Caliban's AquaOpti 85L

[Caliban07]

Things continue to improve. Still no water changes.

Hoping to get some flowers on my H. Corymbosa soon.

No ferts, no chlorine/chloramines, no artificial chelates or heavy metals, no tap water contaminants.

Topped up with RO water ever now and then and then and tonight people.....co2 is being switched off.

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0
Potassium 2ppm
TDS 200ppm (always)

Lighting low/medium

Algae....yes
Plant growth....yes

Cleaning up the algae tonight. I don’t expect it to return.

 

[TMaier]

This is groundbreaking stuff going on here.

 

[fishenthusiast]

Wow! All the Dwarf Hairgrass growth with no ferts? That’s impressive.

 

[Caliban07]

Thanks guys. Tidied up the tank somewhat tonight. Will get another picture later on.

If my wallichi should starts growing I’ll be completely sold on this method haha

 

[Caliban07]

Another pic with a trim and nice planted in to the substrate.

 

[Caliban07]

Sofa view.

Not going to win any prizes for aquascaping but I’ve left that all behind. Not my strongest point anyway really.

 

[TMaier]

It’s beautiful.
I’m sitting in the pug gazing chair atm.

 

[Caliban07]

It’s beautiful.
I’m sitting in the pug gazing chair atm. View attachment 306868

Haha thanks. Is that a low tech or high tech pug [emoji23]

I’m in the PlayStation gazing chair right now

 

[TMaier]

High maintenance pug all the way!

 

[Bert2oo1]

Looks good [emoji106] plants look healthy. Is that buce at the front around the pogo?

 

[Caliban07]

Cheers Bert yes it’s a buce. Not sure which type

 

[Caliban07]

This could potentially be a huge breakthrough. Is this Rotala wallichi finally recovering?



Watch this space.....

You can see the stem on the left next to it. That’s what happened with high co2 and nutrients.

 

[Delapool]

Fingers crossed!

 

[Bert2oo1]

Do you think that the nutrient uptake is a lot lower now that the co2 has stopped so the nutrient you are lacking is now available to the plant? I removed all the marble chips from my filter (adds calcium with co2) and my ar mini still hasn’t gone back to twisting yet.

It’s crazy in the 60g, I can not dose for a week with full co2 and 100+ par with no issues. I can also go 2 weeks without a water change and still have strong growth and be algae free.

Things become so much easier once the tank matures [emoji106]

 

[Caliban07]

Fingers crossed!

Thanks Dela

 

[Caliban07]

Do you think that the nutrient uptake is a lot lower now that the co2 has stopped so the nutrient you are lacking is now available to the plant? I removed all the marble chips from my filter (adds calcium with co2) and my ar mini still hasn’t gone back to twisting yet.

It’s crazy in the 60g, I can not dose for a week with full co2 and 100+ par with no issues. I can also go 2 weeks without a water change and still have strong growth and be algae free.

Things become so much easier once the tank matures [emoji106]

I would imagine so Bert. You do have to keep the food going in. I did have the two chihiros running on level 3 a piece. This fixtures are 39W each I’m guessing on level 7. There’s a guy I know running 12w LED on a 60cm tank and his wallichi is emerging from tissue culture and it look amazing. No nutrients or co2.

Maybe I need to lower light further. Speaking with some very interesting guys lately. Very old school but there is something in their wisdom that is clearly working for us all.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this wallichii stem. Darn things been stunted since I bought it. This is thee best stem I’ve ever had of this plant and I’m really not having to do a lot. Hobby has never been better.

 

[TMaier]

Can me old and superstitious, I just knocked on some wood reading this.

 

[Delapool]

Can me old and superstitious, I just knocked on some wood reading this.

It’s ok I think? Bert and Fresh do enough midnight ‘scapes to balance out the karma?

(annoying though - well for me, some of my best tanks are where I’ve not done much at all).

 

[Caliban07]

Yeah I’m really more in to the natural aspect of keeping the tank now than it’s aesthetic appeal. I mean you can still totally do both. I’m just letting the plants sort themselves out and seeing what happens.

Here is an interesting Tidbit.

Co2 and plant growth is non linear. More a logarithmic function. So if you needed 40mg/l co2 to yield 100% growth. 20mg/l would not be 50% growth but perhaps more like 90% growth.

So if half speed of maximum growth Is your goal then 4mg/l may be enough.

This info was taken from Marcel Golias phenomenal website which has since been taken down. I thought it deserved to be shared.

I don’t think 4mg/l co2 is far off the average aquariums co2 concentration.

 

[Delapool]

Would be interesting by depth as well. I think 3 or 4 ppm from memory as well but nothing really grew below say top foot of tank here really. Light intensity and duration didn’t seem to matter.