FresH2O's 20g planted rescape

[Fresh2o]

Setting up the ferts!

Drop checked 24 hours after putting it in tank: light blue? Bluish green? Idk

I removed all of the media from the second HOB filter and replaced it with five layers of the MarineLand blue/white filter pads. The idea is to trap the churned up CO1 bubbles to increase contact time with the water. Occasionally I see tiny bubbles flow into the tank. The pads look like I poured ginger ale on them; embedded with bubbles. I plan to rinse this out once a week to reduce the amount of debris (and in doing so keep the tank cleaner).

 

[Old Scales]

Looks good David! Man you're cooking now! I guess the bananas are for adding potassium???? OS.

 

[Fresh2o]

Looks good David! Man you're cooking now! I guess the bananas are for adding potassium???? OS.

Ha-ha! Like Breaking Bad, Aquatic Style. Bananas are in the pic for scale. (This is an Imgur reference; the same site I use for hosting pics)
When measuring and weighing the dry materials, what I found useful were those little plastic condiment cups that you find in a fast food place (for ketchup). What I should do is pre-measure the next batch (that is assuming the stock mix needs no tweaking) and place them in those cups or a zip lock bag for later.
I will start dosing today but I want to make sure that I get baseline nitrate and phosphate readings first.

 

[Old Scales]

I like your thinking, An edible Imgur Ref. I robbed Donna of a small funnel she had for pouring the powder into the dosing bottles. I use the condom cups too. OS.

 

[Brian_Nano12g]

Looks good David! Man you're cooking now! I guess the bananas are for adding potassium???? OS.

^^^ Haha... that was the first thing that popped into my mind too!

 

[Fresh2o]

Yea, it's a *modified* PPS Pro mixture with EXTRA potassium! Haha

Took some baseline tests:
Nitrate 5 ppm
Phosphate 0 ppm

Will go with the standard dosage of 2 mL from each bottle (for 20 gallons). I plan to monitor nitrate and phosphate daily for about a week to see if there is uptake or utilization with those ferts.

I have both green and red plants under medium light. What values should I be aiming for with nitrate and phosphate to maintain the red color?

I also have iron and phosphate root pellets as well.

 

[Old Scales]

OK I'm no guru but what River and others have told me is that Iron and phosphates benefit the red plants more than the green for coloration. Elsewhere I read that there is a nitrate to phosphate ratio that one needs to try and stay close to. 10ppm NO3 to 1ppm PO4.
ie. 20ppm NO3 with 2ppm PO4, etc. I have found that my AR mini colors up best with 3-5ppm PO4 no matter the NO3 with iron rich root tabs underneath. I dose extra potassium after every WC also. 1/4 tsp of the pure PPS powder in my 29g. Hopefully our real gurus will chime in and confirm or improve on this information. Even with CO2 I still dose 15ml of Glut every morning as the plants are used to glut and to help inhibit algae.
Hope this helps, OS.

 

[Fresh2o]

OK I'm no guru but what River and others have told me is that Iron and phosphates benefit the red plants more than the green for coloration. Elsewhere I read that there is a nitrate to phosphate ratio that one needs to try and stay close to. 10ppm NO3 to 1ppm PO4.
ie. 20ppm NO3 with 2ppm PO4, etc. I have found that my AR mini colors up best with 3-5ppm PO4 no matter the NO3 with iron rich root tabs underneath. I dose extra potassium after every WC also. 1/4 tsp of the pure PPS powder in my 29g. Hopefully our real gurus will chime in and confirm or improve on this information. Even with CO2 I still dose 15ml of Glut every morning as the plants are used to glut and to help inhibit algae.
Hope this helps, OS.

Baseline:
NO3 = 5
PO4 = 0
Two days later:
NO3 = 5+
PO4 = 0.25-0.50

Nothing much else to report other than the plants are doing fine. Trimmed off some old growth that had BBA and/or Staghorn present.

I am planning a mini-rescape soon. Basically the right 1/3rd will be cleared out and the remaining 2/3rds will be expanded. More plants to sell or give away. Details to follow.

 

[Rivercats]

With all my non-green plants I've found running my tanks with low nitrate (10ppm) and higher phosphates (3-5ppm) and dosing the micro mix at the normal dosing amount works really well to keep the plants colored up.

There are tons of people who dose EI with high levels of nitrates and get great color in their non green plants (look at Tom Barr's tanks) but I always read that low nitrates allows plants to color up better as they can better utilize the phosphates which they need for the actual chemical change that allows them to color up in higher light.

 

[Fresh2o]

With all my non-green plants I've found running my tanks with low nitrate (10ppm) and higher phosphates (3-5ppm) and dosing the micro mix at the normal dosing amount works really well to keep the plants colored up.

There are tons of people who dose EI with high levels of nitrates and get great color in their non green plants (look at Tom Barr's tanks) but I always read that low nitrates allows plants to color up better as they can better utilize the phosphates which they need for the actual chemical change that allows them to color up in higher light.

Thanks for the info. Very helpful. Right now my nitrates are low to begin with (5 ppm). I just started PPS pro this week so perhaps it will increase. I have a very low bioload.

 

[Fresh2o]

Planning a minor rescape of this tank. I like the foreground plants to left and center; I would like to make more room for them. Here is a pic of the current layout:

Behind letter A is a tangled collection of Crypt wendtii green, Dwarf Sag, and Cabomba. I want to move those to a holding tank and sell them or give them away. That will free up about 1/3 of the tank.
I will move the mini AR (B) into the front/center of the newly vacated spot (A). They will be spaced out to given them proper room to fill out.
The regular AR (C) will be trimmed and the tops will be replanted behind the mini AR where A is.
The Star repens (D) will be expanded to the center of the tank (B).
The Rotala indica (E) will be moved to an area to the right of A. Will be properly spaced to allow decent light penetration at the bottom of the stems.
Depending on how much space is left, I may keep some of the Cabomba stems.

 

[Fresh2o]

The work has begun...

 

[Old Scales]

Gee David,
That little 20L is just so sweet. It looks awesome just as it is and I bet will look just as good when you redo it. I'm conniving on getting a 20L for myself. OS.

 

[Fresh2o]

I like the footprint of the 20 long. The low height makes the most of your lighting. Just cannot have anything that grows tall. I have two of them plus the 6.6 g holding tank. I just added sand to that and a pair of clip on CFLs. But I am still calling it a "holding tank" (hope she does not figure out it's really another tank...hehe).

Funny, in my 20s I had a 10, 2 20s, and a 55 with a canister and a wet dry (when they were all the rage) while living in a much smaller place. Now I have a bigger home with fewer tanks. Oh well.

 

[Krissycakes]

Nice game plan Can't wait to see the final!

 

[Old Scales]

I am in the same situation. Our home now has a 1600 sq. ft. basement with concrete floor, built in floor drains, water source. It would make an awesome fish room but we never spend time down there and being retired you don't have a lot of money to blow on lots of tanks. Working=more money but less time. Retired=less money and more time. LOL. OS.

 

[Fresh2o]

Finally finished with the rescape late last night. Here are close ups of the left and right sides:

Took a little while to clear up. I took some manzanita DW from the shrimp tank. I don't think they will miss it. I might have gone overboard with the red. We will see when if fills out.
Here is a FTS:

Here are the "extras" I pulled out and put in a newly setup 6.6g tank. About 30+ dwarf sag, 10+ crypt wendtii red, 5-6 broadleaf chain swords, 3-5 cabomba stems, moss on DW, and at least a handful of water lettuce:

 

[Fishperson]

Wow, looks nice!

Personally, I liked it just as well before the rescape, not to be a downer or anything...

So what is your lighting and co2 source? And do you dose PPS Pro?

I'm just wondering because I will be ordering PPS Pro and a regulator soon.

 

[Old Scales]

I hate to say this as I know how much work it is to do all that replanting, but IMHO I would switch sides of the two foreground groupings. Red in front of green, left side and green in front of red, right side. I'm no "arteest" when it comes to getting my own scapes as pretty as others but just going by what River coached me on mixing plant colors and textures so they compliment each other. Hope I'm still your friend. OS.

 

[Billbug68]

I hate to say this as I know how much work it is to do all that replanting, but IMHO I would switch sides of the two foreground groupings. Red in front of green, left side and green in front of red, right side. I'm no "arteest" when it comes to getting my own scapes as pretty as others but just going by what River coached me on mixing plant colors and textures so they compliment each other. Hope I'm still your friend. OS.

I was thinking the same thing... I definitely agree, it looks too... Half and half...

I think the tank would benefit from a more thought out interesting hardscape, then plan out your planting around that... Don't get me wrong, the tank looks good and healthy, but it almost just looks like a farm or grow out tank...