No trout Trout tank

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fr499y
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Ha nope, same tank hehe. The trick is to be ocd and pick every tiny bit out lol
LookoutTrout
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Not much happening here at all since I stopped using liquid CO2, most plants are looking a bit sorry for themselves including the floating plants. It might be my ferts are messed up but before I go changing them again I've ordered a new bottle of glutaraldehyde to see if everything suddenly springs back to life.
I've used the NT Labs and Seachem variants in the past, I know Seachem says theirs is more special but I didn't notice a difference between the two. This time I opted for Aquadip Liquid Carbon because it's a fair bit cheaper to use than Seachem but can still be applied with an auto doser.
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wingnut55
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Let us know how you get on with the Aquadip carbon, i have a litre bottle of it.

Ian.
LookoutTrout
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Half an update today, no photos to share.
I decided to increase ferts before adding liquid CO2, no point in promoting a growth spurt while starving them. I doubled the dose and things started picking up, then I had a trim and saw BBA in a few places so started the liquid CO2 a bit earlier than planned. Once it's had a while to show any changes I'll put up a report and photos.

In other news I've finally had the big plumbing change that's been planned for months, part of that change is a new combi boiler and kitchen tap with a screw thread.
So after £12 for a hose from Morrisons, £3.50 for a tap/hose interface and £8.50 for a new inline valve I have a no bucket water change system.
I bought the valve as the one on the FX seems a bit weak and I'd rather wear out an easily replaceable part. Hose now runs from the filter to the sink and when enough water has come out then it plugs onto the tap until full.
Nice and easy, a bit nervous about the temperature staying constant from the tap but today's change was fine.
When refilling I got some backwash out of the inlet, in my head that's cleaning the hoses so I don't need to do it manually. :grin:
LookoutTrout
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I started adding liquid co2 a bit earlier than I expected as algae started building up, earlier than I wanted as the increased ferts hasn't had time to take effect. What I'll do next it's keep the same level of ferts when the bottle runs out.
What difference did it make? Well there is less algae and more plant growth, not masses but noticeable. What surprised me a little is the plant that grew like mad before is now almost dormant and another has taken over and spreading fast while others are growing just a little. The tiger lotus is growing fast but it's in a pot so can't spread.

My TDS meter has arrived, the next step to keeping shrimp alive. TDS was 440 before a change and 370 after. I'm going to reduce the amount of potash I'm adding to try and reduce the pre-change level and as I was a bit impatient with the last water change and didn't remove enough I hope to get levels down to under 400ppm before changes.

As for plants I still don't understand why the duckweed isn't thriving, it's still there but barely noticeable and not spreading much. I'm not complaining but as it seems to be a problem for many people I wonder why it isn't for me, what am I missing? My previous issue that stunted all growth was a lack off phosphate but I've tested that and it's fine, the only thing I'm not adding is nitrates and that's not run out. As well as the duckweed not thriving all of my water lettuce died off, I'll reintroduce that when the plant I bought for a vase today starts putting baby plants out.

No photo as I can't do it from my phone,I might try to edit later.
LookoutTrout
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Another sightly dull update, very little has changed yet.
Last weekend I switched on the nitrate fertiliser for the first time, I knew that levels slowly went down over the week to 5ppm and were boosted up during the water change. I decided to add a little and see if it got used up or if i ended the week with more, imagine my shock when I measured zero today. A quick check of tap water and it now supplies 2ppm, down from 20ppm so that explains the missing nitrate and I'm glad I switched it on.
Stuff seems to be growing well, probably about an inch a week so I can leave ferts alone apart from increasing nitrate again.
Did my biannual filter clean last weekend, God I love a large filter. :grin:
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I'm slowly removing bits ready for a change, rocks, pots and 15Kg of sand have gone so far and on the right I've just added some pond filter hose that I plan to stack up in the middle. I had a pleco hotel thing from a shop but hardly anything went inside and I've never seen the pleco in there, I think the tubes were too big so I'll see if anything likes 32mm a bit more.
If the hose lengths are a success then there will be a pile of them and smaller creatures can use the spaces between them for shelter, then stem plants will be stuck in between to provide cover and stop it looking like a pile of plumbing.
Also found out an Eheim pre-filter works as a direct replacement for the FX intake grill, nice and shrimp safe.

I'm getting bored of the big bit of wood in the middle but I want to restrict the view through the tank so I might try adding another big chunk on top of the expected hose pile.
I'm still annoyed I couldn't find a deeper (front to back) tank, it makes it difficult to do any sort of scaping so the tank looks good from both sides.
Chris_jennings
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Hi, are you in a drought area, I am and my tap nitrates have fallen from over 30ppm to 0ppm I think there is no run off from the fields.
LookoutTrout
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My hosepipe ban starts next week and the local reservoir is certainly looking a bit empty.
I need to remember to check again once we get some rain, it could come through all in one go.
Lee_k
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That piece of driftwood is lovely!
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LookoutTrout
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I have a bit of a problem with the air stone, I have it running on a UPS* so if there's a power cut it carries on circulating water for a few hours. Where the bubbles come up make a right mess on the lid with limescale and cyanobacteria, I might be able to stop the cyano by moving the air stone away from where the ferts go in but I'll still have problems from water spray from the bubbles. Am I missing a simple solution other than switching it off?

* A cheap power bank with usb passthrough.
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