My Humble Low Tech Setup

Any specific brand?

 

@chonkie: Any brand as long as it is Rooibos tea.

 

So a noticed a few things since changing my scape, for one my ground feeders including my Kuhli loaches seems far more active and willing to come out from their hiding places. Most of their time is spend playing between my Crypts and Amazon Swords, also my German Rams are far social and interact more with me when I approach the tank. Also I could not afford the Anubia plants in the cup way to expensive for me. So I called in a few favours and someone gave me a healthy amount of Anubias Barteri var. Nana Gold which I added to my current scape will post some pictures tonight.

 

So this is what my current scape is looking like:

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One of my Panther loaches coming to investigate what I was doing in front of the tank:

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My German Rams:

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One of my Kuhli loaches having a quick sniff around:

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Looks fantastic mate! Love those Rams.

 

Dude that "tea" colour looks awesome! and the plants are looking super healthy!

Just added a bag of rooibos, now to see... hehe

 

@HeinrichLourens: Thanks, they are my centre piece fish in my setup and they have character to boot. You should see them teaming up to hunt snails.

 

@Chongkie: You might need to add another one depending on your tank size. Also be careful removing them as the bags get soft and tear easily.

 

I am thinking of setting up my DIY Co2 generator again just for a short while so I can boost my plant growth just for a small bit.

 

So I reinstated my DIY Co2 generator and diffuser and worked strait out of storage. Got to love DIY:

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Great stuff! I'm gonna do the same thing on my sister's tank. I'm gonna go with 2 cups of sugar, 1/2 tsp yeast, 1 tsp baking soda and diffuse it through the internal filter's venturi. How long does it take the plants to start showing a difference from not using any C02?

 

I would not use the venturi system as it sucks air. Which means it would suck up whatever you have in your bottle I have learned this from experience.

 

Makes sense. The one on this filter doesn't suck very much. I think the pressure from the reactor will be more then the suction from the venturi but what you say makes sense. How do you diffuse yours?

 

Just be careful, you don't want the pump to empty the mixture you made into your tank. It wont end well. lol!

 

Jig I can imagine! Is it common for the mixture to bubble up into the airline and into the tank?

 

It does happen if the mixtures foams. Hence I have a second bottle hooked up with clean water. The Co2 gets generated and gets pushed into the second bottle that has airline tubing below the water line of the second bottle. So if by any chance something ends up in the second bottle it gets filtered out by the second bottle. So all your tank gets is pure Co2.

 

Yep I'm doing the same. Using the second bottle as a bubble counter as well. What bubble rate should I be looking for, not that I can adjust it much. I do have one of those metal adjusters so I can adjust it slightly.

 

True there is not much you can do about the actual bubble rate but I just checked mine and it is running at 1 bubble per second. And that is running off a 1.5 litre bottle 2 cups of sugar a teaspoon of yeast and a teaspoon of baking soda in luke warm water.

 

Ok that sounds good. Lets hope I get the same success! One more thing, how long did yours take before actually starting to inject properly?

 

About 60 minutes then it starts about 2 hours it runs at "full speed". Here is how I inject mine:

Airline runs from the bottles to a non return valve into the tank, I have a small cigarete box sized filter drilled a hole in the bottom fed the air tubing through it attached an air stone on it and closed it up. The power head chops up the air stone bubbles even finer before spitting it out into the tank. I aimed it strait under my HOB filters slipway so that it gets mixed up with the current:

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