Vishaquatics' December 2020 Update

December 2020 News:
The first half of this month of December was a bit uneventful since most of my time was consumed by finals, but the second half of this month has proved to be very productive.

LED Tub:
The LED tub has been a consistent producer that provides a large, predictable harvest every 1.5-2 weeks, granted that I keep up with keeping it planted and stocked. Consistent, nearly automated maintenance has proved to be a reliable formula for this setup to produce reliable harvests of algae-free plants. Here's another short video of the LED tub about 4 days away from harvest.

https://imgur.com/a/hBF0HxM

Greenhouse:
The greenhouse has been doing well and many of the emersed species are now converting into their short day forms, along with rapid flowering. Various species including rotalas, shinnersia rivularis, monte carlo, pogostemon octopus, pogostemon helferi, staurogyne repens, and more have been flowering, though some of the species flowers were too small for my phone camera to pick up.

Rotala macrandra green



Rotala macrandra



Nano Tank:
After many trims, it seems that this nano tank is finally coming together into the scape that I originally envisioned. I am hoping to eventually scape it into a a valley with two distinct rotala bushes; one bush of the orange/green Rotala ADA and the other bush of the vibrant hot pink Rotala h'ra. The h'ra has been growing especially slow, likely because I have been going too lean on the fertilizers. With the lean N fertilization, the rotalas are becoming especially vibrant.

Here's some pictures of before and after the major trim of the month:

Before




After



40B Indoor Farm Tank:
I spent the majority of the latter half of December working on upgrading my 20G long to a 40 breeder. Most of my time was spent building a custom DIY aquarium cabinet. As a newbie woodworker, I ended up learning a lot (and spending way too much) in the process of building this cabinet. I added a small slide-out table to make plant harvesting/packing more convenient. The cabinet is essentially is an overbuilt frame made with 2x3s that is surrounded with plywood.






Happy New Year to everyone and thank you for reading!

 

December 2020 News:
The first half of this month of December was a bit uneventful since most of my time was consumed by finals, but the second half of this month has proved to be very productive.

LED Tub:
The LED tub has been a consistent producer that provides a large, predictable harvest every 1.5-2 weeks, granted that I keep up with keeping it planted and stocked. Consistent, nearly automated maintenance has proved to be a reliable formula for this setup to produce reliable harvests of algae-free plants. Here's another short video of the LED tub about 4 days away from harvest.

https://imgur.com/a/hBF0HxM

Greenhouse:
The greenhouse has been doing well and many of the emersed species are now converting into their short day forms, along with rapid flowering. Various species including rotalas, shinnersia rivularis, monte carlo, pogostemon octopus, pogostemon helferi, staurogyne repens, and more have been flowering, though some of the species flowers were too small for my phone camera to pick up.

Rotala macrandra green
View attachment 754565

Rotala macrandra
View attachment 754566

Nano Tank:
After many trims, it seems that this nano tank is finally coming together into the scape that I originally envisioned. I am hoping to eventually scape it into a a valley with two distinct rotala bushes; one bush of the orange/green Rotala ADA and the other bush of the vibrant hot pink Rotala h'ra. The h'ra has been growing especially slow, likely because I have been going too lean on the fertilizers. With the lean N fertilization, the rotalas are becoming especially vibrant.

Here's some pictures of before and after the major trim of the month:

Before
View attachment 754567View attachment 754568

After
View attachment 754569

40B Indoor Farm Tank:
I spent the majority of the latter half of December working on upgrading my 20G long to a 40 breeder. Most of my time was spent building a custom DIY aquarium cabinet. As a newbie woodworker, I ended up learning a lot (and spending way too much) in the process of building this cabinet. I added a small slide-out table to make plant harvesting/packing more convenient. The cabinet is essentially is an overbuilt frame made with 2x3s that is surrounded with plywood.
View attachment 754574View attachment 754575View attachment 754576View attachment 754743

Happy New Year to everyone and thank you for reading!

Nice! What did you do with the trimmings from the nano tank?

 

Nice! What did you do with the trimmings from the nano tank?

I replanted the trimmings into my new 40B farm setup, but I also did end up tossing quite a bit of the smaller trimmings. That nano tank produced well over 60 new shoots of rotala so some of it was chucked out

 

I replanted the trimmings into my new 40B farm setup, but I also did end up tossing quite a bit of the smaller trimmings. That nano tank produced well over 60 new shoots of rotala so some of it was chucked out

How big is the tank?

 

How big is the tank?

Big one is 40 gallons and the nano is around 4 gallons

 

Big one is 40 gallons and the nano is around 4 gallons

How many stems of rotala in total do you think are there?

 

How many stems of rotala in total do you think are there?

It's hard to guess. I started with about 40ish cuttings of Rotala ADA and around 25 cuttings of Rotala h'ra. Every time I trim, those mother stems will form two sideshoots. So when the bushes are fully grown out after a big trim, then there is likely to be well over 150 Rotala shoots at any given time. However, all 150 are not full sized. If you look close in person, you'll notice that most of the shoots are quite small because they are outcompeted by the larger robust shoots.

 

It's hard to guess. I started with about 40ish cuttings of Rotala ADA and around 25 cuttings of Rotala h'ra. Every time I trim, those mother stems will form two sideshoots. So when the bushes are fully grown out after a big trim, then there is likely to be well over 150 Rotala shoots at any given time. However, all 150 are not full sized. If you look close in person, you'll notice that most of the shoots are quite small because they are outcompeted by the larger robust shoots.

Oh nice! How much does a CO2 system for a tank that size cost?

 

Oh nice! How much does a CO2 system for a tank that size cost?

A typical pressurized system can be used on any sized setup, right from my 4 gallon nano to a 210 gallon farming tub. My CO2 systems simply consist of a CO2 tank, regulator, CO2 lining, and a diffuser. This particular setup costed approximately $120 brand new. It's an Fzone regulator with a 7lb recertified CO2 tank from beveragelements.com with some basic CO2 tubing and a cheap ceramic diffuser

 

A typical pressurized system can be used on any sized setup, right from my 4 gallon nano to a 210 gallon farming tub. My CO2 systems simply consist of a CO2 tank, regulator, CO2 lining, and a diffuser. This particular setup costed approximately $120 brand new. It's an Fzone regulator with a 7lb recertified CO2 tank from beveragelements.com with some basic CO2 tubing and a cheap ceramic diffuser

Sorry to make you do this, but do you have links lol?

 

Is it correct that you don't keep fishes in your tank so you don't need to be concern with things like end of tank co2 dumps ?

A typical pressurized system can be used on any sized setup, right from my 4 gallon nano to a 210 gallon farming tub. My CO2 systems simply consist of a CO2 tank, regulator, CO2 lining, and a diffuser. This particular setup costed approximately $120 brand new. It's an Fzone regulator with a 7lb recertified CO2 tank from beveragelements.com with some basic CO2 tubing and a cheap ceramic diffuser

 

Is it correct that you don't keep fishes in your tank so you don't need to be concern with things like end of tank co2 dumps ?

While I don't keep fish in my tank, an end of tank dump has the ability to devastate the plants if a ton of CO2 is dumped at once in a smaller tank. That probably has something to do with an extreme pH drop. It also throws off the CO2 stability which can cause stunting. The plants in my nano tank will likely get wiped out if there is an end of tank dump, but the plants in there are not sold. In that scenario, losses are regrettable, but not the end of the world if it happens.

If I have the option, then I'll always use a dual stage regulator since it also provides more bubble count stability. I happened to have this regulator as a spare and didn't want to drop another $150 on a new regulator for a simple nano tank.