Habitat - Indoor :: Moe's new 75G home - build thread.

[sweety10189110]

Your boys are so adorable VeipaCray. Congrats on the new bundle of joy!!!!!!!!

[VeipaCray]

Thank you.

[steve]

Congratulations on the new addition! Brandon and Derek look great, it's good to have a big brother around

[VeipaCray]

Thanks Steve. +1 to the turtle keeper quantity in this household

[VeipaCray]

With work and a new baby, I haven't had much time to post regular updates to this thread. There have been many changes / advancements / oops to the planted tank journey.

The first problem I had was CO2. I had built a Rex Grigg style PVC reactor and had problems with trapped air and gurgling. This aquarium is in my home office where I work so a quiet tank is critical. Additionally one of my other great passions is stereo equipment. Any background noise from an aquarium isn't tolerable. The Rex Grigg reactor found itself in the trash. I tried the Red Sea 500 reactor which is a small pump that creates a vortex swirl of water in a chamber to which CO2 bubbles are added and dissolved. This worked OK for a few weeks then it broke. Something happened and it stopped swirling. I took it apart for inspection and cleaning and was never able to get the unit to function properly again. Into the trash next to the Rex Grigg it went. My next reactor was a cerges style canister reactor built from a whole house water filter. This was another spectacular failure as cavitation from my pump would build up a pocket of air and CO2 at the top of the canister and the whole thing just had too many issues. I decided to give up on reactors and try injecting the CO2 into a needle wheel pump to be chopped up. I had a bubble blaster HY-2000s from my skimmer that I was no longer using so I decided to give this a try. This worked conceptually but the air draw (now being fed C02) into the volute was so strong it was actually sucking CO2 through my cheap needle valve that came with the Milwaukee regulator kit. My 5# CO2 canister was emptied in a few days. OK off to the welding supply store to fill it up for $20. I decided to ditch the needle wheel pump and try an in-line diffuser. I ordered a Boyu diffuser from ebay. It worked reasonably well except the bubbles in the display tank made the aquarium look like a giant vat of 7-Up. Ok so the inline diffuser works but the bubbles are too big. After some research I discovered these newer generation Atomic diffusers that require a higher PSI from the regulator to force the CO2 through smaller pores in the diffuser thus creating much smaller bubbles. I should mention that I picked up a used quiet one model 3000 pump from a friend of mine to drive the inline diffuser on a separate loop than the main return pump loop.

Atomic in-line diffuser.


So I hook this thing up and crank the milwaukee regulator knob until the low pressure dial hits 30 psi... and it never does. This cheap regulator will not handle the higher pressure very well. Luckily I had an extra CO2 regulator lying around from my kegerator. I had upgraded the regulator on my draught beer system a few years ago and never got rid of the regulator that came with it. I hooked up the new regulator to the milwaukee solenoid,needle valve and bubble counter via a few brass fittings from the Lowes plumbing section and Viola! I was back in business. I finally had nice CO2 for the tank.

Here's the Regulator:

[VeipaCray]

After a few months of tinkering with the CO2 nightmare, I was now ready to tackle fertilizers. I was previously dosing Seachem Excel (used more for the algaecide than for carbon), and Brightwell florin multi. I was getting OK plant growth along with some fantastic hair algae. I just figured my lighting was a bit high and I needed to cut back on the hours. After some reading and research, I came to the same conclusion that my wife has... I'm a moron. Plants need micro and macro nutrients and there isn't a single all-in-one bottle of magic solution that you can just dump into the tank to make them grow. I settled on the idea of dry ferts and the EI dosing regiment. I picked up a pack of ferts from a well regarded online retailer that caters to planted tanks, two mixing bottles for stock fert solutions and ordered a drug dealer style digital scale from ebay. You need to use a fertilizer calculator for making stock solutions. This one is very good: http://calc.petalphile.com

My package contained:
Micros
Plantex CSM + B - 1/2 Pound

Macros
Potassium Nitrate (KNO3) - 1 Pound
Mono Potassium Phosphate (KH2PO4) - 1/2 Pound
Potassium Sulfate (K2SO4) - 1 Pound

After following the EI dosing regiment for 2 weeks, I got OUTSTANDING growth:



So now I was on the correct track. I desperately need to trim the plants and do a better job with aquascaping now that I'm able to grow plants.

[VeipaCray]

The EI dosing schedule alternates Micros and Macros for 6 days and on the 7th day you do a 50% water change. Those of you that have been following this thread know that this system is on an aquarium controller and is plumbed to incoming water and a drain so I can automate water changes. Doing a 50% water change every Sunday involves me making a simple programming change to the controller. Easy enough.

Sunday before last, I hear the tank making noise which means something is wrong. The JBJ ATO unit messed up, went into protect mode and stopped functioning. The program on the controller kept running and once an hour it would pump 5 more gallons out of the system down the drain. Without the ATO functioning, there was nothing to open the solenoid and allow incoming replacement water. The water level in the sump got low enough where the main return pump was taking in air and couldn't push enough water up into the display tank. Being a reef ready tank, the water level in the overflow box dropped and exposed my temperature probe to air. The temperature probe now reading air temperature told the controller it was 71 degrees instead of 78. The controller responds by turning on the heater. The 500 watt heater is in the third section of the sump with very low water and no flow. The heater rather quickly heats the few gallons in that section to HOT. Very HOT. My main return pump (Eheim 1262) is still struggling to push water but it can't because the water level is too low and it's sucking in air with now very HOT water. Here's the result:



One completely destroyed $60 impeller. I'm thinking about making this into an ornament and hanging it on the back of the Christmas tree this year and seeing if the wife notices.

I ordered a new impeller and thankfully the pump worked again.

[VeipaCray]

I didn't want to chance that JBJ Ato unit messing up again and destroying another impeller or worse so I gave it a time-out.

Naughty JBJ ATO:



I've decided to replace the JBJ ATO with some add-ons to my Digital Aquatics aquarium controller.
I ordered in a switching module, another controllable outlet strip, the DA float switch and the DA PH Probe. The PH probe will allow me to eventually control the flow of CO2 by opening and closing the CO2 solenoid based on PH level.

Here are today's goodies waiting to be installed:


This is where I am today as I write this post. I need to update the code on the new SL1 switching module and PC4 power module then install them.

HOPEFULLY with any luck the hardware in my tank will finally be stable and I'll be able to order in some aquascaping tools and trim the plants into something that looks less jungle-like.

My turtle Moe has been very happy with his daily handful of aquatic plants to nom-nom. This entire new "hobby" started for me as a way to cultivate plants for him.

[sweety10189110]

I don't understand half of what you just mentioned but you sure do make it sound interesting

[VeipaCray]

LOL sorry. I know this thread has changed directions and has become a journal of my planted tank. A tank that was started to grow plants to benefit my turtle. The technology and terminology is quite different from what's typically seen around an aquatic turtle environment.

[MEandYouPhoto]

Its interesting to read through all of this. I have really enjoyed the visual journey. I have an old 20 gallon tank that I am considering making a planted tank but I rent my home and so it doesn't allow for "modifications" that would allow for an auto water changer and the like. I wonder how the average person would do a planted tank without the use of CO2 and all of the other things you have lol

[VeipaCray]

It's definitely doable on a smaller scale. There's two types of planted tank. High tech and low tech.

High tech tanks require extra lighting, extra fertilizers, CO2, and grow plants very quickly.

Low tech tanks are simple, less expensive, have basic lighting, still grow plants (less species options), but grow them at a slower rate. Many people just dose seachem flourish excel as a liquid based carbon supplement and not use any CO2 at all.

If you want CO2 for that 20 gallon tank, there are other options. You can have diy CO2 - yeast and water in a soda bottle. Many people do this. You can have the inexpensive Fluval CO2 kit that uses a tiny 88gram CO2 bottle. You can even do a small paintball tank.

The fun thing about planted tanks that I've learned so far is that they are accessible on almost any budget. There are planted tank forums with tons of great info on setting up any sized tank on most any budget or you're always welcome to PM me and I'd be happy to share any info that I can.

[simplehiccup]

It is a dream of mine to start a plant tank, so this is an inspiration to me. Thank you so much!
Is Derek enjoying having a brother-it will really hit home when they can start playing together? Congrats again.

[sweety10189110]

Good to know that it is a doable project for someone like myself who isn't familiar with all the tech talk. I have a 20 gallon that is housing mice at the moment but once it is no longer in use I want to experiment with a planted tank. In the mean time I can read up on it and follow you thru your project .

[MEandYouPhoto]

I will definately take you up on that offer VeipaCray

On a side note I was hoping you would take a few minutes and weigh in on the following topic. Your knowledge and expertise will be helpful.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=33509