My freshwater planted nano tank project

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Looking great! Will be checking back for updates.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

I've actually added a second LED light to supplement the Beamswork, which I felt was slightly too dim on its own - although I have gradually decided that the two lights together are too much and I'm now using the LED controller to scale them back to about 60-70%. The result is a nice even spread of light. The second light is an Interpet unit - I think it's the same one that otolith is using on his tank if you look back nearer the beginning of this thread.

The controller I'm using is this one. It does the job, and allows you to limit the maximum brightness as well as ramping the brightness up or down at the ends of the photo period, with a configurable length of fade up/down.

It has three channels so it can control three lights independently if you want, with different timing and brightness. You could program the fading of each channel to achieve a smooth transition.

The downside of this controller is that you can only have one lighting period per channel per day. I wanted to have both lights come on together, but to have two lighting periods, with a very dim period in the morning that's just enough to wake the fish up so I can feed them but not bright enough to cause algae. I achieved this with a bit of soldering - I wired both lights in parallel so that they are powered from both channel 1 and channel 2 of the controller together. I then programmed channel 1 as the main photo period in the evening at 70%, and programmed channel 2 for early morning at 5%.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Galsia said:

Any idea how to get rid of brown algae/diatoms from a newly established tank? Its killing my dwarf hairgrass.

Brown diatoms are fairly standard in a new tank. It's a phase that a new tank goes through for a couple of months, before the diatoms suddenly pack their bags and disappear.

In the meantime, perform water changes frequently - perhaps 50% twice a week. And consider reducing the intensity and/or duration of lighting.

We could do with some more detail though. Tank size? Type and wattage of lights? Length of photoperiod? Fertilisation regime? CO₂?

And yes, a couple of Otocinclus will help.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Galsia said:

It got a Juwel Vision 180 but there are only 140 litres of water in the tank due to substrate and rocks.

Its got two standard T5 bulbs with reflectors, lights on for 12 hours per day on a timer. Fertilition is the standard regime from The Nutrient Company (I got the recommendation from you ); Macro solution Sat, Mon, Wed. Trace solution Sun, Tue. Liquid CO2 each day.

I've got 5 Otos in there now. I've already got Cherry and Amano Shrimp.

That's way too long a photoperiod. Reduce it to 6-7 hours. You can gradually increase it once the diatom problem is sorted. I made the same sort of mistake in the early days of my nano tank - I reduced the time to about 6 hours. It's now back up to about 8 hours.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Great news!

It is amazing how quickly the algae will pack its bags and disappear once you find the right parameter to tweak.

Now, if I could just find a similar cure for duckweed, which is currently infesting my tank. I have started using "Ecopond duckweed control" in my pond - maybe I'll scale the dosage down and try it in the nano tank. It'll require a homeopathic dose!

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Oakey said:

There's an alien in my tank, living in a tiny gap under some rocks. Not sure what it is, possibly a snail of some sort. It's the same sort of colour as my Amano shrimp but it's about the size of half a pea.

Could be a bladder snail, possibly an "acute bladder snail". They tend to be quite fast-moving by snail standards.

They will breed and become a pest, so you might want to remove it before that happens. They can reproduce asexually so even one is a potential problem.

[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

My tank went through a phase where I was losing occasional shrimps as well, at about the same stage as yours. I never did get to the bottom of it, and just suspect that shrimps need a more mature tank. If it's any consolation, my cherry shrimps (mostly blue, but some black marbled ones) settled down after a few months and started breeding at an alarming rate. I started off with 8, added another dozen, lost some, but now I reckon the population is somewhere in the hundreds.

If there's nothing detectable that's wrong (NH₃ NO₂⁻ NO₃⁻) then just hang in there, keep up your water change regime, and it might just sort itself out.