My reef-pi build freshwater style!

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Collected some more lindernia dubia on the way home. Its a nice looking relatively slow growing plant that colors up nicely.

Heres some plant pics:
Ludwigia palustris coloring up nicely
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Lindernia dubia
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Creeping jenny:
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Ambulia is looking awesome:
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And the whole tank:
20200824_171247.jpg
 
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Drove home on a dirt road by the Allegheny River, stopped to look at the river and at my feet was another good aquarium plant. Penthorum sedoides, or ditch stonecrop. Took a small sprig to see how it grows!
 

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I went to small local lake this weekend. Very pretty. I looked at the resident plants growing in the shallows. All looked like weeds to me. I left them in their natural environment.
 
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I went to small local lake this weekend. Very pretty. I looked at the resident plants growing in the shallows. All looked like weeds to me. I left them in their natural environment.
Some of the weeds look completely different when growing submerged vs emerged. Most of what i found were growing newly emerged since river levels are low...with co2 they change back to submerged growth rather quickly. Ludwigia never misses a beat. The others take a few days.

I have found that the ones that are totally aquatic grow waaaay to fast for my tastes. I dont want to trim plants daily. The exception to this is Vallisneria, ive had a colony going on 7 years since first collected. When I moved 5 years ago it totally died or so I thought. After a few weeks it started sprouting anew from the sand and grew back stronger than before the move.
 
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Your tank looks so gorgeous :) . I love those blue rams. They were considered tough as nail back in india, when i had 5 freshwater tanks, during my college days.
The plants induces a sense of tranquility.
 
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Weekly update: Reef-pi working great as always, and got a replacement heater in and working.

Seems the dwarf sag was mislabeled from the pet store. It was really more Vallisneria, albeit a smaller variety. So i ripped out my colony of collected val from the river. With co2 the Val was getting 6 foot long leaves in a matter of days.

My Ludwigia Palustris getting a nice orange color and Alternathera Reinikki getting more red by the day. Had to split up the ambulia which also gets orange tint at the top of the aquarium.
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Did a water change, trim and replant.
 
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Well another tank update:
Reef pi solidly performing as always!

Did a major plant trim and replant. Everything growing wonderfully with co2. Althernathera reineki has turned a scarlet red, ambulia went crazy, collected some dwarf hairgrass and bought sagitarria subulata to get some carpeting plant action going.


What is ashame is throwing away enough ambulia, ludwigia and alternathera stems to give a good start to 5 planted tanks, and several dozen cryptocoryne plants that make good centerpieces. For some reason in my tank they grew into a dense crypt forest.
20200920_093826.jpg
 
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Update:
Got some time to put together the new co2 regulator. Its a nice lab grade shiny chrome Concoa 315 new in box of ebay. No one bid so I picked it up for $30. With stainless diaphrams it will outlast me.
20201002_123000.jpg


Also picked up a single manifold and clippard solenoid. Here are the parts laid out after putting on 3 wraps of teflon.
20201002_123033.jpg


Here is everything put together
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And here is the result running at pressure after leak testing.

20201002_125621.jpg
 
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Looks a very durable piece of equipment.
It was one of those "I cant believe it finds"

Medical/laser grade regulator
316L stainless diaphrams
Chrome plated, brass milled barstock body
Already had a CGA 320 nipple for CO2

They dont come up on auction much at all. Purchasing new its a 700+ dollar regulator.

Now what to do with my Victor VTS250c which itself if a great co2 regulator?
 
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Tank update:
Disaster may have struck, not sure yet.

With the terrible storms Sunday afternoon, I lost power. After 2 hours, try to fire up the generator. I use stabilizer and ethanol treatment and fire the generator up once a month, do all maintenance etc. So what happens...it doesnt start! I have spark, and fuel...but cant get it running...

Temps dropping from 50 thru to the 30s...power out house getting cold.

Power remained out overnite, was out for 40 total hours in freezing temps and my backup generator doesnt work.

Well my tank dropped to 62 degrees before power came back on. I read that I may be ok if I let it slowly heat back up so I only ran one heater and let it slowly heat back up to 78 over 24 hours.

One day later. Everything seems ok. No deaths. Hopefully all will be ok.

Note to self: Ethanol in gas stinks...even with fuel stabilizer and ethanol treatment the ethanol ate into rubber seals etc over time and flooded the carb with small bits of rubber which clogged the passages in the carb.
Have to do a total carb clean/ rebuild before another major power loss.

So my backup plan now jncludes buying non ethanol "boat fuel" for my standby generator so this doesnt happen again.
 

Mikeneedsahobby

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Tank update:
Disaster may have struck, not sure yet.

With the terrible storms Sunday afternoon, I lost power. After 2 hours, try to fire up the generator. I use stabilizer and ethanol treatment and fire the generator up once a month, do all maintenance etc. So what happens...it doesnt start! I have spark, and fuel...but cant get it running...

Temps dropping from 50 thru to the 30s...power out house getting cold.

Power remained out overnite, was out for 40 total hours in freezing temps and my backup generator doesnt work.

Well my tank dropped to 62 degrees before power came back on. I read that I may be ok if I let it slowly heat back up so I only ran one heater and let it slowly heat back up to 78 over 24 hours.

One day later. Everything seems ok. No deaths. Hopefully all will be ok.

Note to self: Ethanol in gas stinks...even with fuel stabilizer and ethanol treatment the ethanol ate into rubber seals etc over time and flooded the carb with small bits of rubber which clogged the passages in the carb.
Have to do a total carb clean/ rebuild before another major power loss.

So my backup plan now jncludes buying non ethanol "boat fuel" for my standby generator so this doesnt happen again.
Yikes!!!

I hope everything comes out okay.

I normally shut down my generator and other stored engines with fogging oil. You blast it into the carb with the engine running. Lots of smoke comes out and the engine chokes out. This leaves the carb full of oil instead of gas.
 

Ranjib

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Whopsie.... if nothing died then you should be out of the danger... my tank also went through a couple of bad fluctuations during heat waves.. fingers crossed
 
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Whopsie.... if nothing died then you should be out of the danger... my tank also went through a couple of bad fluctuations during heat waves.. fingers crossed
Yes i read not to panic and heat the tank up too fast, seems to have worked so far...now as long as i dont end up with fish getting Ich, i think ill.be ok
 
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