nabokovfan87 Posted January 4 Author Share Posted January 4 On 1/3/2024 at 8:15 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said: What was the tipping point that made you decide you were taking it all out? Well it's a bit complicated, but the short story is that once it started being the source of bba in my tank, time to go. Removed it from every plant, all the wood, I've siphoned the substrate beyond all sort of reason, and it still managed to be a sticking point. Root development also hasn't been up to my standard and was doing better before I had changed from the 29 to the 75G. It's a lot bigger tank to push CO2 in, so things really have to be dialed in. As an example, the 29G w/ CO2: They aren't doing "well" but they are growing and the roots were solid. This was only with the flourite black. It's compressed and worn down over the years. I'm sure if you zoom in too you can see BBA on some pieces as well that I just never caught before. The same plants in the 75G w/ CO2 and it's dialed in really well: I should've seen it carpet or at least double. I've lost the growth I did gain and then some. KH and GH play a role too, but the main issue I've been experiencing is just rooting behavior, how quickly things can thrive. The swords I just pulled had some really long roots, some over a foot, and they are pretty new. I also didn't realize what it was when I bought it. The bag says, and all the marketing repeats, how it's a planted tank substrate. It's really not great and the CEC I was hoping for was extremely minimal compared to something like aquasoil. With the water I have, the aquasoil is actually really perfect and makes things spot on where I need to, and stable, for plants. KH is 4, GH is 8. PH is sub 7. It's really good for a lot of the stems and more difficult plants. On 1/3/2024 at 8:15 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said: Dang! Excited to see what it comes back like! I’ve been contemplating redoing the Pea Puffer tank. Or, at bare minimum ripping out the sand in the middle and replacing it with gravel. I’m undecided, though. I just found out caribsea is rebranding their stuff and they have a new black substrate, midnight river. I'm really excited to see it in person. 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimptanks Posted January 4 Share Posted January 4 Oh that caribsea stuff is looking nice, been looking for a dark more uniform black substrate that isnt aquasoil for my corydoras tanks. Was looking at sevenport black diamond gravel substrate but I didn't feel like paying the shipping. Hopefully this will end up in my local petsmart or petco. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 4 Author Share Posted January 4 On 1/4/2024 at 7:05 AM, Shrimptanks said: Oh that caribsea stuff is looking nice, been looking for a dark more uniform black substrate that isnt aquasoil for my corydoras tanks. Was looking at sevenport black diamond gravel substrate but I didn't feel like paying the shipping. Hopefully this will end up in my local petsmart or petco. Yep! I've seen it online on one shop, might be on Amazon, but I'm really intrigued to snag some. Tank update. I planted it at about 2.30 last night. Isn't that when everyone gets work done! Blue buddy shrimp is the one I want to make sure is doing ok and he was definitely stunned a little bit from the day. You can see the residue.all over everything, especially the back wall panels. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllFishNoBrakes Posted January 5 Share Posted January 5 That sword on the left is getting big! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 5 Author Share Posted January 5 On 1/4/2024 at 4:52 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said: That sword on the left is getting big! It's two of them 🙂 The one that is in the middle was in the front, I swapped that with the smallest one that was in the back by the heater with that one. So there's one slightly off the sponge on the left glass, I figured it would fill in well. There is the other big one towards the front to give Grace some cover and a bulb plant next to it. Another towards the opening on her hide as well, with the last one on the back. The bulb plants will hopefully thrive for me and go from there. I am curious to see all of the plant leaves (color and texture) blend in. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 7 Author Share Posted January 7 I bombed the tank again this morning trying to move substrate around and for the sake of trying to flatten things out, get the level of fine to the right thickness across the tank. Every time I tough it the tank turns to mud, so I think I'm going to just have to live with it for the most part. Left half of the tank is "a bit chunky" in comparison to the right. I can get some of the fine and top it off, but that's something for future me to worry bout. I posted photos showing the difference in the pore size across the tank, but the goal is that there is a good removal of the old stuff I wanted to get rid of and the soil/active substrate is in place to do it's thing. So that moved around and then I replanted everything that popped up, moved swords and hardscape slightly, and then went off to go do other chores for the day. I also added a tad, very minimal amount of KH to the tank. Barely anything for the sake of whatever is going on with the substrate absorbing stuff from the water and not a ton of things in there. I didn't add ferts right away because I knew that I was going to do a few water changes. I did add them today. I may end up having to siphon a little and change out water again.... but there is a pretty fun development. The "side tank" is back alive and well and it's for QT right now. The goal being to have a place to view some fish and keep an eye out for disease. I will take water from the big tank, feed it to the side tank, and that will be for plants more than anything else. It has my new light, may have co2 in future, but it's just a good setup for growing some stems. This is the view doing water changes tonight.... not bad at all. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chick-In-Of-TheSea Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 On 12/26/2023 at 1:18 PM, nabokovfan87 said: Bulb check: I was waking up and see what looks like 3-4 new leaves popping up right away. So far these plants absolutely love a good amount of light. Oh how fun to see the progress! Kelp forest, here we come! On 12/26/2023 at 2:54 AM, nabokovfan87 said: I was also this close to getting some snail friends 😍 Alas! There is still hope! On 12/26/2023 at 2:54 AM, nabokovfan87 said: the corydoras were playing soccer with one of the bulbs Loooooooool On 12/26/2023 at 2:54 AM, nabokovfan87 said: Plant is rooting in and all the bulbs are looking phenomenal Hooray! Is this microsword? On 12/31/2023 at 2:08 AM, nabokovfan87 said: Getting the microsword to carpet will boost ..oh 🙃 Omg, so like- how is everyone doing now? How did the Clarity work? Did it work fairly quickly? I’ve been busy and having trouble keeping up with journals, but trying. What I gleaned is that Seachem Fluorite caused the BBA issue, so it had to go, yes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 9 Author Share Posted January 9 On 1/8/2024 at 5:04 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said: Omg, so like- how is everyone doing now? How did the Clarity work? Did it work fairly quickly? I’ve been busy and having trouble keeping up with journals, but trying. What I gleaned is that Seachem Fluorite caused the BBA issue, so it had to go, yes? Yep, microsword! I can't say for 100% certainty that the fluorite black caused the BBA. Let's just say that it encouraged conditions for it to thrive for whatever reason. CEC on flourite is 1.7 For aquasoil it's 24+. The idea being originally that the flourite was a "planted tank substrate" but it really hasn't been in my experience. For whatever reason, plants couldn't thrive, but the algae could. I've seen some anecdotal commentary that the high metals in the fluorite (clay based) could be causing issues. Clarity is a binder. Iodine based I think, but it's a proprietary chemical. It just takes the fine particles and makes them stick together a little bit which helps them to mechanically get filtered out. A: Clarity™ is a flocculant, meaning it bonds to small particles, making them much larger and easier to filter from the water. There is also some research using flocculants to try to remove "forever chemicals" in the water supply. Things like graphene filters and stuff also, from what I've heard. Interesting stuff. Today was a busy, busy day. Fish arrived, barbs ordered, shrimp shipped out. All of these going in the 75G eventually. I also had plants arrive from a local hobbyist that I've been helping. Trimmings from their planted tanks. Most of it for the shrimp tank, but I do have 2-3 plants to try out in the 75G Garden as well. 🙂 I spent 3-4 days messing around with the substrate and the last time I messed with it I took a bunch of the plants up and moved another top layer of the fine substrate over by the swords. I moved those around, again, which isn't great but I think they will be able to thrive now. Bulbs are doing ok, growing, and I am just working on every little detail I can from day to day. Plants dipped in RR and I'll go ahead and position those tomorrow. OH..... I finally, officially got the refund for the plant fiasco, which is why I was able to order the barbs and substrate. Small steps, but it's just really good to feel like progress is being made. I have cleaned the filter twice this week, need to do it a third time because of that last effort to get the substrate right. A busy week, which is a wonderful thing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chick-In-Of-TheSea Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 On 1/8/2024 at 11:49 PM, nabokovfan87 said: CEC on flourite is 1.7 For aquasoil it's 24+. What does this mean? On 1/8/2024 at 11:49 PM, nabokovfan87 said: Clarity™ is a flocculant I understand the concept, but how quickly did it work, and did it work well in your opinion? On 1/8/2024 at 11:49 PM, nabokovfan87 said: shrimp shipped out Did you keep some? 🙂 On 1/8/2024 at 11:49 PM, nabokovfan87 said: got the refund Yay! And the barbs were from the other post, right? The hobbyist that had to move or something and is giving away their setups? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knee Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 On 1/3/2024 at 8:58 PM, nabokovfan87 said: I just found out caribsea is rebranding their stuff and they have a new black substrate, midnight river. I'm really excited to see it in person. This new substrate looks good! Are you getting this substrate? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 On 1/9/2024 at 1:47 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said: On 1/8/2024 at 8:49 PM, nabokovfan87 said: CEC on flourite is 1.7 For aquasoil it's 24+. What does this mean? CEC meaning how well the substrate holds nutrients for the plants. Ion exchange capacity, Cation exchange capacity (CEC) is a measure of the total negative charges within the soil that adsorb plant nutrient cations such as calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+) and potassium (K+). As such, the CEC is a property of a soil that describes its capacity to supply nutrient cations to the soil solution for plant uptake. On 1/9/2024 at 12:26 PM, knee said: This new substrate looks good! Are you getting this substrate? I might have to swap the shrimp tank over to it! On 1/9/2024 at 1:47 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said: On 1/8/2024 at 8:49 PM, nabokovfan87 said: got the refund Yay! And the barbs were from the other post, right? The hobbyist that had to move or something and is giving away their setups? I have some cherry barbs in the 20L from that tank as we speak as well as some rainbows and plecos. The barbs I was talking about were barbs from Dan's Fish, melon barbs, which I've been eyeballing since they came up on his stream one day. Really beautiful and one of the few barbs I have seen in person and they had green and purple hues to them. Really special. On 1/9/2024 at 1:47 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said: On 1/8/2024 at 8:49 PM, nabokovfan87 said: shrimp shipped out Did you keep some? 🙂 These are amano shrimp! Gifted to me by a friend for christmas and very excited for them to get here. 🙂 On 1/9/2024 at 1:47 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said: On 1/8/2024 at 8:49 PM, nabokovfan87 said: Clarity™ is a flocculant I understand the concept, but how quickly did it work, and did it work well in your opinion? It works pretty well honestly. It's the same type of thing you get when you guy a bag of sand and it comes with the little clarifier packet. After 3-6 hours it's pretty much in full effect, but it just takes ~12-24 for the water to pass through the filtration enough times. It's been something I used just on a whim when I first got into the hobby this time and it's been something where I got the big bottle because it was cheap and who knows how much you'll use it.... I've used it! I am sure there are types of things it won't work on. I have had tanks that have been cloudy and it didn't touch it, but that's likely because it was consistently clouding up (bacteria in the water) and that led to quite a few issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chick-In-Of-TheSea Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 On 1/9/2024 at 7:06 PM, nabokovfan87 said: some cherry barbs in the 20L from that tank as we speak as well as some rainbows and plecos. The barbs I was talking about were barbs from Dan's Fish, melon barbs, which I've been eyeballing since they came up on his stream one day. Really beautiful and one of the few barbs I have seen in person and they had green and purple hues to them. Really special. Ok so we will be here waiting patiently for photos. 🙂 On 1/9/2024 at 7:06 PM, nabokovfan87 said: These are amano shrimp! Gifted to me by a friend for christmas and very excited for them to get here. 🙂 Oh, I thought you meant you were the shipper (of neos) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 On 1/9/2024 at 4:18 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said: Ok so we will be here waiting patiently for photos. 🙂 I'm excited. They might take a it to color up and I'll have to remember what it's like to keep mid-level swimming fish again! I planted in some anacharis today, pearlweed, and some rotala (rotundifolia) red in the tank. It looks a bit beat up from the RR treatments and de-duckweeding, but I am hopeful they grow really well. Pearlweed is tough to plant with big chunky pinsettes! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 Amanos added today. I think the ludwigia got beat up in shipping. (froze or smashed) I added them, one amano was basically at the surface in the flow trying to clean the glass off. I saw one more on the grid in the back of the tank, but immediately I lost all of them and they are just hiding out living their little amano lives. 🙂 It was really cool. I put a young amano right next to one that is about a decade old, "here you go kid, let her show you the ropes" and the little amano went right off the net into the piece of wood next to her mentor. I'll keep an eye out for them and try to track out how the BBA fight is going. I'm excited to sit and look for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 11 Author Share Posted January 11 On 1/9/2024 at 4:21 PM, nabokovfan87 said: On 1/9/2024 at 4:18 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said: Ok so we will be here waiting patiently for photos. 🙂 I'm excited. They might take a it to color up and I'll have to remember what it's like to keep mid-level swimming fish again! Just got notified there was an issue at the facility and that the fish didn't make it into shipping. 😞 😞 😞 The wait for barb mecca continues. This also means a delay in the awesomeness that would've been seeing the SAE go to town on this algae! We'll have to see what they can get in and go from there. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chick-In-Of-TheSea Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 On 1/10/2024 at 6:46 PM, nabokovfan87 said: a decade old !! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 (edited) [Insert Rocky Theme] This is from earlier in the week. One very old female amano (left) and one very old male amano (right). Edited January 12 by nabokovfan87 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 19 Author Share Posted January 19 On 1/12/2024 at 10:53 AM, nabokovfan87 said: I really do love this photo. SO..... Filter has been cleaned 3-4x the past 2 weeks because of all the substrate stuff going on. It's been done again. I might toss in more foam in there just for the giggles of it, but yeah... I'm less than convinced of the flow path in that 407 being optimal and working flawlessly. There's literally no reason for it to be designed the way it is and I would love to see a 3d model. If you have a 3d printer and a x07 series, I might have a project for you to fix it. Bad new first? Barb mecca seems to be on a delay because..... barbs won't be in stock for "a while" if ever. The ones I wanted/tried to get had died, the other ones aren't in stock, and the other barbs they do have in stock.... they only have females to add to my current group or they only have 4. I can get some rasboras or something, but right now I'm just waiting. Green aqua did a vid and added these gems to their tank.... Smaller than tigers, green shine... what's not to love. I need to get 1-3 SAEs and some otos, but I just am unsure what else will be in there for visual interest. Melon/panda barbs, plus the guys above would've been awesome. This was another I was looking for: We'll figure it out.... all I can do is wait. GOOD NEWS. The tubing was finally restocked from one of the 3-4 stores I had it tagged on. That's on the way as well as a wonderful surprise for myself for the shrimp tank. I'm excited to see it, excited for the final setup of things to be completed. (removing the plastic intakes and ribbed tubing) The place that I ordered the tubing from is located in SF and would be able to get some decent plants to me as well, so it's good to get a feel for how they handle/pack/ship items. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 21 Author Share Posted January 21 (edited) On 1/18/2024 at 10:33 PM, nabokovfan87 said: GOOD NEWS. The tubing was finally restocked from one of the 3-4 stores I had it tagged on. That's on the way as well as a wonderful surprise for myself for the shrimp tank. I'm excited to see it, excited for the final setup of things to be completed. (removing the plastic intakes and ribbed tubing) The place that I ordered the tubing from is located in SF and would be able to get some decent plants to me as well, so it's good to get a feel for how they handle/pack/ship items. I LOVE that I got this stuff so fast. I think SF --> Here took about 36 hours. I am excited, because they have some cool stuff and it's nice to have options. Plastic parts removed, ribbed tubing removed. Smoke tubing added, new inlet/outlet added. I have no idea how much or how drastically this will impact the tank overall, but there is less surface tension and there is a single output (pointed diagonally towards the opposite corner of the tank). I am less than impressed with canister filters. They are a bit of a hassle and they do take some getting used to. I hope this all works great long term and it not gives me the ability to do in-line CO2. Whenever that time comes it'll be fun to have it. I am hoping that removing the spraybar actually helps, but this setup is such a way where if I need to I can add that bit back in. The intake itself is slightly shorter than I would like. I couldn't even tell you what size tank this is designed for, but the trend continues that it's not meant for a 75G. As far as "how" one thing I saw / copied was this method. using suction cups to hold things in place isn't optimal, but it works. I have the intake on the back glass with suction cups inside the tank to hold that in place. I have the outlet pipe held externally. It'll be a lot easier to maintain for me now that it's on the floor as well. (...and yeah, I am trying really hard to save that ZZ plant, but it's not working too well. It is still alive, wintering, but it's not growing or thriving in any sense of the word. The empty pot has a bulb. Might be rotted, might sprout leaves, so I've just left it for the time being.) Edited January 21 by nabokovfan87 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chick-In-Of-TheSea Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 (edited) What is the method for seeing if a fish, shrimp, snail etc has entered the tubing, and how do you go about getting it out? Isn’t that the reason tubing is usually clear? Also how do you know when gunk is starting to accumulate in the tubing, prior to it impeding flow? Edited January 21 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 21 Author Share Posted January 21 On 1/21/2024 at 3:11 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said: What is the method for seeing if a fish, shrimp, snail etc has entered the tubing, and how do you go about getting it out? Isn’t that the reason tubing is usually clear? Also how do you know when gunk is starting to accumulate in the tubing, prior to it impeding flow? That's the nice thing..... Less bends in the pipe, so flow is improved. They have shrimp intakes which are fine mesh. I have a pre filter sponge as well if I need it. I take the tube cleaning brush and jam it into the pipes and I can clean them really easily now. The ribbed tubing is fragile and holds a lot of gunk. So it would attract shrimp. Having the sponge on there also attracts them. I can see in the tubing now and can add that to the maintenance routine. It takes a minute if that, very easy to handle. @Guppysnail had mentioned issues with the intake on the x07 breaking off as well, so there's that. With the 75G rim there's just not much holding it on and it was a situation of need it to be secured more than anything. I'll shatter glass, so I didn't trust myself there. Steel it is. Eheim has green tubing to try to hide things like algae, but it's visually very bright. They do have solid black tubing, which would have the same impact as the ribbed tubing, but remove the algae internally.... At least the photosensitive stuff. With the BBA in there, I was waiting months for the smoke tubing to come back in stock just so it wasn't as clear, but also not as visually distracting. I can also just easily see if there's a leak, so that's another plus too. I checked this morning and the CO2 flow seems pretty good. The drop checker "looks right", but I'm not measuring CO2 with a test kit. The kelp is blowing towards the intake, which is the first time I've ever seen the intake do anything like that. It would be interesting to test the flow differential between the two setups. I'll say it now, but we'll see years.from now. I am pretty certain the new fluval canister version, x08 maybe, series would eventually switch the tubing for something else. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoofyGarra Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 Just catching up on this journal. Great tanks @nabokovfan87! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chick-In-Of-TheSea Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 On 1/21/2024 at 12:10 PM, nabokovfan87 said: They have shrimp intakes which are fine mesh Cool, so basically like a faucet screen. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 21 Author Share Posted January 21 On 1/21/2024 at 1:41 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said: Cool, so basically like a faucet screen. The nice one is aquavitro.... So can't buy it online. 😩 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 26 Author Share Posted January 26 (edited) It's been what feels like years since I've woken up and seen actual fish swimming with Grace in such a way. We did have the swordtails in there and I can't really recall what else was with her in the smaller size tank setup. I added them last night and I was really proud of her. She was investigating, but not much else. The behavior I can equate is to is a shark swimming near a pile of debris and just trying to view whatever the noise is from a safe distance. Honestly, the only real fighting is the plecos trying to claim territory. My female clown pleco, the "pretty one" is definitely not giving up her spot. There's always that adjustment period and it'll be the time to monitor as much as just keep an eye out for issues. The flow pattern is new for this tank and it's also something where I've never used an outlet like this before. I will need to raise up the end so I can adjust the height on the output for more water surface movement, but essentially whenever the diffuser gets here the filter goes to the right side of the tank and the plants and everything go back to the left side of the tank on my little plant table I am trying to get functioning with the fluval light. This is also the first time I'm really seeing any color on the rainbow fish. They look good. They do take some time and need a good, densely planted tank from my initial impressions. They don't love the flow as much as the barbs do, ironically. My mornings these days consist of watching the kelp forest wave in the middle of the tank now. I just cannot wait for that last bulb to take off and shoot up it's first big leaf. I know that I need to slightly turn up the lights, but all of the changes going on with this tank, I have opted to leave those consistent. The wall on the back also looks really beautiful and I'm in shock and awe that it worked. It's honestly one of those "handmade" things that someone could add to a shrimp tank and it would just visually add such a unique touch. Having a fern wall, moss wall, kelp wall, it's a beautiful aesthetic. Fern Canyon, Northern California ^^ We will have to see how everyone gets along, but for now, for this moment right now, that's what I'm looking at. (I think she finally has a name, Medusa) Edited January 26 by nabokovfan87 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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