58g Planted w/overflow and sump

[myswtsins]

Oh, I've read anacharis is 1 of the Excel haters, along w/vallisneria (but there may be more!). Both it & hornworts are often happier at lower temps too...especially if pond grown. They may recover, good luck!

(you do know "Metricide" is a bit stronger than "Excel"?...that might be adding to the effect)

Great thoughts! Anacharis is an excel hater but these plants died before they even went into the tank.
The plants could have over heated in transit as they did smell awful when they arrived. The water I had them in and my tank are actually cooler then her pond was so if anywhere it'd have to be in transit. I'll accept that theory!

I am dosing the metricide at about a 60% lower rate than excel which compensates for the increase in strength and it's even a lower than recommended dose. I estimate my tank with sump minus substrate etc. holds about 60 gallons (at least) making excel (1.5%) dosing 6ml daily so at 2.5ml metricde (2.6%) I'm well below dosing norms as 3.5ml would the equivalent.

Apparently the bleach dip didn't kill the "life" on the plants cause today for the first time I see bugs on the glass. *shrug*

Time for sad pictures....
Hudoroi mostly gone


Balansae
Lost a few leaves, weren't many to start with either but they have MASSIVE roots, NO worries.


Hodge podge! lol I like the wood there but not the buce and that is almost all that survived of the anacharis and hornwort.


The buce is "melting" too. I picked most of the damaged leaves off when I attached it to the wood but there is quite a bit of decay. I attached some with super gel and some with twist ties and all are affected.




Test results still show trace amounts of ammonia and phosphates with about 10 nitrates so no dosing still. I need to add some biological media to the sump. Once ammonia levels stop and stay at 0 awhile I plan to add some form of critters, probably amanos.

I have the lights on for about 5 to 6 hours but at varying intensities. I kinda of just manually skip through the 24 hr cycle. Right now I just set it to 3pm and it drops off quickly from there. I will start to increase the lights this week.

Haven't done a WC since planting....don't see a reason to yet? I need to get a 30g barrel for these water changes. Hate to use the 55g for a 10-30g WC. In my 29g I just add the water really slowly but I fear forgetting it and letting it overflow. In this tank that would mean shutting off the pump for an extended period of time which I don't like to do. Might look into inline heaters too, at a slow rate I think this could compensate enough.

 

[fishorama]

I'm glad you're on the Metrocide vs Excel dosing. I'm not sure of the % thingy but you sound up on it. Mid Sept can be iffy as to temp...& I've "nuked" a few plants with a weak bleach dip too.
Buces don't look too bad, just a few lesser leaves...was that pic before trimming? I hope so. They're so pricy still so I'm not ready to go there...yet..Were they bleach dipped too? Or are these the 1's you've had for a bit?
Balansae crypts...well, I bonsai'd a couple tiny 1's...& think I have a couple "almost" happy in another tank...not my best crypts, Similar spiralis & retrospiralis might have been sturdier, but different house, different tanks, I dunno.

 

[myswtsins]

I always worry about screwing up things like dosing so I've checked and checked and checked again and then lowered it to make sure I got it right.

The pictures of buce are from yesterday (long after trim). I think they might want more flow so I'm trying to figure out how to give them that. They are the ones I got with the crypts a bit ago. So at least they were dirt cheap! My other buce in my shrimp tank was free too. I'd never pay what people are asking for them so I've gotten lucky for sure!

 

[myswtsins]

Test Results Today ( I always test before lights on btw, so I know if I am adding ferts yet)

pH - 8.2
KH - 8.5 (down 1)
GH - 7
Ammonia - .25 or .50 but definitely present. I checked my tap water for comparison
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 15 (up 5)
Phosphate - 1 (up .75 or .50)

So stuff is going on in there! lol Odd that no nitrites have shown up though. If nitrates or phosphate go up anymore I will do a WC.

 

[myswtsins]

The buce is really looking rough! Almost every leaf on the one stick is dying. They aren't supposed to melt like crypts. lol Hopefully it is just a heavy adjustment and the rhizomes will survive. It is surprising cause my other buce is in the exact same water and it never died back at all.

Crypts are still doing their melting thing but I spotted what I believe is new growth so that's exciting.

Anacharis and hornwort look pretty dead but not ready to give up on it yet.

Tomorrow I am doing a big water change and cleaning out as much decay as I can, while trying not to uproot any crypts. That made me realize that not one of those 150 crypts ever floated up on me, cool! Then I am going to start dosing, manually till I figure out what I want to do with the doser. Hopefully get the CO2 setup this week too but unlikely. Just purchased a $6,000 metal garage, no financing, so any money spent on the tank seems extra painful.

 

[myswtsins]

Wow, lots of decay! Did a lot of trimming, stirring and netting before I even started removing water and it's a good thing I did or I would have ran out of water before I got all the dead stuff!
- The plants move around like it is a reef tank but there are a lot of dead spots. Just can't figure out how to get good circulation yet.
- The super gel has failed in about 90% of the spots. Task for another day though.
- I only uprooted 2 small plants while being quite aggressive so I think most of them have dug in a bit.
- Every species had some degree of new growth, even the unknowns in the corner.
- The remaining handful of hudoroi leaves look amazing!
- Got plenty of wood fungus growth. Gonna make some snails and shrimp VERY happy.
- ALL the hornwort and anacharis is completely dead! Made such a horrible mess too.
- All the wood is officially sunk, now just gotta figure out how to arrange it. I have more pieces in another tank too.
- Turned the return flow all the way up to help clear the debris but turned it down to about 60% for tonight. I will turn it up a little every day for next few days.

Before the clean-up. Basket had bits that were too small to "plant"


After. Wood is outta place and buce was just tossed back in and of course water is stirred up still. But a lot of that is little bugs!! You can see them on the glass mostly but they are being pushed around in the water too.

 

[fishorama]

It looks to me that many will survive...Ugh, what an adjustment! & a big load of work! Keep it up, you'll get through this, you know it! Good luck & keep us posted.

 

[myswtsins]

I agree, I think most of it is going to survive overall. With the new growth coming in I have to assume the melting period is winding down.

Thursday was a crazy day and I didn't even get the lights on at all nevermind ferts. I have all the stuff I need to automate this, WHY haven't I set it up yet!? lol I'll tell you why, I am still slowing increasing the lights but very soon I will just let it run through the 24/7 cycle and I haven't setup the dosers yet cause I want to figure out how much I need to dose before I go making solutions up, although I considered just making very weak solutions to start and I can add to them as/if needed.

Friday - Increased lighting duration, added the smallest amount of ferts (1/8 tsp KN03, 1/32 tsp others, no micros just cause I couldn't find them at the time) and 2.25ml metricide. Tests all good, no ammonia, yay!

Today - further increase lighting (almost normal cycle, about 1 hr short), add same amount of ferts but include 1/32 tsp micros. Increasing return flow a little. Tests good again, no ammonia. Gonna order some ex-small amanos for this tank and a couple for the shrimp tank too to take care of the hair algae over there. I'm thinking 10 would be ok in here as far as bio-load since they are supposed to be so small.

Tank has only been setup for about 2.5 weeks and I normally wouldn't add anything yet but the substrate is VERY established with BB from my 72g and it's moderately planted. Wish I had those stems plants still though. I will add a floating ring with floaters in it when the shrimp do get here though.

BTW Amanos are $2.79 with free next day delivery at petco.com right now. Usually wouldn't buy from petco but I'm gonna give mail order a shot! And they have a 30 day guarantee, I'm sure it's a pain to get a refund but worth a try. I can't get Amanos for that price anywhere else, even MsJinkzd is $3 PLUS shipping. I know hers are great though and not ex-small but whatever. Wish she had other stuff I wanted to make it worth the 6 hour round trip drive!

 

[fishorama]

Might be ok if you can QT...in a tub or somthing for a few weeks...shrimp are not super "dangerous" as to diseases but much better safe than really, really super sorry in the short run...you know...

 

[myswtsins]

I know, I know! Stop yelling at me, mom! I usually QT everything! Spent the whole summer QT'ing shubunkins and had a horribly low survival rate. But like you said shrimp usually don't carry much and what they do carry is usually either clearly visible or dies without a fish host. So if I put them into this tank with no other inhabitants after a VERY complete and individual inspection the chances are SO low I'm willing to chance it. I don't have much luck with putting shrimp into newly setup QT tanks, even with mature media, they just don't survive for me without a good bio-film. I will keep them all in this tank a couple weeks before I add any to my shrimp tank though, just to be sure.