20g L progression Journal

[SoveriegnR]

Is it generally pretty reliable? Does it ever need to be replaced?

I assume if I were to add it, I'd start with a much smaller amount than what I "think" i need and then just add a little more until it matches more closely to my tap pH?

Would I add it when i add my driftwood? Or should I add the driftwood first, wait for it to drop the pH, and then add the coral?

 

[Fresh2o]

I would add it at the same time the DW is added. No need to wait for the drop. You might observe a minimal pH drop as a result.
The conservative approach might be best.
Crushed coral granules will eventually become coated with biofilm. This may affect its buffering ability (not sure how significantly). You could either rinse and reuse it or add more or both.

 

[SoveriegnR]

After some debating, I think I may... sadly, scrap the driftwood. I'll keep the smaller of the 3 pieces in there for the pleco and my anubis, it shouldn't effect the pH as much as 3 total chunks. I guess i'll just have to put them on stand-by until I can get a better system hooked up or a higher KH water source so that my pH is very difficult to move.

Just waiting for the substrate pretty much now so that I can start rescaping my hardscape with my beautiful rocks. The cycle is well on it's way, did another 5g WC to lower the NO3 just a bit as today's test it was quite red. Ammonia was almost gone so i dropped a little bit more of that in there. The eco-complete substrate is suppose to come with bacteria already in the gravel, so I'm hoping that should really give my cycle a good OOMF! lol

Outside of the previous 5g WC, for the past week since my tank's been gutted, the pH has stayed at 7.5. no fluctuations to be found.

My pennywort is looking angry with me for allowing it to be wrapped up in a giant ball of plants floating around my tank LOL

 

[Delapool]

Sounds like it is progressing well!

 

[SoveriegnR]

Well, gravel came in today, so here we are re-scaped. Made a little cave with the rocks this time around. 1 and only 1 piece of driftwood. We'll see how it goes @_@

 

[SoveriegnR]

-sighs- so nice to see this... you have no idea @_@

Ganna let this run till friday when I get paid, if everything still checks out, I'll go to my LFS and give them my list of fish lol

 

[Delapool]

Looking good, nicely done.

 

[SoveriegnR]

ty. I'm so relieved to finally have this done. Never had such a huge issue with cycling a tank before omg haha

 

[SoveriegnR]

Tank should be 100% done by next week. I've deciding to rework the plants a bit in my tank, I want to get rid of the brazilian pennywort and actually replace it with a dwarf pennywort, as I want to apply moss ontop of my rock 'cave' and i fear the large pennywort will end up blocking too much light. I have a few other plant lists and I actually decided to go for a semi-carpet with micro sword.

Sadly the site I order from, they're out of town till the middle of next week so I can't place any orders until then, plus the moss I want is 'out of stock' but the message says most things will be back in stock upon their return.

I tried to hunt plants down on ebay but the prices are higher than the site I frequent so I'd rather just wait and get a discount than spend more $ than i need to @_@

 

[Delapool]

Looking forward to seeing this. I don't think I've seen either of those plants here.

 

[SoveriegnR]

OKAY HERE IT IS!!! Plants in. They're all decently easy plants to keep, not very demanding, but with the dosing of ferts, co2, and my expensive LED light I'd like to think they'll flourish. I bought all rooted plants this time instead of clippings, as I read they don't melt back very easily if they're already rooted.

 

[murph3400]

Can you list your plants and your source??

 

[murph3400]

Looks great by the way. Nice job.

 

[SoveriegnR]

Yeah. All my plants are from:
Welcome to Planted Aquariums Central - Live Aquarium Plants Plants always came in healthy lookin'. They do insulate their packaging with fiberglass insulation stuff so if you're allergic to that be very careful, but their plants are wonderful! Great prices too!

I guess from the left side of the tank to the right, back to front we have:
CYPERUS HELFERI (I got it in hopes it'll fill out that back corner and hide the airstone lol)
Hydrocotyle tripartita (dwarf pennywort, essentially)
LILAEOPSIS BRASILIENSIS (micro sword to make a nice carpet)
CRYPTOCORYNE WENDTII 'GREEN' (got it from my LFS, was one of the healthiest lookin' ones)

The lineup of plants along the back:
LOBELIA CARDINALIS
HYGROPHILA CORYMBOSA STRICTA
Hygrophila corymbosa (Giant hygro, temple plant)
Hygrophila corymbosa Siamensis (not lookin' too good, its directly behind the driftwood, this plant was from my last order, trimmed off the huge leaves in hopes the little new growths would come out, we'll see. It had to put up with a bunch of algae growth and a lot of the leaves got covered. Hoping it'll bounce back.)

And tied to my driftwood is
Anubias Barteri coffeefolia

 

[TMaier]

Looking good!

 

[Barliman]

Really good looking tank, and I'm glad to hear you had a good experience with PAC.

 

[SoveriegnR]

well the store didn't have khuli loaches (really wanted to try em) or chili rasboras, which i was going to switch out for the bloodfins, BUUUUTTT a'las, they had neither.

So went with my original stock, Got some bloodfins, all they had (8) and all of their peppered cories (6). No pleco (the driftwood i was using is just lowering my ph WAAAY too much, so no wood=no pleco). and they didn't have my apistos that I wanted, He said he'll try to get a pair for me in his next order, but can't make any promises. So we'll see.

Their floating now to get them to the right temp and then they'll go in. Tank light already went out for the day so they'll a nice dark tank to acclimate to <3

20 min into being introduced to the tank and i already have an a-hole bloodfin LOL I know they prob just establishing who's the top dog but im still sitting here going "omg you guys I've had you for 20 min and already ya'll are bein' turds."

I'll take a pick of em all tomorrow when I get up.

 

[TMaier]

Turd fish. Lol

 

[toolman]

Turd fish. Lol

Lmao! You crack me up.

 

[TMaier]

Lmao! You crack me up.

I think that about 50% of all fish are part of the genus. People too...