Welch's 30g Long Planted.(stalled) and 6.5g bowfront

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Welch4
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Welch's 30g Long Planted.(stalled) and 6.5g bowfront

Post by Welch4 »

Well i was going to waiting until i was a little further along but really excited about the new parts coming in so i thought id share. This new tank will be replacing my dwarf puffer 20gallon.
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Its a neat setup but really difficult to work with. So out with the old and in with the new. A 30gallon deep-blue 36x12x16. Have the back painted black.
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I'm also building my first co2 setup for this tank. Just arrived in the mail and performing a leak test on a Victor HTP-270
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I'll be dry starting this with mostly hc and possibly some dwarf hair-grass or glosso. I will be posting more pics one the hard-scape is set and I'm starting with the carpeting plants.
Last edited by Welch4 on Sun Feb 07, 2016 7:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by grup »

Love the old Zenith.

It has to make your puffers feel like TV stars. :lol:
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by Hillehaus »

Looks good! Keep the pictures coming. Your plants are going to explode when the CO2 is up and running.
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by Welch4 »

So i was at my LFS and they had a couple good looking pots of HC so i picked them up. Got my dry start going while i figure out what im doing with my hardscape around the sides.

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Substrate in. One inch of Miracle Grow Organic Choice Potting Soil and an inch of Ecocomplete ontop. Ecocomplete looks to be chunky enough to allow the underlying potting soil to stay aerobic.
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The two pots of HC. (dwarf baby tears)
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water added to just below the top of the soil
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Top down view after 24 hours.

Plants will be growing for about 6-8 weeks. This will give me time to collect the rock and wood im using for the hardscape around the carpet. During this time i will be building a cabinet (because my commercially available cabinets are ugly) and finishing the regulator build up. BTW the VIctor HTP270D has been fully leaked tested and is rock solid.
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by Welch4 »

Upon further research I added way to much water and need to remove the excess before mold and fungus develop. I am doing this by placing a block of 2x4 under the intended carpeted end and scooping out the substrate and excess water from the area I am building a a hardscape.

Update. I was able to pull out around a liter of water by inclining one end of the tank. I have pulled back the cling wrap to promote evaporation and will be heavily misting the HC twice a day hoping to keep the plants moist but drive off fungus and mold. The smell when i cracked the cling wrap was kind of swampish. May be the Walstad method of substrate is not exaclty ideal for a dry start but then again could just be the excess water. We will see.

P.S. Nothing to do with the dry start in any way, but when i went to do this water removal i had about 50 or so baby spiders crawling over the outside of the tank. Creepy. I love spiders but a mass of tiny ones . . . *shivers*.
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by Welch4 »

So I'm a week in on the dry start and so far so good. A couple clumps appear to be melting but not too worried about this as long as the others thrive. In addition I have put in plant orders at a few shops for glossostimga and flame moss. I'll be picking up a heated propogator this week. I'll be posting up pics once everything is together.
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by Welch4 »

So the dry start is not going so well. I have isolated the issue down to wide temperature variations in the garage the tank is currently in. So onto method 2. I picked up an order of 2 pots of HC and 2 portions of glosso. I am going with a heated propagator so i can have two large mats of carpeting plants to work with while i get the rest of the scape and equipment for this tank

Heater mat
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The propagator initial came with a 72 cell potting tray which was not going to suit my needs for mats of plants. I ended up ordering drip trays online after striking out at local hardware/gardening centers. they still needed to be trimmed down but will work perfectly.
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HC on the left Glosso on the right
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Running for less than 20 mintues, nice and humid no more worrying about misting just keeping the bottom tray filled with water.
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by Welch4 »

So three days in and i can see new growth in the propagator. I have moved this setup to an east facing window to get a little more light. I will post up pics at one week intervals.
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by Hillehaus »

thanks for the play by play. I'm eventually going to do this once I get back into my planted tank (its been long neglected). Your experiences will help.
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by Welch4 »

So I know I've been slacking with the pics. Probably be another week or so until I can get to them just a little updated. The dry start inside the tank had about a 75% die off. And the propagating trays had about 50% die off on the glossy and about 30% die off of the hc. Now they have gotten adjusted they are doing well. I have tried find out why I had so much die off by the only results I can find about melting issues are when plants are moved to a submerged state after being grown emersed.
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by Pufferpunk »

:( Glad you haven't given up!
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by Welch4 »

Most of my tanks have been rushed being setup so i'm taking my sweet time with them from now on. I'm thinking probably another 4 months for this one. Flying down to Baltimore to see a friend today. I have already spoken with a great tropicals store in the area and will be stopping by to pick up more plants and hardscape material.
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by Iliveinazoo »

Nice journal Welch4, I know nothing about dry set-ups but do you think that the die off might in part be due to the light finding it difficult to penetrate the steamed-up propagator?

I sometimes think that's why some of my seedlings don't make it in the greenhouse propagator.
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by Welch4 »

Definetly could be and its not getting direct sunlight. Next on my list for equipment is going to be a BML 3 foot nature style led. ill see if having that over boosts my results.
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Re: Welch's 30g Long Planted.

Post by Welch4 »

So very slow going... A few updates.

The HC in the dry start tank is growing very slowly but likely due to inconsistent temp in the garage. But otherwise very healthy.
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The propagator tray has been moved down the the middle of the wire stand and i have attached the light that came with my aquafuge above it. The glosso has almost completely died off by the HC side has filled out with the exception of a 3x3" patch i hadn't realized had dried out.
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The Flame moss has finally attached to the drift wood. It was a import from china and was practically dead when i got it.
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