Pepper's Aquascape Journal!

Here's a video of my corys in the new tank

They seem to love swimming against the filter flow at the back! Not sure why, but they keep going back for more haha.

Lol my Cory love that too! Can't have it too high cos of the Betta but now & again I turn it up and they really do love it. Same with my kuhli loach which is odd sight to see as they just look like eels!

tank is looking great miss pepper all the hard work you have put in has paid off

Thanks Marty :D

The corys are still at it today, should I just leave them to it or is it a sign the filters are making too much flow? The plants hardly move, and these ones you can't adjust so I didn't think it was too strong for them but I worry they're going to ping off into a sharp bit of slate or wood

they should be ok i had some a while ago and they done the same they must love the flow

I moved the filter so it was more hidden and they're not really bothering now, must have ruined their game :D oops!

I've been doing a bit of inspecting my plants and a bit of reading and realised my plants might have been deficient in a few things (especially nitrogen/nitrates when there were no fish!) so been sorting out my fert doses. Not sure I have a 100% grasp on all of it but I've opted to do little doses daily instead of 1 weekly dose. This way the plants get a little continous source of nutrients that they steadily grow with, rather than a big boost and then nothing.

The pale red plants can actually be signs of nitrogen difficiency sometimes so that might be why my echinodorus is looking funky! I did ask aquaessentials and they said they looked healthy. But I beg to differ so we'll see what happens. Also got some yellowing spots and pinholes on my echinodorus ocelot so I think that was potassium. I had just put in the generic mixed ferts and thought that would be ok but that's obviously not the case I have pretty high lighting, 2W of T5 per gallon, so the ferts probably need to keep up.

So from now on I'm dosing in my 180l tank (all Easy Life range):

• ProFito - 2.5ml a day
  
• Nitro - 5ml a day (should only raise it by 2-3ppm)
  
• Phospho - 10ml a day (raise to 0.2-0.3 ppm)
  
• Easy Carbo/Liquid Carbon - 4ml a day
  
• Potassium - 2.5ml a day until the deficieny looks better then to about 1ml a day since it's in profito as well I think.

I plan on being back to green and healthy soon. Also, very excited to be getting some otos next week. I've left my hairy algae bogwood for their lunch but I will reach a limit how long I can leave that eyesore. Looks like green cotton candy so hopefully they'll think it's tasty

really glad you have found the answer about your plants miss pepper i will looking forward to the next part of your journal and thanks for keeping us all informmed

yes i am enjoying reading this and learning too!

hi miss pepper how is the aqua scape journal coming on

Hi! Sorry about no updates in ages - I've come to terms with the fact that I've gone about doing a 'Walstad' tank in all the wrong ways. After receiving her book for Christmas it's helped me see the error of my ways. It works best with low/medium light, fast growing, easy plants. And I went and chose some expert CO2 required fancy-pants plants! And I'm paying for it with them dying. That being said, I've conquered most of my algae problems (thanks otos!) and 'some' plants are picking up again.



The hydrocotyle has just made an enormous bush (was a nice surprise when I got home from Christmas, and I've just left it lol), right up to the surface where it's kindly holding my floating plants in place! I'll need to trim some of this soon, so if anyone in Middlesbrough wants to swap plant cuttings just send me a message :D.

Vallisneria has finally picked up, dwarf sag seems long gone - apparently these plants compete in planted tanks, not sure how true that is. Moss on front coconut is doing well, brought in another mossed coconut that was dying in my little tank.

I really want to fix it all and replant it, but I think I'm just going to leave it for now. It was a good learning experience and when we move house I'll definately re-do it. Either with the proper pressurised CO2, where I can have any plant I want, or pick more suitable plants. The fish don't seem bothered either way and I'm hoping to finally get some more fish soon. L183 plecos are on the wish list . And I've purchased a new 10g...so watch out for the upcoming nano fish scape haha. Hopefully I'll be able to take some of the things I've learnt from this one and make a better tank.

1. Pick suitable plants for you setup and water...

• Softwater plants seem to do ok in hardwater - but can be 'outcompeted' by naturally hardwater plants. Hardwater plants will melt in softwater. My val was doing terribley but my GH has creeped up from 4 (tap water) to 12 (tank water). So not sure if the slate is leaking anything. Either way, plants like it!
  
• Plants that require a high level of CO2...require a high level of CO2. There seem to be ways around this, ie low lights and low nutrients so there isn't such a high demand for it. But I found it didn't work.

2. Experiment! You'll never know what will work in your tank if you don't try it.

3. Fiddle with your light settings if you're getting algae. I'm now on 4 hours of light on, 3 hours off, 4 hours on. One reason to this is I like the tank to be on in the morning, and the evening. And the scientific reasons is during the 3 hours of 'off' the carbon dioxide levels have a chance to replenish for the plants. 4/5 hours of 'on' is the recommended. Obviously if you're pumping in CO2, continous lighting is just as good!

Hey everyone not forgotten about this, just been busy getting fish in here instead of worrying about all the plants. Went to Rare Aquatics/Pier Aquatics last weekend and really loved both shops and got some amazing fish!



I gave the tank a tidy after the last photo, pulled up all the dead HC cuba and moved some plants about. But I still wasn't happy with the look and wanted more plants!

I ended up taking all the massive bits of wood out of the left side, giving it a good tidy and a rearrange/replant. Vallisneria is really taking off now, and I actually hacked all that hydrocotyle bush out and sold some of it off. It's already recovering and I'm being vigilant to snip where I don't want it to grow. I had some black beard algae growing on some of the vallisneria leaves too close to the light - I just chopped those off as well and it hasn't minded at all.

Been buying odd plants when I see ones I like, like this water sprite and echinodorus tennelus.



The tennelus was grown emersed and was flowering when I received it, so I'm just waiting for that to really settle in and hopefully cover all of that pale sand. Aftering visiting the garden centre yesterday I have some stem plants to fill up that gap so I'll be posting another picture when they grow and report what didn't do so well and what did.

the way you have done your tank is amazing definatly a credit to you and all the hard work has paid off for you