sword.

 

From Left to Right: Red Flame Sword (same plant), Ammannia Gracilis

 (It looks squished down for some reason), Anubias nana "petite" (Deeep Greeen, I love it)

Whatever I don't find a spot for, Will not go to waste. It will happily live in my main tank in the living room.

The java moss should be getting glued to some of the driftwood and topside of rocks along with some of the anubias. I may need to get more as I like to glue anubias to drift wood. It's a cool underwater tree effect.

Hydrocotyle tripartita 'Japan' for a foreground carpet with some dwarf hair grass accents around the hard scape.

Crinum 'center'ish' to give it room to spread out.

The rest, . . . where inspiration takes me!

I do plan on replacing the water lettuce with some red root.

I would love to get some Corkscrew Val in there, that's why Val wasn't in the order. I wish @Cory could find it and it fit within his business model. I think it's a cool variety.

 

I dosed Easy Green and Easy Iron on Saturday with these parameters measured tonight:

Temp: 25C

PH: 7.4 ish

Ammonia 0.2ppm ish

Nitrite: 0.1ppm ish

Nitrate: 15ppm ish 

Phosphate: 0.1ppm ish

Potassium: 10ppm

The 'ish' values come from the challenges with exact color matching to levels.

It almost looks like I could put some fish in there. And it's only been a few days! (Don't worry, I won't (I hope 😟))

Happy Fish Keeping 🐟!

[Cory]

Feeling like a proud papa. Great to see the plants arrive so well and my employees making it happen.

[Ruud]

Thank you for documenting this build, I think it looks great and to see and read about the tech behind it is really interesting to me. You have a lot of plants coming in, going to be busy in that aquarium. 

Keep us posted with new pictures!

[Andy's Fish Den]

It's nice to see this coming together! Can't wait to see it planted and when the plants grow in.

[Dandy Pearl]

No major update this time, just a few lessons learned.

Regarding CO2, I was running the regulator output at around one lb. This was just barely enough for the regulator to work. The were a few problems with running this low. The slightest reduction in tank pressure caused the regulator to no longer do its job and there was not enough pressure to overcome the pressure of the water on the CO2 diffuser. I noticed the problem when the CO2 wasn't flowing and the output pressure was below the 1 psi pressure the regulator was working at. To solve the problem I increased the output to 2 psi. I'd like to run it around 5 psi to be sure that when the solenoid valve opens, there is a guarantee that CO2 will be flowing.

The problem is that dang needle valve. The higher I run the pressure the harder it is to control the flow rate with the valve. I found some candidate replacements on McMaster-Carr. The valve and the barb fitting will run less than $30. I'm going to try to see if I can make this setup work before I try something else. I'll let you know how it works out.

The other lesson was a 'duhh' moment. I was wondering why the light was not as bright in the tank as it was previously. The settings were all the same, so I had to scratch my head for a moment. I looked again and realized I had pushed the light toward the back of the tank while poking around in there. Pulling it forward fixed things in 2 seconds. Sometimes it's the simplest solution.

Until next time, Happy Fish Keeping🐟!

[Dandy Pearl]

Well, I've done it! I've planted the tank.

Please excuse how horrible it looks. I'm sure it will look much better once grown in.

My parameters yesterday before the planting: 

Temp: 25c            No Change

PH: 7.4                 -0.3

Ammonia: 0.05    -0.15

Nitrite:                +4.99

Nitrate:                +10

 

I drained the tank way down to somewhere around 25% remaining. This allowed me to plant the foreground plants with only a little water, and enough water to support the stem plants.

I love the fact that when I removed the rock wool there were multiple stems for each plant, except the dwarf hair grass. In comparison to the others, the 'portion' of the plant seemed a bit skimpy. I was able to tease apart the portion to make 6 small 'plugs'.

Here is a wide shot of the full tank. Yes I know the temperature is to hot according to the heater. I don't like working in cold water. there are only a couple of snails in there, so temp is not a critical parameter at this time.

 

This is the left 1/3rd of the tank. The java fern had two nice plants in the pot and were glued to fragments of dragon stone. The idea here is to have them 'removable' to make tank maintenance of the intake sponge a little easier. I found another flat fragment and made another small 'cave'.

 

This pic is the middle 1/3rd. I like how the anubias looks perched on the dragon stone in the back. The Crinum had 3 'onion bulb bunches' in the pot.

 

Here it the right 1/3rd. I was able to trim the anubias into two pieces. The second is glued to the 'branch' on the side of the stump. I need to find a good place for the anubius in the foreground.

 

This pick is a shot of the back corner by the intake. There is a tiny Val which I saved from my main tank. Trust me, It's in there. Look in the very center at the thing that is Very Dark Green.

 

Due to the volume of water removed, I re-dosed easy green and easy iron. I'll measure again in a few days when things settle in to keep watch on things.

[Dandy Pearl]

Here is an update for may tank cycle. The screen shots are from the Aquarium Note phone app. I love the changes between measurements, the graphing capability and customizable 'target zone' values. It's how I would build a spreadsheet for work!!

This shot shows the various things I've been doing to the tank. The other event of note is the planting of the tank on the 8th. This will be important when looking at the data below.

I will also be adding a second post discussing what these parameters may mean with respect to the condition of my plants. If anyone can confirm or correct my assumptions, I would appreciate it.

 

Temp has been rock solid at 25C so I didn't show it. PH seems to be trending down. I think this is due to the amount of CO2 I've been adding has increased. The current count is a little over 2 bubbles / sec.

The PH seemed to not be effected by the radical 75% water change during the planting on the 8th. the safe zone threshold are set at 6.5 and 7.5 for no other reason than, I'm trying to maintain a neutral PH, but not strictly so.

 

Here is what the bubble checker looks like. I moved it to the right side of the tank as I cold not really discern the color against the black background. It seems to be less than 30ppm

 

I love the Ammonia numbers. With no fish load (a couple of snails) this is to be expected. The lower threshold is zero, with the upper set to 1ppm. I'll likely reduce the full scale to 2.5 and the upper threshold to 0.5 now that things seem to be under control.

 

Next up is Nitrite. This seems to be all over. The upward trend from the 3rd to the 7th is due to the tank cycling. The drop from the 7th to the test on the 10th is due to the water change on the 8th. The rise on the 11th is again due to tank cycling. I was pleasantly surprised to see only trace amounts when I tested today.

The upper 'threshold' for the acceptable values is currently set at 0.5. Once things stay under control, I'll lower the full scale from 10 down to 4 or 5 and the safe zone down to 0.2. this will help viewing the changes which should be more subtle going forward for this parameter. 

 

Now for the plants, is Nitrate. I was expecting a comparable change as observed with the Nitrites, but I did re-dose EasyGreen and Easy Iron once the tank was refilled. This is the likely explanation. No fertilizers were added for a week, until AFTER the measurements were taken today. The safe zone thresholds are set at 10 and 25 ppm. I have no plans of changing scales or thresholds for this parameter at the moment.

 

Now for Potassium. This is a harder test to perform, that's why there is only two measurements. This seemed to stay rock solid. Why, I guess either the plants are not using Potassium, or the dosing of Easy Green is 'exactly' correct for the plant load and other parameters. That said, it hard to corelate activity based on only two points. I think things are okay here.

 

I saved the 'best for last'; Phosphate. This consistently low and I suspect this is what is causing the issues with my plants as I'll be discussing in the next post. From what I've read 1ppm should be good, but my plants are suffering from something and my suspicion is this parameter. I obviously have not been testing enough with only 3 points to really see what is going on. I dosed with Easygreen and Iron after these tests. I'll be checking tomorrow evening to see "what a day makes".

 

Given the above parameters, it seemed safe to add fish.

That's it for this one.

Stay tuned for more!

[Dandy Pearl]

Hey folks, I did a full battery of tests to see what may be going on with my plants. The Java Fern seems to be getting some spots, Anubias Coffeefolia is getting a yellow leaf an brown edges, and the Ammannia Garcilis is not looking well. The Ammannia is growing roots like crazy, but the leaves look mottled with brown spots. I don't think this is how they are supposed to look.

 

My guess is my Phosphates are low. It is also possible my Potassium level is low.

I have also started to see algae.

 

Given the Ammonia and Nitrite levels above, I felt safe to start adding fish. I added one Siamese Algae Eater. He cleaned up the hair algae in short order. For some reason none of my snails want to touch any of the drift wood. I moved one Mystery and Nerite snail from my main tank, and found one hitchhiker pond snail on @Cory's plants ( don't worry, I'm not mad. I like snails)

The driftwood I put in the tank must have had some old algae on it from the last tank (many years ago) because if fluoresces under the right light!

If things don't seem like they are improving after a week or so after increasing dosing of Easygreen to twice a week and monitoring, I'll consider starting to add some Seachem Potassium and/or Phosphate.

If anyone has any suggestions, please advise.

Thanks for reading!

[Cory]

Your hair algae is most likely from overdosing Iron, easy green contains iron and your tank isn't utilizing enough iron to warrant the dosing of the easy iron. Also being that your tank is so new, i wouldn't exactly jump to any conclusions yet. for now I'd stay the course with Easy green of 20-40ppm of nitrates. Also know you'll add more phosphate once you start feeding fish food. 

[Dandy Pearl]

9 hours ago, Cory said:

Your hair algae is most likely from overdosing Iron, easy green contains iron and your tank isn't utilizing enough iron to warrant the dosing of the easy iron. Also being that your tank is so new, i wouldn't exactly jump to any conclusions yet. for now I'd stay the course with Easy green of 20-40ppm of nitrates. Also know you'll add more phosphate once you start feeding fish food. 

Thanks for the advice Cory. I have been keeping fish for many years, but with no where near this level of awareness.

I appreciate the help with talking things to the next level of awesomeness 😊

[Dandy Pearl]

I checked parameters tonight and this is what I found:

Temp:  25C No Change

PH: 7.0 +0.2 (the measurement was taken late so the CO2 was off and the PH rose slightly)

Ammonia: 0 No Change

Nitrite: 0 Basically not change

Nitrate: 35 Change of +15ppm (likely due to shot of Easy Green on Sunday)

Phosphate: 0.35 Change of -0.65 My plants seem to like this parameter as it always trends low

Potassium: 10 No Change

Given that my Ammonia is low, Nitrites are low and I need to start "feeding fish" as recommended by Cory, I moved 1 Honey Gourami from may main tank to the 37g tank.

I'm really hoping the food will help with the Phosphate. I don't like to add chemicals without a solid reason. 

Maybe I can really start stocking the tank . . . I've got to be careful as my nitrites have only been in check for less than a week.

At least I can look at the fish I want . . .

Does anyone have a favorite Pseudomogil?

 

 

[Dandy Pearl]

Happy Holidays Update!

It's been a while and since I have the time, I thought it would be good to update you folks on my progress.

The CO2 valve on the regulator seems to be working okay. It is still extremely touchy, but I've got it dialed in to a 'good' amount of CO2 as demonstrated by the Dennerle CO2 test from the Coop.

Most of the plants are doing okay, but I seem to be struggling with a few of them specifically the swords, dwarf hair grass and Ammannia Gracilis. The Scarlet temple doesn't seem to be growing, but at least it still looks good and is not dying.

If I had to pick the plants that are doing well, it would be the Hydrocotyle tripartita 'Japan', Corkscrew Val and Pogostemon Stellatus Octopus. The Octopus seems to grow in any tank, so I'm not doing anything special there.

This is a full view of the front of the tank. It is certainly much more full than the pics above. You can see how the H. Tripartita has taken over the bottom of the tank. I expected the Cory's I put in there to root around but apparently the Betta I have in there loves to 'tunnel' around as well.

 

This is just a fun shot of my Betta and Honey Gurami playing around. They are definitely tank buddies.

 

In this shot you can see the stem of the octopus on the left. I needed a tall green plant to look at instead of the black walls so, back in it went. You can see the Scarlet Temple just to the right of it. It's not doing badly, but it's not thriving either. I see roots sprouting but no real new growth on top. I'm suspecting this is a lighting issue, as I have some water lettuce up top shading this area out. a bit combince with a 24" light which is 3 inches short on each end.

Next to that is the  Ammannia Gracilis. It is not doing well. I'm suspecting a calcium deficiency, but I really have no idea. If anyone has any ideas, please help me out. Maybe this has to do with the light as well.

The Java Fern seems to be doing okay, but not thriving either.

 

This is the same plants with a little closer shot of the same plants.

 

This is roughly the center back of the tank. The crinum seems to be doing okay, but the tips of the leaves are brown. I've given it at least root tabs, but it still doesn't look like it's thriving. You wouldn't know it but there is a sword plant just to it's right not doing well at all.

The Anubias Nana Petite I glued to the rock seems to be very happy there and so does the octopus growing from behind the rocks.

 

Tucked down in to the left of the Crinum is a Cryptocoryne Tropica which seems to be doing quite well. It has very dark green to olive colored foliage. There is a very sad looking Ammannia Gracilis to the left of it, which you can't really make out in this pic. 

 

Here is another Cryptocoryne Tropica from the same pot clustered closely with an Anubias Coffeefolia toward the front of the tank. The Crypt seems to be doing fine. However, the Anubias here seems to be some green spot algae growing on the leaves and some other unidentified dark spots. The front of the tank was covered in green spot algae before this picture was taken, I had scraped it off the glass. I'm not too worried about these plants.

 

This is the only Ammannia Gracilis which seems to be recovering. It actually has some new growth at the top. This is what is making me believe this is a light issue. I had a lot more water lettuce in the tank recently, but pulled out all of it to get rid of some duck weed. I put some back because I like it, and I want some place for the Beta and Gourami to hide. I may need to get rid of it all together if I want my plants to grow.

You can just barely see one of the red melon sword leaves where there is a white 'stem' passing over it. For some reason, swords, are not doing well in this tanks. I've put a couple root tabs in this area as well to help the Crypts the sword and Crinum.

In this pic you can also see some sad dwarf hair grass. I've tried this plant in two different tanks so far and I have yet to crack the code.

 

This shot is more on the right side of the tank now with on stem of Ammannia Gracilis showing signs of life Yay! There is a stem of Scarlet Temple next to it doing the same as the others. You can kind of see, on the Gracilis, the brown and 'shriveled' leaves. It is not very photogenic at the moment.

 

I purchased this Cork Screw Val from a LFS and it is doing amazing. It was 1-1/2" tall when I got it, It's now 18" tall! I think this is the best example of how bad the light is on the edges. In this pic you can see the 18" val right next to val that is 3/4 tall. This val came from the same pot planted at the same time. I think this speaks volumes where a plant 4inches away is not thriving as much as the one getting more light.

 

Now for some details.

I have the CO2 coming on at 6:30AM shutting off at 5PM

I have the Fluval 3.0 light start coming on at 6:30AM to full on at 7AM shutting off at 7:30PM with full off at 8PM. While on, it is on 100% all 'colors'.

Temp: 25-26C

pH: ~7.0 dips down to ~6.8 due to CO2 injection

Ammonia:  0

Nitrites:  0

Nitrates: ~20-30ppm

Phosphate:  1ppm

Potassium: 15ppm (just started dosing supplement to boost from 10ppm)

CO2: ~20ppm 'Good' according to 'checkers'

Due to the low'ish Nitrate level, I just dosed Easy Green 4 squirts for the 37g tank. I have not been using Easy Green because all parameters were 'in the green zone'. Maybe there is a Micro nutrient deficiency?

I have a 15" Fluval 3.0 light coming from the Coop for a Quarantine tank (over kill I know) to see how two of them may fit on top of this tank. The plan would then be to purchase a second one for both lights in tandem to better cover the width of the tank. If I still don't have enough light, I can put the 24" back on and really put the shine on!!

Is all this necessary for this depth of tank??

 

[Dandy Pearl]

Time for another update.

I have ripped out all of the Hydrocotyle tripartita 'Japan' as it was starting to take over the tank. I was an amazing 'carpeting plant' but it was taking over. I did move some of it in my other tank, If I ever want to bring some back.

I thought I've been suffering from low light. I ordered a 15" Fluval 3.0 Plant from the Co-op to see if it would be a candidate to replace the 24 inch. Sadly 2x 15" does not equal a 30" light. My issue with the 24 inch light is that it does not cover the ends very well causing dark spots on each side of the tank.

I did a bunch of research and thought the Hygger HG-957. It was a 30" light as opposed to a 24" light. Sadly it is dimmer at max output than the 24" Fluval light.

I think ALL LED light manufacturers cheat when they give light lengths. There is Always and 1-1/2 to 2 inches at each end of the light that doesn't have any LEDs. This contributed to the dark ends of the 24" light.

To solve my problem and get the amount of light I deserve, I cheat the 24" past one side of the tank, and add the 15" light cheated off the other side of the tank. This arrangement puts LED's actually from edge to edge of the tank. The funny thing is, if you look where the inner edges are between the 2 lights, they actually line up!!

15in light with LED's lined up with the left inside edge of the tank.

 

24inch light with LED's lined up with the right inside edge of the tank.

 

Overlap of both lights, top view

 

Actual overlap of the lights - None / perfect alignment! This actually lights up the tank properly. (The color was changed to take the pic)

 

Shows the measurement of the 15in light fixture. The overall measurement with the brackets is 15inches. 14 inches is what could be lighting your tank.

 

This is the control end. Notice the loss of 2 inches!!

 

Here is the other end, you're getting ripped off 2 more inches!!!

 

Being an engineer I can understand how you need to lose the 3/4 inch at each end to provide a mount for the edge bracket rails. However, 1-1/4 could be made available for LED's. The same thing could be done at the controller end by 'remoting' the control electronics some by some means. This was a design choice for the product to have every thing self contained an symmetrical, at the expense of a great loss of light at each end of the fixture. 

The 'throw angle' of the LED's should account for this, in theory, but it doesn't. You can easily see where there is light when the fish swim in and out of the beam, especially closer to the top of the tank.

My new setup is clunky, but I get full left to right coverage AND intensity AND spectrum AND controllability.

I guess I'm just to needy. 😕 😃

 Happy Fish Keeping! 🐟