# how can I improve my tank?



## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

Lessee if I can get everything written down. . .

60 gal. 1/2 wpg(I know, I know. . .) regular flora-glo lights. 1 hob filter and one canister(combined for 700 gph) horrid substrate(1" or so silica sand with 20 oz laterite and a handfull of sludge from my fluorite mixed in)

The plants ARE seeming to do well, for now. I have 3 "randomly assorted" crypts, one growing like a weed, 3 tiny amazon swords, 1 unidentified sword, 1 mellon sword, 1 teeny sprig of cabomba, same size for bacopa and anacharis, some java ferns, a single corkscrew val, a lot of wisteria(which is growing the really pinate leaves in my tank) and a tiny bit of water sprite. The pond snails ate most of it, though they ignore everything else >_>.

For fish, it's gone down lately, dut to some random illness that I have no idea what it is randomly taking out fish o.o Well, this is the latest estimate anyway. . . I've got 6 guppies(2 feeder, 4 fancy) 5 platy/sword crosses, 8-9 neon tetras, 1 male betta(wasn't in there when the tank started going weird, added a new guy since the old one AND my gourami had died and I had no idea why. I thought I added him after all the deaths had stopped. Dunno now?) 5-6 cory cats, 3-4 blue danios, 3 harlequin rasboras, 2 khuli loaches, 1 clown pleco and some random fry from the guppies or the platies, I think the guppies though. Plus some random pond, ramshorn and MTS and 2 apple snails(the type that don't eat live plants)

Water checks out fine on my test kit, I need to take it to a store to see if maybe my tests are off though. Seems

As I mentioned, the plants seem to be doing fine in there. I haven't had any die, and they all seem to be growing quickly(with the exception of the sprite, but that was a being eaten issue) I can't shell out the money for something like a Co2 reactor, which I've seen plant sites reccomending, I don't have enough money to. Though for my lights I was wondering if saltwater 50/50 bulbs would work? I've got a spare set that is around 130 watts that I was going to use on my 20. Someone on a reef forum told me I'd Have to double the lights when I doubled my tank size. I'm not going to do that though since everything looks fine with the 65 watts I had when it was only 10 gallons. So I've got the extra lights. I figure that way I could use the strip fixtures for the 10 gallon tanks I'll be doing up for the bettas. Or is it the wrong sort of spectrum altogether?

Also, should I mess with the substrate any? After I added the stuff from the fluorite, it went from looking nice to looking like a mess -_- I should probably mix it in a bit, but was wondering if I should do anything else besides just that? Should I find something cheap to add to it to make the substrate better for the plants?

Also, eventualyl I want to get some sort of ground covering plant and get it a bit more filled out. Any suggestions for that?

Before and after pics. (I really should cut the wisteria back and plant some near the bottom. . . and top it off.)


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## Kelley (Aug 27, 2006)

More light, more light, more light! CO2 is dispensable in lower light set-ups, but not this low. Your substrate is fine.

Skip the 50/50 or anything actinic bulbs. They will not provide your plants with usable wavelengths of light.

Check out this resource. It is very helpful.

http://www.rexgrigg.com/

Good luck!


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## K20A2 (Aug 12, 2006)

If I'm reading this correctly, you have an extra 130 watt fixture laying around? Except it has a 10K/actinic combo bulb in it?

If so, dump that bulb and get something more suitable for plant growth and get it on top of your 60 gallon. The plants will love the extra light and grow faster for you, which means more cutting and replanting. Keeping it nice and thick with plants will def. be helpful to you. 
I started off with just a few stems of wisteria that I found locally, which I cut and replanted a million times. Now, along with everything else that I have collected at different stores my tank is action packed and healthy as can be. 

You have a nice size tank to get rolling with. Just read a ton of material and search these boards.


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

So should I just get the straight 10k bulbs and use it then? I can only use CF bulbs with the fixture.


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## K20A2 (Aug 12, 2006)

What kind of fixture is it? Does it take one bulb or two?


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

2 seperate bulbs.


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## K20A2 (Aug 12, 2006)

So two 65 watt PC bulbs then. I really like the look of GE's 9325K mixed with something like 6500K. I did this for a few months on my 30G tank and got great growth. 

Check out the thread "9325K the difference" in the Advanced Lighting forum.


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

Ok. I'll check it out. They'll be side by side though, will that make a difference in the way the tank looks? I was wrong about the bulbs, one is a 10k the other is a straight actinic, but they look screwy next to each other >_>


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## DWIZUM (Jun 8, 2006)

If you toss the 130w PC fixture on there, you'll be pushing the limits of needing CO2, IMHO. That much light without the proper ferts/CO2 is a recipe for algae soup. At the very least, you might want to rig a two- or three-bottle DIY yeast system, which can be done very cheaply. Though, you're definitely going to want a pressurized system sooner or later if you go that route! And of course, once you start adding CO2, you'll get frustrated with your HOB filter, since the agitation it creates will diffuse your CO2 back into the atmosphere. . . . As you can see, this can be a slippery slope!

Ask yourself this: What do you want to get from this tank? Why/how are you unhappy with it now?
From your description above, it seems like everything is doing OK, really. Sit back and enjoy things for a few months, then decide if you REALLY want/need to upgrade anything. IMHO it's very easy to get started down the slope of "I need MORE!" with fish tanks, when sometimes something simple can be just as satisfying.


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

Hm. I guess I am unhappy since I had joined another(recomended) plant forum and the only response I got was from someone with a new tank and less than 60 posts saying "OMG!!! You need more light NOW or all of your plants are going to DIE!!!!" and nothing more from any other members. . . See, the first post here was telling me to get more light on it nicely. The Only post I got there was from someone telling me that unless I have more light no matter what nothing but my fish would end up living -,-

The big reason I am/was unhappy was the fish dying, which seems to resolve itself but has come back a couple times, though not in the past couple weeks(thank goodness) The other problem I seem to be having is that the canister filter seems to be getting clogged somehow lately even though I have cleaned it thoroughly. I am going to do that a second time in a few minutes. 

I'd really like a Nice planted tank out of it. Something more natural looking than what it looks like since it appears that I've just tossed a lot of plants into the tank randomly and not cared how they are arranged =/ Or to get a nicer balance so I could get a few more cory cats to round off my school again without having another 10 fish die right after I add them and half dozen or more within the next couple weeks with no outward symptoms of illness untill it dies. 

I had only gotten the plants because I had been told(I come from a horrid pet store's advice, so don't shoot me for noobie mistakes  ) that if you have problems with your tanks to add plants to balance the problems. Well, I was NOT having problems with it, but I wasn't liking the look of fake plants, and wanted a bit of "insurance" that if I missed a water change I'd be alright and not looking directly at dead fish, since I'd been told by a better(though saltwater geared) store that the big reason to use plants is that they suck up nitrates. From what he was telling me, he'd take the 40 ppm nitrate water from the sales system and put that into his planted display tank and that by morning the plants would have used all of the nitrates up and that that is why they were doing so well. Hm. It didn't crash per-say, but he had a huge cyano outbreak followed by a beard algae outbreak from the plants sucking up the nitrate(and he uses ferts, plant substrate, plant lights, co2, the whole 9 yards) Soo, I'm not so sure I really completely trust his theory of "you should put as many fish as will comfortably fit into a planted tank since the plants will pull out all of their waste" as much as he does. And other than the random deaths of fish, I still haven't had any problems with the tank.

Erm, I guess I'll quit rambling now  

Oh, and the theory of something less being satisfying is why I made a 20 gallon reef instead of a big huge one like people generally reccomend  I love my nano, though I'd missed a water change and am still trying to get rid of the rest of my cyano(oops.)


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## DWIZUM (Jun 8, 2006)

To be honest, the "smaller/simpler can be easier and more fun" rule doesn't really apply in reefs, IMHO. But if you can successfully keep a 20 gallon reef tank, planted tanks shouldn't be a problem at all!

Sounds like you need to find a better fish store, or if there aren't any better ones, stop listening to them! The guy has a point about plants sucking up nutrients, but it seems like he isn't really applying that theory very well. . .

Let's try to isolate your problems/desires and attack them one at a time:

1) Fish deaths: Where are you getting your fish? Do you have any idea about their treatment before purchase, or what water conditions they came from? How long had you had them before they went belly up? How long has your tank been running, anyways?

2) Upgrading your tank: You tank is, IMHO, a freshwater community tank with a few plants in it, which seems like a paraphrase of what you said yourself.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but if you want it to be a "real" (i.e. heavily) planted tank, you're definitely going to have to choose an approach and then stick with it.

You mentioned that you have a 60g tank, correct? Later in your post you mention that you have a 65w fixture on it currently? If so, you're around 1 wpg, not 1/2. 1 wpg is pretty low, but definitely more than enough for a low-tech, low-light approach. If you want to go that route, you really won't have to add too much in terms of equipment or complexity, but you will have to choose your plants very carefully, and you can't expect explosive growth. Check some of the more specific forums on here for information about those types of approaches - for instance, check the El Natural forum for info about low-light, low-tech, soil-based tanks.

As soon as you decide that's "not enough" you pretty much have to keep three crucial things balanced - CO2, light, ferts. If you dump a TON of light into the tank (which you would be doing if you added your old reef fixture, IMHO) and don't change anything else, you're going to have problems. If you add CO2 and ferts to match that new light, you'll have a wonderful tank with lots of growth. Going this route doesn't have to be stupidly expensive - you've already got the lights, and ferts are cheap ($30 for a very large supply from greg watson or another bulk dealer). That just leaves CO2, which can be pretty cheap for a pressurized system ($150 for everything you need isn't unreasonable.) DIY CO2 would be borderline for a tank that big unless you ran multiple bottles, in which case you're gonna be spending a lot of time each week restarting your yeast cultures.

In addition to balancing light, CO2, and ferts, the other thing you'll hear from everyone on these forums is to go with TONS of fast growing plants right off the bat. Think: so many stem plants you can't even see the back of the tank. Having that many fast growers in a tank with lots of light, CO2, and ferts will help to keep things stable and clean, since those plants will absolutely suck everything out of the water. If you're afraid of the expense of stocking that densely, shop in the for sale forum on here, or aquabid.com, or find a local hobbyist who needs to get rid of some clippings. You definitely don't need to pay retail for stem plants - most of them grow so fast that people are throwing them out by the handful week by week, so finding someone to give/sell you some shouldn't be a problem.

I guess to sum up, if you want a higher-tech tank, concentrate on these things:

1) Balance (CO2, ferts, light)
2) Stability
3) High planting density

Applying that to your current tank, the only pricey thing you're really missing is CO2. Oh, and if you do go CO2, you'll want to ditch the hang-on, since they tend to create a lot of turbulence, which can displace the precious CO2 into the atmosphere. Heavily planted tanks don't absolutely require awesome huge filtration systems - the opposite is true, IMHO. It's easy to get by on lower filtration capacity, since the plants themselves are going to be sucking everything out of the water. You just need to make sure you have good water movement (add a powerhead in place of that hang-on) and you should be OK as long as you're not overstocking with fish or over feeding.

Oh, and if you do decide to use that more powerful light fixture, I'd just keep the 10k bulb on one side and add a matching 10k on the other side. 10k will be OK for planted tanks, and then you don't have to worry about buying two new bulbs. Though it wouldn't hurt to leave the 10k and get something else on the other side - I've had bulbs as much as 5k apart at opposite ends of a tank without being able to see a gradient or difference.

Oh, and there's nothing wrong with rambling - as you can see I like to do it, too!


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

I honestly dunno what was up with the fish. The tank has been up for 2 years now. It was a tank for an oscar, but because of going back to school I didn't have enough time to keep up with his maintenance, so I gave him away and turned it into a community tank. I had a group(for a while) of 11 neon tetras, 5 blue danios, 5 harlequin rasboras, 3 "feeder" guppies, 9 cory cats, 1 male betta, 1 pearl gourami, 2 khuli loaches and 1 clown pleco(a 4" max grower) A few months ago I added 7 platy/sword crosses, all was fine. A little less than a month ago I added 7 guppies from petsmart. Within a night almost all were dead. I took them back to the store(all of the fish in the tank "looked" healthy when I bought them) The next night 1 of my cories was dead. Then a couple neons, then a couple danios, a couple more cories, my gourami, my betta, 2 of my harlequins and a couple of my platies over the next month either a couple a night or a few at once, once or twice a week. My first thought was that it had been something wrong with parameters, so I did a water change(had been a bit late with my last one) and tested it. The nitrates were around the first bar before the water change. The fish that died had no outward symptoms at all. They'd be swimming one morning and floating the next. A couple were breathing heavy at the bottom of the tank before lights out and dead the next morning, but I only noticed that in a couple cases, and none of them died in weird positions(like gills flared or contorted somehow) And a couple more would be breathing heavy at the bottom and be fine the next day. My second thought was that it was something the guppies brought in(as far as I know there aren't any contaminants in there) but that doesn't make sense considering that the ones that died started dying in a day and had no signs of illness. As a result I lost 4 of my cories, which leaves 2 unbalanced schools(had 2 species) 3 danios(or was it 4?) 3 rasboras who never look at each other, 2 "feeder" guppies, 8 neons, my pleco, my loaches, a few of the fancy guppies and a few of the platies. The only ones I really would like more of are the rasboras and the cories, but I'm not doing that until I figure out what happened to the other ones. 

Oh. The lights I had were 2 15 wat bulbs. Sorry about that  And the fixture I was thinking of using was a 130 watt that I was going to put on my 20 before I figured that the 65 watts I have on it now is plenty. And from what I'd read 30 watts was way too low? I have been using the other fixture for a couple days, I just don't like the look it gives because I can't just have the one bulb in the middle, or I get shadows on the sides of the tank and hate how "white" it is. But I can't find any lower k bulbs except actinic or 50/50, so I guess I am stuck with it.

I'll try to find somewhere else for the hanging filter if it isn't good for a planted tank(if I end up with co2) If I made a list of plants I "like" could I have you guys tell me if they would be okay with my light, perferably no co2?

EDIT: Okay, just looked in my tank, saw 5 cories, 2 loaches(after giving them an algae wafer <_<) one pleco, 9 neons, 5 platy/swords, 3 feeder guppies, 2 fancy guppies(ouch! thought I had more than that left?) 2 rasboras(another ouch. I wuv my rasboras. . .) 3 danios, my betta(someone likes his fins more than my last one's. . . Oh well, he was a rescue from walmart, so as long as he's still happy I don't really care) and a handful of guppy fry. Yeeeowch. More may have been hiding, but I didn't see anyone else in the tank besides those ones, and the guppies should have been easy to id against each other. But I didn't see bodies on the floor of the tank(have a lot of snails, which is probably why) Also my 2 apple snails(brigesii? the "good" ones in planted tanks) are fine. As are a lot of mts that were eating whatever off of the sand and a few pond and ramshorns(they never seem to reproduce much in my tanks. The mts do, but not the pond snails, and rarely the ramshorns)


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## DWIZUM (Jun 8, 2006)

OK yeah, two 15w bulbs on a 60g is definitely very low light!

However, I'd still hold that if you throw that 130w fixture on without doing CO2 and ferts, you're gonna have problems. At the very least, I'd find a way to suspend it way above the tank, so the light intensity is lowered - at least until you get some CO2 and ferts to keep things balanced.

I'm no fish-death expert, but it definitely sounds like something got thrown off when you introduced those fish from Petsmart. My personal fish strategy is to only get fish from shops where I know the staff well enough to trust their handling practices, or from other hobbyists. This has given me a very good success rate without any extra effort diagnosing/treating/quarantining fish. If you ARE going to buy from a big chain place or any store with unknown or untrustworthy practices, you might be better off setting up a simple little 10g as a q-tank to hold the new arrivals for a few weeks. Whether the new fish were carrying some disease or they were just doomed from poor handling or the shock of different water conditions, their deaths could have set off a chain reaction of condition swings that killed off the other fish.

Have you compared your water parameters to those at the store where you got the fish?


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## LSD25 (Apr 15, 2007)

Gilraen Took said:


> For fish, it's gone down lately, dut to some random illness that I have no idea what it is randomly taking out fish o.o Well, this is the latest estimate anyway. . .


There is no such thing of a random illness. Either you brought it in or your conditions are not great for the fish you have. Please let me know your water parameters? is it hard water or soft one? KH, GH, pH please!
Maybe you have too much CO2, Copper from the pipe, Nitrate or Nitrite. With what did you measure?

Cheers,
Marc


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

Had the parameters checked with a different test kit yesterday, the nitrates were high(20 ppm, or is it .20? Either way the first mark on the bar) and the ammonia(after fish have been dying slowly and my canister is not wanting to work) was .25. ph is in the middle of the 7.0 range. Dunno the kh or gh on it and it seems that no one locally tests for it. I'm not dosing co2, and I thought that the HOB was supposed to help diffuse that? I seriously doubt it is copper causing it since my snails have no problem living in there, apple snails, MTS, a few pond snails and some ramshorns. I'd always heard inverts in general were really sensitive to copper in the water, so I'd think they would go before the fish if it was a copper problem? Other than that, my guppy fry are still fine and happy. Which is bizzare since I'd think they would be affected by some bad water quality before the older fish would be?


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## LSD25 (Apr 15, 2007)

How is it at the moment with the fish? Indeed, it is difficult to say, what is causing the problem. If they are breathing heavily in some cases, it hints to some kind of hypercapnia (too much CO2, hwoever unlikekly as you dont have CO2/fertisiliser) or hypoxia, meaning too low oxygen. You mayt try to use an air pump for a short while and check, if the behaviour is changing. 

On the other hand, Gouramis are also air breathers and they are not too vulnerable to low oxygen... Hmmm, a bit of a mircale. Other ideas?


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

They've been fine for a week or two. It was just that first couple weeks after I had added new ones to it. Strange indeed. . .


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

Well, I did a bit with it just now. At least trying to make it look a bit better. Didn't do too much, and it still doesn't look great. I put the fixture I had on there, though I kept the blue light for now and put the 65 watt 10K on the left, where I have the most plants. I also finally got my canister working again and, though I need a spray bar, took off my HOB filter since the canister works as well. Does anyone know either where to buy a spraybar only for a rena canister or how to make one for it? I dunno what happened to it, somehow it got lost when we moved.

For the plants, I moved most of the amazon swords to the side with my canister's intake and planted them in that corner, and I cut off the bare stems of my stem plants(wisteria, a little bit of red ludwiga and a single stem of cabomba) and placed them towards the back. I left my crpyts and a couple of the smaller swords alone, though I cut off a runner from one that had roots on it and planted the baby. I also took out the fake rock, finally, and though it po'd my pleco, he found a place under the real rock shortly after(the cories are also really freaked out about the differences) Then I took all of my java ferns and put them on my one sorta big rock and on my piece of driftwood and put them on the left side, under the lower light. I also got a bit of hornwort to put in there to float.

















The tank with both lights on, both sides









The left side of the tank with the blue lights off to show how far the light from the other side reaches.









A kinda cruddy shot of the rock and the driftwood piece with java ferns on them. The little green patches on the rock are the baby javas that have been floating off of the 2 big parent plants for a while now.


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## LSD25 (Apr 15, 2007)

Gilraen Took said:


> They've been fine for a week or two. It was just that first couple weeks after I had added new ones to it. Strange indeed. . .


I would add more plants and maybe some fast growers. Yours looks a little sterile yet to me... Well, just an opinion of course.

Otherwise it is suggesting that you got an infection or other health problems with the new fish. If they are doing fine now, then be happy and smile :bathbaby:


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

I'm happy no more have died  I just wish I could figure out what caused the others to die in the first place so I can make sure that when I get more fish(my cories want to have more buddies again.) that they don't all die as well. I guess all I can do is get more and hope they are okay. 

I definately want more plants in there. I don't like how bare it is either. I'll probably have to order offline though. I can get one of the local shops to order for me, but then I'd have to pay for the plants, shipping and inflation on each one since he has to make a profit. I'll most likely go with one of the forum's sponsors. Just need to figure out stuff I like first


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## LSD25 (Apr 15, 2007)

I would probably start with (a lot of) the new plants and wait a little while until buying new fish. those plants can take up more nitrogen from the fish and make the whole thing more stable I would guess. You have maximum 20% of possible plantings right now...


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

Hm? What does that maximum mean?


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## LSD25 (Apr 15, 2007)

You can add 80% more plants! Just much more! sorry... I wrote a bit confusing...


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## ianmoede (Jan 17, 2005)

So the consensus is. More stems and possibly the addition of a hardscape. Chop chop!!


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## Gilraen Took (Apr 19, 2007)

*salutes* Will do! I got what I *think* is a temple hygro today(was in a random mix, if it isn't and starts going downhill I'll pull it and give it some potting soil) a sword(I thought? It is supposed to be an echinodorus species, but the more I look at it the more it looks like a peace lily with varigated leafs, so it'll be returned soon. not putting it in the tank.) and an anubias(wow, one that had the ryzome(sp?) buryed and it doesn't have any decay. I'm amazed, and checked before I bought) and am going to find someplace online to order the rest from. I know I should stick with asking if people here have extra stuff, but I figure if I can order all at once then it'll save me a lot on shipping) Hm, tell me if any of these are a bad idea, and I'll avoid getting them. Bacopa carolinia, cardamine lyrata, (besides the "weediness") salvinia, corkscrew vals, maybe a couple more crypts. Still want a groundcovering something. 

Also, I'm going to do a bit of work with it tonight. I know you guys said I don't need to mess with the substrate, but I've barely got an inch of sand in there, plus I have a ton of topsoil left from my betta tanks, so I figure I can add a bit of that under the sand and then put that back on it, and rearrange the plants so the tall ones are in the far back and the shorter ones are towards the front of it.

edit: *falls over* okay. fishies and plants need to be okay in a bucket until tomorrow. . . I didn't take out enough water when I was putting in the new stuff and my water is brown and I can't see more than a couple of inches into the tank. . . So I'll be doing a bucket brigade for a few hours tomorrow afternoon. Yay. 

Course that brings up another question. I was going to put the stems in the back, and the big swords in the right corner, the big crypt in the left corner(in case I get more of them I can plant them together) and the smaller stuff in the front-middle. Would that look okay?


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