# New semi-Walstad 350l tank



## gkai (May 14, 2018)

Just started a new tank: It's a relatively shallow 120 long, 70 wide, 42cm deep tank with a lot of room for emergent plants (plan it as a riparium). Semi walstad as I have a soil and plan light water changes, but lighting is quite strong (60w of leds ATM) and with a large canister...similar to a 90l I had for a few years which worked well, so I will try a larger version...it's not as heavily planted as I hoped right now, bigger tanks needs more plants and my budget was not planned accordingly...but hopefully they will grow nice quick enough...some of them are more pond plants and I plan to add a nice lotus very soon...
Some infos: 
Soil is 4-5cm deep potting soil+pouzzolane, which is small lava gravel...Previously in my smaller tank, I used some sand and a little bit of top garden soil, but I simplified things this time.
Cover is 3-4cm of small 1-2mm gravel with a little bit of additional pouzzolane.
Canister is 2000l sunsun one, with UV steriliser which may come handy. Need to add an inline heater and reduce a little bit the flow, which is too high for now...
Lamps are a mix of special plant leds from ikea and 20w 5000K led projectors.

Emergent plants: Equisetum hyemale, aponogeton distachyossome ,Hippuris vulgaris.... Lotus soon to be added
Floating plants: floating fern (Salvinia), frogbite and water lettuce
Underwater I have two other aponogeton, (probably Capuronii and Madagascariensis...Difficult plants, but they are too nice not to try. Never managed to keep them in my smaller tank, maybe I will have more chance this time), anubia, pogostemon, hottonia, crypts, Echinodorus Ozelot and a few others...

I just moved in a new home (hence the new, bigger tank) but water is very similar to my old place, it's a very hard one. Here are the data from my water provider:

33.8°F, 7.7 pH, 
Ca++ 99,4 mg/l
Mg++ 21,7 mg/l
K+ 1,6 mg/l
Na+ 7,8 mg/l
Cl- 25 mg/l
SO--4 40,6 mg/l
Nitrates: 21,6 mg/l 

A little bit less nitrates than my old place, funny thing was that nitrates in my old tank were lower than out-of-tab ;-).


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## zolteeC (Dec 26, 2017)

I'd put in more -good grower - plants and hope it helps against algae.

(Unrelated: I also noticed your tap water has quite a bit of Nitrates.)


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

zolteeC said:


> I'd put in more -good grower - plants and hope it helps against algae.
> 
> (Unrelated: I also noticed your tap water has quite a bit of Nitrates.)


Yes, that's the plan....I will add an anubia hastifolia and some pogostemon helferi tonight, and try to find new, inexpensive plants I find attractive in a few days...
Nitrates are always high in my region (central Belgium), intensive agriculture on small land cause it...
European regulation allows more nitrate in tab water than in the US I think. IIRC, limit is 50 mg/l...and I had 40 mg/l out of tab at my old place...


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Welcome to APC!

What benefit do you expect from using pouzzolane in the substrate?


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

hoppycalif said:


> Welcome to APC!
> 
> What benefit do you expect from using pouzzolane in the substrate?


Thanks!

I added pouzzolane for 2 reasons: 
-top cover: I find it attractive because my gravel was sligthly too light, adding pouzzo made it darker with contrasting bits. The pouzzo I have is roughly of the same granulometry, 2mm, so it fit quite well...

-soil: Because I wanted a little bit more stability and less compaction than pure potting soil. Pouzzo is usually added todo that in garden soil (in addition to get good drainage/water retention combo), so I though it should stabilize my aquarium soil without ill effects, possibly reducing chances of anaerobic pockets.

Additionnaly, I though it will not hurt to have more ready-to-be colonized surface in the tank for the bacteria. I have pouzzo in the filter too, and it's a very good filtering material in canister...

Finally, I added pouzzo in my first smaller tank also (there it was garden soil+pouzzo+sand+potting soil, with a 1.5-2cm sand cover), and it worked well for 3-4 years, so decided to do it again (but without sand and garden soil, my water is so hard that I do not want to add new hardness sources and the sand I had contained crushed shells...garden soil I skipped because it's difficult to know what's in it, and it seems it's not advised to mix garden soil and potting soil anyway).


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

Added Ceratopteris thalictroides and a pinch of floating azola...still need to find a lotus bulb and some more growers...


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Your tank strikes me as the advanced project of an experienced, knowledgeable, and confident hobbyist. You are starting out with plenty of good growers, plus some interesting plants. I love the Equistem (horsetail rush), an imaginative and artistic form of aerial growth. I am truly impressed!

Please keep us posted on how this tank develops.


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

dwalstad said:


> Your tank strikes me as the advanced project of an experienced, knowledgeable, and confident hobbyist. You are starting out with plenty of good growers, plus some interesting plants. I love the Equistem (horsetail rush), an imaginative and artistic form of aerial growth. I am truly impressed!
> 
> Please keep us posted on how this tank develops.


Thanks a lot, i'm not that experienced (only 1 90l tank before, also semi-Walstad) and thus probably over-confident.
Hopefully it will work even better than my first tank, that was stable and nice but suffered from green hair algae at the end. Not easy to get rid of them... 
I certainly did mistakes in the old tank, some I will correct but others I will probably repeat, i'm quite studborn ;-)

Anyway this project is more ambitious, hence the big jump in tank size...Everything but the canister is either custom-built (the tank, bought naked) or DIY (stand, canopy, lighting). Took me time but I'm now much better at wood working than I was before ;-)
Next steps are a few more plants, add the inline heater (doing this cleanly may proove difficult - first mistake ;-) ),wait a little bit and check it's stable, then introduce more animal life in there (some random snails and MTS are already in). After that I will experiment with Arduino automation, I'd like more flexibility and security for lighting/heater, and would like to log and have remote acess to tank paramameters: last tank suffered a power failure and cold killed half of my fishes ;-/

Really like the el-natural concept, probably it remind me a tank from a long time ago we did with my dad: a newt/insect/random frog/stickleback tank...it was a different time, everything we wild caughted (most of those animals are now on protected list :-O), nothing was bought and tank was just a container with semi-immersed soil, without light, heater nor filter...Fun but we did not have aquatic plants and it ended in algae-hell ;-)


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## Kai Witte (Jan 30, 2006)

Hoi, that's a nice project!



> Canister is 2000l sunsun one, with UV steriliser which may come handy. Need to add an inline heater and reduce a little bit the flow, which is too high for now...


Plenty of flow seems fine to me!



> Emergent plants: Equisetum hyemale, aponogeton distachyossome ,Hippuris vulgaris.... Lotus soon to be added
> Floating plants: floating fern (Salvinia), frogbite and water lettuce
> Underwater I have two other aponogeton, (probably Capuronii and Madagascariensis...Difficult plants, but they are too nice not to try. Never managed to keep them in my smaller tank, maybe I will have more chance this time), anubia, pogostemon, hottonia, crypts, Echinodorus Ozelot and a few others...


If I were to add a single plant species, I'd go for hornwort - at least temporarily until the other plants take over!

Unless you can keep the pH well below 7 (and/or adding quite a bit of CO2), you'll probably loose the Hottonia. The other plants should do well in your water. Beware of runners from Hippuris and Equisetum once they start growing at full speed!



> 33.8°F


The Equisetum, Hippuris, Hottonia, and all Aponogeton will prefer cool temps - I'm sure there is a conversion error though...


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

Added java moss and a nice crinum calamistratum, and Vallisneria spiralis. This one was a crazy grower in my last tank, so I feel I am covered for now. Last addition will be a lotus, in my last tank it growed great too, producing flowers regularly, so this time I will take one with flowers of more fancy colors. After that I will see how things turn out, a longer term plan would be to add terrarium plants in side baskets, with only roots immerged...

Thanks for the info, strong flow may be ok, but it's really at the limit if I do not want to have water going out of the tank...also I can not tune the rate ATM, wich is not so great once I add fishes...current may be too high for some species...nice to have the power at hand if needed though, when filter clog a little bit for example...or if inline heater has a lot of drag...
pH will likely stay high, i do not plan osmosed water nor co2 (my definition of high-tech) and my tab water is very hard and on the alkaline side...
Indeed I have a few plants that are more cold water, I bought them in the pond section...
Right now the aquarium is unheated (apart from the filter motor and the leds), so it should be roughly at room temp, around 22° (centigrade). The other degrees in my first post was the water hardness..sorry, European units here.
Pity for the hottonia, it's really nice...we will see what happen in the following weeks...I expect some of the plants to wither away, I.had that before, and the one which wither can be retried a year later, sometimes with success...

Once I have the inline heater installed, I will target 24-25. That's will give me plenty of choice for the inhabitants selection, knowing that I really want to have puffers, either red eyes (irrubesco) or Congo (schoutedeni)...not ideal for community, but it worked in my previous tank and here it will be really spatious for them...it will be goodbye for the random snails though 😉


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

I will do a proper 1-week update this evening (mostly adding photos), but a few quick infos:

First a setback, not related to plant but to my canopy construction. I used ikea glass tablets as openable windows....Problem is they are braced by a wood-imitating particle board, and it really do not like humidity.
I am in the process of replacing it with proper, oiled and humid-resistent wood, before the original bracings becomes dangerously weak...Some more unplanned wood working &#128533;
Another equipment problem was my canister filter and intake lily pipe: I can not let it run naked, had to put blue foam around it, even if the slits in the inlet were small enough I felt it was safe...But I was wrong: the suction was so powerfull that some red cherries, bigger than the slits were still sucked in and teared in half. Not nice...
So I had to cover it, such a suction is dangerous even for bigger fish, if they are not clever and/or good swimmer enough to escape before they touch the intake....My current solution with the blue foam works well but is not visually pleasing so I am looking for another way to protect this inlet. Maybe black foam cut more accurately, if I do not find a better idea...

Most plants are either growing well (aponogetons, hottonia, equisetum and hippuris, water lettuce) or looking healthy. Valisneria looks dormant, not unheatlhy but not growing, strange but we will see...
Java moss is also stagnant, hopefully it will not become colonized by algae, but there I am not completly comfident: Never managed to keep moss in my last tank








Ceratopterys do not look like it's going to make it, it was not really in good shape when I buyed it and not sure it will recover....
Another plant (not sure the name, it is of the leaf type like echinodorus, but smaller) is clearly dying and melting away. No problem, it was not my favorite









Not so great news:I have some algae, not yet a problem now but I will need to check carefully the next week. Some image coming, it's of the filament type (not green hair algae I think, it's much softer), growing mainly on the weighting stones, wood, submerged part of the equisitium stems and one of my anubias. Hopefully snails, red cherry, baby ancistrus and the growing plants will take care of it, else I will need to adjust lighting....

Also spotted a not-yet-identified critter, I will try to get a shot but I am suspicious of a leach, coming as eggs or juvenile hidden in some plants....Somebody have expericence with those? Dangerous or potential fish food?

Last thing: to protect my wood from excessive humidity, I will use anodized aluminum corners to guide condensation droplets. Any chance from aluminum leaching in the water? I am quite confident aluminum in hard, non-acid water is completely safe , but here it will be in contact with condensate, i.e. distilled water, almost pure H2O. This is usually more corrosive....My aluminum is anodized, so have a thicker oxide layer, which is good so I am not too worried, but would be nice to have additional advice/experiences....


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

More photos...


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## DutchMuch (Apr 12, 2017)

looks real good


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

DutchMuch said:


> looks real good


Thanks, algua growth seems less than the plants, so I hope it will go well...no photo of the critters yet, it will be difficult to catch so few small things in such a big tank &#128521; I will probably test my water in 2 weeks, when it should be ready to have more animals in there...
In the meantime, 1 red cherry saved by the blue foam...


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

Catched my unknown critter in the java moss...it's roughly 1cm...not really sure it's a leach, and it does not really looks like a planar...looks like a freshwater slug, but afaik there are no freshwater slug...so...somebody can id it?


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

Will do a proper photo update this week-end. Got my unknown critter identified as a planaria worm, so I took it out: seems that it can be predatory to shrimps, and I really hope to build a red cherry colony in there. 

Algae growth is there, but moderate: still think plants will get the upper hand. Especially as baby ancistrus do a good job on large regular surfaces: when it has decided to graze on something, it does a thorough job...My larger weigthing stone and anubia were completely cleaned of algae in 1 night! 
It doesn't graze on more difficult surfaces unfortunately, maybe he will do it when more confident, or snails and red-cherries will take their share...

Getting nearer to water test, but behavior of the current inhabitants and plant/algae growth makes me think there is probably no water pollution to speak of...Maybe not even enough to have nitrogen-cycle bacteria colonizing the filter/substrate..

Anyway, still thinking about the future fish population, my first choice as main inhabitants (carinotetraodon irrubesco) are unavailable those 2 last years and I am still thinking about housing tetraodon schoutedeni instead (expensive fishes ATM) ...so no hurry for populating the tank...


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## mysiak (Jan 17, 2018)

Just a small note, Tetraodon schoutedeni and shrimps/snails won't be friends from what I read. You will most probably end up with no shrimps, no snails and hungry puffer fish 

If you get something like guppies or endlers, they will take care of planaria worms and allow shrimp colony to grow. They come in great variety of colors and shapes, are very active and fun to watch. Just an idea..


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

mysiak said:


> Just a small note, Tetraodon schoutedeni and shrimps/snails won't be friends from what I read. You will most probably end up with no shrimps, no snails and hungry puffer fish
> 
> If you get something like guppies or endlers, they will take care of planaria worms and allow shrimp colony to grow. They come in great variety of colors and shapes, are very active and fun to watch. Just an idea..


Thanks, yes I know freshwater tetraodons quite well: housed a male and female irrubesco in my previous tank, and schoutedeni are slightly larger (but usually nicer, both to their own species and to other fishes.....they are quite unaggressive....for a tetraodon ;-) ).
Also my irrubescos shared the tank with amano shrimps, a kuhli and endlers! So I have first hand experience, maybe I can share it here:

Basically all snails will dissapear, they are candies to tetrodons that will hunt them relentlessly and very efficiently. I expect all of them to dissapear in a few days, except MTS. They are imho unkillable, like the zombies of the snail kingdom: even tetraodons can not get rid of them, . However, they will stay underground almost all the time once tetraodons are introduced, while now in my tank they are outside with the physes.

Some shrimps will be catched, but not so many: tetraodons are accurate but not especially quick, and most shrimp have a very fast escape move (with their tail) that work most of the time. After a while, my tetraodons did not bother, red worms and snails were more easy to catch and as tasty.
But shrimps had not the same luck with endlers: they look unintimidating but they are little piranhias. Maybe fancy long-tailed guppies are different, but wild endlers (mine at least), once acclimated, are very robust and efficient predators....for anything small. They had relatively long fins, but were very fast: Then even pestered my irrubesco and stole red worms when I was feeding them.
My adult cherry were ok, but once my endlers got established, shrimp reproduction stopped. I suspect them to eat all the shrimplets (no larvae for red cherries). 
Also, as livebearers, endlers reproduce fast, there is no way to keep only a few endlers...except if one take only males. My irrubesco also catched endlers fry sometimes, but not often and it did not prevent population explosion: even fry is too fast...
Those endlers were introduced in SEAsia to care for mosquitoes, and they are now an invasive species....I know why ;-)

But indeed they are very nice to watch, are active and even graze a little bit on algae...I am thinking of reintroducing them in my new tank, but I hesitate for my shrimps....I know endlers will end reproduction.

What will be in danger are the ancistrus I think: my kuhli survived, but got attacked a few time, fortunately it learned to avoid the tetraodons but this is not an ideal cohabitation....ancistrus have larger fins, so may be at more danger. They are larger and armored, but speed works much better than armor against tetrodons...

ancistrus/tetraodon cohabitation reports vary...It often works....but sometimes end bad (blind ancistrus)...I will see, I hope it will work as those ancistruses are nice to watch and good algae grazers...


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## mysiak (Jan 17, 2018)

Thank you for your detailed reply, very informative and I am glad for the opportunity to read first hand experience with such uncommon fish species. Please keep us updated about the progress.


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

mysiak said:


> Thank you for your detailed reply, very informative and I am glad for the opportunity to read first hand experience with such uncommon fish species. Please keep us updated about the progress.


It's a pleasure...I'm quite into oddballs....although usually attractive oddballs are oddballs for a reason: difficult to maintain, or expensive...often both, unfortunately... &#128521;
For those interested in puffers I suggest to have a look at https://www.thepufferforum.com...Very knowledgeable community! I go there for puffer infos, and here for plant advices &#128521;


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

A few pics. Tank looks stable, most plants growing, I saw my first root in the potting soil today, touching the glass, from the echinodorus I think...algae grows too, unfortunately, but moderately, and only soft green hair I think...
Baby ancistrus, the only fish in there, help controlling them, together with snails. Shrimps should also help, but they are not yet numerous enough....I.should add some amano ones, they clean great but unfortunately do no reproduce in fresh water...I'd like to add other shrimps able to reproduce and of similar size, but afaik there is none with this characteristics...maybe some shrimp expert can advise...I wanted to add macrobrachium kulsiense in my last tank, if I manage to find some I will try them in this big one...they like to dig, hopefully my 1-2mm gravel is not too big...

Next week I should have fixed my canopy windows, and installed the heater (which is not really needed at the moment, inside temp is 23-26 centigrade... I will make a 50% WC when installing the heater, it will be the first...one week after it will be time for water testing...


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## DutchMuch (Apr 12, 2017)

nice


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

A very quick update, weekly photos will be posted this week end...

The Algae that started to worry me last week are almost completely gone. I used to remove a little bit every day using the "spaghetti" method: rotate a thin wood stick in the hairy algae and presto-algae on a stick.
Those last 2 day I don't have any algae spot where I can do that, basically I have trouble finding any algae at all, even the java moss is clean!...It seems that conditions have changed and they can not grow anymore, it's quite impressive. Either allopathy has kicked in, or some nutrient has been exhausted, or snail population together with ancistrus and shrimps eat them faster than they grow. Maybe a combination of factor, anyway I am happy 
I should fix most of my canopy glass windows tonight, and also install the heater, which means some plumbing work. Orginally I planned a water change during the plumbing, but I think I will try to minimize it, as the algae situation is good and I want to keep it that way.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

gkai said:


> Originally I planned a water change during the plumbing, but I think I will try to minimize it, as the algae situation is good and I want to keep it that way.


Let your plants do the work for you! (Glad that your tank has stabilized.)


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

dwalstad said:


> gkai said:
> 
> 
> > Originally I planned a water change during the plumbing, but I think I will try to minimize it...
> ...


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

A new critter, look like an hydra...dangerous or not? I suspect it could eat very small fry/shrimplet, I will check its growth...

I never saw so many different microfauna in my old tank, either it was less healthy, or more likely everything was eaten by the first guppies...

BTW unworried MTS are funny snails, their mouth is at the end of a kind of trump, that they use to graze...they have an undeserved bad rep imho...


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Yes, that's a hydra. 

Good that you're not against snails. I don't why they've gotten such a bad reputation. 

You could add charcoal to the filter to get rid of the tannin color.


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

Thanks, indeed there was activated carbon in my filter but I did not use it, I kept it for eventually removing treatments if I ever need to add something in my tank...wouldn't it also remove any allopathic substance and possibly re-promote algae? That was my reasoning for not changing water, especially not a large - over 50 percents - change...


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Your logic makes perfect sense to me.


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

I will try to do an update this week end, been a little bit busy with introducing 2 new ancistrus,and trying to manage condensation in my canopy the best way I can.
Tank goes well, plants still grow strong (the hottonia for example) or at least looks fit, if not visually growing much.
Main exception are the floating plants. Duckweed do well (too well? ;-) ), the others not so much. Strange, I had the same phenomenon in my old tank, with pistia and salvinia first growing, but then slowly melting away... 
Nymphea that looked stagnant seems to kick off, with 2 (soon 3) surface leafs, and in my experience once it gets started it become scarry.

Algae are moderately back, but it's different one, similar to the ones i had in my old tank. Green hair algae I think, with strong filaments that looks almost like a plant/moss. IIRC, those ones have a physiology and requirements very similar to higher plants, so they are not easy to get rid off. I think I will manually remove it and check what happen.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Manual removal is always good! I did a bit this morning. I wind it around using an old toothbrush.


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

A few pics, first one is the problematic algae, second one is the fast growing hottonia, third one the new nymphea floating leafs...then random shots of the tank...no pics of the new L34 ancistruses, they are too shy for now...


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## DutchMuch (Apr 12, 2017)

nice!


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

Got the L34 😉


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

It's been a while since I did an update, I will try to post some pics during the week...
I had a lot of troubles lately, most of them related to my filter line. I finally got valves that works, it was not easy. I choose PVC ones with an inner diameter equal to my tubing, and union connect. They are much more robust than typical stuff I found in aqua shops, looks more like something you find in marine setup with hard pvc ducts, or for a small swimming pool lol. Anyway after proper sealing of the screw threads (threaded bard connectors screwed in the true union, so I could reuse it if I change my filter and have different tube diameter), no leak, and I can tune flow from closed to almost no restriction, so that is fixed.

But even with that fixed, my canister flow is not satisfactory: it is far from the one I got after installation, and decrease to almost nothing in 1 day. I have to constantly purge it, I suspect my in-filter pouzzolane is too fine and got clogged. I will replace that, hoping that it will solve the issue. I hope it's not a damaged electric motor, the propeller and attached magnet are fine but who knows. Given how strong the flow was initially, this is really puzzling, especially as during the first one or 2 seconds after a restart I got the strong flow back, then it decrease a lot but still is significant. Then decrease slowly to almost nothing during 1 day :-/

Now for the tank itself, not so nice either: I lost one of my L34, hope that the other one will make it. Filtration issue and a heatwave may be partly responsible, but they were never really active and the other inhabitants looks fine, including another ancistrus, so it's probably bad luck or water too hard for L34.

Plants are not doing as good either, here I suspect that higher temp is responsible. Tank is around 26-27 °C, compared to the 24-25 °C it was in June, and some plants probably don't like it. My soil is releasing bubbles sometimes, so some fermentation may be occuring. 
Nymphea lotus is growing very well, so is the emerging equisetum. Crinum and equinodorus ozelot are growing very well too, and valisneria is starting to multiply, slowly but I suspect it will accelerate.
Pogostemon is also dormant, but may make it.
Hottonia is melting away, Hippuris vulgaris almost completely died, my different aponogeton are dormant at best. 
strange as they were the better grower initially :-/. Hippuris started to wither once it lost his emergent tips, I wonder if my water is simply not too deep for it...pity, I liked them a lot when they were healthy...
Pogostemon is also dormant, but may make it.
The floating plants are all dying, except duckweed, which is growing enough that I need removal. Too much duckweed may have reduced light too much, maybe that's why immerged plants who seemed happy are struggling now, that and increased temperature.

Good news is that there is still no algae to speak of, and shrimps seems very happy...

I will probably do some water change, and see what happen. But priority is to solve my filter issue, and wait a little further before introducing more fishes...


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

Finally solved it, after a lot of useless cleaning and filter rearrangement...it was just the inlet sponge protecting my glass inlet pipe that prevented the flow. This part is under dimensionned and I have to be careful, but diagnosis was not easy: when siphoning the flow was quite normal, it's under strong suction that the sponge get slowly sucked in and progressively blocks everything...
This clogging is really sneaky, not easy to see, most telling sign is compression of my inlet tube...
For long term safety, I should create another inlet gard system, that can be quickly inspected and cleaned, does not clog quickly, and is not ugly...not easy!


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Do you have a photo that shows the inlet, with the sponge on it? That might lead to some good suggestions.


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

hoppycalif said:


> Do you have a photo that shows the inlet, with the sponge on it? That might lead to some good suggestions.


Yes, I include a zoomed view of the tank, showing the glass intake with the sponge on. It's a blue foam piece I cutted manually, including the central hole that allows to slip it on the intake.
I have changed the inlet/outlet valves to something much more heavy duty, but apart from that it's the same filtration line...


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

There are rigid plastic sponge foams that will work for that, without collapsing. Here is an Amazon listing for one: https://www.amazon.com/Leyouyou520-...8-3-fkmr3&keywords=Aquarium+rigid+filter+foam I have seen these in my local aquarium stores too.


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

hoppycalif said:


> There are rigid plastic sponge foams that will work for that, without collapsing. Here is an Amazon listing for one: https://www.amazon.com/Leyouyou520-...8-3-fkmr3&keywords=Aquarium+rigid+filter+foam I have seen these in my local aquarium stores too.


Looking at the review/customer remarks there, I am not convinced this will be different from my own foam block. Basically, I am more or less sure I need a water gap between the gard and the inlet slits, else creeping/clogging will eventually take place, without visual hint of it before it happen as the foam is not transparent.

I think I will go the wiremesh way, with a first attempt adapting my cheap shrimp gard.

Another thing I can try is to cut the bottom of my glass inlet, strongly increasing the total open area. it's dangerous as largish things can get sucket in, but as I need a gard anyway, it will only improve things. Not confident it will not weaken the glass too much though...

Or find a better glass inlet, that's also possible...


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

Flow rate issue solved! I removed the blue foam sponge, and replaced it with my Chinese shrimp intake gard. It's not well built, but it does the job after widening the rubber upper ring to fit my inlet...
Flow is back to when I used bare inlet, probably close to the rated 2000l/h. It's too much, but with my new valves I can adjust it easily...so provided the gard hold on (I hope it's really stainless steel, and the glue resist constant immersion), I have a long term setup...


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

Lost my second L34 ancistrus this saturday night :-( Also did a first water change, about 25%. last remaining ancistrus (a plain, undidentified one) is very active and grow well, while my 2 L34 that died after 3 weeks and 1 month never were active...Either they were sicks, or this subspecies demands much softer water, not sure. I will wait some more before retrying L34, they are nice but too expensive to retake the chance. 

I will do one more partial water changes during the week, and report how plants react...Heat wave is continuing, so my tank is hotter than I wanted, and that it was when most of my plants were the healthier, so it's difficult to know what had changed and explain troubles with the hotonia: filter flow, higher temp, or just the tank getting older and diffenret plants becoming dominant?


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

a small update with pics...
No real news on the plant side, the plants that were doing good still grow: 
-lotus has started to throw a (big) leaf every 2 days, I expect it will continue to do so. In my old thank, it was the best grower.
-hottonia has not completely melted, it is now stable and may even re-root...I will see how it does when water go back to 25-26 centigrade.
-hippuris is gone, last stem has melted. I think it didn't stand being immersed, at least in my water.
-All my aponogetons are still producing leaves, but slowly. I hope they will retain vigor with colder water...I will also remove some duckweed, to increase light.
-Crinum is growing well, and emerged equisetum is really well established: growing well, without losing old stems
Java moss also growing nicely, but it has detached from it's wood. Strange, I expected it to fix itself firmly but no...
-my 2 types of anubia, on the other hand, are growing very well and sending crazy roots
-floating plants are now reduced to duckweed (growing a lot, those are really crazy growers) and pistia (slowly melting, I think they can not compete with duckweed...)

My installations are now working as they should, but water remain hot because a local heat wave...I did another 20% water change, just to cool things a little bit 😉 also I now use a siesta, no algae but it will light my tank longer when I'm back from work. 8:30-14 and 16:30-22...I will also add 20-40w of led, now that duckweeds and lotus shade a lot...

Introduced a kribensis couple, 10 danios and another classic ancistrus. Hope my kribs and danio will not kill my shrimps community, we will see.

Population-wise, I am mostly set, will try to add puffers (red eye or schoutedeni) if I can find some.


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

A small update: hotonia has not melted yet, but is completely unrooted. I guess I lost it, like hippuris that has completely melted away. I think it's time I plant some new species, I just added 40w of led lights, and I feel like I do not have enough grower.
Did a few 20% water change, to lessen amber water tint but more to avoid prevent overheating...still awfully hot outside, and my water is getting into discus territory 😱
Any idea about replacement for my hotonia and hippuris? I'd like to have something roughly similar but growing well in hard water, around 25-26 celsius. I saw a "siamensis" plant in s local shop that seemed a possible choice, not sure it was labeled correctly.


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

Added cabomba to replace my hotonia, and myriophyllum brasiliensis in place of my hippuris...well, I do not give up yet on hippuris, I will retry once it become available again, trying to make sure it remains emergent...
Water is again more amber, I was not able to plant the myriophyllum without a lot of it's soil going in the water...I will check this week how things change, but heat wave persist so my water will remain around 27°c...


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

I will try to do a proper update this WE, in the meantime quick news:

cabomba has started suprisingly strong. Maybe too strong, it has grown so much that it cover partly my cryptocoryne, that was doing well before. No effect yet, but I think I need to rearrange a little bit the cabomba so that it block less light. Maybe even trim it...
myriophyllum is also doing ok, but less so: big change from going from emmerged to immerged form, like my hippuris, which is worrying, so I would like to give more light and help it to emmerge as much as i can, before it wither...

pistia hang on and seems to be able to compete with duckweed now, but I need to reduce floaters, blocking too much light

I will probably fall for the hype and add some Bucephalandra this week end. I like their darker color and apparently they like strong current, so the spot after my canister exhaust would be nice. Could make a nice place for Atyopsis shrimps that like to filter-feed with their fan appendages.
They are slow grower apparently, similar to anubia, but for now my anubias anubioas are not so slow: they do very good in my tank, growing partly emerged, with crazy roots, so it's worth trying Bucephalandra...

BTW, my cichlid couple has done some digging, so a little bit of soil has escaped the capping. My water is a little bit yellower again, is it worth to do some waterchange and vacuum? Currents in the tank bring most of the escaped potting soil near the valisneria, wich continue to send shoots and grow well BTW...


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

As promised, some pics update...
The cabomba is really growing well, and both pistia and salvinia looks like they now can compete with duckweed...maybe helped by some manual removal of some of the latest 😉
Added bucephalandra, not fixed so well on my wood but I will refix it better if it does not anchor itself with roots in the following days.
Added also a mystery plant, that looks like a small palm...probably not a real aquatic plant in fact, even though it was sold as such...but if it manage to grow emergent it may be a nice addition...
I can see nice for system developing, mostly near the lotus and echinodorus...and equisetum is growing very strongly, with shooters 15 cm away from the main stems...probably will need manual trimming soon...
I think I have enough plants established to get stable system, now I will start removing some plant matter to help other struggling plants with more light...

Still waiting for my puffers (vey likely irrubescos, the schoutedeni alternative is too costly and getting even more expensive...) to complete my population, and then it will be fine tuning here and there and solving eventual problems...


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## zolteeC (Dec 26, 2017)

gkai said:


> As promised, some pics update...
> The cabomba is really growing well, and both pistia and salvinia looks like they now can compete with duckweed...maybe helped by some manual removal of some of the latest &#128521;
> Added bucephalandra, not fixed so well on my wood but I will refix it better if it does not anchor itself with roots in the following days.
> Added also a mystery plant, that looks like a small palm...probably not a real aquatic plant in fact, even though it was sold as such...but if it manage to grow emergent it may be a nice addition...
> ...


Your growth looks reasonable to me! Congratulations for pulling this off!

My Lotus leaves have always been much smaller than yours .


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

zolteeC said:


> Your growth looks reasonable to me! Congratulations for pulling this off!
> 
> My Lotus leaves have always been much smaller than yours .


Thanks, I struggle with other plants but lotus always have been super easy, maybe they like my (very hard) water...
Basically once one or two leaves have reach the surface and float, roots multiply fast and the lotus growth becomes scary ;-) it doesn't like current though, it's when the leaves float with a face fully dry all the time that growth accelerates.... Smaller fully immersed leaves are still produced, and the problem I have is to avoid the lotus filling the tank completely ;-)
This one has not produced flowers yet, but I guess it will do soon...

Any idea about the name of the mystery plant? I'd like to have more info about it...


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

since adding bucephalandra I realised that the yellow tint of my water is due only partly to tanins leaching from wood and the soil, it's also due to light diffusion by plants that are in majority light green. My girlfriend keep asking me to add more plants similar in color to buce, and I think she is right: I would have better color balance in the tank if I add more dark plants, so do you (the list ;-) ) have ideas about dark plants (maybe even non green - somewhat blue-ish would be perfect, as blue is the most absorbed / less reflected light ATM) that would grow well in an low tech Walstadish tank (no fert, no CO2, moderate light)?

My current darker plant are (from more dark to less dark):
Bucephalandra
Java moss
cryptocoryne
Echinodorus "Ocelot
Crinum calamistrum
Aponogeton longiplumulosus
Aponogeton Madagascariensis

Equisetum and lotus are also quite dark (with quite a lot of purple for the lotus), but as emergent or floaters, they do not affect the light balance in the same way...

Any idea about other possibilities? I'd like to have something cryptocoryne-dark or darker, possibly blueish.


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

I did my first big water change this Saturday, and some very limited trimming (equisetum, duckweed). Also rearranged cabomba a little bit, just moved the stems, no unrooting...
Water is less yellow/amber, I think that most of the wood and soil tannins have been released and will not stain the water much in the future...
Very satisfied with the tank, even if some plants do better than others and I will still have to try new species. Equisetum, lotus, anubias, crinum and cabomba are the big successes so far.
Population wise, I am still waiting for my red eyes puffer, they are available in Germany for an affordable price, but shipping cost is too high, I am already not really a big fan of online buying for fishes, and here shipping cost will roughly equal the price of the group of 5 puffers I would like to buy...I will wait a little bit hoping they get available locally, Belgium is close so I should be lucky...


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

New inhabitants: red eye puffers (carinotetraodon irrubesco), one male and two females. Initially I wanted a bigger group, but the shop had only 2 females (for about 20 males😱), and to minimize aggression it's better to have more females...hopefully I will be able to get more from another shop tomorrow...
Snails have been decimated, as expected...but no other issue at the moment.
Regarding plants, no real news. My bucephalandra is getting no growth and algae, very dark green-blue thin hairs type...hopefully it will rebound, I'll give it a little bit more time, but I may need to move it, maybe so it partly emerge..
In general plants are not growing as much as they did in the first two month, it seems a common pattern for el natural tanks. Cabomba, valisneria and equisetum still doing very well, lotus too but no flower yet and total floating leaf extension stagnate or is even slightly decreasing. Need to check that it, maybe remove some of my pistias.


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## mysiak (Jan 17, 2018)

Very interesting fish, it's extremely rare around here. 

I had mixed results with Bucephalandra, the one I have seems to like stronger flow and little light. Too strong light and I had almost no growth and all leaves covered in algae. I stuck few rhyzomes under Anubias and forgot about them, few months later I was surprised with a nice growth with no algae. I've read over several places that they will grow faster with strong light, but that just didn't work for me. Maybe you could try splitting yours and experiment with different placement..?


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

mysiak said:


> Very interesting fish, it's extremely rare around here.
> 
> I had mixed results with Bucephalandra, the one I have seems to like stronger flow and little light. Too strong light and I had almost no growth and all leaves covered in algae. I stuck few rhyzomes under Anubias and forgot about them, few months later I was surprised with a nice growth with no algae. I've read over several places that they will grow faster with strong light, but that just didn't work for me. Maybe you could try splitting yours and experiment with different placement..?


Yes, those puffers are rare here in Europe too, they were common (but seasonal) 4 years ago, but since they vanished, except for this batch that came in Germany I think, and now trickle across Europe. Hopefully they will get imported regularly again...
Oh, I see that your are from slovakia....Some shops may have some, the one that import from German wholesalers (like Aquarium Glaser). Nice and not as aggressive as their reputation (at least that's my experience)....Biggest issue is to get them fed in a community tank: they readily takes frozen bloodworms, but so do almost all other common fishes (guppies, danio,...) and they swim and eat faster...

Very good points for Buce, that's exactly my situation: strong light and strong flow, no growth and algae...I will try to put it in more shaded area, but then there will be less flow...could divide it in 2 and check what happen in 2 places...
ATM I tried it as pure epiphyte, like my anubias (they liked it and send long roots toward the substrate, so let's say it was an epiphyte start)...but maybe I should bury some roots (not the rhizome) to get it started? Thinking of it, how deep to bury plants seems often a crucial factor, and informations are not always clear or even available on this point...


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## mysiak (Jan 17, 2018)

I like my snails, so no puffers for me sir!  Though I checked couple of videos of them and they are definitely very interesting. Recently I went through Aquarium Glaser web page (livebearers section) and they have so many "unknown"/rare species..I will check if my LFS is ordering from them, but first I must select 1-2 livebearers which I want the most as many will hybridize. And with such a wide offering, it's almost impossible to pick #1.. 

I would say that Bucephalandra will not mind weaker flow, I keep them in "low/medium" flow and they are fine. Light is probably more important factor. I haven't tried to bury Bucepalandra and it is being said that this species is very similar to Anubias, so there probably won't be a big benefit in doing it. Nevertheless it's an interesting idea, I might try it with a small cutting.. 



gkai said:


> Yes, those puffers are rare here in Europe too, they were common (but seasonal) 4 years ago, but since they vanished, except for this batch that came in Germany I think, and now trickle across Europe. Hopefully they will get imported regularly again...
> Oh, I see that your are from slovakia....Some shops may have some, the one that import from German wholesalers (like Aquarium Glaser). Nice and not as aggressive as their reputation (at least that's my experience)....Biggest issue is to get them fed in a community tank: they readily takes frozen bloodworms, but so do almost all other common fishes (guppies, danio,...) and they swim and eat faster...
> 
> Very good points for Buce, that's exactly my situation: strong light and strong flow, no growth and algae...I will try to put it in more shaded area, but then there will be less flow...could divide it in 2 and check what happen in 2 places...
> ATM I tried it as pure epiphyte, like my anubias (they liked it and send long roots toward the substrate, so let's say it was an epiphyte start)...but maybe I should bury some roots (not the rhizome) to get it started? Thinking of it, how deep to bury plants seems often a crucial factor, and informations are not always clear or even available on this point...


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## gkai (May 14, 2018)

Long time no post...so I will give a quick update. Without having a real, well identified problem, I can not say my plants are thriving. It seems that even plants that were doing great now slowly wither with time, with 3 exception: anubia (one of them if getting huge), dwarf valisneria and floating pistia. I thing one issue is pistia taking too much light and, together with giant anubia, remove nutrient from water "too efficiently". 
And maybe the remaining plants have trouble oxygenating soil enough: one common pattern seems to be unrooting/ preference for in-water roots. My hotonia, then my cabomba died like this, and even my equisetum seems to go this way: still strong, but no new stems from the ground and too many roots directly in the water...
I have started to remove pistia more energetically...but I am a little bit affraid too be too energetic, algae is not really a problem ATM and I don't want to give too much light if I do not have enough thriving submerged plants...
Btw, inspired by the smelly substrate thread, I did some poking around...lots of bubbles, but no smell, either it's air or more likely co2...


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

gkai said:


> And maybe the remaining plants have trouble oxygenating soil enough: one common pattern seems to be unrooting/ preference for in-water roots. My hotonia, then my cabomba died like this, and even my equisetum seems to go this way: still strong, but no new stems from the ground and too many roots directly in the water...
> Btw, inspired by the smelly substrate thread, I did some poking around...lots of bubbles, but no smell, either it's air or more likely co2...


I agree that you should be getting much better rooted plant growth than this and that your substrate could be too anaerobic. The gas bubbling is a strong clue...

No need to make major changes. Maybe, you could replant one area of tank with some strong rooted plants and keep that area of the substrate poked. If that works, then you'll know what the problem is AND how to fix it.

You could also remove some of the gravel from the top layer. A large soup spoon would work for this. Removing some of the gravel won't hurt and it would help bring oxygenated water closer to the soil layer.


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